Transcript for:
Exploring Misanthropy in Conan's Monsters

in the Conan Universe misanthropy means to hate humanity and anthropology is the study of humanity over time with a super minority of exceptions the monsters of Conan are so Against Humanity which takes center stage in the setting that I had to create a new term for the study of these horrid things for the past 3 years I have known the file I keep scripts for these oh so unique monsters in as the Mis anthropology of the Conan universe or more simply all unique monsters in Conan like with all of my video omnibuses for those who wish to use this as a sleep aid I have taken out the annoying to some intro Bumper in place I simply wish to thank my channel members patreon donators and video Watchers without whom this task would not only be daunting but impossible without further delay I would ask that you get comfortable as we chart a course from the bowels of Hell to outer space and back again as we begin what thing is it that can cry like a woman laugh like a devil and shines like witchfire as it Glides through the trees gasp balus mopping the sweat from his pale face a swamp devil responded Conan morosely I am thugra kotan who shall rule the world despite your poultry Gods the desert is filled with my people the Demons of the Earth shall do my bidding the first thing to go over before defining our system is understanding the catchall terms that Encompass hell entities but are also used to refer to those creatures coming to us largely from the overlap with the cthulu Mythos Devils from the outer dark can be used to refer to anything that likely wants to kill Humanity for example there's also a creature called a devil from the outer dark which actually fits into the classification of devil which we'll get to but more specifically it is often used to refer to Mythos entities heavily associated with the outer Gods so you see we already have three meanings for this one big catch alter these beings are things like n leot shab nigaro and yag Sao as well as others in the infamous Court of aatho which we will cover more when we get into our Dreamland series and also when we do a video similar to this one but for Mythos entities the next term is more of a title often times you will hear a race or entity be referred to as a being of Elder Knight which most commonly simply means that they were around before the initial banish ing of demons to the various hell Realms after the rise of the first men this again can apply to a host of creatures including demon Gods which we will be covering near the end of the video this term actually gets even more murky I'm actually approached by people often in the comments who don't really understand the Marvel additions to Conan lore from the 70s were actually very respectful the entire department was given a big separation from the mainstream superhero stuff so they could show proper respect to Howard's work if you wanted to fully discount the Marvel lore then you can add a totally new cuz if that's the case then it's just a mystery and if your tabletop wants to do that you can literally just say well it was they were far more wicked or they were far more graceful if you want to add in your own lord it's very modular here it's very modular if that's really something you want to do personally I like the idea of the first men Rising Divine Gods championing them and then the gods themselves as Marvel added to it the demons themselves being angry at Humanity the source of that antagonism is from losing Earth and Earth is the Battleground it explains a lot of their motivations humanizes them I love it but of course you can do your own thing now the weakest and most inconsequential of demons in Conan are known as imps and they occur through a process I have referred to on this channel as imp ification best visualized in the video game Conan Exiles imp ification occurs when a starving person ghoul or plant as we have seen so far begins to starve near an area teeing with hellish power their bodies will try to make up for their lack of food and water with this demonic energy the resulting transformation results in a body with asymmetrical features three-fingered hands three- toed feet and significantly reduced intellect these creatures are the closest thing to goblins in Conan lore demonologists are easily able to gain control over them and and in the game Age Of Conan highlevel demonologists can summon a small army of them imbued with Hellfire to do their bidding which is really cool you just get this little army of Quasimoto who are just burning everything down for you and I just I love them so much slightly above imps we have the realm of succubus Incubus and other lesser entities which follow the lore laid out in the real life book demonology by King James which warns of the summoning of demons and has its own classification system different to the one we're using here minor demons include anything that can be easily tamed or controlled by means of magic or training they are often low in intellect and possess similar power to or just above an imp which itself is about as strong and smart as a learning impaired deformed human if not empowered by a talented demonologist or greater demon controlling them which is really cool I think just briefly the notes on the complexity of imps and how you could use them for whatever you want they remind me a lot of nurglings from Warhammer 40K in the sense that a nurgling could be imbued with like a specific disease and people really underutilize that imps could be imbued by a specific demigod and I love the idea of like a little imp version of a Herald of zle running around or a little imp uh if you wanted to get super creative with it and kind of rule Bend an imp vampire running around under VAR that'd be very very cool uh they are also defined by their seemingly accidental animal p pattern of behavior which causes them to find themselves on Earth more frequently than their smarter stronger cousins so a great example of that would be bat demons who come to us from nural uh bat demons frequently do end up migrating just instinctively towards the uh towards the various caves and land of Earth and what will happen often is that they will either show up in a spectral form in which case they did not migrate correctly or they migrated differently than those that show up in physical form but if they show up in a spectral form you'll often find that they are scared Away by anyone of any kind of Faith so I suppose that is a weaker bat demon who will go back into the hell realm very quickly and then they will come out as a full-fledged bat demon which would be of course A minor demon Beast uh so bat demons Incubus Rock noses which you will often see in Conan Exiles and of course sand beasts which you often saw again in Conan Exiles on the far side of minor demons I would put the king of them as the infamous thog from the Conan story of which shall be born this tentacled monster while venerated by its local humans clearly had an animal intellect which caused it to seek out victims even after it had been supposedly appeased through sacrifice which is something a smarter demon wouldn't do if they were trying to maintain followers in a cult in addition going back to the video games and our own video on dragons and Conan almost all of them except for the pure dinosaurs would qualify on the higher end of this category so if you don't know in that video I had five types of dragons one of which was a pure demon and how it mated and most people theorize in the Conan community and the fan community that it made it with a Stegosaurus to create the various types of dragons as they would evolve and how their lineages would develop uh while strong and very dangerous they do not possess the power to be a truly civilization ending threat that is to say that while a large enough version might uh qualify as a kaiju for instance there is the black dragon enemy that comes to us from Age Of Conan in the 2008 game but while it might be a Kaiju level threat it might be this large Godzilla like creature attacking your city it is still a wild beast that can be taken down broken down beaten down and destroyed it is not not capable of it's not a sorcerer King from Dark Sun it's not going to go rule over your city and Empower people with magic in exchange for services towards it and continuing its rulership greater demons reside in their respective hell Realms most dominantly and it usually takes very special rituals to summon them forth being even harder to control them being just as if not more intelligent than a human these creatures will often seek out a more powerful member of Their Own Kind or higher entity to serve in return for power in the form of strength in numbers usually also some form of imbuement and you can look at that uh look at that as kind of a chart of higher or greater demons empowering minor demons like imps which of course we have no reason to assume that greater demons would not also be talented demonologists in many cases along with say higher tier Devils uh great examples of these would include blood defilers who can be found in service to the blood moon beast in the aisle of syta and the shape-shifting hyena men who are the pure blood form of we hyenas as well as the direct Children of the demon god of fear Jam Manaka of course another great example of this would be depending on how you view set the serpent men of earth at least at least the serpent men of earth uh who would be the children of slth uh and slth himself would be a higher demon the pure blood serpent men would definitely fall within that General classification of higher demons I just didn't want to use them as an example because I'm I want to do a serpent man video and revisit the serpent man because my basic 12-minute video I don't feel does them justice so serpent men and set Revisited is still big on the list they can be enlisted by Master demonologists who are experts in their craft as well as those willing to make deals with them in exchange for something they consider valuable for the hyena men of jamonica this is most often Secrets or sexual acts but for most it will usually be a blood sacrifice or other things which furthers the goal of their respective demon god or higher entity Master this usually involves some form of anti-human act due to most demon Gods having their own diverse ways of seeking Humanity's Destruction for taking their rightful place on Earth and of course a great example would be duro's view of and this is an easy way again like I I spoke before of the Marvel what Marvel added in terms of the demon Gods being at war with uh the Divine gods and humanity and them hating Humanity because they view their homes as being taken by them which actually fits really well with the cycle of civilization and history that we often find as well as the cycle of civilization we see from the flying Apen and queen of the black Coast I feel like that works out quite well with the downfall of hanaman equaling also the slow downfall of eight men into being Savage creatures or more Savage creatures I actually really enjoyed that concept the rightful place upon the Earth so a great example would be duretto viewing the way this occurred the trauma of being banished from Earth as well the problem was nobody was connected to each other and what we really need to do is get rid of all this Division and how does duretto do this well duretto is going to make a world where necromancy is common so no one ever really dies in her view and then in addition to that everyone's too busy having an orgy to go to war with each other so it's a never- ending Undead necrophilic orgy I I hate duretto so much but I can understand her and that's why I hate her more that's what makes her a good God and a good character if you'd like to have your own necrophilic orgy you'll probably need today's sponsor Ronan craft Ronan craft is an independent 3D printing service that will get you Miniatures which are amazing for sci-fi fantasy or weird fiction the owner of the service recently got into contact with me about bringing my custom Space Marines to life the celestial Eagles I really enjoy that concept with Ronin craft you'll get quality that surpasses any Master Devils can be thought of as half biome half demon and many can be traced back to the demon god Jebel sag Jebel sag is known as the father of werewolves teacher of the Primal language and by siring many demon god children he is also technically the grandfather of we hyenas harpies yetis and minur the calling card of Jebel s is the teach ing of the Primal language with some of his half-human children possessing no demonic power other than the simple ability to communicate with all animal life the goal of the Primal language is to unite all living beings in the same animal kingdom of savagery theoretically being his way of liberating all beings from the terrible reign of mankind in this case a swamp devil in the Conan story Beyond the Black River openly names the demon god as his father while many take the form of a giant humanoid to better wreak unsuspecting havoc on mankind as they are depicted in most Conan media in the Darkhorse comics and funcom games we were gifted with a very unique design that really brings home the raw Savage side of these creatures displaying them as giant demonic beasts made out of their respective biome regardless of interpretation whether more human or more monstrous gigantism does seem to be a shared trait I repeat that they are half biome as they seem to be literally born from Jebel sag cross mating with the Earth itself examples include swamp Devils mentioned previously Forest Devils as mentioned in the Conan story The Black Colossus and the devolved creature known as rot Branch found in the exiled lands the rotted Hulk also seems to be a good indication of what occurs when a devil's biome dies as I would posit that due to its Savage Behavior Rott Branch was once a forest devil now occupying an animal graveyard of dead trees which is reflected in its current appearance de Vil are often conjured forth by demonologists as a conditional Ally that is often easier to make deals with as they are more interested in knowledge of sorcery preserving their habitat and a general desire to kill humans which is what they are usually enlisted for anyway making excellent biom specific assassins Heralds are those creatures which can be classified as half human half demon this can be by birth ritual or curse a birth example comes to us in the form of a demigod werewolf woman that Conan meets in the deserts of Tran one of her parents made a deal with jabel sag and in return she was born a werewolf every night she would transform without warning eventually causing the man who raised her to have to put her down a ritual example comes to us in the infamous of course fire breathing cultists known as the Heralds of zley my personal favorite subsect of demonologists zle is a demon god of Destruction and his followers undergo a special ritual in which half their soul is replaced with his power this turns them into a half demon and allows them to transform into a jade skinned tentacle faced demon humanoid with the ability to breathe fire this makes sense as zle takes the form of a brimstone fire squid and is known as the demon God of destruction finally an example of a curse that would do this is the usual way one becomes a werewolf which is through a bite causing full moon uncontrollable transformations to occur for the purpose of spreading jabel sg's Primal language by spreading that same curse most fiends in Conan are best thought of as anti-ms they are usually greater or minor demons that have spent so long on Earth they have begun developing normal evolutionary adaptations that we would see in animals or insects in the case of their relation to already beastial minor demons they can be seen as outlier leaders of their pack this is true for the fiend of Jill which is a more birdlike Harpy than its sister species and a beacon of the Revolutionary future should they stay on Earth in the case of the Guardian fiends which are very closely related to fire demons they have developed six spider-like eyes as well as bone growths for Extra Protection around vital areas bioluminescence has also been evolved to deal with the dark environment they currently reside in making it easier to see our last example comes to us from the unique biome of the aisle of sypa where we can see Hercules beetle likee horns and an exoskeleton being adapted to help fight the area's many Predators this Evolution happened very quickly due to the isle's Deep connection to the reality warping Place known as the dreamlands through its weather system the time it should take for a demon to become a fiend if we use the fall of acaron 3,000 years before the birth of Conan as an example as with Guardian fiends seems to be anywhere between 1 to 3,000 years this is also the same time it took for some atlanteans to devolve into the unique three-eyed Apen known as the great cataclysm most demon Gods come from the time of Elder Knight and seemingly have their power and Status within the hell Realms of the outer dark due to their presence on Earth before the rise of man while some of these entities have heavy overlap with Mythos deities even those deities in this context are being talked about as beings who existed on Earth before man and were if only temporarily in some cases banish to a hell of some sort during their reign on Earth many already presided over an entire race race of their offspring who changed along with them during their fall evidence found in the winged apan of the black Coast found in Queen of the black Coast would heavily suggest that the children of hanaman were once Angelic ape and Yeti folk before descending to Earth where their intellect also devolved into a state of pure savagery also relative to living beings this happened likely I want to say within the 1 to 3,000 year time frame but we can never really be sure this is because the winged ape folk clearly have a slow evolutionary change that occurred Something In The Water literally changed after the time of Elder Knight and that lines up suspiciously well with the idea of when demon gods were banished to Hell Realms that seems very very likely we can think of the Devolution of men into Apen as a curse from this demon god likewise set was said to hold the most direct hatred for Mankind through his creation of various races of demonic entities as well as later the serpent men who would be featured very heavily across both Cole and Conan stories over the years due to cultural imprinting from ancient demonic Empires like acaron or the Tulu tribes demon Gods like Ajo who is thought to be the creator of the black ones as well as the previously mentioned set have found their way into human cultures of course these entities are very ancient and wise being able to contact Sorcerers practicing the dark arts to infiltrate a culture regardless this occurred in Stiga causing the Revival of set as the once healer of Ibis th the on increasingly studied methods to gain power leading to the worship of set upon taking power as the high priest of Stiga he would replace the Divine God ibis with set this combination of worshiping a giant snake while also being the religious authority of his homeland earned him the nickname snake Pope on this channel finally we have those people who will very likely become Demons of some kind before or after their death which are demonologists who are so close to the various hell Realm that the first thing they learn is how to command Hellfire after this many command minor demons such as a single imp or more commonly a succubus or Incubus which is actually the same sex changing demon both in King James's demonology from our real world and Conan lore to gain more power a demonologist May seek out heraldry of some kind as becoming a Herald of a demon god performing a personal Dark Ritual to become a psychic vampire known as a dark Templar or even seeking out necromantic companion ship in those True Blood suckers of the night weaker demonologists are likely to become imps upon death and heraldic ones would likely reincarnate as greater demons after death forever bound to serve their respective dark God if neither of these things occurs the demonologist will very likely simply burn in the fires of hell for all eternity or you know whatever passes for hell in the outer dark which I'm sure is worse in summary here is a chart I created to further Define my theory for your use and enjoyment it's important to end this on a disclaimer really the same disclaimer they should have started with if I haven't said it already I can't State enough that this is a theory there is no true classification of conand demons other than what we can tell from the over 100 Years of publication which I've expressed here another amazing look into Humanity's Collective psyche comes to us from the race first mentioned in Howard's God in the bowl published 1952 throughout our species 2.5 million years on this rock one of the key myths we like to tell is of a perfect or giant ancestor who taught man all that he knows today about technology and agriculture in modern times this comes from myths of Ancient Aliens as you may have seen on the History Channel but in Conan it comes to us in the form of the race only known as the giant Kings from their surviving members throughout the exiled lands various ancient tombs as well as the fact that they were eventually hunted to near extinction by the ancestors of the stigan known as the Kari remnants as well as the specific ancestral line of the lorans that would later form tyranian culture we can theorize that the giant king civilization was present in the pre- cataclysmic age across Stiga tyan and Eastern hyperboria ruins have also been noted of the giant king civilization in namidia the protog German culture of the Hib borian age they may have had other territories but nothing is confirmed at this time while they themselves are in no way ancestors of man they fulfill the role of the myth I'm mentioning by their interactions with the human race known as The lorans Who in correlation with Howard's timeline would be present or at least they would come about and be present even before the now extinct atlanteans and this is because the sort of theory of the hiori age that is very popular and very present that Howard studied very closely was the lorans came then the atlanteans then man as he is today it seems that even before the exiled lands present in Conan Exiles were used as a place to dump unwanted prisoners they were still a land for refugees which is exactly how the giant Kings initially saw the lorans as in Gross contrast to the serpent men the initial relations between this race and humans was to see a friend in need as a friend indeed response to this Aid much of the already worn down and weary humans would begin to worship the giant Kings as Gods which more dastardly elements of their culture were quick to take advantage of this relationship would result in many of them learning Magics advanced farming techniques and other cultural exchanges but as one would imagine with Humanity's fate it came with a high price in these Savage times no matter how good the deal looks to put yourself in a position of dependency as the lorans did is to invite your own gradual enslavement even in slavery or as conditions worsened for the lorans more still came to the giant Kings who gave them food and clothes for their humiliation like with many abusive relationships it was not the abuse itself that ended it but feelings of rejection or neglect when too many humans came in need of resources the giant Kings no longer possessed conflict soon broke out the gods of the lorans had abandoned them and the humans were parasitic to the giant king people so to war they went this is all to say nothing of the role that serpent men would play in the conflict who themselves had only been given Refuge to build their last City by the grace of the giant Kings our last video covered their serpent Man City if you're interested but they could never walk away from the ancient enemy they will always see in man long before the enslavement of man the magic of the serpent men was used to summon forth a demon possessing it inside a staff which was given to the giant Kings as a gift in true serpent man fashion this was a deception and when the lorans sought out the destruction of their enemies the demon in the staff drove the ruling body of the giant Kings known as the triumphant mad it should be mentioned at this time that this may have heavily backfired on them as evidenced by many of the undead serpent men guard in the accursed city it is very possible that the serpent men in some cases were also taken as slaves to fight the war with the lorans along with many lorans one of the members of the triumverate known as the arabist would be responsible for the magic wall that now surrounds the exiled lands ENT trapping the humans Forever This symbolizes the beginning of cruel lorian slavery at the hands of the giant Kings in addition to the already present weak position of man soon through overpopulation thus Superior numbers the lorans would Slaughter the grand majority of the giant Kings the only known half-human half giant king was tyros the deathbringer which much like human slaves was forced from an early age into a gladiatorial Arena and gives us insight into how this civilization treated those of mixed blood if one is not a pure giant king they are not worthy of personhood given certain larger than average Undead Warriors in the our csed city there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that tyros was not the only one of his kind which if true would imply further genetic compatibility between humans and giant Kings this would also support the idea of a partial human origin and a truly alien ancestor in an as of yet unknown race that resembled their four armed Gods as they simply looked like giant Kings devoid of human elements this would also be in line with what we see from the initial origins of slg's serpent men and dagon's deep ones that is to say that slth clearly had to breed with humans to create the first generation of serpent men before they started laying eggs and the Deep ones are very well known for interbreeding with humans the reason I say tyros is still the only hybrid is that while very likely none of this is confirmed and an alternate theory is that magic was used for the creation of him instead of a conventional birth while seemingly fully extinct as a culture in the Hib borian age we can make out the cultures inner workings to some degree since this race is famous for outliving Humanity while also reproducing very little one can assume that more so than humans their rituals and sacrifices to their gods revolved around fertility or the blessings of having many offspring given that humans were sacrificed on these altars and slaves were very valuable we can assume much like old human Gods the gods of the giant kings were given sacrifices of high value livestock or chatt these gods are seemingly forearmed figures that may or may not have been indicative of a parent race or their possibly partial human Origins the fashion of these figures can be described as Proto stigan marked by specifically in their Statues by the tall ornamented hats that would later be inherited by the people in question in the form of Royal Garb due to the high level of magic and Technology the giant Kings possessed it can be easy to get the wrong idea that they were a secular Advanced Society but this reveals their more superstitious nature regardless of their Origins the these beings are quite human in mentality their ruling body the triumphant was divided into three positions given the size of the initial giant King City present in Conan Exiles we can assume equal roles across the ruins present in Western ndia Southern Tran and stia the first is the archist whose job is primarily concerned with the accumulation of knowledge both historical and magical the second is the priest king who acts as a high priest or pope of honoring their ancestors Souls and rituals dedicated to their gods lastly is the conditional position of War Maker only being used when in times of War as the name would suggest clail was called the warmaker by his people for it was his duty to keep them safe under this triumphant were most likely religious figures Mages and warriors in equal social standing given their equal oligarchy rulers under them would be various casts of slaves first being half breeds then being non- Giants Kings however it should be mentioned that giant king civilization does not seem to be prone to slavery normally and the lorian situation had very special circumstances attached to it this can be found as evidenced through banter and conversation you can see in the exiled lands when asking one of the giant Kings you can talk to in that world about the nature of what happened back then he sounds so distraught and overwhelmingly depressed over the whole situation as though the situation with lorian slaves did come out of nowhere to them it indicates that the entire culture was set to be very I would not say nomadic obviously they built cities but somewhat very isolated very much like a Tibetan monk in a way and dealing with actual interracial relations in any way whether with a less civilized or more civilized people was just something the giant Kings had very little understanding of so having both the serpent men and humans around that's just asking for for trouble your people came to us as Exiles weary and harried when we revealed ourselves your people fell to their knees and worshiped Us in return we fed and clothed you but you came in Untold numbers we could not clothe you all nor would we offer you of our water or our land in time this led to conflict eventually they to war now it caused us grief we were forced to dominate you barring demonic manipulation and weird codependent interspecies