One of the great things about star metal is that it is pretty much single handedly responsible for keeping the violence levels down. Conan and pals get into a battle with Set`s minions in nearly every episode and yet not a single drop of blood is spilt, how? because whenever the star metal touches them the Serpent Men get banished to the Abyss.

This strikes me as a particularly good way to run a game for kids, and gets rid of 99.9% of morality issues. Give the kids a choice of star metal weapons and then play the game as usual. Instead of describing damage when the kids hit, say that the Serpent Man blocks your sword stroke but also starts to flicker and glow as a whirling portal opens above his head. If the kid "kills" a Serpent Man just say "With a final mighty blow you banish the Serpent Man- he hisssssess in frustration as he is dragged into the Abyss!"

Maybe don't even use a dmg roll, just use a 3 hit system.

1. On the first hit the illusion is destroyed and the scaled Serpent Man is revealed in his true form.
2. On the second hit the Serpent Man starts to glow and flicker as a portal opens above his head.
3. On the third successful hit the Serpent Man is banished.

Add a few more hits for tougher foes or subtract the first one if the Serpent Man is not disguised. Also a note- regardless of what the disguise is wearing; a revealed Serpent Man is nearly always armed and armored in typical Stygian Soldier type gear.

Serpent Men make a good foe for another reason- They are master spies and skilled in illusion magic. This is great because Serpent Men become a much more diverse foe then say Orcs for instance, and they could reasonably pop up just about anywhere.  A troupe of Orc warriors would stand out like a sore thumb in a market place- but Serpent Man would fit in no problem.

Plus snake people are just really obviously bad guys and there is lots of great reptilian imagery you can throw in along with the pseudo-Egyptian/Babylonian thing Stygia already has going on.  Just don't take it too far- Wrath Amon's snake slippers are truly horrible.

No not a cosmic-rock / heavy-metal band. I'm talking about the magical substance which largely drives the plot of "Conan The Adventurer".

The series starts with a meteor shower of "fiery tears" raining down around Conan's village. It turns out that that the meteors are made up of solid metal with crazy magical properties. The village folk gather up all the STAR METAL and Conan's father forges it all into weapons to sell at market- except for one sword, a gift for Conan.

Meanwhile in Stygia, a scary warlord / sorcerer named Wrath Amon learns about the Star Metal. Set the Demonlord commands Wrath Amon to build 7 giant pyramids and top each with a big ring made of pure STAR METAL. Once the pyramids are completed a great portal will open which Set can use to escape The Abyss and once again rule over all of Hyborea. Thus much of the plot of the series is Conan and his friends trying to prevent Wrath Amon from getting his claws on the STAR METAL.

Weapons made of STAR METAL never lose their edge, and STAR METAL glows when Set's servants- the evil Serpent Men are nearby. The merest touch from STAR METAL will banish Serpent Men to The Abyss. Also STAR METAL seems to be very effective in combating magical and undead foes.

STAR METAL is super cool.

Also yesterday was my one year Bloggeranniversary! Thanks for reading my blog and special thanks to everyone who has commented and been so supportive! Rock out gang!

Or "THE BEST DAMN CARTOON EVAR!"

I am referring to the 1992-1994 children's cartoon which ran for 65 episodes. I absolutely love this show. No- seriously, I LOVE it. I think my parents, friends, and pretty girlfriend are all getting a bit concerned over how much I love this cartoon. I clearly remember watching it as a little kid of like 6 years old and going nuts.


So yeah this was my first exposure to Conan, even if it was a watered down- suitable for 6 year olds to watch version of Conan. I watched it as a kid and then kind of forgot about it for a long time. Eventually I saw the Schwarzenegger films and then got around to reading some of the stories. In my second year of university I realized that the entire CONAN THE ADVENTURER cartoon series was posted on youtube, needless to say I got right on that and watched em all. Since then I found the first season and part 1 of the second season on DVD, and bought them right up.

I think I'm going to do a series of posts about this cartoon. Wikipedia has all the plot and character info anyone could ever want, and like I said all the episodes are on youtube, so I'm going to try to avoid recaps and instead look at the series in terms of inspiration to use in D&D (or Pathfinder or whatever).

I hope everyone had safe and happy holidays. Drive safe.
 
A friend of mine died in a car crash a few days before christmas, just hit a patch of ice on a sunny morning on her way to work. She was really nice and smart and it sucks that she is gone. I wasn't going to mention it at all but I donno, I just really feel like I needed to.

So I recently got a Xbox game called Conan. It was 10 bucks at Wallmart.  You play Conan, its pretty good, definitely not groundbreaking, in fact I can see many other better games influenced it. It is pretty fun though, it does feel pretty Conan-ish to me. Also Conan is voiced by Ron Perlman, which I really get a kick out of.  

Anyway I played through it almost to the end and now my pretty girlfriend Sarah started playing the game. Sarah really enjoys it, she yells alot as she hacks apart the "Stygian Dog!"(as Ron puts it). She is actually alarmingly good at it, she is way better at pulling of the combos than me. She refuses to block-ever, and she fights with matching swords whenever she can (sometimes going to great lengths to find a matching set).  One of her favorite things to do in the game is save the various scantily clad women which are scattered throughout the game.