The Dark Storm Conan Chronology

A Post-Modern look at Conan’s life according to the writings of Robert E. Howard

By Dale Rippke
This revised article originally appeared in four parts as:
Can Anything Good Come Out of Cimmeria? (REHUPA #180)
Go East, Young Man… (REHUPA #181)
Black Flag, Scarlet Skull… Black Flag, Golden Lion… (REHUPA #182)
Blurring the Lines between the Reality and the Dream (REHUPA #183)
Special thanks to Joe Marek, Steve Tompkins, and Ed Waterman for their input into this essay.
In 1936, a Conan fan, P.S. Miller sent Robert E. Howard an outline of Conan’s career as he (Miller)
felt it occurred, organizing it into life-periods; thief, mercenary, king. Howard commented that it
was pretty close (but not perfect), correcting a few minor errors in a return letter to Miller. This
outline became the basis for the official Conan chronology, written by Miller and fellow fan, John
Clark. Additional information has been added to the chronology by L. Sprague deCamp and his
collaborators.
My research into the Mysteries of the Hyborian Age series over the past few years has been quite
an eye-opener. I cannot begin to overemphasize the amount of change that was introduced into
the Conan saga by L. Sprague deCamp. It is apparent that he changed some details from
Conan’s past in order to make them fit more snuggly into his preconceived version of Conan’s
life. The story that I picked up from reading the British FANTASY MASTERWORKS duo is quite a
bit different from what was provided by the deCamp conceived twelve-part LANCER/ACE series.
Even P.S. Miller’s outline that was tentatively approved by Howard has some serious problems
with it when you examine the stories themselves. What is needed is for a Conan scholar to tear
apart the stories and attempt to order the chronology using the story material, as well as
Howard’s letters and comments. Anyone who has visited my website can appreciate that I have
done the same type of thing with other heroic fantasy characters. So I have decided to attempt
this, knowing full well that I will probably get royally blasted for my efforts. 
The Dark Storm Conan Chronology
Conan the Cimmerian is born on a battlefield, during a fight between his tribe and Vanir raiders.
Clad in a pantherskin loin-clout, he spends his youth amid the continual warfare that takes place
on the mountainous northern frontiers of Cimmeria. His grandfather had taken part on raids into
the Hyborian kingdoms, and his tales instill within Conan a desire to see the civilized world.
At the age of fifteen, he stands six foot and weighs 180 pounds, and even though he still lacks
much of his later growth, his name is already being repeated around the council fires. His first
notable success is when the Cimmerians tribes band together to destroy the Gunderland fort-
town of Venarium, built in an attempt to colonize the southern marches of Cimmeria. Shortly
thereafter, Conan leaves Cimmeria, but instead of heading south into the Hyborian lands, he
travels north and joins the Æsir, fighting against the Vanir and the Hyperboreans for several
months.
The Frost-Giant’s Daughter
Last survivor of an Æsir raiding party, Conan has a supernatural encounter with the gods of the
Northlands.
The Frost-Giant's Daughter was an unsold tale that did not appear in P. S. Miller’s original outline.
R. E. Howard, in a letter to Miller on March 10, 1936 states that, after Venarium, Conan traveled
northward to fight with the Æsir. It seems fairly obvious that Howard considered this to be the
first Conan tale, but when John Clark reworked the chronology, he placed this story shortly
before Queen of the Black Coast. In expanding the biography, Clark was working from edited
stories supplied by L. Sprague deCamp; it seems quite reasonable that deCamp had some input
into the stories placement. Dr. Clark's placement of The Frost-Giant's Daughter before Queen of
the Black Coast is possibly due to the fact that Conan is wearing an Æsir helmet in the latter
yarn. However, Howard scholars feel that the actual reason that Clark and/or deCamp opted for
their placement is that the story featured a near rape, which could sour readers on the series if
the tale were read first; in other words, their Conan chronology fell victim to a “Politically
Correct” decision.
During an ill-fated Æsir raid into Hyperborea, Conan is captured, developing a hatred of
Hyperboreans that lasts his whole life. He escapes southward, into the Hyborian nation of
Brythunia. Penniless and hungry, Conan decides to take what he wants by swordpoint. Eventually
he winds up in Numalia, a Nemedian city on the trade-routes.
The God in the Bowl
New to civilization, and entirely lawless, Conan attempts to loot a Numalian treasure-house, and
is caught between the authorities and an ancient menace.
Another unsold story that didn’t appear in the original outline, an altered version of it was added
to the series by Sprague deCamp. Dr. Clark placed the story after the Tower of the
Elephant (deCamp placed it after the Hall of the Dead synopsis) in his chronology. This was the
second original Conan story written by Howard and it clearly takes place earlier in Conan’s
career than either Clark or deCamp place it. The Conan in God in the Bowl is nearly feral. He
bares his teeth and practically snarls at the law. He answers nearly every accusation with a
threat. He is unkempt and nearly naked, wearing only a loin-cloth and sandals. He is bewildered
and baffled by the workings of civilized networks and systems. You could replace Conan with a
Pict from Beyond the Black River and his character wouldn't change much. He also seems pretty
naive for a thief that deCamp would have you believe supposedly practiced in Zamora, since he
doesn't expect an obvious (Conan noted that the man was making rounds, for Christ's sake)
watchman to actually be a watchman and he even expects his busted employer to be a stand-up
guy. He gains entry into the temple by bashing a bolt with his sword until it breaks; he is lucky
that the watchman didn’t hear him. Numalia is probably the place where Conan first heard about
the “Prince of Thieves”, Taurus of Nemedia. It seems unlikely that the Zamorans would sing his
praises. That Conan flees the city due to his encounter with the god-snake is understandable,
since he is still a primal barbarian ruled by his atavistic fears, and it’s the first time he's come
face to face with the supernatural while not in some type of dream-state. This is a moody and
overly talky tale that is redeemed by Conan expertly kicking everyone’s ass at the end.
The murder of Aztrias Petanius forces Conan to flee Nemedia westward into Aquilonia. He
continues to practice his thieving skills with varying degrees of success. A short time later, he
relocates to Koth. Learning that Zamorans are masters of the art of thievery, Conan resolves to
travel there to make his mark. He enters Zamora’s City of Thieves around a year after leaving
Cimmeria.
The Tower of the Elephant
More daring than skilled at thievery, Conan attempts to steal a fabled jewel from the tower of the
wizard Yara in Zamora’s fabled City of Thieves. He is about 17 years old.
The Miller-Clark outline has this as the first tale of Conan encountering civilized people. This was
primarily because The Frost-Giant’s Daughter and God in the Bowl weren’t published until long
after Howard’s death in 1936. It was an excellent story to begin the series on, and remains one
of Howard’s finest Conan tales. The Conan in Tower of the Elephant is still very young, but
definitely seems more experienced. He knows about tower-guards and watchmen now, although
he still a bit gullible and trusting. He attempts to fit in by wearing a tunic, although he discards it
when he gets down to business (Howard shows us that Conan can discard the trappings of
civilization as easily as removing his tunic). Howard shows that this version of Conan has been
around a while by noting the Cimmerian's take on Gods and religion and how he spent the time
to learn it. Conan's encounter with Yag-kosha nearly swamps him with unreasoning terror, but he
is able to wrestle it under control with a bit of effort (showing us that this Conan has grown
somewhat emotionally since God in the Bowl).
Conan spends his time in Zamora establishing himself as a professional thief, becoming quite
successful at it. His depredations eventually attract the attention of the local authorities.
The Hall of the Dead
Conan ambushes a patrol sent out to capture him and enlists the help of its only survivor, a
Gunderman mercenary named Nestor, to loot a ruined city of the ancients.
This story only exists as a synopsis and was never actually a part of the Miller-Clark outline. It
seems pretty evident that it would have been placed here. Sprague deCamp wrote a complete
story from the synopsis for the LANCER series.
Pressure from the Zamoran authorities forces Conan and Nestor to leave the country and they
end up in one of the independent city-states on its western border. Conan is still a professional
thief, albeit harder and more experienced.