relations slavery does not appear to be part of giant king culture the name clail is one of the only true names we get for the giant Kings and using it as a template we can assume the following about giant king naming conventions now keep in mind because of the incredibly small sample size of names this is obviously Theory crafting the first first is that their role or job has no effect on the name with it being one note and separate much like the serpent men family names or surnames are not used the AE along with the kll shows us phonetic Clues to prootic and Proto Indian cultures given that their main ruins are found across the Middle East and West we can lean more towards the setic side for vowels with an Indian use of consonants the name Cel spelled k a l l as opposed to the giant king name clail spelled k l a l is a normal modern Indian last name but altering the spelling to seem more Angelic or an Nokian with the addition of the AE also used in some Proto English as well as Latin languages we get clil applying this process multiple times we can create the following possible giant Kings names from different Indian common last names so I took a lot of Indian common last names from Google I applied this general formula to it and you look at a picture of a giant king as I'm saying this you tell me if this fits Dei from Dei kumay from Kumar and dis from Das keep in mind that this is only an extrapolated Theory but it seems to heavily hold up alternatively I would argue that some straightforward Angelic names make a lot of sense for the race Raphael and Uriel uh make sense to me but it's all about what would you think would best fit the giant king in question uh one of the greatest things about the nonhuman races of Coan is that we will always be like amateur archaeologists looking at a newly discovered civilization for the first time we ended our last video speaking of serpent men and that's a good place to start the serpent men were both the grandchildren of and the original worshippers of the serpent God set slth the father of the serpent men was a powerful demon born from the first murder which may have included forced intercourse between set and an unnamed elder god born over 1 million years ago in the pre- cataclysmic age human Mages and warriors did battle with these creatures seemingly endlessly first the serpent men would win and enslave Humanity in an age of constant humiliation for man however eventually the death of the grand majority of serpent men came in an event which some theorize to be a war and others is theorized to be a great magic spell regardless this spell or possibly War would be uncovered by a picked Shaman which reads Kama Kiama today in the hiori age the remaining serpent men are more or less Splinter Cell groups who are very open enemies to humanity in vast majority while they often disguise themselves as humans if a person knows the mesmerist spell kaak Kiama the human Caster will be able to force them to reveal their true form in ancient times this spell would also also weaken them which is why the slaves of serpent men were forbidden from saying it serpent men tend to live in anywhere from volcanic to Subterranean environments serpent man culture is defined by a worship of the slaughter of humans and the downfall of Mitra the most well-known human God of law as this is the core enemy of their ancestor God set as evidenced by the outlawing of Ibis mitrus digian form when set worship became the primary religion of said country under high priest th Amon serpent men seemingly came into being around the same time the first human tribes were coming into their own in terms of smaller civilizations as well and they have been gridlocked in a race war forever defining much of each other's cultures whereas we view the serpent men as chaotic deceivers serial killers and predators of humans they view man as oppressive sadistic kill crazy imperialists while serpent man culture has been heavily diluted over the centuries every serpent man is taught upon birth that Humanity's continued existence means the slavery and genocide of their race other than smaller serpent man Cults which can be found all over the Hib borian age map there are two known places of high serpent man culture the first are the nagas which is not their true name in fact they may not even exist anymore they are just related to the nagas of myth so that's what we're calling them but this was a peaceful isolationist serpent man cult encountered by Cole of Atlantis during the pre- cataclysmic age this is where we get an idea of serpent men's social view toward towards Humanity as I explained earlier obviously the only reason this group is peaceful is that they purposely stay away from Humanity this peace time has made their culture highly introspective and philosophical provided the extreme Rarity of encountering them they would be more likely to treat you as an Untouchable freak in their underground civilization instead of killing you outright so again because this was underground right now the sinking of Atlantis has occurred in the Hib borian age we know that that's gone however on the rare chance in the very odd weird interdimensional chance you do encounter the civilization or the civilization found a way to survive similar to a specific volusian cultured deep one civilization that we will get into when we get into our deep ones video then it is possible for you to encounter them and it would be possible for you to have say in a role-play sense An Origin story for a character that studied like a little bit of serpent man culture or maybe was a slave in this area and saw the Horrors of serpent man whatever it was it would just be fun to include the last place is very important as it highlights both the physiological advantages of the serpent men and is an example of their High culture that can be more than explored in Conan Exiles located inside of a volcano and only accessible through passing through a dungeon known as The Well of skelos there is no way a human could have crafted this city made primarily of obsidian with bioluminescent Mystic highlights that may be a mixture of Jade in having a combination of Indian Arabian and Egyptian Aesthetics we see an architectural style only truly appreciated when one understands the coldblooded nature of this species one can find lava pits without any signs of remains like bonfires throughout the city showing us that this extra heat provides a positive feeling of comfort Even In the Heat of a volcano for the half demon species in addition to this unique to the architecture of the serpent men are accents and a slythering tail formation jutting out from their structures many of which are of course in veneration to either their own ancest or set when one looks at the number of statues to one's ancestors found in the serpent Man City in that volcano we see that a kind of religious structure can be derived where most likely the second most holy figure would be their father slth under him would be the various serpent man ancestors who honored their people and fought for their people's Supremacy and well-being and then above slth would be set himself the grandfather originator of the serpent man in line with the religious parts of their culture that would later be hammy down to the cians their rulers are most commonly tempests of set while Northern Tran meets Eastern hyperboria in the exiled lands we find this volcanic city of the serpent men to be most likely divided into the following casts tempests on top as high priest is more a stigan term that actually applied to the worship of Ibis until th amon's takeover but Tempest seems to specifically apply to set worship as well as imbuing the Tempest with set specific abilities including the very specific shape shifting into a giant snake under these people you would have powerful Mages who are not tempests for whatever reason like the guardian of the city skelos the degenerate under them would be the warrior class who would of course be valued for their efforts in the Everlong war with the imperialist human devils and under them would be a servant or surf class who are not seemingly poorly treated but clearly act in a servile way not having any power whatsoever while it's not clear whether this is willful devotion or Genuine slavery one can observe a correlation with physiology the colors of serpent men you find in Conan Exiles are usually green brown or white the albino white serpent men are usually unnaturally taller and almost always are depicted in leadership positions of some kind denoting most likely a noble Heritage inherent to the physical trait despite subrai or Blood cast differences that may have existed otherwise the endangered nature fused with the supremacist Outlook of the race most likely influences their treatment of slaves to be more Humane if they truly wish to outfight their oldest enemies known as man then they are going to need all the numbers they can get one of the reasons I couldn't do this video as a narrative in character performance is that sometimes when it comes to Roberty Howard's writing you really do have to take a step back and respect his understanding of The Human Condition serpent men were his famously favorite non-human enemies to use and the part of our evolutionary history is a a species being played on here is quite obvious these are serpent men not lizard men the reason for that is that snakes are one of our oldest evolutionary Predators Waring with us in the trees for living space during our chimpanzee phase and are most likely the reason we developed sharp eyesight to survive encounters with these creatures through tool manipulation and taking away its greatest strength camouflage from the beginning of the ethos of the serpent men was always going to be something in rivalry and antagonism to man that would use trickery or deception as its first line of defense that's the camouflage it's this kind of respect for The Human Condition that will always make Howard's literature refreshing in an American landscape filled increasingly since his death with nothing but often baseless Nuance or form over function storytelling the other reason I mentioned the literary inspiration of the serpent men is that naming conventions for them can be considered the other half of what good names for human characters would be in this universe just as the names of Great Men would one day be fused into the worship of gods creating skyfa archetype figures such as Zeus raw and Odin there is literally a serpent man mini boss named apep the chaos forged literally the name of the chaos serpent that does battle with raw in Egyptian mythology meaning that as long as it's a chaos serpent you know you can actually not go wrong with that name yand is an example we'll use later in the video this naming convention along with skelos the degenerate can show us that the naming conventions appropriate for serpent man would be those relating to lesser or greater Dragon to serpent figures and methology followed by a title earned in reference to their reputation a young serpent man may be hatched from an egg into the world only to be named yander then later to gain the name yander the seller because he is a great Merchant or Haggler among his people as a final note though we've already touched on it let's dive just a little bit deeper into serpent man physiology while not truly cold blooded their partial demonic Heritage enables them to not just withstand extreme heat but also gain comfort from it as mentioned earlier judging from the size differences in individual serpent men in the exiled lands correlated with the nest of serpent men eggs of different sizes which can be observed in Isle of syta we can assume that there are three different breeds of serpent men in addition to skin color differences though skin color more specifically albinism seems to play a larger role in social standing the first breed is is what could be called man-sized being anywhere between 5 ft to 6 ft tall the next are a bit more muscular and fairly taller they also seem to have reduced intelligence due to the lack of clothes worn which will be our signifier for that standing at about 7 to 8 ft tall we'll call these Neanderthal sized any larger and we'll call them giant sized one night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother Under the Sea she lived in a phosphorescent Palace of many Terraces with Gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brochier Essences she welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic she had changed as those who take to the water change and told me she had never died but instead she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about and had leaped to a realm whose wonders destined for him as well he had spurned through the taking of his own life this was to be my realm too I could not Escape it I would never die but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the Earth before man was young and beyond the stars a great Civil War was fought by beings incomprehensible those who lost this war were referred to as great old ones the most famous of the starspawn subrace of great old ones being high priest cthulu who came like a comet and shot down beneath the waves from here he established a connection to Powers beyond space existing ing both at the far bottom of the western sea and in the sunken city of Riya beneath the stars to slowly recover his power seeing humans as unfit for service under him he took material from fish amphibians and shago to form the first of his greater servants later known as Lord deeon to his worshippers and father of the deep ones this title was literal as deep ones were created for the full conversion of the human race by a freshly beaten cthulu this also Al explains the inclusion of shago tissue in the creation of deeon shaggoth are beings which possess no true form being genetically engineered by beings who made up the winners of the Civil War they were originally created as the perfect slaves which explains their use here in trying to improve what the great old one in question likely viewed as the human formula deep ones including deeon being a truly hybrid race are unable to produce Offspring with each other which is shown by the creation of mother Hydra deon's daughter and concubine she would be the second ever deep one in existence and due to stories we have seen of deep one Sorcerers like in the fisherman at Falcon point being more female than male we can assume she would grow very talented in the ways of Elder magic this is the foundation of what would become the various Cults and Orders of deeon which will be covered in this video cthulu as the Creator deity giving them purpose deeon as the father giving them power and Hydra as the mother giving them hidden knowledge while these are the core three gods of the deep ones throughout their history they have had a myriad of minor gods and their localized undersea pantheons these beings can be thought of as different interpretations of the core three gods or their own depending on the ideas in any particular deep one city ulath ulath in most cases is clearly a more squid-like lesser child of cthulu referred to as an under God or Star spawn which can be summoned through the uttering of specific ultrasonic frequencies causing him to rise to the surface and wreak havoc before being destroyed through traditional means only to recover for when the Deep ones of his specific worshiping cult need him later as star spawns can be thought of as the little brothers and sisters of cthulu this would make ulath a kind of lesser Olympian figure relative to deep one Society murgor is a demon god known to make frequent deals with the Deep ones for power in exchange for The Souls of humans which he requires to survive he appears as a great dark humanoid giant with red bug-like eyes capable of emitting rays of Light which consume Souls since deep ones are inherently designed to lower the human population by conversion it isn't hard for them to adopt this dark God he is most famous for launching an assault on the capital of aquilonia old tarantia only being stopped by Prince KH whose father King Conan soon ordered the destruction ction of catacombs being used as his conduit to this plane last of the directly mentioned lesser Gods is tangua who is yet another great old one when one understands that this God's Chief quality is laziness and that deep ones are ageless beings it would be easy to see them adopting him as something of a god of patience however he is mentioned the least when minor gods are brought up in relation to the fishmen the only thing that can be said for certain is that due to his relation to the area that would one day become the country of hyperboria 2 million years before the age of Conan it is likely that any Undersea City that venerates him would be off of the northern coast of vanaheim as it is the closest area of truly open water or under the oceans of the Northern vilet sea now let's move on to deep ones themselves a fully developed deep one hybrid freshly sheds the last of their human features as they awaken around their late 20s into their early 30s which is the age range we can confirm Olstead to be during the shadow of insouth since deep one Bloodlines are all over the world the height of the deep one depends on both their age and previous human size it should be mentioned that in the Hib borian age brutish men or genetically normal Men twice the size of normal humans are born this is a healthier form of natural gigantism that would leave Humanity at some point during ancient times after the Hib borian age while later artists depictions have altered deep one aging to make them look more mylike as they age nothing in the War seems to support this thus we can assume that dwellers in the Deep remain in their half human half frog-like shape with extended hopping motions on land due to elongated lower legs despite being heavily altered by their dormant genes coming to the surface while increasing in size as they eat deep ones have been known to shrink to conserve energy during starvation and overeating or Gorge feeding tends to accelerate growth rather than add fat this means that likely due to the inclusion of shaggoth tissue in his creation even father deeon will not stop growing until the end of the universe a deep one could also tactically shrink themselves down to the size of a goldfish to infiltrate a human area only to feed off of different Vermin in a Seaside Castle to regain their larger size over the course of a year and become a threat deon's blood is strong and thus the fish-like features become more pronounced as the Deep one ages this is likely why many artists have altered the depiction of older deep ones to have a fish-like lower body well not canon it is a very fair interpretation when one wants to represent the age of one of these beings especially when you consider that size alteration can simply occur through starvation and malnutrition so it's not really a sign of Aging so just as a narrative tool it might be useful in your campaign the most common deep one skin colors when it comes to the common phenotypes at least range from blue green and gray the skin is sometimes scaled and other times smooth but always slime covered this slime very likely comes from their amphibian lineage similar to the Slime secreted by giant screaming frogs which can be useful for getting away from the clutches of an enemy they have full fish-like heads with amphibian croaking mixed with their already existing human vocal cords to produce a distinct froggish accent which creates a disgust reaction in even unawakened hybrids of their own bloodline their hands and feet are webbed and both due to their natural natural athleticism that comes from swimming as their primary mode of travel mixed with being capable of enduring extreme ocean pressure which could crush even the strongest of men they possess immense strength and stamina while preferring not to come onto land deep ones continue to possess lungs even as their gills manifest when one considers their hyper adaptive lineage and dramatic diversity of habitats this means they can breathe air fresh water salt water as well as types of air that may kill normal humans deep ones primarily are made to be compatible with human breeding but also possess the ability to interbreed with fish octopi and amphibians this is another large contributing factor to their various appearances obviously these deep ones would not have a humanoid body shape in their first phase of life however since these creatures get their form from deeon and not from their fish parent we can assume a minimum of Limbs resembling the structure of a frog's morphology similar to human hybrids when reaching full maturity all deep ones possess bulging lidless eyes out of proportion with the rest of their face and their thin lips barely hide shark-like serrated teeth deep ones have shown several times to be able to use Elder magic given their partially human Heritage in anthropology of shogo taming this would very likely include an ability to use the Elder Sign to weaken or ward off outside threats despite their toughness deep ones can still be killed by physical damage including fire fire steel and normal methods of execution due to factors you'll see demonstrated later in this video the children of mother Hydra are also very susceptible to mental illness if you'd like to keep yourself inoculated to mental health issues a great way is to have a hobby which is what tabl toop gaming is for many of the people watching this video you can stay sane in this crazy fish frog World by going to Ronin Craft on Etsy Ron and craft is an independent 3D printing business known for its excellent customer service staying in touch with you while you place your order whether your interests are in sci-fi or fantasy you'll find quality that surpasses any Master the primary way established undersea societies interact with humans to continue their lineage is through deals which result in the founding of Deon Cults in exchange for betraying their race the humans in question receive plentiful food and riches from the ocean floor which the Deep ones can afford to part with as they have no concept of property among themselves outside referring to things as belonging to the people of the sea in quotes the result is a dramatic net gain for the fish man party with immediate short-term gain for the human party over time the human group effectively becomes a nesting ground gene pool for the creation of future fishermen you can contextualize a deep one hybrid that looks fully human as the tadpole form of that race and of course the Beast variants a squid a fish a frog same thing they haven't achieved a deep one form yet but of course staying genetically similar is less relevant at that stage despite their eventual metamorphosis and common struggles of living maintaining their cover often requires their members to take on the required Civic duties of their host nation which can include going to war there have been many cases of deep ones seeking to escape reject or simply delay embracing their Heritage by using this as a cover to leave behind their past deep one hybrids have also been known to reproduce before fully transforming accidentally creating offshoots of one Bloodlines not connected to the original cult Community this mixing with different human and animal blood lines plus the rate of mutation common for their race can be thought of as being responsible in part for the various deep one phenotypes we will be going over later in the video regardless of their choices the Visions which accompanied by extreme trauma make them susceptible to mental illness begin flooding them with the ancestral psychic memories of their specific bloodline and a primal urge to return to the ocean from once they came as their blood and their body begins to go through its second puberty these visions and compulsions start as vivid dreams becoming more intense over time as the body sheds its human form the development of gills likely coincides with the Call of the sea while this bodily change is different for every deep one in terms of its length and what generally transforms first we can break down the metamorphosis into four General stages in stage one between the ages of birth to human puberty the hybrid is fully human in appearance in stage two between the ages of human puberty to their late 20s they develop what can be called fish-like features in their teenage years likely having bulging eyes skin getting paler lips Getting Thinner and going bald very early in life in stage three between their late 20s to early 30s the full change takes place taking anywhere between a few weeks to a year for the body to fully resemble a mature deep one finally stage four from their 30s onward is about them developing more fish-like features until the only human thing left about them is the shape of their upper skeleton while the psychological changes have been resisted before in Conan lore the physical ones have not been even if the person in question remains consciously human in majority such cases are not likely for the average seadweller as having family the memories of one's ancestors and the only beings you can relate to with this point in your life beneath the waves is usually enough to convince any newly developed stage three or four hybrid however there are cases where unwilling people are turned into fishmen through sorcery this was the case in the fisherman at Falcon point where we see a man save the life of a female deep one only for her to thank him by using her immense knowledge of sorcery to turn him from a man into one of her kind this means that if you are desired Enough by them even being unrelated to them by Blood will not stop them from recruiting you to their side throughout their existence we have seen many different manifestations of the fish frog folk there are the catfish headed murgor related Cults of Southwestern hiboria which invaded aquilonia the traditional common ones found in the Northwest during the Hib borian age represented in most of lovecraft's tales Northern vilet sea anglerfish which can be found in the exiled lands of Conan Exiles colorful tropical phenotypes found among the drowned off the coast of Stiga in the aisle of syta and the mentally ill manfish living in the ruins of a sunken valuan city well usually I have something to say about these different subspecies in this case they really are just phenotypes the differences are cultural they more an expression of a gene rather than any heavy alteration to the gene itself that's what a phenotype is while one could argue the drowned have a unique history being involved in the nightmare Wars between the serpent men demons Denis of the dreamlands and themselves that's more the unique history of syta which deserves its own video the only real difference worth noting is that that the adaptation of the drown comes from being near the Maelstrom which is a weather system on the aisle of sypa connecting it as a physical portal to the dreamlands of Earth it's a testament to the strength of this race that the only thing which changed was physical appearance when the same reality warping ecosystem caused Devolution to occur in lycanthropes and even full demons manifested on the island the primary deep one body structure and intellect seems to come more from the Shaga goth and guided Evolution aspects of deeon thus deep beasts as we'll term them here will grow in intellect as they go through their own metamorphosis eventually resembling your OC deep1 enemies you made for a tabletop campaign or one of the many Regional phenotypes we've just mentioned so don't worry about oh well would they be more Savage if they were animalistically born they were you know oh but his f is your mother was a crab good sir how could you possibly have an intelligent cult well the int comes from Deon and Deon was able to make deals with people so there you go due to this we should always assume just like with eight men a near Limitless variation in appearance this is one of the reasons I consider the lower fish body interpretation of some older or ancient deep ones to be a valid one these deep ones due to their highly adaptive nature would also likely be able to grow lungs over time to adapt to the surface like they're half human siblings while they may look different the people of the sea all possess the same structure for interacting with humans which when it grows large enough becomes known as the esoteric order of Deon esoteric merely means secretive and order is simply a more structured cult while the version of this secret society that we see in the shadow over insouth wouldn't exist for over 10,000 years the Assumption can be made that a similar name would apply to all cults that develop a large enough hold over an already high population community the order functions as an evolutionary adaptation a as it is merely an Avenue for interacting with humans mating with them and creating ritual sites for either the raising of their gods or outposts to further their war against man after the initial taking of the three Oaths and adoption into the cult the Norms within merely exist to support Aqua Supremacy the internal hierarchy would likely resemble a loose collection of worshippers a priest skilled in the summoning of Deon and any deep one Sorcerers that may be present serving in an extra Priestly role as assistants once the deal has been struck with the fish father for the desired thing needed by the human or humans in question the first oath the human must take is the oath of secrecy this means they can tell no one outside of the cult or Community about their Affairs or rituals under penalty of death this is also why every instance of having deep one families and stories are secretive to a hostile degree with the human visitors for them keeping them from prying into their Affairs is literally a matter of life and death it's a declaration of War which they will react to accordingly in most cases second