My, how time flies. It seems just the other day that I became aware of Grognardia, the fine site owned and operated by James Maliszewski. Suddenly, I find that Grognardia is celebrating its second anniversary and that the industrious Mr. M has cranked out thirteen hundred and nineteen posts in those seven hundred and thirty-one days. As a fellow bloviator, I can testify such is no mean feat.

As I’ve noted before, Grognardia is not just for those who enjoy old-school RPGs. James’ “Pulp Fantasy Library” series of reviews should be read by any fan of the sub-genre. His most recent review (and one of his best) looks at REH’s own “Dark” Agnes de Chastillon. You can see Al Harron’s comments below the review.

Happy birthday, Grognardia.

Robert J. Kuntz is an author and a game designer who has contributed to (or created) numerous roleplaying games, strategy games, and board games over the years. A friend and co-DM of Gary Gygax, he contributed to some iconic D&D publications, like Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes and the first edition of Deities & Demigods. Since 2006, he has run Pied Piper Publishing, a company which publishes his latest adventures modules. He is now turning his creativity toward fiction. His first Sword-and-Sorcery novella, Black Festival just came out.
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Over at National Review Online, friend of The Cimmerian, John J. Miller, just posted an entry giving props to Grognardia. As some TC readers may already know, James Maliszewski’s web log is perhaps the finest of its kind devoted to role-playing games. Just a few weeks ago, Grognardia received plaudits from The L.A. Times.  Even if you’re not of the role-playing bent, it is still worthwhile checking in on Grognardia from time to time. Maliszewski is a keen student and critic of the the pulp-style adventure we all love and his book reviews are some of the best on the ‘Net, in my opinion.

James Maliszewski

Yesterday, James Maliszewski, proprieter of the Grognardia website, as well as a Friend of the Cimmerian, wrote up a thoughtful birthday post regarding Tollers. Primarily, the entry is concerned with the influence of the appendices for The Lord of the Rings upon James’ early role-playing gaming career. It’s a worthy piece and I advise the RPG-inclined to check it out.

However, while not exactly a quibble, I think it worth mentioning that Tolkien did not in reality “box in” or over-explicate his sub-creation of Middle-earth as much as some surmise. If one excludes The Silmarillion and considers only The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, then JRRT left vast areas of his world unexplored and saw fit to let many metaphysical questions remain unanswered. The only region given a thorough going-over was north-western Middle-earth and even that had large areas about which little was revealed, whether in the tales themselves or in the appendices.

In contrast, Robert E. Howard had Conan personally visit many more far-flung regions (though it appears Aragorn came close to matching the Cimmerian in his own wanderings). In Howard’s (barely) post-Hyborian Age yarn, “Marchers of Valhalla,” he had Hialmar’s Æsir war-band nearly circumnavigate the globe on foot. In addition, while no official ‘appendix,’ REH’s “The Hyborian Age” essay goes a long way towards fulfilling that function. 

Just something that occurred to me.

Some news courtesy of Pete Roncoli of the Conan forums: until 1st January, anyone deliberating on whether to leap into Funcom’s Age of Conan has the opportunity to try the first twenty levels entirely free.

DURHAM, N.C. –(Business Wire)– Funcom is delighted to announce a unique holiday offer for its massively multiplayer online game ‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’. Anyone who downloads, registers, and starts playing the trial before January 1st 2010 will be able to enjoy all of level one to twenty – the entire Island of Tortage experience – without ever having to upgrade to a full account or pay a subscription fee. This unique Unlimited Free Trial campaign is only available until January 1st as a special holiday offer to anyone who wishes to experience the sexy and savage world of Conan.

I’ve held off on trying Age of Conan due to various technical considerations, but this might just be the ticket. I at least owe it to Joel Bylos. The early levels in Tortage are considered to be the strongest in the game, so they at least promise to be engaging enough for a few playthroughs. I guess it remains to be seen whether Age of Conan will follow Anarchy Online, and have the entire game free of charge.

It seems that a disagreement between gaming company Mongoose Publishing and the Conan license holders has led to the company parting ways with the Conan property:

A disagreement between ourselves and the licence holders has resulted in Conan being suspended in limbo. It is a tricky position – we cannot produce more material for the game (sales of further OGL Conan supplements will simply not justify the work required), and we have been forbidden to move the sword-swinging barbarian to a new games system.