Rogues in the House
Thrown in jail for the murder of the priest that betrayed his partner, Conan agrees to become an
assassin to gain his freedom. He is probably around 19 years old.
There is some debate among Howard scholars as to whether this story should be placed
after Tower of the Elephant and before God in the Bowl. The argument is that it makes more
sense for Conan to be traveling in an east to west line, instead of wandering in what amounts to
circles. This theory made sense at the time because deCamp had altered God in the Bowl to
make it fit later in Conan’s career. The earlier placement of God in the Bowl causes this theory to
collapse. In my opinion, the Conan in Rogues in the House is more mature than the Conan in God
in the Bowl and Tower of the Elephant and is quite a bit more comfortable dealing with the
foibles of civilization. He is now a fully-grown man. Also, I believe Howard intended that Conan’s
partner, the Gunderman deserter mentioned in this tale to be Nestor, the Gunderman from The
Hall of the Dead synopsis.
Conan leaves Murillo’s city-state on his newly acquired horse. He uses it to return for a brief
period to Cimmeria. Conan then heads back to the rich southlands. He decides to change his
profession and signs up for a stint as a mercenary swordsman in a Corinthian army.
The Hand of Nergal
Conan is just about the only survivor of a battle, presumably near the city of Yaralet.
This is a fragment of a Conan story and didn’t appear in the Miller-Clark outline. Lin Carter
finished the story for the LANCER series, placing the location of Yaralet as northern Turan.
Actually, the fragment doesn’t mention its location. It literally could be anywhere and anytime
during Conan’s mercenary days. There are a few facts that can be gleaned from it, though.
Conan is nearly unarmored as a mercenary, being dressed in sandals, a girdle and loin-cloth;
except for the girdle, it’s the same outfit he wore in all of his thief stories. In Black Colossus,
Conan mentions that, prior to his Khorajan adventure, he was a mercenary in Corinthia; nearly
the same location as Rogues in the House. Both of those facts argue for The Hand of Nergal to be
placed early in Conan’s mercenary career. Two of the primary characters are named Atalis and
Prince Than; neither name seems particularly Turanian. Prince Than wears a feathered velvet
cap. Since the Hyborian nobles of Khoraja are also described as wearing this type of cap, this
could be seen as a Hyborian, rather than an Eastern, fashion. Most importantly, Nergal is a
Mesopotamian god. There are only two other gods of this type mentioned in Howard’s world. Anu
and Ishtar are the gods of Corinthia and Koth/Shem, respectively. From the fragment’s internal
evidence, it seems reasonable to assume that this story takes place, not in Turan, but in Koth,
Corinthia, or some adjacent Hyborian land. Taken all together, Yaralet is most likely a Corinthian
city-state.
Traveling southward, Conan hires on as a mercenary to a rebel prince in eastern Koth. The prince
makes peace with the Kothian King and the five thousand newly unemployed mercenaries,
calling themselves the Free Companions, take to impartially plundering the outlying reaches of
Koth, Zamora, and Turan. Shah Amurath, Turanian lord of Akif, fields an army of fifteen thousand
and traps the mercenary kozaki against the Ilbars River in Turan and annihilates them almost to
a man. Conan attempts to escape the slaughter by heading eastward toward the Vilayet Sea.
Iron Shadows in the Moon
Conan and a girl named Olivia are trapped amidst a trinity of perils on a devil-haunted island in
the Vilayet Sea.
This tale, published in Weird Tales magazine under the title Shadows in the Moonlight, is usually
set quite a bit later in Conan’s career. I can’t see why this story has never been considered
Conan’s introduction to the Hyrkanian world. There are two primary reasons that seem to
place Iron Shadows in the Moon earlier in the chronology than Miller had it. Firstly, the tale has
Conan fighting for an unnamed rebel prince of Koth, while in the tale Xuthal of the Dusk, Conan
fights for a rebel prince of Koth named Almuric; if they are the same prince (and this seems
likely), then ISM is the earlier tale, since Almuric dies in XD. Secondly, in Black Colossus, Conan
states that the miserly king of Koth is “no friend of mine”; this could refer to the back-story
in Iron Shadows in the Moon, where Conan was employed to fight against the Kothic king. This
would place it before the events ofBlack Colossus. Even though this story was written
subsequent to Queen of the Black Coast, Conan never makes mention of the fact that he was
formerly a member of the Black Corsairs, which could have helped him some with the pirates. A
placement before Queen of the Black Coast makes this lapse understandable. Also, Cimmerian’s
youth and inexperience show quite a bit in this story. He is only a member of the Free
Companion’s rank and file; not a leader in any sense. Conan also seems to be a bit naive in his
belief that he should become the captain of the pirate vessel when he isn’t even a member of
the Red Brotherhood. He shows only a superficial sense of the area’s geography; he plans to
escape his pursuers by traveling the Vilayet Sea in a rowboat. His planned escape route is the
longest and riskiest of his options. He could have traveled southward, past Aghrapur in the dark,
and reached the safety of the mountains to the south of the city within a day or so. Instead he
chose to row northward past all of the Turanian ports in an effort that would have taken him
weeks to accomplish. This clearly shows that he isn’t familiar with the layout of the nation of
Turan, which he should be if he had actually experienced the country years earlier as a
mercenary. While it’s apparent that he is familiar with siege equipment, he could have learned
that in eastern Koth, or in his earlier mercenary endeavor. He is familiar with the Kothic pirate,
Sergius of Khrosha, but since Khrosha is in eastern Koth (it is close to Khauran), Conan could
have met him when he joined the Free Companions. He has a passing familiarity with the laws of
the Red Brotherhood, but it seems unlikely that he could have learned them as a member of the
black corsairs; it’s more likely he heard tales about them as a Kozak or a thief. Conan notes that
the iron statues aren’t Negro, but that doesn’t need to imply that he’s visited the Black Coast, as
some of his fellow mercenaries could have been black. The only real evidence that Conan may
have visited Turan prior to this story is the fact that he recognizes the cut of the pirate ship’s sail
as Hyrkanian. Of course, since the City of Thieves lay close to Zamora’s eastern frontier, he
might have fled to Turan for a few months to let things cool down after the events of Tower of
the Elephant. That this story is set early in Conan’s career seems evident from the fact that Yildiz
is king of Turan, not Yezdigerd in the subsequent Turanian tales. 
Conan is the captain of a pirate galley for only a short time. This is the first time he has been in a
leadership position, but unfortunately, his lack of seafaring experience compels the crew to
abandon him at the first opportunity. Conan finds himself on the eastern side of the Vilayet Sea
and visits several major Hyrkanian cities. Meanwhile, King Yildiz of Turan has died or been
deposed, and his successor, Yezdigerd, embarks on a series of imperial campaigns which will
make him the master of the greatest empire on Earth. While in Hyrkania, Conan fights against
the invading Turanians, learning the craft of archery while working as a mercenary warrior.
Tiring of the east, Conan wanders westward and has an unpleasant experience with a band
of kozaki under the command of a Zaporoskan River hetman named Olgerd Vladislav. Conan
reenters the Hyborian lands and enlists in the mercenary army of Amalric of Nemedia, working
his way up to captain of the mercenary spearmen. Amalric hires out his mercenary army to
Yasmela, queen-regent of the border kingdom of Khoraja. Conan is around 22 years old.
Black Colossus
Conan is chosen by Queen Yasmela (with the urging of Mitra) to lead her country’s defense
against the high-powered sorcery of the resurrected Thugra Khotan of Kuthchemes.
This tale is usually placed after Queen of the Black Coast in the Miller-Clark outline. My feeling is
that it takes place before. Conan doesn’t seem to have his huge resume in Black Colossus. He
presents himself as having “fought in blood-feuds, tribal wars, and imperial campaigns” and
mention is made that he was once a thief in Zamora. There is no mention of the sea battles and
coastal raids that Conan participated in as a Black Corsair, even though Queen of the Black
Coast was already written by Howard. Howard scholar Steve Tompkins has an interesting
observation concerning the placement of this story. In a recent email he stated: “There's a
moment when Amalric is amused by Conan's expectation that Yasmela is going to ‘strap on a
sword and take part in the actual fighting, as the barbarian women often fought.’ There's no
indignant rejoinder from the Cimmerian when Amalric sets him straight, so I think we're forced to
assume that Conan, despite his reference to a stint with Corinthian mercenaries, hasn't been
around Hyborian warfare very long. By the time of the escape from the not quite long-enough
arm of the law in Messantia, Conan has sojourned in many Hyborian kingdoms and familiarized
himself with their customs; so for the exchange with Amalric to work, Black Colossus has to come
before Queen of the Black Coast. Interestingly, Conan does not seem to care much for the King
of Koth, which could be the result of his stint with the rebel prince in Iron Shadows in the Moon.