is the oath of assistance any non-hybrid meaning fully human member must always give Aid to deep ones this means giving them shelter food and anything they may need to further the Cults ends this oath also spe specifies a priority of deep ones as being Superior to humanity whose will is to be prioritized over any human or undeveloped hybrid member the final oath is that of reproduction to be in the cult you cannot continue your human bloodline as the entire purpose of deep ones is to convert humans both men and women of human lineage must have sexual intercourse with the fish folk to join the order is to not merely give up your Humanity but to declare war on Humanity With Every Act you engage in that absolutely includes sexual warfare that's why in the podcast I talked about father deeon and mother Hydra in I used the example of an extreme misanthrope seeking the Gods in question out of a genuine hatred for Humanity among other things this hierarchy does become literal when deep one hybrids are turned by the vampire sect known as Aquos which we went over in our vampire video we're not going over them here but they effectively function as a theological offshoot or Orthodox order of Deon a common prayer in the primary order reads in thy name let us behold the father from the depths of the waters I come and from the depths the Deep ones also have come Hail to the ancient dreams Hail to deeon the information we've gathered as to what Dagon undersea Society resembles comes to us from a wide variety of Conan and cthulu Mythos sources they usually appear as large Central Stone pillars or engraved obelisks used as places of worship in their Center these undersea civilizations have their various districts that themselves resemble more organized aquatic cave caves integrated into any ruins that may be nearby with the caves themselves being coated in a black substance very similar to the unknown material which follows most great old ones but an impure mixed version of it containing mud from the ocean floor this black substance as well as evidence from the story The Temple and the general nature of cthulu worship shows us that they possess portals to other dimensions or Realms in many cases usually at the very bottom of their City Center or possibly on the outskirts for future military application these may act as portals to other deep one cities more to Summit avatars of their gods their primary focus is on archaeology and underwater agriculture archaeology holds religious significance as due to unknown events older deep ones and their knowledge was lost only living on through fragments their descendants inherit during their transformation period the Rian language which the Deep ones speak also possess words for born of the father and born of the mother showing us that these inherited memories are bloodline specific rather than shared through the entire race usually going back to the grandparents or semi- immediate family of the individual as demonstrated in our opening quote this can also be seen as a way to connect further with deeon to hopefully learn to think like their lost ancestors thus him as well the communal sense of property makes sense when the simple question is asked what uses gold to ageless beings with a nearly unlimited food source who don't wear clothes they may have a communal weapon stockpile but this is the only use for the concept their biological drive necessitates this even holds true in a nameless undersea deep one society which we will call yah volucia as they tried to recreate or adopt extinct human valuan culture from the thean age as a coping mechanism for their trauma while peaceful King Conan would encounter their sunken city years after the invasion of the mergo worshippers on aquilonia in response to being hailed as a hero for bringing back an ancient culturally important Jewel referred to as belonging to the people of the sea Conan proceeded to take their King hostage steal the rest of their treasure and make it back to shore killing a giant squid along the way with a sword he picked up during his single-handed sacking of the Aquatic urbanites while not being able to reproduce or grow their numbers also being insane this was an example of a deep one civilization that was is no threat to humanity it's also very fitting for both the Conan universe and cthulu Mythos that psychosis or separation from reality was the only thing that was able to make a Fishman tribe friendly because these fishmen genuinely believed they were valuan it also offers a perfect test case to see how strong their genetic influenced behavior is nature versus nurture can be answered with this test case an interesting note here being that despite the king being referred to as such he held no real authority over the other members of his tribe and is more seen as an elder or older family member throughout his appearance this shows that even in cases of communal Insanity a deep one Society cannot fully Embrace human Traditions or hierarchy as after they change they become fundamentally different beings in terms of psychology with only a very extreme minority being able to resist their true calling if not through Insanity then through suicide a further note on property as you may have inferred from the story is that while most objects hold no value to them personally their jewelry which we will talk more about later does in the story The Temple we see a group of human soldiers be taken to the Bottom of the Sea solely to reclaim one piece of ivory jewelry taken from a deep one serving on the opposite side of a war lastly on religion in mainstream deep one Society while as we went over the view of gods can it can be assumed that once a hybrid is no longer human their religious worship goes from deeon being the primary entity to cthulu being their main god with Father Deon and mother Hydra being ancestor Gods relative to their worldview they now have a full Trinity instead of only one or two Gods depending on the specific Cult of Deon this would also show them being fully enlightened as to the mission they were created for to better serve cthulu the shago Tamer role also called shago toucha in the Deep tongue as a reality in mainstream undersea Society requires its own section of this video as it teaches us much about our amphibious antagonists chiefly through the use of Rian the language of the great old ones in the naming scheme of their cities and the obvious need of sorcery to tame such a creature that Elder magic is a very common part of their society it becomes even more common when one understands the communal nature of the race which also prizes knowledge over materialism we just went over when we understand that Elder magic tends to drive even the strongest of human Minds insane perhaps smaller offshoots such as the yav Val luans are part of a kind of cthulu selection a way of filtering out those unfit for the purpose they were made for well not in danger of dying of old age they are out of the way and could easily be taken out by larger schools of deep one Warriors while there are many great feats that deep ones have accomplished we have rarely ever seen them use magic outside of this school this of course makes sense as they are all the artificial grandchildren and Servants of cthulu the other reason for this is that when one considers that Elder magic is effectively learning a totally alien form of Science History and Mathematics we understand why there isn't much of an overlap with the more spiritual less scientific schools with that said limited use of what could be considered demonology through the worship of mergo mesmerism through illusionary manipulation or hypnotism and Shamanism through a connection to Sea beasts have been witnessed another way to describe Elder magic as used by the Deep ones would be biopunk technology mixed with guided psychic ability in the case of a shago toua to tame a shago they would have to make flesh and psychic alterations any kind of magical surgery first to attain a connection to it which last until one of them dies causing intense psychic trauma to the other a similar connection can be established by shago Tamers with other beasts with this technique fully formed deep ones may be able to turn giant squids or whales into Mass personal transport for an invasion of the surface should they so choose now that we've covered the cornerstones of deep1 society let's use what we know to construct models of what their undersea cities would be like on a day-to-day basis keep in mind that this is us assuming that this is a fully deep one crafted city rather than the sunken city present in Conan Exiles or yal Lucia which already contain pre sunken ruins there are many deep one cities mentioned usually starting with a yah which translates Loosely in relan to be I these can be yaham Loa or I am the wish of the father and later the currently far north Hib borian ice caps or they can be the city feature featured in The Shadow over insouth which at this point in history would be off the coast of the pictish Wilderness yah neeli which can be translated to I am the servant beside the cultural and religious Center would be a giant pillar located in the heart of the communal City around which would likely be sea caves and various protective structures which double as houses or places of residence they would be black brown and green in the primary coloration from the mix of black unknown substance mud and plants they would be crafted from common decoration would include brightly colored coral and glowing luminescent plants the chief goal of these houses would be utilitarian thus not belonging to any one Fishman serving as places to sleep as when awake most deep ones would engage in underwater agriculture which would be both one of the few jobs and most common job in any of their societies this includes farming undersea plants and likely hurting schools of fish for later consumption carved on the central pillar or Obelisk would be ancestral Tales of father deeon and mother Hydra with Idols to minor Gods specific to that City around it in addition to shaggoth aided Farmers one would also have Warriors or guards of the city provided the city is amphibious in construction meaning some areas being air pocketed caves and others being fully submerged bows would be possible similar to the sunken city in Conan Exiles but unlikely more common in use would be Spears daggers and as we've seen from the drowned on the aisle of syta fishing Trident however the sheer strength of a deep one living in such an area would be enough to stop most Intruders jewelry is very distinct having much access to precious metals like gold and silver but are also commonly made of ivory these are used for ceremonial purposes and worn as what is likely a marker of their job or responsibility the reason I say as a marker of their role in their society is that the utilitarianism would apply to Natural strengths or weaknesses of an individual member of the species so functions can be maintained this can also be used to reconfirm the religious motivation of the jewelry messenger would also be a necessary role to keep up communication between the Surface Deon cult or Nest from their perspective and their main city the chief Ventures or interests of most fully developed deep cities will be archaeology as mentioned previously so researchers as well as scavengers would make up a scientific cast of The Society finally you would have those deep ones who most use sorcery which would be the shago toua AIDS to the Deep one priests and Priests themselves while no real hierarchy exists outside of the esoteric order of deeon priests would be the deao leaders at least in terms of strategy and organization in terms of Crisis or religious ceremonies the time not spent in your assigned role in a deep one society would be spent in a trans like prayer or meditation to the Creator God cthulu or ancestor Gods to better gain Enlightenment or closeness to what the Deep ones would think of as Perfection or Divinity or serving their purpose this is where the aspect of deep ones and the great old ones being unknowable comes into play we don't really know what their higher concept of divinity is we can barely answer that for humans when it comes to our religious Instinct so there you go one pattern I find very interesting when studying the deep ones is that like every other civilization in the Hib borian age they are at their best and most prosperous when following their traditional culture whether in the example of the followers of murgor or the mentally ill Yuans we see a breakdown of their prosperity in the valuan case we see the halting of reproduction coming from an inability to continue with one's native culture and the heavy stunting of their survival instincts allowing them to be beaten by the first opposing Force that entered their domain in the case of the mergo followers we see the loss of the big three cthulu father deeon and mother Hydra as the center of their Pantheon likely out of promises of a faster victory over Humanity this loss of patience basically makes them enter a war they aren't prepared for and lose horribly all while this is happening mainstream deep one Society is going strong with a combination of ancestor worship seeking to be good servants of the Mad God and lucrative business deals with foolish Mortals keeping to the Trinity makes it so that at any time the true children of deeon could rise from the waves and fully overthrow Human Society it's like the old phrase if it isn't broke don't try to do Elder magic to alter its genetic structure no ye o Prince that in the centuries after the great cataclysm more than 5,000 years before the rise of the hibor age thrived a kingdom forged by sorcery and suckled on evil known as acaron for 25 centuries purple towered Python crowned city of the aaronian Empire held Court in a reign of terror 3,000 years after its fall the races of the hibor world would only dare to speak of ancient acaron in hush tones of whispered fear the legends of necromancy and legends of treasure long buried and all but forgotten but of all that were told none had the power to terrify and entice as that of the witch Queen of Aaron acaron will always be an ancient demonic Empire wrapped in mystery with unknowable origins in searching for this video you most likely did so in the hopes of finding a definitive answer to your questions about this Fallen civilization however all that can be offered to you from both the official material available and all of sources is a theorized account of the most evil empire to ever curse hiboria with its Wicked Deeds Earth has and will always be in the eyes of all the great races which sail through the Stars on missions of Conquest unknowable an insignificant Backwater Planet whether in the case of the survivalist yithian defeated old ones or Cosmic fugitives such as Yak kosha no Intergalactic peoples have come to Earth with inspirational stars in their eyes such was the case for what I believe to be the minor great race that we will refer to as the Elder ancestors who would crash on Earth during the time of Elder Knight depicted by their giant king child races forearmed beings with elongated skulls human hands and bulging bug-like eyes while the race was Advanced far beyond anything humans would accomplish in the Myriad millions of years to come they still had a long way to go before reaching the levels of yithian body swamping or on command warping of other races like cthulu could do to create entities like Dagon thus the Deep ones in this unreadable culture of which the only discernable quality that could be deduced was ancestor worship and who to the members of a return Voyage was not possible for unknown reasons they would soon begin to venerate and learn from the old ones as gods of knowledge following the example of the various half-human races engineered to further their will on Earth that many other beings had created the Elder ancestors soon gathered together the genetic material from both themselves and a small tribe of humans that would later form the muans and even later the Eastern nation of katai from here the first giant Kings would be born as more human or earth-friendly versions of What would have been the more vulnerable Elder ancestors though clearly knowledgeable of sorcery as one would have to be blind not to see it at the time these were purely beings of science whose technology handed down to them from their ancestors would seemingly be indistinguishable from Magic to the human mind science when Advanced enough is indistinguishable from Magic their mission as best as anyone could tell was to venerate their ancestors through worship and the gaining of knowledge which was also most likely the core of their culture before leaving the black void for Earth however this race still had many problems they were not naturally prone to War as much as would be needed to conquer other civilizations thus expand the domain of the alien race they reproduced incredibly slowly if at all and were far too empathetic while including them in the civilization to come as a ruling Elite due to the Elder ancestors being extremely family and bloodline obsessed in culture they would need to make a new one to serve them especially as the Elder Knight came to a close and many new avenues of power were opening up with the Exile of the demons and other Abominations to the outer dark came the rise of the Elder races consisting of a wide variety of beings belonging to their own long-lived kingdoms not all of these beings were related to each other the term Elder race could be used to describe anything from a pure-blooded serpent man to a particularly ageless house cat encountered by King C in the later thurian age millions of years later the term Elder race simply means any race of long long lived beings present before the thean age which was marked by the overthrowing of the serpent men and others who enslaved Humanity for countless Generations in this time after the Exile of the god set his children the serpent men would rise to power enslaving Humanity seeing the success of this half demon race it is best theorized that the Elder ancestors took the genetic material of the giant Kings and mixed it with that of the serpent men or many other demon race to better integrate their Sinister but successful qualities into their own desire for an Empire with the addition of demon blood no matter how it was gained the Elder men of acaron at this time only a very small Kingdom and what would later be Argos were born onto the Earth while retaining the culture of ancestor and old one worship of their parent race they would also develop a particular talent for dark sorcery with that dark sorcery mixed with giant king intellect and a human pension for Commerce would come the integration of demon Gods into their Pantheon along with friendly relations seen as beneficial to both populations born from those Gods such as set's serpent men and dagon's deep ones while this would be the beginning of something important for acaron history as the scientific morally gray desires of the Elder ancestors would become the morally pitch black desires of the aaronian the more Humane giant king population would still be the ruling Elites at this time it is likely that the growing degeneracy and Hedonism of the aaronian would cause some giant Kings to split off into more Humane separatist civilizations like those of the unnamed City and what would later be the exiled lands obviously not being part of the mainstream acaron civilization due to its placement outside of the Empire lack of strategic value and high vulnerability to sorcery if you would like to know more of their story please go see my giant Kings video linked below those degenerate giant kings that remained would be absorbed by marrying into the evil lonians the remaining giant Kings due to their slower reproduction rate and intermarrying becoming an elite super minority by the time of the thurian age even after the mass defeat of the serpent pen which christened the thurian age acaron would be unaffected and continue to grow developing culturally militarily and economically into an Empire while later sources mischaracterized the Empire as being smaller than it is often depicting it at the time of its great receding back to Argos during the time of its fall or decline in 13,000 BC before man rose up against them the Empire encompassed cities and Military outposts outside of it that stretched all across the middle east and west of hiboria this would start during the thurian age in 15,500 BC when acaron came into its own as a true Empire as a brief break here's a little project I've been working on for my own personal use this is my research of 15,500 BC hiboria as it existed during the time of King Cole whose whole Adventures take place on a separate continent that would later sink beneath the oceans called Atlantis and volucia so fundamentally while all that was happening here are the great uh tulku which would give rise to the later black ones which I actually just recently finished doing research on which would Encompass the black kingdoms uh the north which would be acaron and then the free men of the further north and we go into the serpent men kingdoms then there would also be the various Subterranean serpent man cities that would probably exist at this time there would be a gradual progression in my mind this is all just head Cannon to some degree with the serpent men but the idea is that over time this would be a gradual persecution and put out of the serpent men until they would eventually in the 1300s which is where the flashbacks and lore and con and Exiles comes from this is where they would then eventually run into the giant Kings play their role in the corruption of their civilization and eventually get to build that City 3,000 yeah 3,000 years ago uh in the volcano that you can visit in game so that would be where we would go from there it seems pretty reasonable in terms of a timeline the thing about serpent man civilization is that it's also meant to be kept pretty Secret because while we're doing things on earth they're doing very secretive things below the ground that's part of The Narrative of that race and then we also have moo and the spider people that I know existed before races of men that would later turn where lamoria is into Japan and where uh moo or culturally moo I make that very clear I'm not saying that that's the lost continent of moo I'm saying that that might technically be what some people are referring to because Kai before it was Kai had the culture of the muans all right it cannot be emphasized enough both the countless millions of years that took the long lived faster but still slow in comparison to humans race to reproduce to get to this point and the extreme decadence their culture would have reached the evil Deeds Done by this Mighty Empire so prone to demon worship and the human sacrifice that comes with it would be enough to Spur all manner of humans against them and any people like the more separatist giant Kings remotely associated with them men who could not even speak each other's languages as one against the infinitely hateful acaron more than willing to face down hordes of Undead minions summon demons and Elite mutated through corruption Warriors to end their oppression and modern hiboria in the time of King Conan survivors of these races do exist but they are scarce and spread through the world as Nomads or Guardians of the ruins that were once their home in truth the Demonic blood clearly present in aaronian could have come from any source but due to both the high veneration of set in their cultural capital of python as a patron deity and the prevalence of serpent man power at the time of their creation it would make sense if it was serpent men we can tell that the genetic additions were enough to put them on friendly terms but not Aid the children of slth during the time of man's Rebellion against them at the dawn of the thean age in 40,000 BC it can be said of aaronian that they are a hybridized race of demonic mutants who res resemble men the mutations of this group vary wildly but are best represented by the contrast of high Tempest of set at the time ZTA ton of python and his brother the greatest warlord of the Empire's dying days duracon blackblade while zto ton would be born with a slightly above average height pale skin and glowing eyes common for aaronian duracon was born with the body of an imp and the head of a giant king starving corrupted humans can be turned into him says showcased by studies in the exiled land and once the transformation is complete they can be considered full minor demons that can be summoned by demonologists from the outer dark after death as shown in Age Of Conan they are marked by asymmetrical features and the digit structure of three toes three fingers over the course of his life while retaining his proportional girth of a usually short but bulky imp he would also grow to the height of his giant king ancestors this would make him the living tank of his age along with being a tactical genius known for his Limitless cruelty we can also assume imps to be a common slave or infestation race of Aaron which would also have added to his very violent upbringing in the Empire other common mutant features include pointed ears and fanged canines as common traits among many another race of importance for the city of KET would be the unusually civilized Apen known as the Scorpion archers AP men come in near infinite variation in the Conan Universe they are are created by a population devolving due to a mixture of environmental circumstances that create reduced intellect then often mating outward with more Savage races often being softly Guided by the demon god hanaman in that direction when one merely looks at the elongated skulls for arms and definition of savage in this case being just a human definition of civilized as they are able to make their own armor while engaging in deeply complex rituals even in the Hib borian age it doesn't take a giant King to tell you that these are clearly devolved members of the Elder ancestor race who at our estimated time would have had over 65 million years to reach this state I theorize that this was likely due in part to the same change in atmosphere after the ice age that caused the gradual decline in the intellect of the winged Apen of the black Coast it is also likely that aaronian would know of this fact as well thus venerating them with positions of importance in the city as we see in Age Of Conan with them even having their own prince who played some type of governing role or religious role in the city due to its position and likely being responsible for the building of both the road of kings and my theorized model of the series of large bridges that would later become the broken Highway the acaron Empire would have enjoyed being the middleman of the misanthropic races the usual trade of human slaves for gold and fish would have been an obvious choice when dealing with the Deep ones as it would also have been simply another form of human sacrifice the race was used to they wouldn't sacrifice their own members due to both their small numbers and the fact that since they weren't pure humans the demon god inherent hatred of humanity would not apply to them as much a sacrifice of an aaronian isn't worth the same as a pure human as for the serpent men we can assume a continued trade of site occult knowledge for aaronian resources as by this time the serpent men would have retreated to their few remaining volcanic cities making it often harder to attain fresh food or livestock which they prefer to eat while alive a visiting serpent man professor in the magical universities of python would be a common sight the acaron pantheon may seem contradictory at first until one understands the hierarchy in question the assumed primary mission of the acaron people handed down from their ancestors is to bring them Glory by evolving into a more powerful State through a vast weaponization of knowledge in regards to this knowledge old ones which were the dominant controlling force on Earth at the time of Elder Knight were seen as great teachers of how one should live and what one should value demon gods in this case were entities to make deals with or enslave for power or knowledge added to their already developed value system due to this just like in real ancient civilizations different cities would venerate different demons this means that even if the sole veneration of one demon god would usually negate the worship of another due to them being enemies both could still be worshiped because they were being venerated in different places and did not possess a high ranking on the the pantheon this will actually be one of the episodes of our Gods podcast series when we tackle that subject different cultural pantheons we know that Samaria hyperboria for example they have their own as well as the pantheon of dark Gods currently present at Stiga seled who is most likely a child of Jebel SG who was enemies with set can be worshiped in coastal KET while the more Inland python could venerate the snake God in terms of priorities as long as it serves the values taught by the old ones any demon God's teachings are valid and the old one teachings are valid because it doesn't violate the purpose given to them by their ancestors within the moral loopholes this creates we can easily see how the civilization devolved into a state of degenerate sexual orgies in line with the teachings of Ishtar AKA shab nigaro constant human sacrifice in exchange for wealth taught to them by their relationship with Dagon and the Deep ones and endless sacrifice of humans from both Yago as well as cthulu the veneration of demon god of course would compound this even if they viewed them as lesser deities bound to individual city states by their needs they would still have to do business for power usually in the form of human sacrifice or even more extreme sex acts which if you know anything about