MGP7729 - The Compendium.pdf - Conan - Sheera

The Compendium

Credits Contents

Authors

Vincent Darlage, Jason Durall, Eric K Rodriguez, Charles

Rice, Bryan Steele, Ian Sturrock, Todd Tjersland

Editor

Richard Ford

Cover Art

Chris Quilliams

Interior Artists

Storn C Cook, Kythera, Jon Netherland, Pascal Quidault,

Chris Quilliams, Chad Sergesketter, Kieran Yanner

Publications Manager

Ian Belcher

Production Director

Alexander Fennell

Proofreading

Ron Bedison

Playtesters

Mark Billanie, Daniel Haslam, Mark Howe, Al Maasberg,

Alan Moore, Daniel Rothman, Daniel Scothorne, Lane

Shutt, Mark Sizer & Michael J Young

Special Thanks

Ian Barstow, Thommy Wojciechowski & Fredrik Malmberg

Introduction 2

Solo & Duo PLay (S&P 7) 3

The White Hand

of Hyperborea (S&P 9) 7

Danger in the

Westermarck (S&P 10) 13

The Bandit (S&P 12) 19

Three Sides of

the Coin (S&P 13) 22

The Kordavan Way (S&P 16) 26

Plunderers of

the dEAD (S&P 17) 29

Encounters (S&P 19) 42

Darkarra: The Spirit

Eaters of Darfar (S&P 20) 49

Khemi (S&P 21) 55

The Children of Jullah 61

The God in the Bowl 70

License 96

and related logos, names, characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks and copyrights of Conan Properties

Roleplaying Game is released under version 1.0 of the Open Game License. Reproduction of non-Open Game Content

of this work by any means without the written permission of the pulisher is expressly forbidden. See page 96 for the

text of this license. With the exception of the character creation rules detailing the mechanics of assigning dice roll

results to abilities and the advancement of character levels, all game mechanics and statistics (including the

game mechanics of all feats, skills, classes, creatures, spells and the combat chapter) are declared open

content. Printed in China.

Introduction

At long last, Conan: The Compendium has arrived,

a collection of the best Conan articles to appear in Signs

& Portents over the years. As well as previously published

articles, this book also contains two brand new scenarios for

use in your Conan games.

Next we have Darkarra: The Spirit Eaters of Darfar by Bryan

Steele. This article acts as a guideline to the spiritual culture

of the Darfari, new feats, character template and equipment.

With Khemi , from the pages of Signs & Portents 21 , Vincent

Darlage gives us a closer look at the notorious Stygian city

featured in Howard’s tale, The Hour of the Dragon .

Conan: The Compendium begins with Solo & Duo Play by Ian

Sturrock, which explains how to run games with only one or

two players and a Games Master.

Next are two brand new articles. The ﬁrst is The Children of

Jullah by Eric K Rodriguez, an adventure that pits characters

against the dangers of the Black Kingdoms and the evil

that lurks there. Second is The God in the Bowl by Vincent

Darlage, an adventure based directly on the story of the same

title by Robert E Howard.

The White Hand of Hyperborea from Signs & Portents 9 gives

background information on this strange sect of wizard-

assassins. Writer Vincent Darlage has also included rules for

including the witchman prestige class in your games.

Next is an adventure by Eric K Rodriguez entitled Danger in

the Westermarck , which pits moderately experienced characters

against savage tribes in the Pictish Wilderness.

Hiding by the side of the road, awaiting the arrival of a rich,

plump merchant is the Bandit ; a brand new character class by

Todd Tjersland from the pages of Signs & Portents 12 .

Mercenaries, nobles and lowly thieves are regular characters

throughout Conan’s adventures and Three Sides of the Coin

introduces some new and relevant options for characters.

This article by Charles Rice presents new prestige classes and

codes of honour to reﬂect varying approaches to Hyborian

life.

Jason Durall introduces yet more codes of honour in The

Kordovan Way , and article from the pages of Signs & Portents

16 .

Plunderers of the Dead by Vincent Darlage introduces players

to Numalia. This adventure for 2 nd to 5 th level characters

involves a plot to raise undead from the freshly buried corpses

of a particular graveyard and is most certainly not for the

faint hearted.

Encounters , from Signs & Portents 19 , presents a

comprehensive list of opponents to spice up your

games when things are getting a little easy for the

characters. Todd Tjersland has included a

variety of tables to present specialised

encounters for every conceivable

type of location and terrain.

Solo & Duo Play

The sword and sorcery genre in which the Conan

stories so ﬁrmly fall does not usually have quite such large

numbers of Player Characters as most fantasy roleplaying

games. Rather than associating with the usual ‘party’ of

perhaps four or ﬁve adventurers, Conan usually works alone,

or with the assistance of one other main character (along with

great armies of henchmen on occasion).

Characters

The Games Master and player or players should work very

carefully together when creating characters for solo or duo

play. It is recommended that characters be designed as a

group effort, rather than generated in the normal manner. If

all parties involved can reach a consensus as to each character’s

statistics, that is probably the ideal.

For Conan the Roleplaying Game groups of small size, with

only a Games Master and one or two players, it is probably

a good deal more rewarding to run games with only one or

two characters rather than having each player run several

characters, or using Non-Player Characters to make up the

numbers.