He is well equipped in this story; a chain-mail hauberk, blue-steel greaves and basinet, and a
scarlet cloak. He has better equipment in Queen of the Black Coast, though. This also helps the
case that this story precedes Queen.
After the defeat of Natohk, Conan’s position as General in the nation of Khoraja erodes as his
only support is from the Queen. Eventually, he leaves and begins looking for a new war to enlist
in. Hearing news of possible war in Argos, he rides westward to check it out. Trouble with the law
in Messantia impels him to take the first ship heading south.
Queen of the Black Coast
Conan joins the she-pirate Bêlit and her crew of Black Corsairs aboard her ship, the Tigress. He is
about 23 years old. Conan becomes known along the Black Coast as Amra, the Lion. Bêlit is the
love of his life and that life is good. Together they sack the Black Coast city of Abombi and burn
the Stygian Fleet in its harbor at Khemi. Then comes the day Conan hears about the city on the
Zarkheba River.
This is the second story that Conan appears in chain mail and a scarlet cloak. Around two to
three years pass between the first half and the second half of the story. Even though this is
Conan’s first time on the Western Ocean, Howard subtly implies that the Cimmerian has spent
some time at sea prior to this story. While trying to escape Bêlit’s Tigress, he manages to
accurately land most of his arrows on his intended targets at a fairly long range. Due to the
complexities of archery while standing on a ship under the combined chaotic effects of wind,
waves, and being rowed, it is apparent that Conan practiced, at least part of the time, while on
the sea. Ship to ship archery is a feat that is, quite frankly, impossible to accomplish if you’ve
only learned how to shoot on land. Howard claims that Conan learned archery in Hyrkania; it
follows that he must have first gone to sea in Hyrkania as well. This could seem to support the
placement of Iron Shadows in the Moon as having taken place prior to Queen of the Black Coast.
Following the death of Bêlit, Conan leaves the jungles of the Black Coast behind and makes his
way northward toward the nation of Kush, acquiring a horse along the way. He is 25 years old.
The Snout in the Dark
Conan rides into Shumballa, the capital of Kush at a time when a demon is terrorizing the city.
He rescues Tananda, sister of the king of Kush, from a raging mob and is offered the job of
captain of the royal guard. Conan becomes embroiled in the intrigue which follows until, at last,
the true master of the demon is exposed.
This story consists of an unfinished draft of the tale and a synopsis. It was not in the original
Miller-Clark outline, but it seems pretty obvious that it takes place immediately after Queen of
the Black Coast; the story says as much. This is the final story in the saga of Conan’s chain mail
and scarlet cloak (Howard apparently forgot that he had burned the cloak on Bêlit’s pyre). When
Sprague deCamp and Lin Carter rewrote the story for the LANCERS, they renamed the capital
city Meroê.
The events in motion around Tananda prove to be too unstable for Conan to control as captain of
the royal guard. He leaves Shumballa and travels to one of Kush’s ports, where he gains passage
back to Hyborian shores.
Upon arrival, Conan hears news of a big war in Koth. He learns that his old employer, the
rebellious prince Almuric, is once again feuding with the unpopular King Strabonus, and is
gathering an army from far and wide. Conan travels to Koth to join the fighting as a swordsman.
Almuric’s rebellion is crushed and sent reeling by the forces of King Strabonus, and his
mercenary army flees headlong through the lands of Shem and into the outlands of Stygia. With
a Stygian host at its heels, Almuric’s army of thirty thousand strong cuts its way out of the
eldritch nation, and through to the desert beyond Kush, only to be utterly annihilated; half by
arrow, the other half by a rolling, black plague that the Stygians summoned. Conan and a young
Brythunian camp-follower named Natala are the only survivors.
Xuthal of the Dusk
Fleeing southward into the desert, Conan and Natala discover the time-lost city of Xuthal and
must deal with its demonic deity.
This tale, originally published under the title The Slithering Shadow, is set quite a bit later in
Conan’s career in the Miller-Clark outline. Its placement needed to be rethought when Howard
scholar Joe Marek noticed that a chronologically earlier Conan tale, The Devil in Iron, made
mention of the lotus-eaters of Xuthal. There really doesn’t seem to be any reason why Xuthal of
the Dusk couldn’t have taken place this early in Conan’s career. Certainly nothing is mentioned
in the story that refutes this placement. I’ve never understood why the story was renamed when
published in Weird Tales. Xuthal of the Dusk is a evocative title, comparing the twilight world of
the city’s dreamers to the twilight time of dusk. The Slithering Shadow, on the other hand,
sounds like the title of a bad Doc Savage story.
Conan and Natala reach the grasslands to the south of Xuthal and apparently decide to travel
northeast and back toward Stygia by skirting the eastern edge of the desert. Most likely they fell
in with a Luxor-bound caravan that had recently come up from the southern black nations;
Conan can easily have hired on as a guard. I believe that either another caravan guard or
merchant from the semi-mythical land of Punt befriends and regales Conan with stories of his
nation’s history, culture, and customs. The journey northward takes them through the western
parts of Darfar where he encounters members of its cannibal cult for the first time. It also passes
along Lake Zuad, where a mongrel Stygian race called the Tlazitlans live. At last, the caravan’s
journey ends at the capital of Luxor, the most cosmopolitan of the Stygian cities.
Conan and Natala soon part ways and he wanders across the city-states of Shem, eventually
becoming the captain of the royal guard in the frontier kingdom of Khauran, on the eastern edge
of Koth. He is 26 years old.
A Witch Shall Be Born
Khauran’s Queen Taramis is overthrown by her sorceress sister and Conan is nailed to a cross to
die. He is rescued by Olgerd Vladislav, who has left the kozaki and has become the chief of the
Zuagir, a band of desert tribesmen. Seven months later, Conan deposes Olgerd, rallies the
Khauranians to revolt, and retakes the kingdom, restoring Taramis to her throne. He decides to
remain as the chief of the Zuagir.
This is the first tale that Conan realizes the possibilities of turning an alliance of brigands and
tribal factions into a defacto army. It becomes his “modus operandi” while in the East. I also find
it interesting to see just how far Conan will go to exact vengeance on someone who has wronged
him.
Not content with merely raiding Turanian outposts and Shemitish city-states, Conan uses his
desert-wolves to systematically ravage the Turanian outlands. At one point he even considers
sacking the Turanian city of Zamboula, going so far as to personally go there to get a measure of
the city. Before this plan can be carried out, Conan leaves the Zuagirs for unknown reasons
(presumably due to a combination of problems dealing with an extremely large group being
continually supplied and supported in what is basically an arid wasteland and with the Turanian’s
decision to field an army to deal with the Zuagir problem).
Conan doesn’t waste any time mourning the breakup of the Zuagir horde. He rides eastward to
the steppes along the southern edge of the Vilayet Sea and wanders into the armed camps
the kozaki bandits. Using no other possession than his wits and his sword, he carves his way to
leadership among them. Conan seems to have learned a thing or two about running an army of
brigands. As hetman, he allies his kozaki with the pirates of the Vilayet, allowing him to make
lightning raids with smaller forces. He continually uses these raids to entice the local Turanians
forces into chasing him, and then either destroys them or eludes them and sacks the city in their
absence. His brigands loot Khitian and Vendhyan caravans by the score. The local Turanian lord
decides to solve this problem with a beautiful piece of bait.
The Devil in Iron
Conan is caught between the Turanians and a diabolism from the earth’s dawn on the isle of
Xapur.