the demon god EST ketto is not limited to adults in reference to the bullheaded God pitor it is also not limited to humans as we said before since these people were not fully human this would not have been a real issue as those those being sacrificed or tortured would be captured human slaves or enemies of the empire of which the quickly multiplying human race had many this being the Cornerstone of their culture it would have created a deeply pragmatic materialistic amoral view of everything from sorcery death and slavery as long as it aided in their Ascension it would be allowed with reactions of anywhere from emotional apathy to sadistic celebratory Glee a civilization of long-lived people with a population crisis that with valued knowledge while fusing inherited advanced technology with a natural propensity for dark sorcery acaron would clearly be a civilization with public education from an early age with unknown fusions of these two things resulting in unprecedented increases in standard of living the likes of which outside of the giant Kings would not be seen until the Modern Age whole cities would be dedicated to the research of different types of magic like zalu near Thunder river which specialized in the use of blood magic or kahare whose name means city of the Damned implying heavily a specialization in necromancy thulsa Doom a famous member of this race was said to master dimensional travel which in the Conan universe is done through the dream Realms connecting him to the veneration of the old ones yag saath cthulu as well as possibly the dream realm of demons known as andara which we really do need to do a video on if any group of people were to go there it would be aaronian the managing of corruption based mutation would also be something of a common occult science for the sake of preserving what few acaron children were born with the life-threatening mutations this hyp selection for Sorcerers and scientists would result in an entire nation of natural detectives and mathematicians by modern standards we could easily put the average IQ of the acaron population at around 120 to 140 for reference that is the level of advanced academic students to genius level by human standards in the Modern Age we will get deeper into some of their technology later in the video given the time period of the Elder King s founding so long ago and the pragmatism of the culture we can confirm that the most widespread forms of sorcery would have been diverse forms of demonology or the summoning and binding of demons as well as the military application of necromancy being partially demonic themselves and having to dispose of human slaves and what would be very regular sacrifices demon servants would serve as both a status symbol of higher education and wealth at the same time the same way normal slaves would in a human Kingdom Bachelors would be casually accommodated by succubuses and imps would perform simple household tasks this also creates one of the many motivations as to why someone may want to summon a black dragon if you were looking as a DM for there to be a motivation for there to be a black dragon in a dungeon you can do it this is the dungeon that will have the black dragon because it would have been a status symbol to look up what black dragons were they're in Conan if you if this is the first video you're watching black dragons are the big Fantasy Dragons that do exist in Conan they're technically related to set they're technically demons but you can this is it skeletal Dragon we also know those exist necromantic Dragon black dragon you can do it which we talked about in our Dragons video in fact this is one possible origin of vist given its location near aquilonia in Age Of Conan an outer devil or perhaps a bat demon shadow of nural would act as casual aerial transport for a more talented sorcerer to have higher level demons as servants would be like announcing to the world both that you were rich and very well educated I'm a millionaire and I'm a genius look at my demons military application would be obvious with larger demons like black dragons swamp Devils or demonic centaurs acting as living tanks against the enemies of the Empire exploding imps would have made wonderful organic ordinance and all that is to say nothing of individual Warriors demonic mutations this is also where we must speak of the psychology of the citizens as through the behavior of the giant Kings we know that the Casual breeding of demon Beasts for purpose of both being pets and Guardians were very much a thing implying serious affection for the beasts this means that their view of cuteness was very likely the opposite of the normal meleon view whereas we humans would want to protect anything that has a little body big eyes and a small nose they would be inherently protective of giants with small predatory eyes and large snouts this makes sense given the shape and size of the Elder ancestors the Deep affection the priest king in Conan Exiles had for his prize Dragon makes a lot more sense now for acaron the school of Illusion and mind control known as mesmerism would also prove useful in taming or domesticating otherwise uncontrollable animals the breeding of bat demons as Guardians would be a great example of this given that their primary enemies were humans there is an endless list of applications the pragmatic culture would have for the dark guard of necromancy these include but are not limited to the co-opting of dead enemies against their own armies which would have doubled as a form of psychological warfare the creation of massive mobs of shock troops for a quantity over quality attack style or distraction technique the possessing of Fallen acaron Souls into mortal bodies as seen in agypt Conan but for military application it would take longer but you could also co-opt an enemy without killing them Guardians and ghosts could be used to watch their final moments as a kind of forensic inves tigation of a war zone that would be a great intelligence tool this would also provide a lot of Intel for an Army on the go lichdom or the delicate process of making oneself Undead but retaining enough intellect to still be an efficient Necromancer would have been seen as a morally neutral but effective tactic for gaining more control over one's troops increasing the power of the army the reason Undead would not be used in domestic service is that without the presence of a necromancer keeping up a spell or the presence of a power source like a black or purple Tower power common only to governmental heads of each City they would very quickly either go feral or Decay if they were present it would most likely be an emergency and at an important governmental location however for the most part these either would have been left as traps counting on the fact that they would go faral or join the dead after their usefulness was over once one gets past the legions of Undead escorted by giant demons one would still have to deal with the nightmarish force that were the Warriors of acaron among the mutation prone to acaron some of the most common given their partial giant king blood as demonstrated by the half giant king tyros in the game Conan Exiles keep in mind he has no demonic blood and this is how strong he was them being glowing eyes indicating night vision and some form of mild sorcerer ability that would have doubled down on their natural advantages these abilities would have likely come in the form of templarism which is a tactical form of psychic vampirism in which world drain the life from their opponents to add it to themselves heraldry would also be common and more powerful in aaronian than it would be in a human this is the process of devoting oneself so powerfully to a specific demon god that you undergo a ritual to mutate your own soul to become a half demon of that God gaining the ability of partial warlike Transformations as well as in many cases some form of control over Hellfire in the case of the Heralds of zle and Age Of Conan we see fire breath along with a Devil Trigger like form in reference to the Devil May Cry series uh that allows you to turn into a cthulu as Cal demon these would have been the Warriors of acaron not counting the Battle Mages who would often have a natural control over Hellfire necromantic death ice and lightning being called forth from the sky it is perhaps due to this Reliance on Magic that their armor is so minimal and focuses on psychological warfare protecting the head and vital organs free form movement is prioritized in this style which has little to no knee protection save for the Scorpion AP men who given their assumed Origins would not be as talented in Magic a key feature both of acaron weaponry and armor is the square accents which usually outline and complement the thick design of what is present while Warriors would wear masks clearly made to intimidate enemies by making them look like one of the Demons they were fighting alongside the Battle Mages would be marked by long webbed Ms on the back of their helmets identifying them by their occupation while there is a Gladius like sword design present among their weapons most of their bladed Weaponry is topheavy in a kind of butcher or axe shape just like their view of cuteness it seems their view of the sword is also inverted the sword or long knife in every culture that has developed strategies for using it effectively has always regarded it as a mid-range self-defense weapon however with the majority of these weapons being weighted topheavy mimicking the feeling of an offensive weapon like an axe or Hammer we can see that these weapons were made for aggression antagonizing conflicts that they would then win through brutal Butchery of their enemies and a necromantic war of attrition that they could easily afford to fight in the age of acaron he who strikes first strikes last the military of acaron is a black metal album come to life very fitting for a Warhammer Fantasy game and if the empire was still around Conan wouldn't be low fantasy anymore it would simply be Dark Fantasy far from noble knights defending a kingdom these were overeducated hedonists of a superpowered variety looking for any excuse to engage in their sadistic Tendencies which the rating of rival kingdoms for slave sacrifices would only have been one of many excuses to do so outside of the battlefield behind the Civil borders of the Empire fashion was simple and seemingly shared between both sexes a simple combination of robe various headwear and any jewelry that could be afforded made up the fashion of at least the later years of on demonic or mutated features would have been considered a sign of power in most cases unless they represented something lowly like an imp so they would be shown off a man with pointed ears might wear a simple cap so as to not obscure the view of them tone and shading of colors used would also have played a role in class significance darker or earthy colors would signify a commoner or modest dress however since modesty would not have been a value present in this Society it most likely was a factor of Simply being able to afford the robes or not it was also a very wealthy Empire so poverty for the aaronian would be fairly uncommon likely associated with Exile or criminal status normal colored robes with silver jewelry would have likely been middle class and finally gold garments with bright robes would have signified High status headwear consisted of witch hats tight caps Mitri or fancy pop hats for religious ceremonies and of course we can assume Hood capes seemingly are the only piece of clothing I could only find male examples of but we can assume they were also shared between both sexes the reason we can assume this is that military fashion is the same way with no specific accommodations made for the male or female anatomy the unisex fashion would also help in societal cohesion which would be a big factor for a population that we already went over was slow to reproduce the Hib borian culture that acaron would contribute to the most was Stiga and it is best theorized that they had a similar spoken language as evented by the comics what few instances we have of their written word when not accompanied by pictures seem to have a lot in common with Kai writing which itself is a descendant of muan writing the men of moo being people thought to contribute to the human side of the aaronian gene pool teran's frequent use of Domes and rounded roofs in their architecture are a clean sign or rather clear sign that this would be translated over to their culture from Aaron which primar relied on elongated Dome likee shapes the thing which acaron architecture is most known for are its Ashen black obelisks with corrupted purple miasma crowning them often called Purple Towers while the majority of an acaron civilization would be constructed from local materials these towers will always stick out given their shape and significance in relation to the height of their buildings on average we can say that this is where the seat of power would be located in any City many people wonder what these towers are made out of or what material is used to construct them but I think the obvious answer comes from the rest of the City's Material we know it isn't storm glass because it lacks the gold accents that come with the material but there is a better option here we've already established the Elder ancestors as associated with the old ones who almost always have black stone associated with them as what will usually be in the cthulu Mythos stories organically appearing homes of many of these creatures or more often obelisks marking their presence we know that the Elder ancestors were not as advanced as the old ones hence why their cities were built with local materials in Imitation of the old ones I believe this stone is local material that has been treated with elder or eldrich magic through alien technology designed to imitate the black stone of course and then blessed by local demon god rituals which add their corrupting influence it's also of course possible that the actual black material was added in with the rest of these for fortresses this would be in line with the culture and would be a more automated version of what we see in the unnamed City in Conan Exiles which happened more often from tragedy than Will To Power most of the Magical elements in that setting at that time remember this was a giant king separatist civilization were added by the serpent men often giving Trojan Horse gifts like the demon-possessed staff which we also go over in our giant King's video when one considers its heavy use of pictures and what is already a centic semih hieroglyphic writing style commemorative lore stones to remember events statues being a common Accent on many different places and reliefs which possess some form of Rejuvenation narrative it's very clear that visual storytelling was the key way ideas were communicated in this Society we will now briefly analyze various types of acaron art to try and get a better feel for the culture we know from Age Of Conan and how closely tied the funcom games make the mechanics to the lore such as the bracelets and Exiles that the acaron to giant king relas leavs had rejuvenative properties built into them we don't need to say that they had any specific magic tied to them but given the existence of lore stones that also would have been a part of the acaron culture there is a good argument for it the most important thing is understanding that a relief carving like the one in front of you now was meant to carry the message of Rejuvenation healing or revitalizing keep this in mind as we go through these five tablets these were the highest resolution versions of these images I could find keep in mind this game came out in 2008 we will be assuming a date of around 13,000 BC at the beginning of the fall of the civilization for all tablets presented our first tablet depicts an acaron city of notable importance given that it is depicted at all this would point to either the military capital of the empire located in modern Argos known as Tartarus or the cultural capital where high court is held in modern Stig known as python we'll get more into these cities later given that it matches the depictions of the cultural capital we can discern that python is the city depicted the engraving here has minor markings around it which usually symbolize The Narrative of the painting in this case we see energy emanating from the bottom gate pointed us pointing us further in the direction of python as it claims the city is a point of cultural generation when we take once again The Narrative of Rejuvenation into account the relief is meant to say rejuvenate python thus the Empire python is actually a city that has some confusing geography surrounding it and has a lot of mystery surrounding its actual geographical location we'll be getting into that when we cover that City the second tablet holds a mask supported by the structure of a gate and serpent-like images surrounding it in a guardian likee manner above his head given that the previous relief from the same area depicted python we can assume this to be the famous Conan foe of the Elder race zatan who would have been the high Tempest of set during this time given that a mask is present and the figure in question having military aspirations after being resurrected in the media during the events of hour of the Dragon we can assume this was done likely after the first death of the high priest this was likely a memorial piece done after his death in remembrance with the hope that one day he would return in some fashion while necromancy could not fully revive the figure due to its limitations in regards to mental functions there is the possibility that like many demonic acaron souls he could return to possess an item or person if zaton was assumed by the acaron Empire to be dead this would be a way he could continue the fight with his mental functions thus functions of a tempest intact our next two tablets have the same narrative attached to them being full-face portraits showcasing the Demonic features of their depicted figures these figures have no support structure and in the case of the unknown one also has subservient priest figures worshiping them this implies still living beings at the time of the Arts creation from the unique mixture of impish and giant king features associated with duracon Black Blade we can see that at least one of these figures was a general given similar headwear we can assume that the same was true for the more serpent man mutated unknown figure while normally this obey style structure would act as a kind of intimidation when you consider that most things in the acaron psychology are somewhat the opposite of Our Own ideas when it came to what was considered attractive this was likely considered an inspirational message for cultural Heroes The Narrative especially during the last and greatest of their Wars with men would be victory for Black Blade thus victory for the empire in our last tablet we see a giant king or Elder ancestor figure wearing the traditional religious mitry with expressive generating lines that note the figure as a generator of culture the message here would have been very simple given the State of Decay The Empire would be in at the time of its creation and long death of the Elder ancestor race it's a call for cultural revitalization at the end of the Empire with the hopeful return or blessing of their ancestor gods in short make acaron great again as we went over before the view of cuteness in this race or what was seen as wholesome was very likely reversed in this Society in the presence of ancestor statues along roads at religious sites and in urban centers a member of this race would not feel the same as any of us whereas we see grotesque soulless aliens they would see a mixture of Heritage Pride family Athenian wisdom figures and of course the safety any living being feels when its family is in its home and habitat these emotions would have been good to elicit in a population to remind them of family orientation which as a naturally underpopulated people they would have a heightened sense of this would reduce crime in cities and on roads in the same way a statue of Mitra might in aquilonia the gods are watching lastly as a people who casually involve themselves with demons through the careful occult science of demonology the dangers of the outer dark would have been well known to them as a result these statues would have been present at places of sacrifice which we see in the sanctum of burning Souls within the aquilonian territories of acaron to promote the exact careful practice of the ritual as to not bring any extra demonic visitors with the energies they were tapping into as we can see from The Sentinel statues found in the exiled lands outside of the Empire here is further proof of the separation of giant king civilization from their acaron relatives we know from the in-game lore that the unnamed city as a civilization had been separated from the highly warlike acaron Empire long enough for War as a concept to become obsolete in their culture until the war with the lorans which itself was most likely a microcosm or a playful bit of convergent evolutionary history of the fall of all things even remotely acaron Associated groups 3,000 years ago holding a glaive this statue of the warmaker clail or Warriors trained under him would Mark the first time in many many centuries that the giant Kings would ever make an artistic positive display of military power we also see further proof in the exiled lands of the cultural separation between the two as all sorcery present in the exiled lands from that time were things done or that happened to the giant Kings and their great feats such as the Revival of dragons and the breeding of already alive bat demon beasts were matters of advanced scientific knowledge handed down from their ancestors and of course those ancestors being hyper intelligent aliens the thing about this just a sentence you don't say often their ancestors of of course being hyper intelligent aliens of course yes uh but generally speaking the other way we see this is if you look deeper into the lore whether it's the enchanted mask of the witch Queen whether it's the priests of deeon you see this all the time their enemies are magical they are Advanced technologically as a group and while it does kind of hurt the theme for me to kind of ruin that image because yes logically it points to technology but technology is supposed to be indistinguishable from Magic and I suppose the thing this lore video is taking from you in terms of thematic enjoyment of this setting is that the technology is supposed to feel the way to you that it does to the human characters this is supposed to be eldrich technology that you could not possibly dream of and perhaps the giant Kings and their Elder ancestors are a more solidified form of it you know they're not deep ones who have literal shoggoth breeders and now I have this in that video so I'll remember this when I'm doing the Deep one video that shaggoth breeders are a thing with deep ones but the point is that they have closer to more physical or feasible technology that we could imagine today in a Sci-Fi context but with a different culture as a final note on this and proof that Elder ancestors themselves may have been present in the unnamed City uh you know there's a UFO that you can find when it comes to the nice sort of sunken city of Riya style dungeon that they've done in the base game of Conan Exiles which was a great a great level by the way it's great to go underwater it's great to fight the Deep but they're fighting in a UFO like you do eventually find a UFO hidden beneath the waves and there are two things to this first the UFO being so far under the ocean and two the fact that deep ones are indigenous to Earth they were literally created on Earth by cthulu to mutate other humans what that means is that this ship in no way belongs to our fishy friends and that means that it was here a long while ago with more physical technology that looks suspiciously like what we could assume Elder ancestor technology looks like which points to our view of them being aliens even further a special Fusion of commemorative art and advanced technology that would be present in both societies would have been lore Stones using similar though less extreme versions of the AI we encounter with the archist these illuminated Stones would be used to record automated messages through the special use of signs or Elder ancestor language given that the player can understand the stones it is likely that these images communicate a psychic language also used commonly by the alien side of their gene pool these mental Echoes would play mimicking auditory stimuli in the human mind this would have filled a role opposite but complimentary to the Rejuvenation focused relief Engravings we see among the acaron Empire these Stones which were meant to bring about memories of an event would be used for the marking of historical landmarks as well as important historical events while many may be tempted to say that these Stones were magical it is important to remember that in the weird fiction Universe of Howard Lovecraft and Smith almost all alternative evolutionary Paths of alien species along with the Technologies they develop feel indistinguishable from Magic to humans again one of the key instances of this you can go to a lore stone that thinks you're a human slave from the time when the giant Kings were at war with the lorans it does not recognize the difference meaning it isn't a conscious entity which in indicates that it's not a spirit it's not a thing from the afterlife it is an automated thing in reality these are the result of scientific techniques just not ones emanating from a human consciousness while there have been maps created in the Marvel Run of the comics these maps are usually poorly done and go against all the lore sources we have outside of those Comics since I couldn't find one I made this rough outline of the acaron Empire before the beginning of its fall at around 14,000 BC rather than 13,000 which would be around its decline using as a base one of the more detailed map depictions of the hyborian age that can be found online I don't know who made this map originally but I love it I obsess over it it is the most beautiful thing to me and I look at it every day I look at it every single day as you can see the borders of the empire in accordance with the sources we actually have take up Stiga Shem half of coth all of oir orgos half of aqual IA all of ndia Corinthia and brunia using similar sources we can confirm that outside of these borders kahare the city of the dam the unknown ruins found on the island of torage and zalu the center for blood magic research were all military outposts of the empire in the hopes of expansion within the borders there was KET the city of scorpions Tartarus which was the strongest military Capital python which was the legal and cultural capital and the unknown City that the legendary witch Queen zana's tomb was located in in the northern region of ndia the road of Kings which was already outlined well on the map I'm using as the base for this one would have been the primary trade route for goods in and out of the Empire it is also confirmed that the giant kings were the ones who built the roads most likely as the acaron kingdom was young to better Traverse the land as the kingdom was getting its first taste of power complimenting this would be my theorized model of The Unbroken Highway and Conan Exiles this is a series of bridges and Roads that stretch from the south of Tran and into the southeast of hyperboria where the Conan Exiles map ends in the western half knowing that it was indeed a highway of bridges built with a superior understanding of architecture connected to the road of Kings I have outlined a path complimentary to both lore sources and the in-game ruins like the road of Kings it would travel along the river leaving the exiled lands before the time of the force field made by the archist through Tran until reaching a natural barrier at which point a series of larger Bridges would dot the landscape over bodies of water until meeting the road of Kings in southern Tran next to Zamora combined on our map we can tell that other than trade the real power of these passageways was control any Naval vessels coming from the West would have to pass through the military capital of Tartarus to get into the Empire with the Kuran mountains of coth and Zamora acting as a natural barrier or Chasm that would make the perfect point for an ambush if hostile forces tried to breach it my model of The Unbroken Highway complements this by pointing us from the exiled lands map into brunia through what is most likely a similar pass the purpose of me doing this is both to satisfy my own insanity and to give home Brewers a good understanding of where one might find the ruins of a wealthy City versus a military Outpost and what that kind of place would be like a military Outpost would likely specialize in some form of marshal magic research related to necromancy Andor could be a separate civilization that wanted nothing to do with the main Empire due to extreme differences in behavior that was only not wiped out due to them being considered kin which would have been very important to acaron culture the Inland cities were places of decadent wealth where poverty was rare and demonic servants were common eldred's scientific knowledge dark called practices and the liberal artistic application of these things would be taught alongside a very human idea of mathematics and warfare from an early age each City having its own Patron demon acting as a guardian Dion or a Catholic saint that would come after them human sacrifice for both religious and magical purposes would have been a common sight in both areas the apathetic cruel enslavement of humans would be juxtaposed with the deeply family oriented households of acaron