One important difference between play when there is a

balanced party, and when there are only one or two Player

Characters, is that the party of several adventurers will usually

be sufﬁciently versatile to cope with almost any situation in

which they ﬁnd themselves. This is down to the better balance

of classes, and as a result, of skills, in the larger party.

There are two main ways to circumvent this in a ‘party’ of

only one or two characters.

The ﬁrst is careful choice of classes and multiclassing. Conan

the Roleplaying Game is designed to be very forgiving of

multiclass characters, so combining combat-capable classes

with skills-heavy classes works quite well. It is not usually

necessary to have a scholar, even in a larger party; in a smaller

party of only one or two, it is perhaps more heroic not to

have a scholar, though a few Counterspells are useful so the

Dabbler feat might be a worthwhile investment.

The second way is the alternate skills system presented over

the next few pages. With this system, not only do most

characters advance in their specialist skills every level, but

all characters also advance in most other skills at least every

couple of levels.

If you do use the alternate skills system, you may also wish to

give solo characters more feats than usual, again with the aim

of ensuring they are well rounded. Rather than the usual feats

at 1 st level, 3 rd level and every three levels thereafter (6 th , 9 th ,

etc.) it is suggested that you allow feats at 1 st level, 3 rd level,

and every two levels thereafter (5 th , 7 th , etc.).

Note that Conan, like the other characters presented

in Chapter 10: Adventurers and Notables of the

Hyborian Age, has not been created using

the system here. This allows him to be reasonably balanced

against Player Characters in most cases (other than his

truly heroic ability scores). However, if you are running a

solo campaign, you may wish to boost his skills and feats

somewhat according to the guidelines given here.

Half a What?

For easier generation and advancement of single-classed

characters without having to bother with adding up half

skill points, follow these steps:

Skills

This is done by simply allotting characters two ranks at 1 st

level, then half a rank per level thereafter, in each of a wide

variety of skills, including all their class skills and several

others. These half ranks are allotted before the character

spends the skill points each character class gains each level.

See the Skills by Class for Solo and Duo Play table, along

with the example below, for precisely how this works.

1. Work out how many skill points you gain at each

level beyond ﬁrst.

2. Choose twice that many class skills to specialise in.

3. You have (your level +3) ranks in each of these

skills.

4. Note down all the skills which you did not choose

from the table on page 5, but which have either a ‘C’

or a ‘½’ in the appropriate column.

5. You have (your level +3)/2 ranks in each of these

skills, rounded down.

Note that under this system, the characters do not gain any

background skills for race. This system replaces the usual

background skills system.

Knowledge (geography), Knowledge (history), Knowledge

(local), Knowledge (nobility), Knowledge (religion), Listen,

Move Silently, Perform (any one), Profession (any one), Ride,

Search, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Speak Language, Spot,

Survival, Swim, Tumble and Use Rope.

This system may seem complex at ﬁrst, as it adds an extra

stage to the process of determining how many ranks in each

skill a character has. However it has several advantages for

gaming in the Conan genre and should prove easy enough

for experienced d20 players to grasp. If not, see the sidebar

‘Half a What?’ for a way to achieve the same effect with less

maths.

She decides that her sub-skills in Craft, Perform and Profession

will be as follows: Craft (swordsmith), Perform (song), and

Profession (sailor). She is the daughter of a swordsmith, and

has spent some time aboard the riverboats of her Vanaheim

home – which was also where she picked up some shipboard

work songs.

Skill Point Example:

Starting Character

Jackie decides to generate a character for a solo campaign.

She will be Mabb, a 1 st level barbarian. Her Intelligence is 13,

probably more than that of most barbarians, but she hopes at

some point to take some levels in the thief class and so wants

to ensure she will gain a reasonable selection of skills when

she does so.

At this point she spends her 16 skill points as follows: 2 each

on Craft (swordsmith), Spot, Jump, Intimidate, Profession

(sailor), Perform (drum), Ride, Move Silently, Listen and

Survival. Note that although Perform is a cross-class skill for

barbarians, Mabb has sufﬁciently high Intelligence that she

can simply spend her Int bonus skill points on Perform.

Her skill points at 1 st level are (4 + Int bonus) x 4, or 4 x 5 =

20.

So, after spending all her skill points, Mabb has the following

ranks in her skills:

However, before spending these skill points, she determines

her base skill points.

Appraise +2, Balance +2, Bluff +2, Climb +2, Concentration

+2, Craft (swordsmith) +4, Decipher Script +2, Disguise +2,

Escape Artist +2, Gather Information +2, Heal +2, Hide +2,

Intimidate +4, Jump +4, Knowledge (arcana) +2, Knowledge

(geography) +2, Knowledge (history) +2, Knowledge (local)

+2, Knowledge (nobility) +2, Knowledge (religion) +2, Listen

+4, Move Silently +4, Perform (sing) +2, Perform (drum) +2,

Profession (sailor) +4, Ride +4, Search +2, Sense Motive +2,

Sleight of Hand +2, Spot +4, Survival +4, Swim +2, Tumble

+2 and Use Rope +2.

As a barbarian, she gains 2 ranks in each of the following skills,

before spending any skill points:

Appraise, Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft

(herbalism or any one mundane), Decipher Script,

Disguise, Escape Artist, Gather Information, Heal,

Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (arcana),

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