This period of Conan’s life is probably where he made his reputation in the East. It certainly
made the Turanians curse his name. This story also has a bit of weird geography in it, since the
Turanian port of Khawarizm seems to lie only about five to ten miles from Conan’s camp on the
Zaporoska River, since they both lie near the island of Xapur.
The local Turanian authorities are unable to stop Conan’s wholesale plunder; presumably, it is his
sack of Khawarizm gains the attention of their Grand Monarch, Yezdigerd. The Turanian emperor
sends Kerim Shah, his most trusted spy, to infiltrate Conan’s camp and gather intelligence. He
poses as a Hyrkanian renegade and manages to quickly rise as one of Conan’s lieutenants. His
intelligence reports prove to be an invaluable aid in the destruction of Conan’s schemes. Like all
great spies, Kerim Shah manages to drop out of sight before the Cimmerian figures out who
betrayed him. Conan escapes whatever happens and heads out east into the wilds of Hyrkania.
In an uninhabited mountain range he happens across an archaic symbol carved in the rock of a
cave. He finally decides to head south toward the Himelian Mountains and the nation of
Vendhya.
While crossing the northernmost Vendhyan province of Ghulistan, Conan falls in with the war-like
Afghuli hillclans, and in a show of resilience, quickly rises to chieftainship. He manages to wield
at least seven of the fractious clans together into a makeshift army of hillmen, held together
primarily by his own will and the lure of plunder. As war-chief, he manages to seriously annoy
both the Vendhyans and Yezdigerd’s Turanians, who are busy expanding southeastward into
Afghulistan. Fate intervenes when seven headmen of his Afghulis are captured by the
Vendhyans.
The People of the Black Circle
Conan kidnaps Yasmina, the Devi of Vendhya, in an attempt to ransom the release of his
Afghulis. He loses her to the sorceries of the Black Seers of Mount Yimsha and is compelled to
join forces with his old enemy, Kerim Shah, to attempt a rescue.
Of all Conan’s Eastern adventures, this one seems to offer the most promise of blood and
plunder, since both Vendhya and Hyrkania are rich with gold and precious jewels. 
Events subsequently conspire against Conan and he gives up his attempt to wield the Afghulis
into an army. He drifts into Vendhya and then decides to head west, traveling through Kosala. He
decides to rejoin the kozaki, but finds them scattered and a substantial price on his head. Conan
travels southward into Iranistan in an attempt to skirt the ever-expanding edge of the Turan’s
empire. Running low on money, he heads for the city of Zamboula in an attempt to increase his
funds by gambling.
The Man-Eaters of Zamboula
After a brush with the Darfari cannibal cult, Conan rescues Zamboula’s satrap from the magic of
the priest of Hanuman, steals the satrap’s ring, and indulges in a bit of vengeance before taking
his leave of the city.
This tale, published in Weird Tales magazine under the title Shadows in Zamboula, is set shortly
after A Witch Shall Be Born in Conan’s career in the Miller-Clark outline. I have changed its
position in my chronology because it just seems to fit better where I’ve placed it. It’s hard to
describe why, but it just feels as if some time has passed since Conan left the Zuagirs. There is
no mention of his being their chief in the conversation with the Zuagir thief. The city guard, while
suspicious of him, makes no effort to check him out, which would seem to indicate that a western
barbarian of his description is no longer their top priority. Nafertari (Zabibi) doesn’t seem to
recognize Conan’s name, although she was around at the time of the Zuagir raids. On the other
hand, not a great deal of time has passed either. The Zuagir thief is worried the city guard will
recognize him from a horse theft that occurred while Conan was a brother to the desert nomads.
This seems to indicate that no more than a few years have passed since the theft, at most. The
most important clue in the story’s placement is the fact that Conan is planning to head west to
the Hyborian land of Ophir to redeem the satrap’s ring at the end. In the original outline, Miller-
Clark would have had Conan travel west to Ophir, then back east to join the kozaki in Turan. This
doesn’t really work well for me, since it tends to stretch the timeline to the breaking point (which
is probably why they suggested that he lost the ring, somehow).
Conan heads northwest back into Hyborian lands with plans to ransom the Star of Khorala back
to the Queen of Ophir for a “room-full” of gold. Whether he accomplishes this and how long the
proceeds last are anybody’s guess, although apparently it doesn’t last long. It’s possible that he
makes one of his infrequent trips to Cimmeria at this time. Conan is around 29 years of age at
this stage of his career.
Conan has returned to find the West is afire. Argos and Stygia are warring with each other. The
northern maritime nation has managed to get Koth embroiled in the war. Argos is paying good
money to hire mercenaries, and Conan decides to sign up under the command of Prince Zapayo
da Kova. The plan is for Argos to strike Stygia by sea, while the Kothic army invades by land from
the north. The Argive navy smashes the Stygian fleet and drives it back into the port of Khemi.
Their admiral, Prince Zapayo, is overly cautious and sails southward, coming ashore on Stygia’s
border with Kush. His plan is to drive into the heart of the Stygian interior and link up with the
Kothic army. His plan fails when Koth betrays Argos and makes a separate peace with the
Stygians. In desperation the mercenary army attempts to skirt the border of Stygia and make for
the deserts of eastern Shem. The northern Stygian army intercepts them and after an all-day
battle, the Stygians retreat. The following day another army from Khemi catches up to Prince
Zapayo’s depleted forces and between the two Stygian forces the Argive host ceases to exist.
Conan and a young Aquilonian named Amalric escape southward into the desert since there is no
other way to go. Conan tells Amalric that he has been in this part of the world before and that he
feels confident that they can survive. They are harried from oasis to oasis by Stygian riders,
eventually becoming lost in the trackless desert. Fate conspires to separate the two men when
Conan is knocked unconscious and Amalric leaves him to flee into the desert.
Drums of Tombalku
A captive, Conan is hauled into the desert city of Tombalku. Condemned to death, he is
recognized as the corsair Amra by one of its two kings and is freed. The king, Sakumbe, is
Conan’s friend and makes him the general of the horsemen. This leads to Conan being reunited
with Amalric, who, together with a local girl named Lissa, are being pursued by demonic
horsemen. Conan eventually deposes the other king, but political intrigue (and the revelation
that Amalric killed one of their gods in Lissa’s home city of Gazal) brings everything crashing
down. Conan, Amalric, and Lissa barely escape with their lives.
This is a fragment/synopsis of a Conan story and didn’t appear in the Miller-Clark outline. In fact,
most of the fragment isn’t even about Conan, but instead about the adventures of Amalric and
Lissa in the desert city of Gazal. The fragment ends midway through, and the rest of the story is
told in the form of a synopsis. This story needs to be placed in the timeline sometime after the
events of Xuthal of the Dusk, since it refers to Conan having been in this part of the world before.
As a point of fact, Xuthal of the Dusk was placed in this position on the Miller-Clark outline and
Sprague deCamp places Drums of Tombalku immediately after the events of XD. I have always
hated that idea since the rebel prince of Koth builds a huge army of 30,000 sell-swords and then
six months later Argos hires another huge army of mercenaries. Where do all of these warriors
appear from? I’ve also never liked deCamp’s placement since Conan is continually bouncing
hither and yon between the Hyborian lands to Kush’s desert to the Hyborian lands and back to
Kush’s desert. I think he might have been a bit uneasy about being a sell-sword after the events
of Xuthal of the Dusk. Putting a break between the two tales gives Conan a chance to
marginalize his feelings about the disaster in Koth. It would have been interesting to see
how Drums of Tombalku would have turned out if Howard had completed it, since the city has
“half a dozen powerful factions plotting and intriguing against each other”. I pretty much
visualize Conan being in the thick of it as Tombalku dissolved into civil war.
Conan drifts southwestward into the black kingdoms south of Kush. During this time, he watches
a Kushite witch-finder scratch an arcane symbol into the sand of a nameless river. The
Cimmerian recognizes it as the symbol he saw on the cave-wall in Hyrkania, and finds out that
the glyph is sacred to Jhebbal Sag, a being that all of the creatures of earth used to worship.
