114 replies to this topic

[emerald]

Wow. A tertiary character I made up to get Conan & company across the Styx in my larky pastiche becomes a 3D digital interactive non-player character in an on-line game. Surreal.

And he's a captain. Well, he did have his own boat, I guess. I wonder what kind of guy he's become.

Thanks again, Primeval.

[Primeval]

My pleasure; I will keep updating as more comes.

[deuce]

At least Hocking is getting credit for being one of the best Conan pasticheurs of all time.

[Primeval]

The first part of the expansion is now available. I haven't been in there much yet, but will post screenshots over in the thread for that as I go. A couple of initial things:
1) Mr. Hocking is acknowledged. The loading screens for all areas have bits of Conan stories on them, with author attribution, and this is no different.
2) Apparently nobody, just like at Dark Horse, bothered to read REH's description of serpentmen. I was excited when talking to an NPC and she revealed that the area contained ruins of a serpentman civilization, and that I was to go and look for them. Then I saw them. Whatever they are supposed to be, it sure isn't how Howard described them.

Edit: I spent a couple hours playing tonight and encountered Gulbanda, and got to an area near The Palace of Cetriss that seems to be overgrown with Emerald Lotus. I also found the oasis in which Conan killed Ethram-Fal's plant demon.

Edited by Primeval, 11 January 2013 - 11:52 AM.

[emerald]

Whoa, you met Gulbanda? What was he doing? Just hanging around the desert? Or was he hunting Conan? Did you grab a screenshot of the guy?
Down the 18 years (cringe) since LOTUS was published I’ve had maybe seven or eight readers tell me their favorite scene in the book, and it is always the death of Gulbanda.
So they manage to include a detail like the little oasis where my villain set a magical trap for anybody following him, but they don’t do REH’s serpent men right? Were they maybe referencing the recent Dark Horse Kull comic’s version of the serpent folk?
Sorry for all the questions, Primeval. If I haven’t made it amply clear, this is a singularly strange way for a guy to see his daydreams evolve.

[Primeval]

Whoa, you met Gulbanda? What was he doing? Just hanging around the desert? Or was he hunting Conan? Did you grab a screenshot of the guy?
Down the 18 years (cringe) since LOTUS was published I’ve had maybe seven or eight readers tell me their favorite scene in the book, and it is always the death of Gulbanda.
So they manage to include a detail like the little oasis where my villain set a magical trap for anybody following him, but they don’t do REH’s serpent men right? Were they maybe referencing the recent Dark Horse Kull comic’s version of the serpent folk?
Sorry for all the questions, Primeval. If I haven’t made it amply clear, this is a singularly strange way for a guy to see his daydreams evolve.

I am glad to answer, ask as many questions as you like! I do have a couple of screenshots of Gulbanda; I will post them here for you. The other screenshots I will put in the thread in the gaming section that I made dedicated to AOC screenshots. His body does rise up to fight, I took an amulet off of it that led me on another quest to someone who could explain it and give something to put him out of his misery once and for all. Still need to finish that.

I haven't gotten a screenshot of the serpentmen yet; they really look more like lizard "things" to me but not like the DH ones either.

I have caught glimpses of The Palace Of Cetriss in the distance but haven't gotten there yet - I will be sure to post pictures of that!

Gulbanda (more pictures in http://www.conan.com...showtopic=10072, post 14 is the first with Dragonspine pictures):

Edited by Primeval, 11 January 2013 - 10:22 PM.

[Buxom Sorceress]

Primeval : Thanks for all the info and images.
Very interesting to see 1 of my best fave books brought to 3d-life by Funcom.

I bet John never imagined some of his great characters [ like cursed Gulbanda ] would someday be further immortalised in a famous game.
Thousands of players will battle it out with the 'zombie-Gulbanda-boss': he will raise up from the sand and fight, time and time again...into future gaming years !
It is like another weird version of his endless curse ?

Can't wait to see more images, please?
[ a beautiful addicted sorceress? the big black head of nyarlarthotep in the palace hall ? and the mutated 'lotus-thingy' ? ]
hopefully, they are in there, somewhere ?