supremacists catered to by minor demons first in our three City studies is the most famous of the acaron Empire often mistaken as its military Capital but is in fact the Kyoto of Aaron the great purple towered Python while there are various fan theories claiming this city to be in aquilonia or n media due to the events of hour of the dragon and its original placement was said to be in Shem due to a typo it is frequently referred to as many sources as old stig's greatest City so it's clearly a city of old Stiga but within the Empire which is also further proof in addition to many many other sources that all say the acaron empire was much much bigger than the the map given to us in Marvel's Conan for this reason we have placed it in Stiga near the coast as it would have been the Los Angeles to Tartarus New York at the time of course this is the coast of a river as we originally had it placed where Kat is supposed to be and we know that because the Scorpion caves are there where you encounter the Scorpion Apen are on that side of Stiga here the greatest Sorcerers men of law archists or Advanced scientists Bankers merchants tempests of set and lore Stone artists would be trained in addition to being the home of the greatest universities of acaron it was also the place where high court was held its Patron demon god would be set so it shouldn't be surprising that the high priest of set zaton came from this area the universities of sorcery would most likely be prevy to many a visiting serpent man Professor since as early as 2.4 million years ago during Clark Ashton Smith's hyperborean cycle of stories they can be seen giving dissertations on biology as it relates to dark magic this same group would also be responsible 25 centuries later for introducing dark sorcery and demonology into the giant king Society in the exiled lands to go to a university in Python within the Empire would be the same as saying one went to Princeton if they lived in 1950s America if Princeton was also located in Washington DC and Washington DC was located right next to Hollywood effectively ensuring political and social status connections not to mention getting the best education on sorcery likely effort offered in the Conan Universe throughout all of the time post the thean age the city of scorpians KET is a testament to the uniqueness of each acaron City a map of the ruins gives us further proof of burying their dead their Patron demon god would have been selat who in accordance with the ability of the god to both be surrounded by AP men and summon giant scorpion Abominations in place of Scorpion Shaman we can confirm the god to be of Jeb s's family with the amount of gold used in the religious worship of selet likely being a narrative of giving up wealth as a sign of rejecting civility in line with many of the narratives of this family of demons it would have been a no-brainer that they had Coastal relations with the Deep ones for gold in exchange for what they would view as extremely Expendable human slaves once again the forearms elongated skull and higher intelligence marked by fullplate armor of the Scorpion eight men show them to be most likely an offshoot of the Elder ancestors with the process of Eight Men We explained earlier in the video despite their Noble Origins within the society the local religion consisted of Elder men worshippers and an elder man high priest with the Scorpion archers serving as the main enforcers and special Guardians of the God as some variants of the Scorpion archers are two armed instead of four we can theorize these were devolved giant Kings instead of Elder ancestors regardless a combination of of the two would contribute to this current race the Scorpion Archer Prince we mentioned earlier most likely came from an elder ancestor and also from that line of of beings probably had more to do with religious ceremonies as a kind of alpha or pack leader among the Apen himself though since the Apen had more civilized intelligence they may as well just have had him as a prince he might have been the Royal line of their individual species which was heavily heavily centered and super specialized for the city of KET this would also explain why they break with the usual military uniform it's both for religious purposes and since they were descendants of giant Kings and Elder ancestors instead of the demon blooded Elder men they would need more protection in war due to not being skilled in traditional dark magic or necromancy used in such events remember this would also be a race that was now at basically human levels of intellect and in the same way that we or rather we if we lived in the time of medieval level capped technology of Conan would not be able to work the technology of the giant Kings in that same way they most likely lost the knowledge of their old technology or at least how to operate it in comparison to the intelligence of the Elder men around them while a wealthy City the majority of this wealth would not be usable in Commerce as it would be melted down for religious purposes into jewelry special Priestly garments scorpion statues and of course the part partial use of it in the armor of the Scorpion 8 men and giant scorpion Abominations of selet this would further the theory that they would be in League with the Deep ones to gain more gold to them this would harm them in no way and just be another sacrifice to bless the City by selling some human chattle tardus easily required the most Theory crafting of anything in this video and was the mystery that kept me going when doing the copious amounts of research for this script mentioned only a few times across various sources as the SE power of the acaron Empire while this implies a strong military presence we know that this was not the place where high court was held nor where laws were made nor were the best universities were that was all in Python even the territory it inhabited was a mystery it's protog greo name fact that Argos was the last territory maintained by the Empire when it was in Decline probably due to its strong military presence and the fact that the road of Kings built Again by the giant king starts in the capital of modern Argos called mtia we can theorize that tardus was indeed centered in Argos duracon Black Blade would be born in Python and eventually die in zalu in aquilonia he would most likely be stationed here when not on the battlefield given that their entire culture was based around war and they most likely extended the military Outpost in the acaron ruins we see in the barakan Isles and aisle of antilus we can assume that their Patron demon god was zley zle is known as a brimstone fire squid we went over in our first part of our all gods and Conan series originally worshiped in Atlantis before it sank at which point the religion would shift to the Isles of the western coast of hiboria despite being a demon god he shares much in common with old ones being an unknowable entity only pleased by destruction his worship is vague and has taken a limitless number of interpretations over the years as indicated by the statue of Our goian Heroes fighting off a tentacled female figure with the same coloring and attributes associated with Heralds of zley we can infer that zley had a feminine interpretation here similar to NE for the samarians being a goddess of Destruction for one's enemies if this was also true it would make Heralds of zle the main unique fighting force of the military Capital having a series of great sword wielding fire breathing half demons would certainly be an advantage over others for survival in war this would also most likely be the home of the ruling triumphant or emperor of the society to be clear this would have been the living quarters not the place of decision-making that would still be python when one understands the ease of access aaronian had to flying mounts such as Shadows of nural or outer Devils it isn't hard to imagine a leader figure getting on board a giant black dragon flying to work in only a few days for an important council meeting 3,000 years later all the acaron Empire lays in Ruins and it's up to you my dear DMS and training to go out and find those wonderful brave warriors thieves magicians Sorcerers and wicked wicked men who seek the knowledge of acaron entice them into these tombs and allow them to face the horrors within do they see a demonic Soul possessed inside a mask inside a sword perhaps a demonic acaron Soul possessed inside a man who previously explored their same Folly must they fight off the possession of an Aaron soul that seeks to take them hordes of the undead linger and wait for their Master's Call that never returned and as a result they are very likely to take revenge on being abandoned Elder ancestors though far gone still have their Apen relatives lingering about the ruins of KET and who's to say where else they have traveled to and bought the their little scorpion god selat with them the Elder men survivors would certainly make amazing betrayal and dark sorcerer figures in the background hiding in plain sight waiting for you to attack maybe a more Humane or good guy giant king waiting for you to kill someone who might have been their enemy in ancient times and as a result now takes their power or treasure for themselves you may create your own enemy by judging a book by by its cover and speaking of books lore Stones would be amazing plot devices for any campaign his attention was centered on the band of beings that squatted about a dark green pool in the midst of the Court these creatures were black and naked made like men but the least of them standing upright would have made them Tower Head and Shoulder above the tall pirate they were gangly rather than massive but were finely formed with no suggestion of deformity or abnormality save as their great height was abnormal but even at that distance Conan sensed the basic diaism of their features 3,000 years before the birth of Conan the great acaron Empire finally collapsed in the northwest of the Hib borian continent this happened through a series of slave rebellions from those whose descendants would become the various middle eastern and western peoples of the current setting however one particular group of shemes ancestors would travel South in search of a God that could be used to claim their own portion of demonic might long before Aaron's collapse in their travels they would make peace with various minor tribes within the black kingdoms also looking for power over their larger Neighbors the new cultural people born from this Union would likely settle on what would later be known as the Isle of the black ones after sailing away through the black Coast as as this is the area with the most ruins of their culture here they would be introduced to the worship of the dark God Ajo likely by a Herald or half demon of the entity in question from unknown Origins this would be when they would learn about the weapon which would revolutionize both their own military power and the various cultures of Southern hiboria ceiling magic the Strategic Benefit to a force trying to compare with or or conquer the acaron empire for cealing magic is a foolproof form of Hostage taking in our Theory crafting video on the Elder race we postulated that their morality was opposite to that of normal humans likely not possessing empathy as a Mainstay of their emotional Norms however even the most brutal psychopath would give in on logical grounds if one of their best generals or most talented crucial figures was taken away the ceiling in question trapping the victim in a black statue that can only be revived through the same waterbased ritual that imprisoned them the only way to ensure the release would be to meet the demands of those in question throughout the evolution of the Tulu culture and its expansion across the various islands of the black Coast followed by its expansion back into the black kingdoms the sway of Ajo would call many to engage in heraldry which is a special form of magic in which a human replaces half their soul with a piece of their demon god often altering their physical form this can be shown through where their ruins are still found today across the world as their practice became more common for military purposes the nature and very desires of the Tulu people would be replaced with that of their dark God now called auo in the north of their territories auuu in the South and variations of names simp l meaning The Dark One the father of black ones had now Taken full sway over the southern world the black ones being the end result of the constant use of heraldry for both religious ceremonial and Military purposes it may also have been considered high status to become a black one given the initial shemitish thus aristocratic Artisan culture influence on the culture in question we're talking about here as a brief note on the hypnotic dance magic of the black ones in the Conan Universe there is a magic known as mesmerism which is more of a practice given its similarity to certain later in history native African rituals that were designed to induce a religious experience I believe this to be a carryover from their minor tribes in the black Kingdom's human Heritage regardless it makes for a good compliment to the powers of the now demonic people what makes the black ones so unique as a race is both that they are the only race of multi-generational Heralds we know of among humans and the larger role they likely played on the fate of Southern hiboria which we'll get into a little later in this video common features of all types of black ones include obsidian crystallized skin to some degree increased height shark-like teeth and increased skull size sometimes resulting in deformities from here they diverge into three subtypes we've named these greater black ones black ones and gray ones for the purpose of this video my creativity is truly knows no bounds of course the greatest characteristic of gray ones is that when compared to their black one and greater black one Associates and family members they have gray skin in fact they look more like humans who are possessed with acaron Souls which we see in the age of Conan MMO and also the Darkhorse comics when aaronian Souls possess pics they turn them into these gray deformed creatures but the difference with the gray ones the difference of their Anatomy is that we see black scales of obsidian growing on their body and of course the pitch black eyes that they possess we also see that they're willing to make homes outside of existing Tulu ruins which leads me to the theory that they are a scouting party of lesser children of Ajo the power isn't as connected these are possibly within the world of demons because one of the things that sealing magic definitely makes me think of when it comes to Theory crafting on the black ones is that these are a type of demon that they themselves when separated from a human vessel can't do anything they genuinely need possession and ceiling magic clearly exists to make that easier that when in a pool what Rises out because to make a true black one not a gray one a true black one you have to create them by putting them through the same ceiling Magic ual this is why the hypnotic dance magic is often used to put them in a lulling state so when we see a gray one this is likely the result of non-sealing possession or average possession being used by children of Ajo to eventually create or make a platform for just as we see in Conan Exiles they do have a great pool for ceiling magic and utilizing ceiling magic rituals to create and eventually raise black ones though we don't see black ones in Conan and Exiles that is what it would eventually come about but we do see in the original story the pool of the black ones that afterwards we see young men being turned into a near statue like State being pushed into the ceiling magic but instead of being turned into a black stat statue they are raised again as a black one and then as more black ones show up it's like the Demonic essence or energy of Ajo fills the air with my Asma and mysticism until eventually the darkness is able to summon a full formed obsidian Giant and that is a greater black one in our eyes touching again on ceiling magic as I just went over the idea of ceiling magic in my eyes is effectively to make possession easier the more you possess the easier ceiling magic is the more ceiling magic you have the more possession is easier and it goes into a cycle effectively creating a healthy war machine for what the Tulu tribes and the ancestors of the black ones were which is that they were demon supremacists they genuinely seal and kept in statues everything that was not a demon they would do it to effectively Elder thing like entities and they would do it to humans and we can see that all throughout the evidence found in Conan Exiles of what was sealed you will find no demons are sealed but rather it is Elder things and humans and beasts so this goes into what was this metal used why create this metal well if we think about sealing magic as the engine for a War Machine then would it not make sense when we look at the specialized Weaponry of the black ones which are obsidian in nature just as their statues are that these statues and effectively the souls remember that reincarnation has been proven to be true in Conan that reincarnation is factually true in Conan instead of these Souls going on to the next life or in some cases going on to the paradise promised by the ordered God or in some cases going to the hell Dimensions or whatever at that point that soul is instead used in their weapon this of course is a great segue into our next section which is that you know with when it comes to being a human facing down the threat of acaron you had the benefit of if you were taken you would be taken as a slave you may be tortured you may be humiliated you may go through a number of horrifying things and what's weird about the psychology of the Elder race that populated aaran is ironically the more you favored as a slave the more tortured they'd put you through because again reverse morality reverse almost everything with them but when it comes to Tulu Tulu are just straight demon supremacists who want to kill you and unlike the people facing Acron in the Middle East and the West the people in the southwest the people in these very African themed countries were desperate as anyone would be when facing demon supremacists and then when we look at and we compare this to the Modern Age where with the except of Zimbabwe because Zimbabwe is really cool apparently and has super soldiers there and Canon Zimbabwe within Conan I can't speak for modern Zimbabwe but I hope they're doing well uh punt Kishon darar Kush Amazon and the black kingdoms all have a long line well Southern Stiga all have this long history of dark gods and it can't be helped but ultimately come up with the theory that because they noticed that they weren't going to be attacked if they were associated with demons and they weren't going to be attacked with the exception of darar who reached out to an elder god but when it comes to most of these entities reaching out to dark Gods makes so much sense because the demon supremacists who were attacking you are now thrown off confused they don't know what to do it's a great diversionary tactic and then in addition you have your own demonic power and the nation of Punt calling upon the hyena God of fear and Son of jabel sag jamanak and his children the hyena men who were like weird makeshift shape shifters who were oddballs who couldn't shape shift correctly but calling upon the shape-shifting entities who would teach you dark magic in the various nation in kashan calling upon guer and his shadow magic to be able to summon dark gargoyles to confuse and break your enemies who themselves also the black ones using Shadow to their advantage and various other pools one could also see a substitute this is a really great idea because while there basic Al how it works is that when shown in the light of day uh his monsters will come about so the idea of this group of black ones taking a accidental false human into the pool it's in the shadows but then it comes out it hits the light of the sun and it starts wreaking havoc within the black on tribes darar reaching out to yog or yag sath as he is known an elder one or an old one and part of the court of aatho being able to do that and just summon forth leagues of cannibal Horrors against their enemies basically Bulan bulcan not bulcan ising I'm sorry uh feeding their army and Fielding their army with these giant tentacled Horrors and of course in Kush you have the various different set worships that you would also find in Stiga so having that kind of demonic set worship and association with serpent men is amazing in the Amazon having demonic plants and heraldic plants one could make a deal with to protect the women uh of that tribe and ultimately make them strong super soldiers to protect the people and then of course in the black Coast so I can go on and on and on you know that I'm going on and on about this but demonic warfare theory is the coolest thing it explains why the state of Southwestern hiboria is the way it is and with the exception of Zimbabwe which is just uh basically you know hit it hit it with mace and and axe just like in the the north uh Northwest and the Middle East but that with the exception of Zimbabwe this is what they're doing and it's really really cool it really sets Southwestern hiboria and its history apart from the rest of the world that you know in each history there is a way of dealing with the world we see that in the Far East it is all about taking magic and putting it as a royal thing respecting it as the Roy the reality warping thing that it is and associating it with the royal family in the west we see a rejection of magic as unnatural and we see it as putting it you know just putting it away in the Middle East that was also their same philosophy in some countries but also in places like sta which has fallen to Darkness it is in a decadent time we do see a similar philosophy which is that in that case darkness is is sort of taken over but in the case of Southwestern hiboria their big thing is we have to Fight Fire with Fire magic and dark magic is sadly a necessary part of life otherwise we'll end up like our ancestors being hunted and killed by the Tulu tribes by the black ones and it is such a good story and it is such good World building and natural tribe crafting that you can have with home brewing in this setting it's so good it's so good few soldiers who still lived went searching for him and found him stretched in beastial sleep in a clump of thick Shrubbery full gorged he was with human blood from his last victim now it was well known that a vampire like a Great Serpent when well gorged falls into a deep sleep and may be taken without peril they were at a loss as to how to dispose of the monster for how may the dead be slain for a vampire is a man who has died long ago yet is quick with a certain foul unlife long before the time of Conan there existed a man of similar Destiny born to a Savage tribe who would rule over a civilized people in this thri and age of brutal war and Demon shadowed sorcery kov Atlantis would become the ruler of Great valua using his mighty power over uia's armies he would launch a war of extermination on the wicked Wizards who tormented his people and like any great man make many powerful enemies Chief among these was his Archen enemy the dark mage of Elder Knight known only as thulsa Doom once he had finally vanquished the villain in assemblage of his followers demanded retribution they sought out Scrolls written by an ancient aaronian god of chaos known as cathon the Eater of weak Souls with this knowledge they hop to ascend into becoming power moral demons in their own right among the partakers in this trans mortal ambition was an abnormally genius and skilled Necromancer known as van what made him most abnormal was the fact that van himself was a gigantopithecus a giant ape whose intellect and natural magical ability were likely from the same unknowable Source after being mortally wounded by King Cole the great ape would volunteer to be the first to undergo the ritual of Ascension to demon Hood after seemingly dying during the process he was buried in a coffin filled with blood over the course of 3 days the Demonic corruption his own slowly reemerging talent in necromancy as Consciousness would return to him and blood which nourished him would act as the womb for an entire monster lineage after his rebirth he could not be called a demon for the master demonologists of the Inner Circle he belonged to could not control him nor could he be called a Mindless Undead for his intellect was retained if not dramatically in enhanced with telepathic prowess able to resurrect those he slew into his followers and subsisting on the blood of Mortals which aided in his resurrection V became the first and most powerful vampire over 10,000 years before the age of Conan the rest of thala Doom's followers fearing reprisals from VAR for trying to control him repeated this process creating the vampires today known as ancients from the high ranking of these ancients would be the Unique Individuals who functioned as the high Priests of the blood ape and invented the backstabbing nature of vampire politics there was sarakan the picked and his servant simply called boy no sparatu who can be best theorized to already have been a Herald or half demon by ritual of nural given his bat-like demonic appearance lamia who was considered the greatest of the high priests and was named the first Vampire Lord among her kind marican whose trademark four fangs would mark his descendants who most likely include the vampire from 1935 horror on the mound where our opening quote today is from and veray who had become the most devout fanatic of VAR this circle of sorcerers were not the only people turned however and any vampire turned at this time is far more unique mysterious and Powerful often spawning their own vampire lineages which again even in the time of Conan would be anywhere respectively between 8 and 10,000 years old this was the case for princess akivasha of Stiga who very like likely is the progenitor of the siren sect given her hunting patterns being a female vampire focusing obsessively on athletic male victims while these figures would all try to assassinate each other at one time or another there were many countless unnamed ancients who would all be slain by varet for trying to overthrow him and start their own sects by turning Mortals as we know all those killed by vanet come back as powerful vampires loyal to him one thing that makes vanet so unique is that this is also true for vampires likely due to his natural talent and necromancy and genius level intellect even before becoming a Vampire the first and only true Civil War a vampire kind until far after the time of Conan would end with Van solidifying his rule by resurrected blood over the majority of all other sects of vampires while retaining their original strengths and weaknesses they all possess the same psychic loyalty to the figure who at this point could easily be called their King King VAR would survive the sinking of his native Atlantis by filling his giant stone cofen with blood which sank to the Bottom of the Sea from here he governs the vast majority of vampire kind telepathically guiding their actions subconsciously and consciously through his priests this is why to understand vampires in general and the rules which govern them we must understand the most potent of their bloodlines that of the varans varans are the term will be using to describe mainstream vampire society and would one day be the bloodline of of Dracula long after the hibor age they are governed by the rules One classically Associates with the monsters in question they are repelled by any religious symbol when tied with true faith that belongs to a religion which existed before their mortal birth they can be killed by fire burn alive in the sunlight and can be killed by a wooden stake in the heart they can also die due to Breaking the magical barrier that naturally forms when people live in a family-sized domain long enough enough for it to be called a home entering without an invitation will have a slower but still lethal effect of burning the vampire to death from the inside out this is easily bypassed through their powers by tricking a mortal into letting them in by means will go over very soon silver can be used to paralyze vampires if stamped through their heart and garlic can be used as a sedative causing them to become easy to capture or interrogate depending on the age of the vampire they will either turn into a corpse of appropriate age or wither to dust from the ages they must also travel with soil from their Homeland where they were first turned as they are slightly weakened by being away from it this is not a large Factor but the soil does seem to give a feeling of safety to the vampire in question if they do not possess this they may be more paranoid insecure or act irrationally due to being over emotional even for a vampire one reason it is very likely that varet does not research surface despite having more than enough manpower to do so is that being away from Atlantis for too long may cause him to weaken control mentally over other vampires and possibly make him return to the beastial mindset of his giant ape Kindred while a giant Savage demonic Undead King Kong Out For Blood would be a very scary threat the primary person van would be endangering would be himself in this way even V's lack of presence among his children is a political move to retain control over them willpower thus emotional control is also one of the three main factors for how powerful a vampire is the other two being how wellfed they are which of course affects mental health in the form of perverting to savagery and how old they are which seemingly has no advantage in its own right but comes