The Cimmerian falls in with the war-like Bamula tribesmen. His reputation as Amra has preceded
him, and because his martial prowess is so impressive, he quickly finds himself elevated to war-
chief of the fierce tribe. As war-chief, Conan learns the lesson that life is hard, death is sudden,
and that treachery is a virtue in the black kingdoms.
The Vale of Lost Women
Conan breaks a truce during a war council for the sake of a woman.
This is a Conan story that didn’t appear in the original Miller-Clark outline, because it wasn’t
published until long after Howard’s death. Sprague deCamp placed the story between the death
of Bêlit and Conan’s adventure in Shumballa. The story is grim and bloody and Conan is not
shown in the most favorable light. It is almost certainly the least popular Conan story that
Howard wrote. That being said, I am in total agreement with Howard scholar Joe Marek that this
story takes place far later in Conan’s career than when deCamp places it. Marek argues that
Conan has an appearance, attitude and outlook that is similar to the Conan that appears in
another tale placed about this time called The Pool of the Black Ones. In fact, the two tales have
a similar plot; Conan killing a leader for the possession of an attractive woman, with a
supernatural element thrown in at the end. Marek also notes that Conan is missing the red cloak
that he should have been wearing; a cloak he is wearing in Snout in the Dark (which comes after
this tale in deCamp’s chronology). While those are good reasons, my opinion as to why this tale
should have a later placement is because the Conan we see in this story is the natural outgrowth
of his attempting to bring what worked for him in the East into the black kingdoms and finding
out that it doesn’t work so well when everyone’s a brigand. He clearly doesn’t care much for
where he is. The Cimmerian war-chief describes this place as “hellish”, and he claims that he’s
“sick at the guts” with the native women. There are no gold and jewels here; wealth is measured
by cattle and horses. Conan is so immersed in the native paradigm that it takes a girl from the
Hyborian lands to make him realize who he was as opposed to who he is now.
Conan makes good on his promise to take Livia to the borders of Stygia and sends her home.
Realizing that he doesn’t really care to return to his Bamulas, Conan travels westward until he
reaches the Western Sea. He is 30 years old and about to make his mark on the West.
Upon reaching the coast, Conan is picked up by a ship of the Barachan Pirates. He remains true
to his nature and irresistibly rises to command his own pirate vessel. Conan soon proves to be as
adroit and ferocious a pirate as he was a Bamula war-chief. He sinks ships, sacks towns, and in
time becomes legendary as one of the greatest scourges of the Western Sea, renowned for his
audacious exploits. The men of the “Red Brotherhood” are eager to ship with him because he
leads them to rare loot. At last, several jealous pirate lords conspire to bring Conan down and he
is lured to a rendezvous at Tortage, in the Barachan Isles. Conan escapes the trap, but is
compelled to flee the Barachas in a leaky rowboat.
The Pool of the Black Ones
Conan is picked up by the Wastrel, a ship of buccaneers led by the Zingaran  renegade,
Zaporavo. Conan joins the “Fellowship of Freebooters” as a member of the crew. On a trip deep
into the empty Western Sea, Zaporavo discovers a mysterious island. Conan conspires to kill him
while ashore, but quickly runs afoul of the ancient evil that abides there.
This tale is basically the transition tale between Conan as a Barachan pirate and Conan as a
Zingaran buccaneer. While not a particularly strong story, it does boast one of the saga’s most
eerily effective weird menaces. Practically nothing is told of Conan’s time with the Barachans,
leading Miller and Clark to speculate that Conan found little opportunity to advance in the Red
Brotherhood, probably since no one seemed to recognize his name. Howard’s The Black
Stranger (unpublished at the time of the Miller-Clark outline) gave lie to that assumption, with
the lady Belesa’s description of Conan being a veritable Hyborian Age “Dread Pirate Roberts”,
the villain of a “score of ballads”. Still, it is somewhat curious that none of the crew recognized
Conan’s name; perhaps they didn’t keep up on Zingaran popular culture.
As captain, Conan sails the Wastrel back eastward to where the “seaports are fat, and the
merchant ships are crammed with plunder”. Conan probably attempts to inflict his vengeance
upon the Barachan pirate lords who betrayed him by raiding their holdings and sinking their
ships. This has the effect of making the Zingaran authorities a bit more kindly disposed toward
him; they won’t try to hang him, as long as he directs his depredations upon Argos and Stygia.
Conan has varying degrees of success as a Freebooter, but nothing as audacious as when he
sailed with the Barachans. He is nearly 33 years old when a storm shatters the Wastrelupon a
reef, presumably upon the Pelishtim coast of Shem.
Washed ashore half-dead, Conan is discovered and spends the next several weeks regaining his
health and strength in the city of Asgalun. His spends his time familiarizing himself with the
basics of the written Pelishtim language and even meets some wise men who have managed to
extend their lives by several hundred years. Regaining his strength, Conan wanders among the
major cities of western Shem. Tiring of Shem, he travels to Koth seeking rumors of war; instead
he finds the land disgustingly peaceful and the only rumor being the strange circumstances
surrounding the disappearance of the Kothic sorcerer Pelias.
With nothing better to do, Conan returns to Cimmeria for a time to ponder his future. His
notoriety has spread across the Hyborian lands and he now has a price on his head in the lands
claimed by Turan, Argos, Zingara, and Stygia. Eventually, Conan grows bored with life in
Cimmeria and travels southward into Aquilonia. He is 34 years old.
Traveling in Aquilonia, Conan learns that there is work to be had in the region of the Westermark.
He travels to Fort Tuscelan in Conajohara and hires on as a forest runner and frontier scout under
Governor Vallanus. Life on the frontier is no picnic, since Namedides, the recently crowned king
of Aquilonia, has decided to save money and has stopped sending troops to fight the Picts.
Conan has only been a scout for a few months when a Pictish wizard named Zogar Sag tries to
steal a string of mules and is thrown in a cell for his troubles. Feeling insulted, he escapes,
vowing vengeance on the men who captured him.
Beyond the Black River
The escape of Zogar Sag sets off a string of events that end in a Pictish war to retake
Conajohara. Learning that the Picts are coming, Conan escapes in time give warning to the
province.
This tale is a real change of pace from the rest of the Conan series, and one of the best, as well.
It’s a companion piece to Howard’s The Black Stranger. It is usually set later in Conan’s career;
both the Miller-Clark and deCamp chronologies place it shortly before Conan takes the throne of
Aquilonia. The story has an interesting feature in that a part of Howard fandom believes that two
of the tale’s primary characters, Balthus and his dog Slasher, are modeled on Howard and his
dog Patch. Howard described the story to Novalyne Price as "The triumph of a dog and the
barbarian."
The invasion is a success for the Picts, in that they are able to destroy Fort Tuscelan and retake
Conajohara. Fortunately, the death of Zogar Sag, combined with Conan’s warning, allows the
Aquilonians to stop the Pictish invasion at the town of Velitrium on the Thunder River, saving
innumerable lives. Conan is hailed as the Hero of Velitrium. He then hires on as a scout under the
baron of Conawaga, patrolling the frontier along the Thunder River for some months.
Conan crosses the Thunder River to follow a raiding party of Wolf Picts that had harassed the
settlements along the river. He manages to kill their chief, but is knocked senseless and
captured by the Wolf men. They then trade Conan to the Eagle Picts in exchange for a captured
Wolf chief. The Eagle men carry Conan nearly a hundred miles westward to burn him in their
chief village. He manages to escape the Eagle Picts, killing a notable war-chief in the process. He
flee westward, across the Pictish Wilderness with the Eagle men warriors in hot pursuit.
The Black Stranger
After a chase of several hundred miles, Conan manages to shake the pursuit of the Eagle Picts.
He holes up in a hidden cave and discovers within the fabulous treasure trove of the legendary
pirate, Tranicos. After regaining his strength, he travels west to the ocean shore, only to discover
a rendezvous of notable rogues at the stockade of a Zingaran exile. He deals himself into the
meeting in an effort to return to the Main as a pirate. All of his planning goes to hell when the
Picts attack the stockade.
Another unsold story that didn’t appear in the original outline, a heavily rewritten version of it
called The Treasure of Tranicos was added to the series by Sprague deCamp. He changed the
ending so that Conan used Tranicos’ treasure to finance his usurpation of the crown of Aquilonia.