[Primeval]

I have come across more from the book; a spot that is outside the Palace Of Cetriss overgrown with Emerald Lotus and other plants and also the Yizil (ghouls). I tried to get a screenshot but the lighting is rather dark and it did't come out well. Actually getting into the Palace probably isn't possible yet - the expansion is being released in 3 parts and it sounds like the big raid that will undoubtedly take place in there will be in the final part.

[emerald]

Okay, I’m going to try real hard to stop repeating how bizarre this whole situation is.

Bux: “Thousands of players will battle it out with the 'zombie-Gulbanda-boss': he will raise up from the sand and fight, time and time again...into future gaming years! It is like another weird version of his endless curse…”

My first thought was how, if Gulbanda appears in the game after being disposed of by Conan, then this part of the game is actually a sequel to Conan & the Emerald Lotus. Sort of a pastiche upon my pastiche.
But Bux finds a more poetic way to look at it. Gulbanda, the automaton-like zombie revenant of the book, is still damned to hellish life after death decades later and in a new digital form. Awesome.

Primeval, is he headless when you find him? Looks decapitated in the screen shot, but that might just be the work of your brawny, ax-wielding character. I trust you laid Gulbanda to rest.

Cool that you got close to the Palace of Cetriss, and that it is now overgrown with Emerald Lotus.
But cooler still is mention of the Yizil. I believe there is a throwaway mention of Yizil in an REH tale, but it was seized and made into the name of breed of desert ghouls by Raul Garcia Capella in a short story that originally appeared in ‘Amra’ way back in the day. I’m ashamed to admit that I have forgotten the name of the tale, but it's cool that Capella’s ghouls live on in the game, and this little detail illustrates how I worked to comb bits of esoteric Hyborian lore into my pastiche.

[Primeval]

Gulbanda's head is what I first encountered, and he mumbles and just repeats "death" like in your book. The body gets up when someone gets close and attacks, picking up its arm (I cant remember for sure, but Conan cut it off right?) to use as a weapon. I thought the body was rendered immobile from a fall and spinal injury in "Emerald" but maybe it healed over time through magic or something. A loremistress that I gave an amulet he wore to gave me a quest to lay him to rest - she concocted a potion to counteract the magic.

Thanks for sharing the information on the Yizil; it is neat to get some insight into the creative process!

I finally found the place that is supposed to be the path into the area where the Palace is (the lighting and coloration of the area make openings and ledges hard to find, but that makes it more challenging and enjoyable at this point) but it is blocked off by a rockslide. I have found a couple of vantage points where I can make out the very top of the Palace over a ridge or plateau but not enough to get an idea what it looks like or get a screenshot. That will have to wait for the appopriate expansion installment I guess.

I did post a screenshot of the overgrown lotus and also the yizil in the AOC screenshots thread; didn't want to keep posting them here.

[Primeval]

I have been playing Age of Conan with what free time I have, so my re-reading of this book got a bit sidetracked - but I picked it back up today and am near the end. I had to praise the writing of Mr. Hocking again - his fight scene at the end of chapter 35 is spot-on Conan. Having already noted that, of the guards approaching, "There were too many of them, and they were too good", Conan's response to being told to surrender to the 6 on his side of the room is "to charge his first challenger". Carnage ensues. No waving his sword around in some fancy kata (sorry couldnt resist a dig at the movie), no hesitation, no fear or doubt, Conan takes the fight to the enemy. The whole scene is truly Howardian and an example of why we all seem to agree that this is, if not THE best, one of the best pastiches.

[emerald]

I have been playing Age of Conan with what free time I have, so my re-reading of this book got a bit sidetracked - but I picked it back up today and am near the end. I had to praise the writing of Mr. Hocking again - his fight scene at the end of chapter 35 is spot-on Conan. Having already noted that, of the guards approaching, "There were too many of them, and they were too good", Conan's response to being told to surrender to the 6 on his side of the room is "to charge his first challenger". Carnage ensues. No waving his sword around in some fancy kata (sorry couldnt resist a dig at the movie), no hesitation, no fear or doubt, Conan takes the fight to the enemy. The whole scene is truly Howardian and an example of why we all seem to agree that this is, if not THE best, one of the best pastiches.