with centuries of experience living with the condition their turning process is the simple killing of any mortal by draining all of their blood directly ensuring they resurrect as a vampire in most cases of course this also instills extreme susceptibility to telepathic control from V who has an inherent knowledge of all of his children despite his undersea Hiding Place their culture is one of service to the plans of their dark Father which seems to Simply Be to strategically grow the influence and power of his children for this reason they are highly selective about who they turn usually focusing on royalty already accomplished necromancers like V was or those with any kind of power in society likely to sympathize with their elitist view of the world to be a vampire is to be the chosen of V above all Mortals and destined to rule over them in his kingdom of night while you must drink the blood of Mortals to the same degree as a normal human would eat food to survive in exchange you can hypnotically control those you drink from possess mild telepathy in the form of hypnotic suggestion can take the shape of and control any nocturnal Beast smaller than you such as rats bats or wolves that you feel a deep connection to are immune to human dises possess the strength of 10 to 20 men depending on the vampire you're incredibly fast and can heal from wounds that would be lethal to humans within a day in addition to all of this in the time of Conan mainstream vampires would also be skilled in necromancy taught to them by their sire as well as demonology in some cases meaning they would know how to summon zombies and or demons to their aid this is due to their Hemy down culture from the inner circle of thulsa Doom master vampire would likely be a priest of VAR commanding other vampires under them deeply politically connected within a city allowing them to turn Society itself against their adversaries a master Necromancer having hordes of Undead under him hidden away somewhere and a master demonologist likely having a powerful guardian of some type A Telltale sign of a full-blooded vampire is their inability to cast a reflection and the usual two fangs from the upper jaw that are an extension of their upper canines everything that has been said in this section of the video can be thought to apply to all vampires mentioned here unless otherwise stated in their respective sections as we said these are the most numerous vampires and as such can be found in any civilized area across the Hib borian continent all vampire sects loyal to VAR meet at a summit once every thousand years which at this point in history would be somewhere on an unnamed island off the Northwestern coast of the psh Wilderness we said before that this was the most potent of the vampire Bloodlines this is because in addition to being responsible for creating the Ancients it is also responsible for the creation of the two great enemies of vampire kind which resulted from the extreme lifegiving properties of vanet's blood even when the Turning process is greatly distorted by circumstance these are the two types of half vampires the first type gives us far more insight into how a healthy vampire is born I'm using very loose ter terminology here but when the Turning process begins the necromantic aspect of the vampire effectively provides the undead vessel that houses the Demonic aspect which could be roughly called The Vampire Soul like Heralds this soul is partially demonic and due to being brought back to life parts of it are also missing the undead blood sucking part of being a vampire is almost immediate this is the same roughly speaking as raising a freshly dead corpse as a zombie however depending on every factor from level of willpower bloodline susceptibility and a thousand other things the Demonic aspect of a vampire can take anywhere between a day or a few months to take full rot when this process is interrupted for any reason the end result is a husk a blood sucking zombie that possesses the powers of a vampire without any willpower or sense of awareness to use them as a result they are very weak and while able to be controlled by VAR are still Savage even to all but the vampire that turned them vampire husks may be kept in large number as a trap for adventurers or may be found free roaming the same night they wake up until their lack of survival Instinct kills them in the sunlight the second type of vampire is not half zombie but truly half human much like we talked about with bull men in our minotaur's video most who go through the process of becoming a damp pire are simply born dead or worse yet born as fetus likee husks that need to be mercifully left out in the sunlight how however under special circumstances when the fetus is already fully formed into a baby and the pregnant mother is turned into a vampire their child will be born with the strength speed healing and hunger of a vampire without needing to avoid the sun they have the powers of a vampire and none of their weaknesses these are the creatures known as day Walkers while naturally being half as strong as a vampire in the sense that they can't shapeshift or use any telepathic abilities they also possess the vampire hunger that if engaged in enough will make them a full-fledged vampire with many of the same weaknesses but still able to go out in the sun these are again extremely rare and most of them do not become vampire Hunters but rather very powerful vampires themselves even when they are starved they would simply revert back to their half vampire form rather than experiencing death from lack of blood they tend to be naturally nomadic and could easily find themselves as the head of their own Cult of vampires as a priest of VAR should the telepathic link be established through the drinking of blood gifting them with their true potential that we've covered mainstream vampires let's move on to more esoteric sects as we said for the most part these sects are still loyal to mainstream vampire Society but three have remained independent the sirens are a mainstream part of vampire Society who would at this time operate out of Argos Shem and Stiga the unique thing about them is that they are an all female sect of vampires that prey on attractive men akivasha was likely this sex progenitor given her hunting methods and thus they follow an all female version of a monarchal structure Queen akivasha at the top nobility under her ladies of the night under them and baronesses or land owners under them lower ranking members of this sect May pose as prostitutes or drunken Tavern girls to lure their male victims into a false sense of security before draining them dry Conan resisted the enticing advances of akivasha in 1935's hour of the dragon that would later be republished in 1950 as Conan the Conqueror the OD are a tougher than average vampire Clan marked by two key mutations which separate them from their parent species the first is to take on a grayish black demonic predatory form that is stronger than the average vampire the second is the sect's natural immunity to the usual Stakes to the heart and slight resistance to sunlight which simply makes them more vulnerable to physical damage decapitation is the method Conan himself used in the black kingdoms for dealing with one such demon in issue 103 of 1979 the OD hierarchy acts as a parasite on the black kingdoms darar and Kush copying the existing tribal hierarchies after taking over the tribe by means of brutal nightly Warfare they may also start with killing the chieftain and move downward from there however regardless of the method once fully overtaken the tribe members that aren't converted Ed are farmed as food for the sect where is the usual vampire enjoys some form of civil structure the beastial blue skinned no feratu sect dwells in the caves of Corinthia and other parts of Northwestern hiboria in issue 155 in The Savage Sword of Conan from 1988 the Samaran would use the classic stake method to dive head first into the nest of beasts during the day to do away with them the initial transformation into a no veratu results in full glowing red eyes a mouth filled with rows of shark-like fangs in addition to the usual vampire eye teeth and their light blue skin as they age they slowly begin to resemble their founder losing their hair sleeping upside down like a bat and frequently practicing beastial cannibalism against other vampires should they get in their way however they do still try to be a part of Varan Society their hierarchy is similar to a familial structure with vampires of the same age being thought of as siblings and Elders being seen as father or mother figures in their infinite hunger the no veratu do not care from where the blood flows only that it flows coming to us from the 1922 Roberty Howard Story the horror on the mound making it Canon and Conan we encounter a four fanged vampire with very unique qualities separating its bloodline from both mainstream vampire society and akivasha its Fang structure marks it as a mutated child of marakan its lineage is outlined to have come from Zingara and the pictish Wilderness by implication of geography when fully fed the horror is immune to sunlight but it does cause it to go into a deep Slumber it's also a Gorge feeder like a wolf and able to pass for human unless starved when starved the horror earns its name by resembling a for fanged zombie with the mellian intellect of a serial killer mixed with the hunting Instinct of a Jaguar the reason these creatures are so rare is that they can sleep for Generations at a time have nomadic living conditions are solitary hunters and while their blood is potent they don't seem to turn others on purpose many Horrors are themselves simply in their current position because they tried to hunt one their behavior would indicate an independent status from mainstream vampire Society only in the sense that they aren't likely to be knowledgeable about their condition other than their own survival skills picked up over the years they also seem to embrace the mental health problems and Insanity that come with being away from their native soil using it as a way to augment their animalistic Killer Instinct instead of relying on the usual vampire abilities these truly are horrors of the night it is best theorized that when a fully developed deep one became curious about the undersea tomb of VAR the first Aquos vampire was born in their bloodline exists the inherited memories of their misanthropic founder mixed with the elitism of vampires their Twisted rituals and Confused IDE identities make them a threat to both the worlds of Earth and sea while their first generation is taken from Deep One stock and their beliefs are an offshoot of the esoteric order of deeon their sect comprises many aquatic races first are the impish faceless ones who are scaled Savage swimming pygmies that as the name would suggest have no faces using their ears alone to sense their surroundings second are deep one hybrids which due to the nature of vampirism remain Frozen in their current state un able to take on a more mature form or grow to the Titanic size of deeon lastly perhaps the most unique are the human members of the group which begin to grow webbing around their hands and feet along with pointed ears when transformed in the same way that vampires view humans as cattle the Aquos see all undersea Life along with humans as food well they are best defined as Rivals of the deep ones viewing themselves as the best manifestation of deon's purpose to convert life into the Servants of cthulu this is not the end of their Oddities to become an Aquos is to undergo the ritual of allseeing in which the vampire in question is blinded by having their eyeballs ripped out welcoming them into the family this ritual is done in the city they have built under the waves known as Riya after the resting place of their true God which they will refer to as the Sellar of the earth needless to say they are very independent and represent only a slightly less awful threat to Earth's vampire than they do to humans the other purpose of this ritual is to disfigure the person in question forcing them to resemble the collective beneath the waves this is truly a unique circumstance as unlike every other type of vampire it is easy to see an Aquos making a theological argument to a deep one about turning after all to convert the human race a deep one has to wait centuries without Aur success for the hybrid mating process to continue but an Aquos can transfer the Inc cestal memories undersee lifestyle and cultural values of the order much faster and within under one generation making it much faster than the Deep one's original plan however this of course comes with certain theological Hang-Ups even if the fish man was okay with losing his eyes one could argue that slowly taking the form of Deon as they age is part of cthulu's divine plan and messing with that is akin to a crime of nature or whatever de ones consider to be nature the other issue would be hierarchy as we will explore when we cover the Deep ones in Conan they don't seem to have an official hierarchy with all viewing themselves as slowly ridding themselves of human culture which includes Concepts like property ownership and organization things are referred to as belonging to the people of the sea rather than something being under the control of an individual the Aquos on the other hand have Elders who control their society that look like deep ones as we over previously allseeing priests the blind priests who undergo the ritual of allseeing who lead different groups of them and cultists under them the esoteric order of deeon isn't just an evolutionary adaptation for converting humans into deep ones anymore it's their culture and lifestyle for this reason deep one could see becoming a vampire as a slave likee impure weakness filled State this sect is also one of the few that has made a common practice of turning animal life to to serve them this includes giant squids sharks and whales despite the hold varet would usually have over someone turned by him the unique circumstance of the Aquos means that they have no veneration or love for him they often pretend that their Origins are simply the origins of deeon with no relation whatsoever to the king of all vampires well just as vicious as mainstream vampires the Moka vanaya are monks who walk a path of self- Liberation from the hunger through periodic self starvation when mixed with meditative practices these Undead Force themselves to make the most out of their psychic abilities causing them in some cases to glimpse into TOA which is the name for the realm of time in the Hib borian age this allows them to see visions of the future mixed with psychedelic flashbacks that come from their lack of sanguine nourishment this results in Vampire prophecies which are taken very seriously by mainstream Varan Society forcing themselves to eat as little as possible and being okay with multiple living situations it is perhaps the easiest for the Moka among all vampires to hide away from Humanity however they can still starve to death if they take this training too far this organically keeps their members quite low as a sect the Moka do not fear the hunger for it like all pain is merely an illusion their neighbors to the north are the shaputra of the Himalayan Mountains much like the no Fatu these are cave dwelling beastial vampires but unlike their Subterranean cousins these gargoyle like beasts prefer the mountains of the world their natural Wings allow them to spend most of their time in the air and often shape shift into much larger creatures than their less Savage contemporaries the most favorite of these is a giant vampire bat large enough to carry around 7 to 10 of their kind on its back while they do burn in the sunlight this takes slightly longer than for most as another feature of this bloodline is their tougher hides able to take much more physical damage and General than other vampires they are a part of mainstream vampire society and while the largest concentration of them are in the Himalayan Mountains they will migrate to other places based on plentifulness of food as well as mountain ranges in that area like the no veratu they have a simple family-like structure that verges more on the animalistic assassins and Warriors The Claw sect of modern Tran view themselves as the Protectors of the vampire World while a part of mainstream vampire Society they serve VAR out of an honor culture like respect and will likely not care about the status of other vampires if they view them as endangering their kind their claim to fame is their sense of justice stealth ability and swordsmanship like the sirens and mocha their differences come from their lifestyle in this case there is a heavy focus on fighting ability and skill as they literally train to take out the enemies of the vampire race including as mentioned previously many vampires themselves little is known known about their hierarchy but they do operate like a Hunting Party when in action usually having a strategist giving the others directions telepathically yiki Ona are the vampires of modern lamoria which is a fraction of its th in size and Kai these vampires have hypers specialized the Mist form into a blizzard-like storm or tornado which is their primary way of hunting as the cold Undead winds cut your flesh you slowly become nothing more than a bleeding piece of meat they are another part of mainstream society and thus have nothing more separating them than their lifestyle and special blizzard form skill from other varans while that finishes our coverage of Undead true vampires just like with our eight-man video we have included a section ordered in degree of weirdness of creatures that might come up when talking about this subject dark Templars are those individuals who have undergone a self-focused ritual similar to heraldry but towards nothingness and as a result have a whole their soul that empowers them as life force vampires while they may also be skilled in blood magic especially if they want to disguise themselves as a true vampire they are human in most ways it's important to remember that their vampirism is not a necessity but a power that can be used at will their halfs sold nature also gives them certain instinctive abilities like accelerated healing self- warding to protect against weaker spells and the ability to psychically attack with parasitic Force against their enemies those who follow this path are not usually the same political stock of Undead vampires but instead are mercenaries or soldiers looking to get a supernatural Edge on their opponents by increasing their abilities magically many most likely come across the process of becoming a half demon in their research and think they can practice the ritual or cheat the system by doing it on themselves which would be one way of becoming a dark Templar another is of course to purposely undergo the ritual if a player wants to be a day Walker like Blade the Templar is a much safer option this has the flavor of a vampire without the bad aftertaste of being far too different from the rest of the party or an angry mob coming after you nural is the shemite lord of the underworld and he has two races of servants in the form of bat-like entities both of which have made it to this list the first are the shadows of nural also simply called Bat demons these creatures are very much demon beasts as the do not seem to have higher sentients they can find their ways to Earth by being summoned by a demonologist escaping the outer dark or heraldically bonding itself to a vampire bat causing the transformation into a demon Beast an element that would be very fun to play with is the idea of nural controlled bat demons attacking vampires as they are Undead and have avoided the underworld a fight between these entities and the shaputra would be fun to watch The Devil beasts of nural all are the spectral sister race of their demon Beast Brothers the title of devil in Conan lore is usually given to demonic entities that have bonded and adapted to specific parts of nature in the case of these creatures as they come from the realm of the Dead they have become one with a kind of death ice common in the necromancy School of magic in the universe they are immune to normal weapons and chill anything that moves through them Conan fought a devil beast in issue 30 of his Barbarian Series in 1973 three while they can't be killed they are easily frightened off by holy symbols they are attracted to and violently attack those without faith or those filled with fear while not coming to Earth until long after the time of Conan in the 2300s the fire vampires coming to us in the Donald windry cthulu Mythos story of the same name in most cases are far too powerful to include in your story as anything but gods to the naked eye the fire vampires home World appears as a comet flying through space but in truth this flaming rock contains a hive mind of beings that desire the natural resources memories and very being of their victim planets for both an unknowable purpose and their continued existence this is done by engulfing certain areas of the world in a giant Inferno of light and heat taking what they need while often making demands on that same home world out of a fear of reprisals while normal vampires are harmed by sunlight these mountain-sized alien parasites are harmed by certain frequencies and electromagnetic waves since their main threat comes from their size a simple reduction makes them far more manageable enemies cthugga the being these entities Spawn from in the Hib borian age would be much farther away than it would be in the later 2300s of our time for this reason a much smaller entity about the size of a fist or maybe person-sized rock may have landed on Earth causing a bit of manageable Havoc for your adventuring party the two named fire vampires we know of are cthugga which is their parent and fagua who acts as their political leader called a high Regent this was a much richer or in-depth concept than I thought it would be and while I thought the anos would be my favorite part of making this video the truth is the simple concept I really enjoyed here was how far a vampire sect of Undead can separate themselves from a herd so long as they simply train one of their abilities for this reason I'd love to see what a sect of hyper obsessive shape shifters could do of course the concept of deep one vampires and fire vampires have their own natural level of weird enjoyment as well oh the battles I fought but always it overcame me and drove me ravening after some new victim but after the moon had passed its fullness the thing's power over me ceased suddenly nor did it return until three nights before the moon was full again since then I have roamed the world fleeing fleeing seeking to escape always the thing follows taking possession of my body when the moon is full Gods the frightful Deeds I have done I would have slain myself long ago but I dare not for the soul of a suicide is a cursed and my soul would be forever hunted Through the flames of hell and hearken most frightful of all my slain body would forever roam the Earth moved and inhabited by the soul of the werewolf can any thought be more ghastly and I seem immune to the Wonders and weapons of man swords have pierced me daggers have hacked me I am covered with scars yet never have they struck me down they bound and led me to the block there would I have willingly placed my head but the thing Came Upon me and breaking my bonds I slew and fled up and down the world I have wandered leaving horror and Slaughter in my trail chains cells cannot hold me the thing is fastened to me through all eternity jbel SG like many demon gods was traumatized by the time of old KN when Humanity was first given domain over the Earth at the behest of several Divine Gods casting the first demons into the part of the outer dark best associated with hell in his ruthless desire to restore the order before the rise of man he possessed more Mercy than most seeking to incorporate man into his self-perceived Primal Paradise coupling with everything from the Earth itself to beasts and man he would eventually create at his most dreaded invention that of the wolf man we know through the character in py who is a demigod hyena man in Conan Exiles that there was likely a race of wolf men similar to the race of hyena men which predated the eventual rise of the we hyena however civilized wolf men are far more rare as they are seemingly created with the purpose of conversion or death a kamikazi sort of conversion agent here on the part of jbel SG the brother of the Moon and PC's sibling being a clear example of this in Conan issue 158 from 1984 we are given a clear example of a man making a deal with jabel SG to save his family's life but in return his first born was a werewolf the tragic tale ending in the man slaying his own daughter with a silver crossbow crossbows being legendary weapons for those familiar with Conan Exiles as a brief note on the weakness to Silver at the end of the day it does seem like all wear creatures have the weakness to Silver and it is heavily implied throughout various writings not just in the funcom games but also in the comics and in some parts of wolf's head as well which is an insight into how Robert E Howard himself would do werewolves and also wolf's head even though it is in the future it is still part of the Robert E Howard verse so it is Canon and Conan it seems as though silver is a part of their blood that some aspect of their blood due to the curse does become connected to Silver in such a way that silver does harm them it is I suppose a matter of magnetism or a source of power or a material alchemical thing that can match their Supernatural strength and that's the way silver seems to affect werewolves in Conan because usually the way it is in writing is that silver is a pure metal and since the werewolf is an amalgamation of two things put in one it harms the werewolf because it is ultimately able to separate the two but in this case is because silver seems to vibrate at the same frequency as the Demonic power of a werewolf and beat at the same frequency as a demonic werewolf's heartbeat from here we can derive three ways that Jebel SOG spreads the curse of werewolves the first is by deal making which makes The Offspring of the person or themselves into a Herald which is what half demons are called in Conan the second is by a wolf man mating with with a human and the third is by a werewolf biting thus mixing its saliva into a surviving victim of its attacks the survival of the victim proving to Jebel sag that they have potential as a good Sleeper Agent thus sort of kamakazi conversion or die agent that we just went over where will serve that role in Jebel s's perceived Army we also talk a lot more about this in part one but it's something like hanuman's Apen provide kind of a sword or a mace and the jills harpies provide this or that and it's sort of just this amalgam of an Animal Kingdom Army against the Civilized World Sagi and werewolves take the form of something similar to a Wolfman of the 1966 film Harry with wolf-like instincts along with claws while their face may be beast-like they could easily be mistaken for a large Ape from a distance or maybe a Sasquatch their key physiological trait which separates them from the second type of werewolf we will talk about is their human-shaped head with only slightly extended muzzle along with their Godlike speed these beings are faster than all other we beasts and as possibly intended by the Lord of Twisted forms being a gross parody of civilized man they are also the most Savage having no control over their actions this transformation is physiological causing the ripping and tearing of cells regenerating at an impossible rate resulting in the super fast healing process werewolves are known for in many any other media SGI and werewolf Transformations are incredibly painful but seem to make up for it by flooding the body with serotonin causing a drug induced state of religious ecstasy before the adrenaline of the Beast sets in once fully transformed despite committing horrible acts of violence as a truly monstrous Berserker this makes the transformations of Sagi and wolf men something highly addictive due to this drug induced State most are unaware of their actions during this time the more it happens the more they crave that state this is also a very physical process meaning The Ripping of clothes is very common werewolves will transform if their lives are threatened meaning near-death life experience or by force under the light of the full moon three nights in a row very similar in almost all ways to the sagian werewolf wolf's head by Robert E Howard in 1926 gives us another type of werewolf also Canon to the Conan universe that would sadly only become more common after the death of King Conan but would still be around here as well this is important for home Brewers as those of you who want a wear insert creature here can use this method for a lore friendly representation of it in your game to begin wolf's head werewolves are identifiable by the fact that they possess the head of a wolf rather than that of a hairy man with an extended muzzle they are also much stronger than they are fast despite this they still have the savagery and the transformation conditions of the sagian werewolf however they also get no dulling of pain when transforming and retain fully the horrible memories of those they slaughter under the full moon being a wolf's head werewolf is a true curse from the pain of the transformation to harming those you love these werewolves came about from demons fearful of being captured and bent to the will of different demonologists out of fear they sought to possess beasts but were too afraid to command the beast's body so ended up fusing with them instead effectively accidentally recreating the same creature as the Sagi and werewolves with alterations such as the weakness to Silver coming from