Howard’s original version doesn’t take place nearly that late in Conan’s career. The Black
Stranger has a wealth of background material. I am positive that if this story had been available
to P. S. Miller, his outline would have looked completely different. It’s interesting to see that both
of the pirate captains know Conan personally. Zarono seems to be merely acquainted with the
Cimmerian, but knows his reputation. Strom, on the other hand, knows him first-hand, and he is
uncomfortably aware of what Conan is capable of. This tale also relates how Conan’s voyage on
the Wastrel ended three years previously; shipwrecked on a reef.
After returning Belesa and Tina to civilization, Conan returns to the “Red Brotherhood” as the
captain of the Red Hand. He 35 years old. Conan resumes his piratical career with a vengeance,
much to the dismay of the Zingarans. They commission several warships to hunt the Cimmerian
down and put an end to his depredations. The Zingarans come across the burning port-town of
Valadelad and discover that the Red Hand was responsible. Heading southward, they sight the
Barachan carrack and give pursuit. Conan attempts to evade the Zingaran squadron and leads
them on an exhausting chase. They finally catch him off the coast of Shem, and after a short,
sharp battle, sink the Red Hand. Conan escapes the disaster by swimming ashore.
Once in Shem, Conan travels to the city of Akbitana where he learns that the Free Companions,
under the command of Zarallo, are looking to hire mercenaries. Since no better opportunity
presents itself, he signs up. Zarallo marches his host to the Stygian border-town of Sukhmet.
Conan is bored and thinking of leaving, when a beautiful young woman arrives to join the Free
Companions. Her name is Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. She is in camp only a short time
before she knifes a Stygian officer and flees southward. Smitten, Conan decides to follow her.
Red Nails
Barely escaping a rampaging dragon, Conan and Valeria discover the forgotten city of Xuchotl
and become involved in a decades-long feud.
This story didn’t originally appear in the outline the Miller sent to Howard, since it hadn’t been
published in Weird Tales yet. Miller eventually placed it after The Pool of the Black Ones. The
published version of Red Nails didn’t mention the burning of Valadelad; that only appeared in the
first draft of the story. This was the last Conan tale that Howard ever wrote. Some features of the
back-story include Conan’s visit to Kosala, his knowledge of the Tlazitlans, and some trivia about
the glow-stones of Punt.
After leaving Xuchotl, Conan and Valeria travel westward until they reach the Black Coast. They
part; Valeria returns to the sea, while Conan decides to investigate rumors of a fabulous treasure
in the semi-mythical land of Keshan, far to the east. He travels over a vast distance of plain,
river-laced jungle, and mountains, eventually coming to its royal city of Keshia. His reputation
precedes him and he is employed to train their armies and lead them against their hereditary
enemy, the nation of Punt.
The Servants of Bit-Yakin
Conan learns that a fabulous treasure, the Teeth of Gwahlur, is hidden in the ancient ruins of
Alkmeenon. He surreptitiously travels there and becomes embroiled in a rival’s confidence game.
This tale, published in Weird Tales magazine under the title Jewels of Gwahlur, is the only story in
the series to feature Conan as a confidence-man. There is some interesting background material
in this yarn; Conan’s having learned to write Pelishtim and his wealth of knowledge about Punt, a
land he’s never visited. It also establishes that Conan had visited the Shemitish city of Akbitana a
year earlier.
Conan loses the jewels, but gains a partner, a Corinthian actress named Muriela. The pair travels
on to Punt, plotting to ensnare them in a similar confidence game. Rumor suggests that Conan
may even have visited the jungle nation of Zembabwei. He is 37 years old.
We pick up Conan’s trail again about a year later, when he reenters the Hyborian nation of
Aquilonia. King Namedides’ rule has left the land in chaos, and his people cry out under
suppression and excessive taxation. The king seems oblivious to the nation’s problems and
Aquilonia is torn with warring between the barons. Conan takes service in the army of Aquilonia,
and quickly rises through the ranks to command a regiment of mercenaries. Though he doesn’t
know it yet, an old dream of his is about to become reality.
The king of Zingara has dreams of empire and believes that the rich province of Poitain is ripe to
be plucked from the dissolute nation of Aquilonia. He leads his army across the Alimane River to
secure the province. The knights of Poitain are fierce defenders and are supported by several
regiments from barons in the southlands who recognize the danger should the province fall.
Count Trocero of Poitain petitions Namedides for troops in repelling the Zingarans; the king
decides to send his expendable mercenary army.
The fight for the province of Poitain is fierce, and in short order Conan takes command of
Aquilonia’s army. He proposes an unorthodox tactic that enables his army to smash the invaders,
killing the Zingaran king and sending the scattered survivors fleeing back across the Alimane.
Conan is hailed as a great hero by the people of Poitain and his renown spreads across the
mountains into Aquilonia.
Namedides recalls Conan to his capital, feting him before the citizens of Tarantia. The good times
do not last long. Scheming nobles use Conan’s sometimes blunt opinions to inflame Namedides’
jealousy of his popular general. Conan finds himself arrested and imprisoned in the infamous Iron
Tower. He escapes the Tower and, evading capture, swiftly makes his way back to Poitain.
At Trocero’s urging, Conan regains command of the mercenary army and purges it of
Namedides’ loyalists. Trocero flatly refuses to bow to the king’s edicts and pushes Poitain into
revolt against the might of Aquilonia. Conan announces that he is striking for the throne and asks
for support. Namedides is incensed and orders the southern Aquilonian army to suppress the
rebellion and capture Conan and Trocero. The Aquilonian army attacks the rebel host, which is
entrenched in the mountains of northern Poitain. Namedides’ army breaks itself on Conan battle-
hardened forces and is decimated. The way to Tarantia is open. Meanwhile, support for Conan’s
rebellion spreads throughout Aquilonia.
Wolves Beyond the Border
A treacherous Aquilonian noble, blood-brother to the Picts, attempts to inflame tensions in the
Westermark during Conan’s rebellion.
This is an uncompleted fragment/synopsis and didn’t appear in the Miller-Clark outline. In fact,
most of the fragment isn’t a traditional Conan story, but instead, has completely different
characters. It takes place in the Westermark region concurrent with Conan’s rise to king of
Aquilonia. This fragment is interesting in that the primary hero, Gault Hagar's son, claims to have
been ten years old at the time of the Pict’s destruction of Fort Tuscelan. His age isn’t given,
although he is apparently an adult. I believe that he’s about 16 years old in this tale for a couple
of reasons. The men on the frontier grow up quickly. In Beyond the Black River a young married
couple is murdered by the Picts and it states that the wife was little more than a girl (about 14-
15). This shows that adulthood on the frontier is quite young by our standards. I feel that the
name “Gault Hagar’s son” simply means that Gault hasn’t started his own family yet, and is still
thought of as his father’s son. This would also imply that the hero of the fragment is still fairly
young. Howard’s fragment also dispels a notion that Sprague deCamp advanced in his rewrite of
this story for the LANCERS; that Conan’s army victory came by defeating the Picts. Howard’s
reason that the Thandaran’s give for supporting Conan is that “We have not forgotten
Conajohara”. So, Conan’s victory had to come from some place else, but where? The Phoenix on
the Sword states that Nemedia is at peace with Aquilonia. Ophir is supposedly an ally to
Aquilonia in The Scarlet Citadel, while The Hour of the Dragon maintains that Argos has been at
peace for quite a while. I doubt that Conan would lead Aquilonia’s army to victory over the
Cimmerians. The only nation bordering Aquilonia that really fits the bill is Zingara. The Hour of
the Dragon states that Aquilonia has continual wars with the Picts, Zingarans, and Cimmerians.
The novel also depicts Zingara as a nation where “Half a dozen princes strive against each other,
and the country is torn asunder by civil wars”. This has apparently gone on for quite sometime,
so it’s logical to assume that Zingara’s civil war is the aftermath of Conan’s victory, especially
since he didn’t fill the nation’s power vacuum by military invasion.