Those are fine words to read, Primeval, even about work I did 20 years ago.
The battle over the Lotus Chamber was a deliberate attempt to write a scene of Conan in combat that would impress even dedicated readers of sword & sorcery fiction. I wanted to lay down the kind of against-all-odds, few-against-many, damn-your-eyes, Howardian fight scene that I always hoped to find when I was reading heroic fantasy in general and Conan pastiche in particular.
I got obsessive about it and rewrote the scene 14 times. Yeah, really. I remember counting the drafts and raging that I couldn’t make it work the way I wanted. And what sucks is that the last time I looked at it I winced and wanted to rewrite it some more.

It pleases me that people still read and enjoy LOTUS, but I don’t think it’s the best Conan pastiche. The book has been taken to task for any number of reasons, most of them with at least some validity. The book is a fannish one-shot by an amateur who worked almost as hard to pack in references to Howard’s work, the Conan saga, and golden age Weird Tales magazine as he did to tell a story. It’s a book by a fan for fans.

Edited by emerald, 23 January 2013 - 05:42 AM.

[thedarkman]

I have been playing Age of Conan with what free time I have, so my re-reading of this book got a bit sidetracked - but I picked it back up today and am near the end. I had to praise the writing of Mr. Hocking again - his fight scene at the end of chapter 35 is spot-on Conan. Having already noted that, of the guards approaching, "There were too many of them, and they were too good", Conan's response to being told to surrender to the 6 on his side of the room is "to charge his first challenger". Carnage ensues. No waving his sword around in some fancy kata (sorry couldnt resist a dig at the movie), no hesitation, no fear or doubt, Conan takes the fight to the enemy. The whole scene is truly Howardian and an example of why we all seem to agree that this is, if not THE best, one of the best pastiches.

Those are fine words to read, Primeval, even about work I did 20 years ago.
The battle over the Lotus Chamber was a deliberate attempt to write a scene of Conan in combat that would impress even dedicated readers of sword & sorcery fiction. I wanted to lay down the kind of against-all-odds, few-against-many, damn-your-eyes, Howardian fight scene that I always hoped to find when I was reading heroic fantasy in general and Conan pastiche in particular.
I got obsessive about it and rewrote the scene 14 times. Yeah, really. I remember counting the drafts and raging that I couldn’t make it work the way I wanted. And what sucks is that the last time I looked at it I winced and wanted to rewrite it some more.

It pleases me that people still read and enjoy LOTUS, but I don’t think it’s the best Conan pastiche. The book has been taken to task for any number of reasons, most of them with at least some validity. The book is a fannish one-shot by an amateur who worked almost as hard to pack in references to Howard’s work, the Conan saga, and golden age Weird Tales magazine as he did to tell a story. It’s a book by a fan for fans.

Well, as a fan of a book written by a fan, for the fans ...

Lets just say LOTUS still ranks as one of the very best pastiche Conan tales written! I loved your story, and along with JMR's books, and Karl Edward Wagner's ROK, this is the cream of the pastiche crop.

[Buxom Sorceress]

Bux: “Thousands of players will battle it out with the 'zombie-Gulbanda-boss': he will raise up from the sand and fight, time and time again...into future gaming years! It is like another weird version of his endless curse…”

My first thought was how, if Gulbanda appears in the game after being disposed of by Conan, then this part of the game is actually a sequel to Conan & the Emerald Lotus. Sort of a pastiche upon my pastiche.
But Bux finds a more poetic way to look at it. Gulbanda, the automaton-like zombie revenant of the book, is still damned to hellish life after death decades later and in a new digital form. Awesome. ...

Hey thanks very much, John,
glad I could put it into some memorable words which make folks think a bit deeper.
Very interesting to hear your musings and explanations of details and scenes in the book.
--
The reason your excellent book is so popular is that you are:
a great writer and very creative and clever
a keen and dedicated fan of Howard
and you have high standards and are a perfectionist.

We, your dedicated keen fans, adore and respect your modesty, but we will always sing your praises.

I cannot thank you enough for EMERALD LOTUS and all the other examples of your tales i have read.
Best wishes.

[Buxom Sorceress]

Primeval's screenshot of 'emerald lotus mutations' [post #22 ] and other AOC pics are all in this topic link...

http://www.conan.com...showtopic=10072

---- enjoy ----

Edited by Buxom Sorceress, 24 January 2013 - 04:07 AM.