the fact that these are fused Abominations rather than the creation of a new creature so while soggy and werewolves are you know silver harms them while soggy and werewolves are harmed by silver because silver runs in their blood it vibrates at the same frequency these have that more traditional weakness we were talking about to it earlier it does function the same way though if you wanted to play it differently you could say maybe one has a more radiating effect and the other is a very clear magical you know you stabbed it with the silver sword Elder Scroll style so it dies unlike the Turning process of the sagian werewolves which is very diverse the wolf's head werewolf will take on the form of a demonic spirit that upon the death of the current werewolf will either possess the nearest predator Beast thus altering the nature of the curse or the human who killed it thus continuing the curse in its current form the end of the wolf's head book hints at the idea that after the death of the werewolf in that story the Demonic Spirit escaped by going into a river foreshadowing the return of it as a wear crocodile referring to hiding in a beast of the Nile once again these types of lycanthropes change during a full moon or when their lives are threatened this process can be applied to any Beast possessed by a Savage demonic Spirit fueled by fear so Bears bores and lions are all fair game for The Elder Scrolls fans out there like in the story they would have the head of a beast increased physical strength and be horribly cursed with the condition often trying to end their own lives to no avail while the demon possesses the Beast itself it is very noticeable whenever it grows enraged it will take on the form of a human armed Beast twice the size of its usual form this type of creature called a wolf beast or an insert animal here Beast attacked Conan in a band of mercenaries in issue 224 of 1989 Conan was the only Survivor it can only be assumed that the conditions of near-death life experience and full moon are applicable to take this form as well if you want your werewolves to be more beastial with only the barest amount of human qualities than wolf beasts which again much like the wolf's head werewolves can be any type of Beast you are looking for as implied by our opening quote should a cursed werewolf succeed in a suicide attempt even with silver Weaponry they will only succeed in killing their mortal half becoming an undead zombie nightmare berserk abomination of rancid fur and rotting Fang forever staying in their werewolf form as they become more nightmarishly decrepit in appearance over time this can only be done through the super suicide of a cursed man the process of imp ification is when a human being suffering from starvation's body tries to make up for the missing nutrients with demonic energy in a contaminated area the aisle of syta is home to many such locations in addition to a weather system called the Maelstrom directly connected to the dreamlands of cth the star girdle making mutation of many kinds in all too common sight quite literally on the level similar to the dreamlands of reality warping the Key signs of ocation is three-fingered hands three- toed feet and a relative beastial appearance the devolved Werewolves of the island off the coast of Stiga are no different being an alternate path to get to your wolf beast if you so desire these 34s demon werewolves are in a permanent transformed State making them always hungry for war it is important to note that due to their armor we can assume that these were original Ally purebred wolf men of rare considerable intellect which of course is likely due to the melstrom weather system directly connected to the Dreamland so upon landing on the island uh these creatures or forming on the island these creatures were likely gifted with a higher intellect because of the ability to not be forced in any way to stay bound uh to the usual laws of their species within reason uh we see this similarly with the blood moon Beast which went the other way and we do talk about that but it's effectively a moon Beast that had to dumb down an intellect because it effectively became what it would be if it worked by natural laws the longer it stayed on Earth but then with these devolved wolf men they are capable of a higher form of intellect here and we can see demonstrations of a higher form of intellect through weapon crafting and armor crafting because they are living in a place so close to a reality warping weather system if you don't want to experience the effects of vfic at your tabletop then you'll need this video's second sponsor Ronin craft Ronan craft is an independent 3D model printing service that allows you to break the curse of overpriced minis with an excellent customer service score on Etsy you can be sure that you'll get quality that surpasses any Master the hyena men are a race of beastmen born from the demon god of fear and Son of jabel SG jamonica far more intelligent and trickster likee than their wolf cousins they are full-on shape shifters who make deals with humans for Magical knowledge in exchange for horrific hedonistic Acts or knowledge of equal value in some cases a hyena man may require sex from a woman who is a prospective sorcerer the result of this coupling will be a we hyena where hyenas themselves then mate into populations creating more of their kind as well as recessive carriers of the gene which can manifest in later Bloodlines much like their parent race the we hyena is dramatically more human in terms of mental faculties and control over their form their full form resembles a hyena version of the wolf beasts we talked about before but they can also transform into a full hyena or full human it will aware Hyena's actions depends on the person itself as outlined in the 1926 Story by Robert E Howard simply titled hyena the entire story is effectively dedicated to outlining how we hyenas work in the wider Howard verse the we hyena senoa is clearly stated several times to be different from most we hyena who do not actively hunt humans after the time of Conan and is solely motivated by his own desires to kill off the main protagonist of the story due to his desire to mate with the love interest likewise the hyena man character in PC in Conan Exiles is a laid-back figure more comfortable pontificating upon how to live a good life as what he himself views as an Abomination rather than attack the player character finally we come to the highly reclusive wear Panthers also known as the children of the cat God Bast being the god in questions Royal Offspring they founded a hidden city deep in the southern Hib borian jungles centered around an artifact called the eye of Bast now in accordance with what actually happens in the 1989 run of the comics the eye of Bast isn't required for them to be able to transform they are a race of demigods after all but it is the training wheels that allow them to retain a human form this is because the children of the cat God are fully Panther when born but change into a pointy eared fanged human form when near the artifact which has the range of an entire city in effect from the character Prince artius of the previously mentioned city of bat we know that even after being separated for a long time while the panther form is more comfortable for them to take after living as humans in the city throughout their childhood and early adulthood they are able to take on the human form at will as well as fully retained human speech in their Panther form currently the ancient city of besat is in Ruins and the children roam the Earth in various forms seeking out the artifact wherever it may be last scene in the possession of Conan who is best hypothesized to have have given it to Prince artius after helping him defeat his sister and becoming a close Ally the legacy of the wear Panthers is likely a nomadic one in current times making them interesting Quest givers or NPCs in any tabletop campaign so they could be looking for the eye of best at and of course a talking Panther is always a very fun psychedelic thing to see especially if the rest of your tabletop campaign has been very low fantasy the madness and monstrosity lay in the figures in the foreground for pikmin's morbid art was preeminently one of demoniac portraiture these figures were seldom completely human but often approached Humanity in varying degree most of the bodies while roughly bipedal had a forward slumping and vaguely canine cast the texture of the majority was a kind of unpleasant rubberiness through ghoul guarded gateways of Slumber past the war mooned abysses of night I have lived aare many lives without number I have sounded all things with my sight ghouls are living beings that resemble naked Jackal or hyena men often with a human hairline while not Undead they do venerate death and similar but not exact to our theory of aaronian psychology seem to have an inverted view of health or Wellness in many cases they are described as a parody of Life hungry for flesh sometimes living but mostly dead in terms of what they eat as this creature has been wrongfully depicted many times we must go over a general understanding of their body plan the canine features of the ghoul are present on their hind legs fingertips and heads they possess a human hairline torso and arms skin and hair color can differ dramatically but all of them have a rubbery quality to the skin and the most common eye color is an albino red tails in terms of individual ghouls can sometimes be present though they're usually stubby longtailed ghouls would be very rare despite me describing their heads as Jackal or hyena like this is more in reference to their foraging patterns as scavengers in truth they can resemble any naked or bald canine however even this is not so simple as ghouls have taken many forms over their dramatically sickening existence on this Earth many ghouls appear to have decayed flesh but this is likely due to a flesh eating bacteria they have both contracted and view as a sign of good health as their nature is partially informed by the reality warping dreamlands ghouls just as easily dramatically rise in number as recede a ghoul can be born from other ghouls a human baby can be taken or stolen who over time and spending their years of puberty with ghouls will take on the ghoul's form and soul an adult human can become a ghoul by joining a cult of morigan or another ghoul cult that uses the ghoul manuscript which seems to hold the secret of warping men into monsters and ghoul children can be left with a human family before puberty who will take on a human form as a survival mechanism but revert to their ghoulish form when in the presence of their kin or venturing to the dreamlands as they are said to retain a ghoulish Soul as ghouls frequently travel to the dreamlands and cth is also regarded as an afterlife it can be theorized that the reason ghouls venerate death so much is that upon death they merely appear in the dreamlands from which they are free to either stay or find their way back to Earth through their various ghoul tunnels with strange eons even death may die but those eons are far off for this race of morbid dreamers who merely view death as a new beginning while being a ghoul can be a great Boon for the nihilistic individuals who desire it all it takes is two generations of one's bloodline being raised in human homes for ghoulishness to totally disappear from a family as many ghouls are converted from humans and live in opposition to them they may very well view themselves as Immortal while they former human compatriots as nothing more than prey if not simply inferior most ghouls are naturally nocturnal but suffer no consequence from the sunlight for the purposes of this video we have broken down ghouls into the following five types first are the common ghouls which have already been described second are what we can call skinwalkers as represented by the character Richard Upton Pikman in pikmin's model where our opening quote today is from ghoul children adopted by human parents will appear human when in the company of other humans but when in the company of only ghouls or traveling to the dreamlands they will take on the ghoulish form of their souls third are those who live on the plateau of Lang in the far north of Earth's dreamlands while not in any true way different from common ghouls they push the limits for the appearance a ghoul may have many have blue or green skin and other outlandish qualities practically resembling fantasy hobgoblins in some cases as ghouls are partially human they can succumb to impishness when a human is starving near a demonic influence door out dark corrupted area their body will try to make up for the lack of calories with demonic energy resulting in a devolving process the human becomes a deformed smaller bulky version of their former self and is converted into a minor demon on the aisle of sypa we can see ghouls transported from the dreamlands through the melstrom weather event which acts as a portal between cth and Earth starving resulting in the same process impishness is characterized by three-fingered hands three-toed feet and asymmetrical features when the first two qualities are present but no deformity is this is a sign of multiple generations of breeding subject to normal human evolution or animal Evolution lastly are those ghouls who are truly Undead while initially I was not going to include these their elongated faces mutated into snout show a genuine connection to real yashi and ghouls what has most likely occurred is a Rarity as they like the impish ghouls are subject to unique circumstances being only found near the ruins of acaron in tortage it is likely that a picked Necromancer which can be seen summoning the dead on the aisle of torage accidentally opened a portal to the dreamlands through waking Dreaming or the act of dreaming while awake calling a ghoul to a dead body is not a hard feet but instead of materializing in the real world with the body they're used to they find themselves in the dead body they wish to consume the result is the head of the corpse changing into something half ghoul half man as well as this new creature being being animall likee in mentality under the complete control of the Necromancer in question ghouls travel often and it is in their nature in fact to be quite nomadic being ever in search for what the ghoul manuscript refers to as the choicest of meats found in delightfully ripe rotting graveyards this means traveling through Subterranean caves and portals referred to Simply as ghoul tunnels this is also the reason that you're going to hear the word ghoul much more than I would have liked to put in this script but here it is some of these tunnels exist in the physical world some are portals to the dreamlands and some are theorized to go beyond cth to other planets entirely the portals always come out in graveyards or places known for Mass death when a new place of death is discovered a pack of ghouls May dig a new tunnel to that location connecting it with a larger Network the chief tunnel connecting the ghouls of Earth to the dreamlands leads to the CAG of ghouls in the Underworld region overlooking the bonefill veil of panth which is Legend to be the old spot of the once sacred ancient ghoul city of Midian that was destroyed when ghouls were forced to Earth for the first time the ghouls worship a Pantheon of great old ones or individual Horrors associated with death depending on the cult or pack in question first is sha rash ho who is said to be the father of all ghouls though he is the son of cthulu he does not appear to be made for any specific purpose like Dagon though we may never know this as he most likely soon entered the dreamlands after being born or created as an Noble great old one he then made it with one of the men of the dreamlands these properties together created the first of these highly unique creatures in the form of Yash who was theoretically the first of the ghoul pharaohs in an ancient civilization that existed in the dreamlands which may have resembled Earth's Stiga later becoming ancient Egypt cthulu himself does not appear to be directly venerated by ghouls which points further in the direction that they are more divorced from mainstream if one could call it that great old ones due to their early evolutionary stages in the highly chaotic cth minor Gods would include the idiot great ones who rule the dreamlands of Earth of which there are many in number B zuka M their God of pestilence who resembles a giant flying scorpion bass their cat God of Pleasure which would later be adopted by the ancient Egyptians of Earth and Sino thog which is referred to as a great claw that murders all those who summon it it is due to these gods that we can derive disease Hedonism and murder as virt vires of the ghoul mind it is also the case that since B zuka resides on another planet and is said to have no human followers that we can derive some ghoul tunnels going to other planets what passes for their Higher Culture seemingly comes from the influence of two gods in particular Nar leote who is called the black pharaoh and migan who is called the Great ghoul often thought of as an incarnation of shur asho himself while n leote was clearly the first god of the ghoul race and as Yash accompanies him wherever he may go in the star girdle Mor digian would be responsible for dictating the writing of the ghoul manuscript referred to as the charal text with migan himself being titled the charal god which is also the title of the first story he appeared in by Clark Ashton Smith given the context that the text and surrogate family oriented even friendly if you can look past the various murder attempts nature of ghouls is this outlines their God of Darkness to be one chiefly concerned with both the well-being and standard of living of ghouls as a race this is often why it is debated as to whether michian is either a great old one Spawn from shur asho who views ghouls as his kin or an incarnation of the ghoul father himself before we get into the ghoul manuscript it is necessary to go a bit deeper into n leot as we have not yet done so also called The Crawling chaos and messenger of the outer Gods the thing that separates n leot from every other lovecraftian deity is his level of of activity in the world as well as a semi- definable personality he has a direct sense of style often disguising himself as a joyous thin man made of pure Shadow as his name would suggest he loves causing chaos in the waking world and most relevant for this video hates or detests being in charge of the dreamlands which is where the decree that no man waking may enter likely comes from from his sense of style which shows a preference for gold we get his identity of the black phoh and is most likely why the ghoul manuscript speaks of ghoul pharaohs very likely imitating n leot to the best of their ability in reference again to him being more relatable despite him being more of an active threat than cthulu himself he is a messenger god to the court of aatho this means that when yag Sao or shab naroth or any other outer God give him an order he has to follow it hence why he is guarding over cth and the idiot great ones who are very true to their name when looking at the example set by n leote as a nightmarish trickster figure with a twisted sense of humor who loves to cause Mass death it's easy to see where ghouls get the foundation of their culture like nthp they parody the ordered lives of those around them by living as chaotically as possible this also hits on the most disturbing thing about ghouls which is that they in many cases cannot be distinguished from humans in any kind of test they are for all intents and purposes humans of some variety but their own race given their extreme distinction from the rest of the species which is often only visible among others of their same kind it is unknown whether or not nthp actually enjoys the company of ghouls but he may as Yash is one of his allies then again as we're about to go over he may also be the reason ghouls left the dreamlands in the first place found within the Cults of migan who was worshiped by those humans wishing to become Ghouls and yashan themselves the ghoul manuscript is described in most sources as of typical ghoul workmanship which indicates being bound in human flesh hinged with curved human bones and written in barely eligible blood ink or feces as most of the Tome is indecipherable here is what we know the text contains a creation myth of ghouls how to select flesh for proper consumption how to throw feasts for those ghouls who aspire to Old nthp influence dream culture entitled feasts of nitocris and how to properly worship migan the creation myth is less of a myth and more the story of how ghouls found their way to Earth and why they are very nomadic in nature effectively ghouls lived under n leot and the dreamlands in a place called The Garden of Midian which we mentioned previously in the video this was located again in the Underworld area this is where ghoul old high culture came from after this many ghouls were taught the ways of Black Magic by an entity referred to in the script as a great black dragon which taught them of the outer Gods thus giving them knowledge of the thing which ruled over them as well as knowledge of eldrich magic in general this great black dragon was very likely more digian though since we know nthp hates ruling over the dreamlands it could also have been himself looking for an excuse to banish them this could also be another possible identity for M digian as n leot is said to take on many forms as part of his identity due to this knowledge they were viewed as tainted and cast out of their Paradise onto Earth of course upon dying we know that ghouls simply find themselves back in the dreamlands but they are also unwelcome and cth they can travel to earth but are obviously not welcome there either thus the life of a ghoul is to travel from land to land even beyond the stars in search of a new home when the ghoul dies they simply appear in the dreamlands Underworld to begin the process again today the only sign of Midian left is a giant nomadic ghoul colony which refers to itself as the city of Midian it is worth noting here that ghoul culture is incredibly diverse and this is very likely in part due to the fact that they vary extremely in intellect as they are both part beastial and view Contracting diseases as a good omen this results in some ghouls who are incredibly civilized and others who are themselves insane or feral an aspect of ghoul morphology is absorbing memories from the dead they Feast on which adds to their natural sense of identity confusion in terms of mentality I would separate ghoul societies into four class classifiers firstly Cults which may include humans and are sedentary for the most part due to human involvement second are pxs which contain only Ghouls and are mostly nomadic thirdly we will use the term drunk to refer to ghouls who have receded an intellect and sober to refer to ghouls which retain a high culture with a coherent sense of identity despite their dietary Norms packs of drunken ghouls are self-explanatory as they have receded in intellect and exist solely as beasts instinctively roaming ghoul tunnels in search of their next graveyard or prey to Feast on packs of sober ghouls will stay in an area so long as the dead come in great number for them to consume their next meal often coming from humans who in majority they will leave alone as to allow them to die of natural causes which is better for a Scavenging spot's longevity More Humans means more corpses these are the ghouls who appear as a parody of life to humans for reasons just went over through the other their entirety of the hind part of this video they have no human attachments May attack a human Intruder and view humans as laughably pathetic or weak something to ignore or kill for entertainment a sober Cult of ghouls will most likely have a primarily religious identity worshiping some variation of N leote Mor digian or in rare cases other gods we've mentioned most likely this would be more digian as it would allow them to offer a form of Salvation to those humans willing to go through the wicked right and sacrifices to become a ghoul thus ultimately Immortal from the perspective of a human finally drunk Cults would most likely be those who have begun stealing the babies of humans on Instinct as a form of reproduction rather than reproduce themselves this would explain their sedentary Behavior as they have receded an intellect they have most likely contracted disease or severe level of Madness to allow for the occurrence because of this we can assume their God was very likely bout zuka MOG or they could be generating cthulu as their grandfather Creator deity as Madness is often associated with his worship while I didn't mention it in the god section of this video yag Sao and his darf farian interpretation as yog the god of cannibals is also a good Contender for ghoul worship for obvious reasons if you don't want to include Bast as one of the Gods your ghouls worship a good substitution would be shab naroth also called Ishtar in the hi borian age this is also a God of ritualistic Pleasure and blood orgies I mentioned this in part one of our all gods and Conan podcast series a link to that can be found below when it comes to ghoul personalities I am generalizing here so it is important to note that ghouls of sound mind are deeply individualistic in terms of their identities ghoul Cults therefore can be present at any level of society a court advisor is just as much a suspect as a graved digger as ghouls are individualistic they have individual biases some of which are pro either the people they knew when they were human either trying to convert them to a cult or protect them from other ghouls other biases may include a deep-seated superiority complex which may cause them to hunt those same men for sport while the ghoul tongue is as indecipherable as their handwriting it has been described as a kind of meeping or gibbering in regards to the hierarchal structure of ghoul packs there most likely isn't one in rejection of order and parity of Life they most likely have a communal sense of both tribe and property given that in most cases members would be leaving and joining frequently having the group dependent on any one ghoul would not be advantageous to hunting flesh or Scavenging for flesh that being said more beastial ghoul packs may follow a wolf-like pack structure having Alphas betas Etc given that most tend to be naked they also wouldn't really care for material possessions especially if being reincarnated will just result in them losing them anyway this concludes what we have on ghouls in the lore the rest of this video will be on the Lovecraft connections to the Mythos real life myths and story ideas stick around if you enjoy that kind of thing there are three cases in which we can see an act of truly pouring oneself into their work on the part of author HP Lovecraft the first is in the author of the Necronomicon Abdul Al hazad which was one of lovecraft's first pen names having an obsession with Arabian culture ever since he read Arabian Nights when he was a little boy the second is in Randolph Carter who is held up as an aspirational figure in his stories coming to full terms with who he is as a person eventually earning the respect of the god yag Sao who calls him a real man and finally in his personal letters which remained unpublished until 1965 when Arkham house released them while there are a lot of lies told about HP lovecraft's views and life one thing that was very true was that he was abused as a child his mother would frequently refer to him as not worth being seen in public or as ugly and he developed a fear of inheriting dysgenic traits as a result it is perhaps a sign of his own self development as a person and growth as a writer that he was able to put both him and his mother as Canon future descendants of yagos the first ghoul over the course of HP lovecraft's writings from a psychoanalytical perspective we can see serious self-growth through the stories a shadow over insouth the entire randoff Carter series and these letters Lovecraft went from viewing himself as a Madman destined to be pulled apart by invisible forces to Desiring to be in control of his own life through Randol Carter and finally before tragically dying of cancer in his mid-40s a self-realized person I have a mini documentary on the author linked below he was truly another great man taken before his time his Dreamland setting and other creations can be found as a direct influence on the aisle of syta setting in the DLC of the same name for Conan Exiles these include the ghouls we mentioned earlier the blood moon Beast dols Migo bokrug and the voiceless ones or thuna across the west and Middle East there are two Origins for the ghoul as depicted in lovecraft's Mythos and as a consequence Howard's hiboria the first of course are the Arabic ghouls spelled ghu l rather than how it is spelled here Skin Walkers in the guise of gorgeous women would stalk graveyards in search of Flesh to eat while depicted similar to Lovecraft schools like many in this video they had Bine hind legs rather than canine ones you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find Lovecraft accurate ghouls online the second myth is one like the ghouls we're talking about today is wrongfully associated with werewolves this is the Western myth of sinos or dog-headed men these creatures do not change shape in any way have a culture of mostly cannibalism and are often described as a parody of Life by their detractors but redeemable beings with Souls by their Advocates at one point in history copil were such an accepted myth in Europe that the debate was not over whether or not they were real but instead whether they could be converted to Christianity St Christopher was originally depicted as a large sinos carrying Christ on his back this is what is