Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Editorial

Warcry has whipped up an editorial that compares the races featured in Robert Howard’s books to the in-game races of Funcom’s Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

. It is important to remember that Howard created such a rich culture in his stories that Cimmerians exist as their own entity. Although Hyborian Cimmerians are fictional they have seeds in real history to make them more alive, not to give us creative license to adapt whichever traits we desire just because of the traits of their descendants. In my life my Germanic family lived in Russia and traveled with Catherine the Great before coming to New York in the late 1800’s and then Canada shortly after. I carry German ancestry, I have a German name and physically I still carry Germanic features. But I have nothing in common with modern Germans and I certainly am no Russian noble or royalty; I am Canadian in every sense of the word. If I were not around to tell you my characteristics it would be a great misrepresentation to look where my ancestors came from and paste those traits onto me. Likewise it would be erroneous to carry my traits back to my ancestors. The same can be said for the fictional Cimmerians to the actual Gaels. Cimmerians carry Gaelic names, and their gods carry the same names. They have even been described by some people as physically similar to the “Black Irish”, although that term in itself comes with questions of validation. It is easy to assume that Howard could have used the description of Black Irish for the physical characteristics of Cimmerians, as Howard apparently claimed to be of Black Irish descent himself. In any event, one roleplaying a Cimmerian would be most keeping with lore to name him in Gaelic tongue but cease the similarities soon after that. There should be enough as written by Robert Howard to properly roleplay a Cimmerian without borrowing much from actual historical races.