As I said in a previous post, I’m not much of an active gamer, at least not to the degree of my fellow shield-bearers Brian Murphy and Deuce Richardson. I’ve never hosted or played a game of Mongoose’s Conan RPG, simply because I haven’t made the leap to actively seek out people for the simple purpose of The Game. Still, I find something immensely appealing about the roll of the die, the active imagination of mighty deeds and foul deviltry, and the arcane esoterica of the Dungeon Master. I currently own more than a few of the supplements Mongoose published, many by their resident loreman Vincent Darlage, since the art and scholarship was well worth reading in itself, though there are a few problems.

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James Maliszewski, the proprietor of Grognardia and a Friend of The Cimmerian, has posted an article on The Escapist website. It is called “The Books That Founded D&D” and I found it quite interesting. I thought it worth some commentary.

Mr. Maliszewski starts his essay noting the various reasons why J.R.R. Tolkien should be dismissed as major influence upon the role-playing game that Gygax and Arneson developed. Most of the evidence used to back this up is cited from Gygax’s own writings. The fact that these writings date from before and after the threatened lawsuit by Tolkien Enterprises means very little, in my view.

Tolkien deeply influenced Dungeons and Dragons. That is my humble opinion and I stand by it. The Elves as portrayed in D&D would be far different if JRRT had never written his novel, The Lord of the Rings. The same for D&D dwarves. Double ditto for “orcs,” which species (with that particular appellation) would never exist, but for Tollers. Triple ditto for the “halflings” in the game (whom I always considered ridiculous, in game terms). All of that, however, is fodder for another blog entry. Now, let’s get to all the stuff that James Maliszkewski and I do agree on (more or less)…

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I’m not that big a fan of heavy metal, Jack Black or video games, but for those who are, this might be of interest. Though they namecheck Frazetta,, but not Howard, in the wiki write-up, Howard’s influence is seen in some of the promo material. Another review here.

Jay Zetterberg of CPI/Paradox was kind enough to provide the REH devotees of the Official Robert E. Howard Forum with a sneak peek at the cover (see above) for the upcoming El Borak and Other Desert Adventures volume from Del Rey. Painted by the marriage-made-in-Valhalla artistic team of Jim and Ruth Keegan, the cover depicts Howard’s Francis X. Gordon engaged in a dispute with a denizen of the desert wastes. The Keegans had this to say:

“We see El Borak as an old-school, swashbuckling hero. While we try to keep the historical influences in mind — Richard Francis Burton, “Chinese” Gordon, and T. E. Lawrence, etc., we also try to imagine a never-to-be El Borak movie directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr., with a soundtrack by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Cue the sun!”

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First of all, my sincere apologies for those looking forward to the final part of my series on Cormac Fitzgeoffrey. A combination of home events and gremlins in the computer mean that the final chapter will have to wait. I appreciate your patience in this interregnum.

In the meantime, something I was going to post after the Cormac series has been promoted to this week.

“Know, O Prince, that between the years when the Serpent fell and the oceans drank America and the gleaming cities, and the rise of the Sons of Space, there was an Age undreamed of, when nations guttered low and flared brilliant across the poisoned world like dying stars–California and Texas each claiming the flag of the West, France torn asunder and facing the desert, harsh Mexico, slumbering Brazil, Argentina where the seeds of Thule lay waiting, ancient lands of Persia and Arabia and Iraq between two empires, the coldly clutching Soviet Union whispering behind its Wall of Serpent, Japan whose warriors wore steel and silk and khaki. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Australia, the last green and pleasant land, ringed around by its dominions and bulwarked by the sea…”

The above text wears its influence squarely on its sleeve, and it is but one of a multitude of homages to Robert E. Howard in The Day After Ragnarok, a role playing game source book by Kenneth Hite. Hite has made no secret of this: after acknowledging the very real, and very weird, history of World War II occult and genetic experiments as influence, Howard takes pride of place in the “Inspirations” chapter of the book, mentioning the essential Del Rey Conan collections. It is clear Mr Hite has done his homework. (Continue reading this post)