Conan’s army marches on Tarantia and through a combination of hard work, skill, and luck
arrives to capture the capital. He strangles Namedides on his throne and crowns himself king of
Aquilonia. Conan is nearly 40 years old when the dream becomes a reality…
Life is no bed of houris for the newly-crowned King Conan. He has fractious nobles to contend
with, petitions of redress from his people, and diplomatic requests from other nations. Conan
appeals to Aquilonian tradition by holding court in the old capital of Tamar, residing in the palace
of the popular King Vilerus. He wins the love of the people by lowering taxes and curbing abuses
at the hands of the nobility. He institutes land reform to ease the pressure on the western
frontier. Some of the noble families in Aquilonia are still quite restive, and King Conan must put
down the occasional civil insurrection.
The Phoenix on the Sword
The first major threat to Conan’s rule is an assassination attempt by the Rebel Four.
This is the first Conan story that Robert Howard wrote, as well as the Cimmerian’s first
appearance in print. It is a rewrite of an unsold King Kull tale called By This Axe I Rule!   
Around a year after the assassination attempt, Conan accepts an alliance with the Hyborian
nation of Ophir. A short time later, Ophir asks for Aquilonia’s help in repelling an invasion by the
land of Koth. Conan obliges by sending five thousand of his finest knights into Ophir, only to
discover that he has been betrayed.
The Scarlet Citadel
Conan is captured, during his first foreign war, by Amalrus of Ophir and Strabonus of Koth. He is
imprisoned in the Scarlet Citadel and escapes with the help of his fellow inmate, the Kothic
sorcerer Pelias.
Conan’s adventure within the titular Scarlet Citadel has some of the most fantastic weird menace
ever written by Robert Howard. Two versions of this tale exist, the original Weird Tales
publication and a rewritten version that was meant to appear in a British anthology.
In the wake of the abortive insurrection that accompanied the war with Koth and Ophir, King
Conan moves his royal court from Tamar eastward to the city of Tarantia, taking up residence in
the opulent palace of the late Namedides. Conan has not bothered to formally make any woman
his queen; the sons of his concubines, of which there are a goodly number, are not recognized as
heirs to the throne. About this time, unbeknownst to anyone, a magical artifact, the Heart of
Ahriman, has been stolen from the crypt beneath Tarantia’s temple of Mitra.
The Hour of the Dragon
A plan to reshape the face of western Hyboria is hatched with the resurrection of an ancient
sorcerer, Xaltotun of Acheron. This conspiracy usurps the throne of Nemedia and even manages
to depose Conan through black magic.  Conan escapes and embarks on a quest to find the
“heart of his kingdom” in a bid to reclaim his throne.
This novel has an interesting history, as it was originally written to be published as a hardback
book in Britain. That plan fell through and The Hour of the Dragon was later serialized in Weird
Tales. It is an amalgam of bits and pieces of other Conan stories, most noticeably The Scarlet
Citadel, Black Colossus, and The Phoenix on the Sword. The Hour of the Dragon is a propulsive
tale, which is unusual, due to its episodic structure. In the 50’s, when it was published by Gnome
Press, it was renamed Conan the Conqueror by the editor, P.S. Miller, reportedly due to the lack
of dragons in the text. I find this notion absolutely laughable. The Hour of the Dragon is a great,
evocative title that works on several different levels; probably my favorite title of any Conan
story. The title refers to the short time that the dragon banner of Nemedia held sway over
Conan’s Aquilonia. On a more esoteric note, the title refers to the resurrection and rise to power
of the most powerful of Set’s high priests, surely a dragon among serpent worshippers if there
ever was one. And finally, anyone who has read my essay “Children of the Fallen” (REHUPA
#169) should recognize that Howard based his Acheronians on the Dragon-Kings of ancient
Persia, children of the demonic Ahuras. These Ahuras are identical to the Fallen Angels of the
Bible, whose chief is Satan, the Great Dragon. The dragons were hiding behind the trees in
Miller’s forest, I imagine...
Conan regains the throne of Aquilonia and ransoms King Tarascus back to Nemedia for the
seraglio girl, Zenobia. As promised, Conan makes her his queen. He is 45 years old.
Conan remains king of Aquilonia for quite a few years. His reign is turbulent, with many violent
events commonplace. The kings of the surrounding nations continually test his rule, until he is
forced into wars of aggression as a matter of self-preservation. The extent of his empire through
conquest is unknown.
Interestingly, King Conan still travels widely. He journeys to Hyrkania and the unknown lands to
its north, as well as to Khitai and the little known region that lay beyond its southern border. He
also manages a visit to a nameless continent in the western hemisphere, and roams among the
islands adjacent to it.
Howard's March 10, 1936 letter to P.S. Miller
The Conan stories came to a chronological end with The Hour of the Dragon. A letter written by
Robert E. Howard shortly before his death hinted of further adventures, relating that Conan was
“king of Aquilonia for many years, in a turbulent and unquiet reign, when the Hyborian
civilization had reached its most magnificent high-tide, and every king had imperial ambitions. At
first he fought on the defensive, but I am of the opinion that at last he was forced into wars of
aggression as a matter of self-preservation. Whether he succeeded in conquering a world-wide
empire, or perished in the attempt, I do not know. He travelled widely, not only before his
kingship, but after he was king. He travelled to Khitai and Hyrkania, and to the even less known
regions north of the latter and south of the former. He even visited a nameless continent in the
western hemisphere, and roamed among the islands adjacent to it. How much of this roaming
will get into print, I cannot foretell with any accuracy.”
There is no record at all about Conan’s eventual fate, and perhaps that’s a good thing. Some
things are best left to the imagination…
Musings on the various Chronology issues
In his lifetime, Robert E. Howard never really got around to placing the stories featuring his
Conan character into any definitive order. The closest that he got was giving his provisional
blessing to the timeline proposed by a Conan fan, P. Schuyler Miller. This timeline was buffed and
polished by Miller and Dr. John Clark and later expanded upon by the inestimable Lyon Sprague
deCamp into the “Official Chronology” that remains to this day. My research has proven to me
(and hopefully to you) that the “Official Chronology” is plagued by enough inconsistency and
doubt as to be next to useless.
My feeling is that the Miller/Clark timeline started out with the best of intentions, but swiftly went
astray once the “unpublished” Conan material became available. Both The Frost-Giant’s
Daughter and The God in the Bowl were wrongly placed; presumably so that Tower of the
Elephant could the first chronological story to showcase Conan in the L. Sprague deCamp
edited The Coming of Conan (Gnome Press). The Vale of Lost Womenwas placed after Queen
of the Black Coast and at the time this seemed plausible. Only later, when The Snout in the
Dark was added into the Conan saga in the Lancer series did this placement become suspect. It
just became one more “inconsistency” in the chronology; Howard’s fault due to poor writing, not
deCamp’s error in placement. When deCamp rewrote The Black Stranger as The Trail of Tranicos,
the chronology veered off into uncharted territories. It became a reflection of Sprague deCamp’s
vision of the Hyborian Age.
And I’m not content to just pillory L. Sprague deCamp. Obviously, P.S. Miller and John Clark made
their share of questionable placements. Xuthal of the Dusk is certainly placed incorrectly. Black
Colossus and Iron Shadows in the Moon are most likely wrong as well. The only thing that
Miller/Clark have going for them is that Howard gave the thumb’s-up to their chronology. We
should take a look at that event if we want to understand what went astray.
In a March 10, 1936 letter to Miller, Howard presented his comments on the Conan chronology
proposed by Miller and Clark. In it Howard wrote: “Your outline follows his career as I have
visualized it pretty closely. The differences are minor”. And also: “The chronological order of his
adventures is about as you have worked it out, except that they covered a little more time”. This
would seem to be a pretty clear cut admission that the chronology is correct, except that Howard
qualifies both statements with “pretty closely”, “minor differences”, and “about as you have
worked it out”. What does this actually tell us?
It means that Howard isn’t actually giving the outline his “official” blessing. He’s leaving himself
some wriggle-room if he decides to change anything. What you must understand is that Howard
looked at the Conan chronology differently than Miller and Clark did, because they didn’t have all
the pieces to the puzzle. Howard started to explain why his view is different in the March 10
letter when he explains that Conan went north into Nordheim after the battle at Venarium, and
that instead of traveling straight to Zamora, Conan wandered around for a little over a year. He
knew that Frost-Giant’s Daughter and God in the Bowl took place before Conan’s sojourn in
Zamora. He should have known that the placement of Beyond the Black River in the outline was
wrong as well. So why did he provisionally sanction the Miller/Clark outline?
My understanding is that in March of 1936, Howard was under an increasing amount of stress
from a variety of sources. His mother was dying, his only real romantic relationship had failed,
the source of his income was drying up due to the Depression, and he was suffering from writer’s
block. He gets a letter from a fan detailing Conan’s life as well as a map of his world. Now does
Howard research this document to see if its findings are correct? Of course not. He knows his
world and how this all fits together. Besides, Miller doesn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle of
Conan’s life that Howard is privy to. However, it is entirely possible that Howard assumed that
the research producing the Miller/Clark outline worked out Conan’s life in a more internally
logical manner, since he could only realistically believe that his unpublished Conan stories would
never see print. My opinion is that Howard gave Miller validation for the work that he did, not
really caring whether it was absolutely accurate. It was, after all, only a private fan letter; it
wasn’t like the chronology was an official essay in a professional magazine.
And, this really isn’t all that unusual an occurrence in fandom. In 1974, Fred Blosser published a
history of Brak the Barbarian in Marvel’s Savage Tales magazine that at the time was given
John Jake’s blessings; the publication of The Fortunes of Brak in 1980 showed that Blosser’s
chronology was no longer accurate. Jakes just pretty much ignored it. Also, in 2000, fantasy
author David Gemmell discovered the website of a fan named Eric Davis that contained a
beautiful hand drawn map of Gemmell’s Drenai world. According to Davis, Gemmell emailed him
with the news that his map was going to be the official Drenai map when his next book was
published. This map had over one hundred errors on it and Gemmell either didn’t notice them or
decided not to comment on them. Needless to say, when a professional Drenai world map finally
appeared in 2003, it wasn’t Eric Davis’s map. It’s easy for an author to get enthusiastic about a
fan’s interest in his works, since it validates his ego. This isn’t a bad thing; just human nature. I
feel that the intent of Howard’s March 10 letter to P.S. Miller to be really nothing more than that.
Since Howard’s death there have been a number of attempts to reorder the Conan tales, with
varying degrees of success. The first one that I’m aware of was Kevin Miller’s Another
Chronology, published in Amramagazine in February of 1973. He is the first person to postulate
(to my knowledge) that Frost-Giant’s Daughter is the first Conan tale. Unfortunately, he also
lobbies that God in the Bowl takes place after Rogues in the House, which is flat-out wrong.
Former Rehupan Joe Marek published his Some Comments on Chronologies in Regards to the
Conan Series in Rehupa mailings #148 and #149. He reorders quite a bit of the chronology,
accepting Kevin Miller’s resequencing, as well as moving Xuthal of the Dusk and The Vale of Lost
Women around. For the most part, Joe’s ideas make pretty good sense. He just didn’t take it far
enough.
When I decided to take a crack at chronologically sequencing the Conan tales, I was filled with a
bit of trepidation, since nearly everything I had read about them stated that it couldn’t be done.
The prevailing wisdom was that the corpus of stories was riddled with inconsistencies and errors;
so vague and contradictory that there was no hope of ever really untangling it in any satisfactory
manner. Apparently Howard had a habit of providing linkage among the stories by providing
biographical and chronological clues from previously written tales, regardless of where the story
took place in the overall scheme of things. To confuse things ever further, L. Sprague deCamp
had edited and rewritten some of the tales so that they fit into his preconceived idea of how
Conan’s life played out. I decided that my best course of action was to access as much of the
Conan material as I could find that hadn’t been altered by deCamp. I used the two
volume Conan Chronicles, published in the U.K. by Millennium, as my primary source material,
as well as a couple of pure-text versions of certain stories.
I read each story several times and I even took Ed Waterman’s online advice and read them in
the order that Howard had written them (Thanks, Wandering Star!). The hardest thing I had to
overcome was my preconceived notion as to how the series was ordered, as well as the
Miller/Clark outline having a certain gravitas. My way around that was to throw out everything
and start from scratch; I ignored everything but the stories themselves. I was actually pretty
surprised at the outcome of my research. I figured it would mirror the Miller/Clark biography a lot
closer than it did.
I was also surprised that there weren’t really all that many internal problems. I could be wrong,
but I feel that quite a few of the inconsistencies were introduced into the saga mainly through
the stories being incorrectly ordered, as well as deCamp’s rewriting background material to more
closely tie the stories into his vision of Conan’s life. My research showed that Howard really knew
his stuff. Most of his problems consist of variant spellings and minor questions of how Conan
could have known about certain plot points. The Tarantia/Tamar error is certainly explainable (as
per my biography). The two different ways that his career as a pirate ended aren’t even an
inconsistency anymore! I simply didn’t find anything as egregious as can be found in the works
of David Gemmell, for instance (In Legend, the port of Dros Purdol is located in two different
locations; the prologue to Druss the Legend flatly contradicts certain events in The Legend of
Deathwalker).
I also don’t really feel that Howard’s “borrowing” of certain themes from previous stories to be all
that much of a problem. So what if parts of Hour of the Dragon were similar to Scarlet
Citadel and Black Colossus? It doesn’t mean that the stories belong in alternate universes. It just
reflects real-life in a way. Can you honestly say that parts of your day aren’t nearly the same,
day after day? It’s really nothing more than the Hyborian Age version of “Been there, done that”
writ large.
As for the lack of internal evidence linking the Conan stories; sure some of the stories are a bit
vague. But it is possible to position them by placing the stories in context to each other. There
are lots of ways to link the stories to each other, and some are fairly subtle. Travel times,
clothing, occupations, Conan’s personality and goals, Howard’s themes of barbarism vs.
civilization; all of this and more can be taken into account when ordering the stories. My only
actual goal was to fit the saga into the ages that Howard claimed Conan to be in his March 10,
1936 letter to P.S. Miller. And I accomplished it, although it was actually more difficult than I
thought it would be. So I can understand why deCamp rewrote The Black Stranger, even though I
don’t agree with it.
There has been some notion bandied about that Howard only had a vague notion of Conan’s
career; it began as a thief and ended as a king. Everything in between was developed as he went
along. I flatly reject this notion. The stories would have a great deal more contradictions if this
were the case. From what I can tell, Howard had a pretty decent idea of Conan’s career
trajectory. In the book The One Who Walked Alone, author Novalyne Price Ellis wrote about
Howard’s preparation for the Hyborian Age stories: “He had told me of his doing something
similar to that before he began his Conan yarns. He wrote about the land where Conan lived, the
age in which he lived and the people he'd known, the sorcerers he'd met”. So apparently he put
some thought into it. To suggest otherwise, I find to be somewhat insulting to Howard’s ability as
a writer developing a secondary world.
Any world-creator in a fantasy role-playing game setting can tell you about the hours/days/weeks
spent building a working fantasy universe; immersing one’s self in minutia and fine tuning the
whole thing. There comes a point when the “Created-world” takes on a kind on life inside one’s
head. You are able to describe any part of it as if you had actually been there and experienced it.
The whole thing transcends its origins and becomes (from a purely mental standpoint) a real
place.
Every sense I get from reading Howard’s Conan stories informs me that he experienced
something very similar from his creation of the Hyborian Age world. He mentally lived in this
place when creating and writing his Conan stories. Perhaps it was part of his putting on a
persona as many authors do. All I can tell you is that he wrote these stories like he believed it.
And, as any damned fine author does, he makes you believe as well.
So how do I feel about the Darkstorm Conan Chronology? I feel it’s better than the Miller/Clark
outline, because it’s more accurate and reflects Howard’s take on his Conan series a lot better.
Whether it is acknowledged by fandom at large is anyone’s guess. I suppose it really doesn’t
matter, since the only reason I only did it was to see if I could. So yeah, I’m happy with it…