meant by the name Christopher Christ bearer of course the original dog man in European lore comes to us from Greece in the form of King like Aon who seeks to feed Zeus a meal of human flesh and as punishment is turned into a wolf-headed man once again we have the culture of cannibalism throwing feasts as we talked about in this video and being a parody of life in this case offending the king of the god gods in the Egyptian world of course we can also view the jackal-headed god Anubis associated with death as well as nitocris spelled with a c instead of a k which was the name of a female pharaoh often associated with the god in question in later writings we can easily see how parts of each of these myths led to the creation we see today if any of our ghoul manuscript sections sounded familiar to you then you're probably familiar with the 1990 cult classic horror film Clive Barker's night breed which took much inspiration from these letters and Lovecraft schools however the concept is fused with the Demons of Christianity in the movie A man effectively becomes one of the night breed who are basically more diverse demonic looking ghouls in a graveyard he has to deal with both his new life as a monster and worrying about being framed as a serial killer the city of Midian is featured as an actual place that phases in and out of reality and themes of reality warping are plentiful 1927 pikmin's model is a wonderful bit of World building and the first long form ghoul Focus story of Lovecraft with its titular character being featured again in the dream quest of unknown kadath which is where we get our idea of skinwalkers from 1926 is the outsider is easily the most underrated story Lovecraft has concerning ghouls I don't want to say his most underrated story I think his most underrated setting are the dreamlands I think everyone know the the cthulu Mythos but his most underrated story concerning ghoul CS is the outsider it is simply about a ghoul who forgot that he was one surviving on the memories of His Last Meal which he was using to lie to himself about being human effectively dealing with the trauma of being a ghoul you remember what we talked about earlier with Lovecraft coming to terms with who he is and growing his confidence through writing about ghouls to some degree thinking that he's a man trapped in a dungeon he eventually escapes into what is obviously a cemetery in which he rejoices in the fact that he remembers what he is after he inevitably is woken up to that fact by scaring people like he at first is dealing with the thing that caused him to run to The Cellar in the first place and he tries to go back but he can't because the door is closed because he had the moment of self-development and it's actually a very triumphant story what started as a horror story ends as a message about self-growth and acceptance he runs off into the night and what I will always remember to be both a horrific and Whimsical fashion giving the story a morbid happy ending and that's that's kind of what I want to talk about it's morbid Whimsy is the feeling the ghoul is supposed to invoke it's supposed to do that you know there's this kind of characteristic where yes it's a warning about all the things you shouldn't be but at the same time it's also a message that even the freaks in this world are capable of having a high self-confidence so why aren't you and this is kind of the Hidden meta Narrative of ghouls for Lovecraft this is the first ghoul story I ever read as a kid and is where the idea of ghoul feasts of nitocris under the Great Pyramid is mentioned for the first time while also heav implying that this pyramid is indeed in the dreamlands mardigian as a God is featured in The Clark Ashton Smith story The chal God 1934 this is part of his zic cycle which takes place at the end of time on the last inhabited continent of Earth this very late date in Humanity's history being another reason many people assume that migan is merely an incarnation of shash ho talked about simply in this far off distant future lastly though it has barely any super Supernatural elements to it besides when too imagery and the form of the stagman is NBC's Hannibal filled with such iconic lines as it's only cannibalism if we're equals from the titular character and Will Graham the other main character effectively describing Hannibal as a skinwalker ghoul he's one of those things we used to kill but somebody kept it warm kept it safe until we had to deal with it today this reimagined prequel series to the great crime psychological Thriller red dragon actually is a perfect example of what it would be like to deal with a skinwalker ghoul who views themselves as a hunter of inferior men Hannibal selects his prey based on who he sees as the most rude kills them with extreme efficiency and prepares their dead bodies as gourmet meals at his extravagant dinner parties while viewing most humans as free game he views his only friends to be FBI agent Jack Crawford and profiler Will Graham who he will go to Great Lengths to protect until season 3 which ruined everything in conclusion ladies and gentlemen ghouls are simply fun they are underutilized but spiritually represented in the horror you know of today the ideas for stories with these monsters are as Limitless as their cousin race the Deep ones often Mis associated with vampires or far more Savage werewolves they make a great criminal informant for any monster hunter character horde of enemies that could randomly appear or a tragic past for a skin walker who regrets their transformation it's easy to make a ghoul character work as while they are technically Immortal if they're all their friends or human being transported to the dreamlands after death does not ensure at all that they can still transform back into a human like they could before or that they will be able to navigate the ghoul tunnels well enough to make it back to their party or more importantly their old life weird fiction is always best when it lives up to its name nowhere is that better represented than in the truly odd companion of many a dabbler and Elder magic Brown Jenkins ALS Al known as rat things coming from Beyond Space and Time no one is sure of their original domain only that due to the nature of their existence they may live anywhere and everywhere this is because the most immediate and important thing to go over about rat things is that they are invisible to the naked eye the only people who can see a rat thing are their initial Summoner drunk people or anyone who has managed to trap the creature in a jar of alcohol which will have the same effect of nullifying its invisibility due to this Brown Jenkins are effectively Discovery proof you either don't want others to know they are here because it would be proof of your worship of Mythos entities or you were literally inebriated and will be seen as a drunk person talking nonsense their Anatomy is quite simple and cartoonishly disturbing having the head and neck of a human with the body as well as the fangs of a rat the fangs are always kept unnaturally large and white likely through self-grooming while they are usually short-haired Shag and naked variants have been noted as well to add to their comical yet threatening nature they are also able to speak all languages in existence while seemingly being infinitely smarter than an average human their accent is described as a loathsome titter which often invokes hatred in humans who of course instinctively view them as unnatural this perfect ability for stealth and infinite verbal IQ is only kept in check by the simple fact that for an unknown evolutionary reason much like ghouls they are very satisfied with their lives is nomadic scavengers they go where the food is in this case again much like ghouls they are noted blood Drinkers and corpse eaters offerings of sorcerers blood greatly please them at which point they will sadistically grin and offer their services in the form of either protection or knowledge this does not have to be but usually is the blood of the Summoner since they are morally neutral entities focused on a combination of gluttony in a good time they make great information Brokers or Quest starters for any campaign no matter the setting they present no danger to the living unless one seeks to kill the person who summoned them if the summoning was on purpose and done in the name of aatho or nthp which are the two outer Gods Brown Jenkins are most associated with under this condition or under a blood packed as a familiar the Jenkin will take Revenge by eating the heart out of the murderer of their Summoner after which it will then possess the murderer and do with the body of the murderer as it pleases as long as these very specific conditions are not met they will instead Scamper eat and most notably and notoriously nuzzle random people behaving as normal-ish invisible ghost rat mini ghouls the majority of the time while their only lore book the dreams in the witch house does describe them as vampiric rats it also makes it clear that they prefer already spilled blood or dead flesh to those of the living there really are an infinite number of ways to use these simple but incredibly strange creatures and I hope to hear more about them in your tabletop groups hi Boran adventures in ancient Greek myth the moral of the story of the minur has surprisingly little to do with the Minotaur itself Bine creatures in the context of helenic art were always used to represent the consequences of someone failing in their responsibilities to civilization sers or goatmen were frequently associated with betrayal a lot like the Conan story we'll be going over today in search for profit centaurs or horse folk would represent the threat of not joining the military effort thus The Taking of the nation's women by rival trib and the minur story is about letting one's positive emotions get the better of them after a victory it's a story about the dangers of arrogance the Minotaur representing an enemy soldier is slain by Theus which results in him being too excited to realize that he needed to give a sign of him living to his father King Aus however he does not do so and his father thinking of the brutal death his son must have endured because of something he feels personally accountable for ends his own life the two typ of Bine connected man creatures that exist in this universe are best called Minotaur and bull men but before we get to them we have to go back in time to the Elder Knight long before the beings we know today as demon gods were banished to the hell Realms of the outer dark there existed The Entity known as Jebel sag dedicated to the teachings of his Primal language this language blurs the boundaries between all beastial and sentient life he has had many children including several demigods that could talk to animals werewolves and many a demon god in his endless list of children he must have mated with a cow producing the shape-shifting bullheaded God pitor sometimes appearing as a great bull called the king Bull and other times appearing as an obese man called Adonis connected to the moon like his father and sibling Gods through the night sky by which all of his nocturnal rituals are practiced this is all we can say of pitor before sidetracking once more to explain the rest of this Theory you see aian or Jebel SG werewolves are not the only kind present in the Howard verse just the only kind present in the hibor age Roberty Howard was also responsible for one of the best werewolf tales on the market called wolf's head in this tale it is explained that much after the time of Conan during the time of King Solomon a new breed of werewolves would be born from demons trying to escape the historical figures mass enslavement of them by possessing themselves into wolves in their extreme emotional state they did not merely possess these beasts but fused with their souls it is likely then that Jebel sag's influence reemerged under the light of the full moon transforming them into the Savage beasts to understand the minur created by pitor you must understand these post Solomon werewolves this also gives us insight into all forms of human animal Transformations like anthropy in Conan is a form of heraldry or the act of becoming a half demon in service to a demon god like jabel sag or as heraldry is most famously known for the demon god zle in that same line it is important to remember that the Minotaur of Conan are not created through humans or beastiality at least not directly in Conan issue number 142 of 1983 we see a cheating husband by the name of foros the farmer who in retaliation for his behavior his wife performs a Magic Ritual to pitor on his prized Bowl turning it into a minur hungry for human flesh in this case it's specifically the Flesh of virgins but it's seen to eat men as well given what we know about heraldry with the examples of physical transformation being present both in lycanthropes and Heralds of zle in both cases only eventually transforming back because of their sentient human soul being present in absence of their God's will this begs the question of what would happen should the sentients not be there what if heraldry was forced upon a beast while his rituals involve gruesome acts of murder and sex pitor is a god of male fertility dedicated to his father's mission of uniting all men and beasts thus male Fidelity proof that the Minotaur is meant to bring punishment to humanity for its improper mating is the hunger for flesh all minors possess this is not a new sentient race or beast man but rather an Abomination with the headed legs of a bull but the body of a Hulk man in their ravenous hunger is a desire to Cull the populations of decadent humans who are kept from learning the Primal language through their civilized ways one consequence of which is overpopulation the only way to kill a minor is by stabbing its heart this was done by Conan ending the threat of one of these creatures in Argos I say that beastiality does not directly play a role as pure's rituals in almost all his forms include beastiality in them usually with Rams goats cows or bulls as these are his most used animal symbols in exchange for these terrible rituals along with the sacrifice of both beast and man upon his altar the couples of the tribe will have healthy powerful bull children an alteration of this process under the king bull interpretation of the god is also how we get bull men our representation of bull men comes to us from the character ball pitor while not being a bull man himself he was born with mutations that resemble them thus why he was given His Name by his current Master before being slain by Conan his master himself was also a priest of hanaman another of Jebel sag's children and father of eight men in the Conan Universe This lends even further legitimacy to our understanding of pitor being within the Jebel s family of demon Gods it is best theorized that the ritual of heraldry occurs through a human sacrifice which adds the manbody element then afterwards mating with the bull allowing pitor to enter the Bull's body temporarily to mutate it into its new form afterwards reverting to savagery after pitor leaves the newly turned half demon to wage war on civilization at this point without the knowledge to defend herself like foros his wife the creator of the Minotaur would be eaten as it gains its first taste of for human flesh while not shown this Theory along with the knowledge we have of pitor would also indicate the creation of goat Minotaur created through similar means serving similar purposes this is not to be confused with saders which are different creatures in the Conan Universe effectively being chimeras goats are famously omnivorous in diet and confrontational as animals it wouldn't take much for a half demon one to get a taste for human flesh as we enter the second half of our video We Leave Behind the Beast headed monstrosities to focus on more human-looking ones the bull men are born from a mating process being conceived in the same way that the minor of Greek myth was a bull designated as the king bull by his worshippers thus possessed by pitor like in our proposed Minotaur ritual mates with a chosen woman of the cult from this gross coupling many Hulk babies are born however most of these children are brain dead or extremely deformed when this occurs they are left to die and the woman is forced to conceive again the supernatural stress of this possession aspect of the process sometimes also causes the death of the king bull thus a new bull is christened when a sentient healthy child is born they always grow into a Hulk brute bodied man just tall enough to seem unnaturally so in proportion with his thick muscles these healthy children are always male and are groomed from a young age to become the next high priest of the cult we can assume from this that the series of brain dead children and bull men are also what would occur should a minor succeed in meeting with a human woman as for if the heraldic Bine would try such an action it would primarily be concerned with the consumption of human flesh but when your lineage is beastiality and your demonic father is a male fertility God it goes without saying that they would try should they not be hungry there are days when I often say to myself that Conan isn't really a grim Dark Universe just one with a lot of consequences for the actions of the people involved while on one hand this is surely an example of consequences and many many many ways for extreme degeneracy at the same time something about the transhuman nature of this particular Beast truly chills me to the Bone tying our Conan lore back to the original story when Humanity becomes so arrogant that it thinks its Petty problems justify the darkest of Acts it is the innocent to inevitably suffer whether that was the several people eaten by the Minotaur transformed by forbo's wife while it was trapped in a maze beneath the Earth yes they also copied that from the story or the several innocent women ultimately forcibly [ __ ] to death by a bull that crazy people worship in the hopes of creating a superhuman leader for their cult then there's also the bull of course who is either turned into a half demon abomination in the form of a minotaur or has a heart attack from being sexually stimulated while possessed by a demon god the Giants answered with Roars like the grinding of ice Bergs on a frozen Shore and heaved up their shining axes as the maddened Samaran hurled himself upon them a frosty blade flashed before his eyes blinding him with its brightness and he gave back a terrible stroke that sheared through his fo's thigh with a groan the victim fell at an instant Conan was dashed into the snow his left shoulder numb from the blow of the Survivor from which the Samaran male had barely saved his life Conan saw the remaining giant looming high above him like a Colossus carved of ice etched against the cold glowing Sky the axe fell to sink through the snow and deep into the Frozen Earth as Conan hurled himself aside and leaped to his feet the giant roared and wretched his axe free but even as he did Conan's sword sang down the Giant knees bent and he sank slowly into the snow which turned Crimson with the blood that gushed from his half severed neck yamir is easily my favorite God in Conan both aesthetically in the Exiles game as well as in his handshake between the moral teachings of crom and Mitra in The Wider Universe the chief god of the red-haired vaner people of vanaheim and the blond haired AER people of Asgard who are locked in ever growing tribal Warfare with each other his teachings are simple never run from Battle always keep your ODS and follow the laws of your tribe offerings to him take the form of those who you slay in battle having their hearts removed and burned in his name yamir's titles include both the frost Giant and father of frost Giants through their red hair culture which mimics A Primitive form of both nordheimer cultures and rituals of burning the hearts of slain men in honor of their at forementioned patriarch it is fairly obvious that their mother people are the ancient ancestors of the vaner nordheimer specifically as a further extrapolation of this it can be assumed that yamir himself comes from an even older sea people given that vanaheim is near the coast while Asgard and hyperboria where different gods are worshiped are both further Inland taking that a bit further we take things back about 8,000 years to the thurian age and we can assume probably a minor thulian cult uh during the age of Co was definitely present uh and THU of course being the area where later Asgard and vanaheim would be as well as hyperboria in both the Original Stories and the games Frost Giants are only encountered by those who have had near-death life experiences in the past this is true for the Exile who has a Magic Band placed around his wrist which regrows his body when slain the age of Conan protagonist dies right after character creation being summoned Back to Life by a demonic curse placed on them that they must break away from through their first 16 levels of their story and Conan himself encountered them in a near-death state after surviving a long battle with nordheimer tribesmen in the original story the entire encounter with frost Giants is transdimensional in nature leaving no evidence behind as Conan's body was taken to be nursed back to health the average ones stand anywhere between 12 to 18 ft tall but don't seem to stop growing growing as they age in Age Of Conan we encounter one in a temple that can be estimated to be around 32 ft in height given its comparison to the other characters the larger they get the more they resemble yamir with the shortest being around 10 to 12 ft when young resembling a large bearded veneer man afterwards as they age they begin to grow tusks in some cases their skin turns blue and their hair turns white as best we can tell all Frost Giants are male as the only known female child of yir is atali who we will get into in the next section it's best to consider them Supernatural in nature materializing only when they need to hunt also fight due to their culture or bypassing the necessity for materialization all together you can simply be someone who has experienced a near-death life experience probably on a battlefield or on some form of ship something near an area where they would be manifesting and you can observe them for yourself and of course for plot reasons both video game characters have had this happen to them and of course this is how Conan meets the uh woman atali who we will go over in the next section who leads him across the snow into and this is the most beautiful part of the story too he chases her after nearly dying in battle and he still has this energy in him and he's chasing and chasing and chasing already we're very spiritual we're already in a very spiritual place and then finally he ends up near the frost Giants which is a big deal this shape-shifting aspect can also take another Direction which would explain the occasional polar bear or ice bear manifestation of the frost Giants so while some may turn into the archetypal yir image others will inevitably manifest as great Bears the view of them as Spirits is compounded in legitimacy by the fact that they are to the best of our knowledge all male while their initial creation seems to be one of outward mating the possibility of reincarnation for those true loyal followers of yir as one possible interpretation of their view of going to Valhalla after death being able to fight for all eternity while paying tribute to their father God in the form of sacrificing the hearts of the slain is very possible this would explain the special favor atali has over the frost Giants who are something like Guardian Spirits or archangels to yamir Yahweh with ice raids filling the role of demons in this simile reincar ation has been a stated part of the Conan Universe even in its precursors with one possible incarnation of Conan being a disabled man in the early 1900s Texas having visions of the past when a frost giant is killed given their unique form it is likely that they merely return to a spiritual form until they once again find the strength to manifest atali has gone down in Legend among the AER and vener people as a temptress that leads men to death this is also how con an encounters her she's the only female descendant of the line of yamir with a distinct head of half blonde half red hair split evenly across right and left her skin is pure white and ice cold given her half blonde hair her ancestry is likely his Guardian unlike her Frost giant cousins who she considers to be her brothers in relation possessing the similar transdimensional biology she has personal favor with yamir who will save her should she ever be in danger other than this little is known about the mysterious figure save for the fact that she was almost the sexual conquest of Conan himself in a slightly altered timeline it is very possible that Conan would not just be a king but a god of frost Giants Taking atali as his bride that or fulfilling the prophecy of Odin in Norse Mythology by slaying yamir atali is also the reason we know that Frost Giants are not demigods themselves as they do not receive this same Aid when in danger from the circumstances of the outcast in Conan being sent away from his tribe the nature of yamir worship and militant metal forging gives us a good understanding of how these beings spend their eternity Frost Giants possess an extreme focus on practicality frowning upon any in-depth philosophy retrospective or existential Concepts they would hate this channel it is for the outcasts fixation on these things that his tribe cast him out This lends more Credence to the idea of it being a rewarded afterlife that is the reality that Valhalla is a metaphor for if you look at the text of the original story you'll see that atali doesn't speak of eating Conan alive but rather she specifies sacrificing his heart implying no actual need to cook despite the capability to do so and actually as a brief side note yotan actually translates to anti-god in some translations of Norse mythology so what we're looking at here is possibly similar to the belief of The Reincarnation of a great man as aad or Sky father in Hellenism the Greek mythology but taken into a Norse context or a proton Norse fictional context in this regard so the idea that you could do such great things as a follower of yir in life that you could go and then die in battle eventually reincarnating as a thing that could fight for eternity or a frost Giant and as you age as a frost giant you'll gain more power similar to wraiths and world of Darkness this brings us to the subject of metal forging we know from Conan Exiles that more advanced worshippers of yir are able to craft weapons and armor from Black Ice which is born in part from yamir blessed ice that takes on a living quality to it from this as well as the traditional weapons we can see Frost Giants depicted with we can also assume this to be true for more advanced members of his children much like Conan himself it's not that the these large individuals possess a lower base or fluid IQ meaning the rate at which we learn and extrapolate information but more that their culture rejects using it at all costs if they are willing to go so far as to Exile someone for thinking too much then they clearly view excessive contemplation not just as bad but as taboo now a good theological reason for this would be that they have been rewarded in the afterlife possibly with memories of their human life as being this Frost giant creature that is spiritual and powerful and lives to honor yamir in combat and to have this kind of existential philosophical especially nihilistic which is what we see from the outcast he is a nihilist he is very much an aatho worshipper which is somewhat hinted at in the game is definitely enough to get you cast out because wouldn't that be the ultimate forsaking of this gift of yamir wouldn't that be because you're here to fight you're here to serve you're here to be a Great and Powerful soldier of yir effectively an angel of yir to some degree so that would make a lot of sense as to why the outcast is Outcast if you want to break the taboo of having quality Miniatures at an affordable price then you'll need today's sponsor Ronan craft Ronan craft is an independent 3D model printing service with an excellent customer review score on Etsy specializing in both fantasy and sci-fi Ronin is your One-Stop shop for all your weird fiction needs because with Ronin crab you'll get quality that surpasses any master in conclusion Frost Giants are the supernatural Warriors spirits of yamir that live to honor him by fighting in battle after battle Out of the Shadows of the cliffs moved a monstrous shambling bulk an anthropomorphic horror a grotesque travesty of Creation in general outline it was not unlike a man but its face illuminated in the bright Moonlight was beastial with close set ears flaring nostrils and a great flappy lipped mouth in which gleamed white Tusk like fangs it was covered with Shaggy grayish hair shot with silver with shown in the Moonlight and its great misshapen Paws hung nearly to the Earth its bulk was tremendous as it stood on its short bowed legs its Bullet Head Rose above the man who faced it the sweep of the hairy breasts and giant shoulders was breathtaking the huge arms were like knotted trees the oldest of the ape men and subject to many a fan Theory are the winged Apes of the black Coast theorized to be the original children of the demon god hanaman before the time of Elder Knight these ape folk reach civilized Heights unimagined by man they are also a clear example of a non-human fully alien to human evolution race devolving over time their culture of complex lunar rituals philosophy and monastic tradition would fall as the first Ice Age came slowly over time their feathered wings would become more batlike then the tragedy of environmental changes would come for their sanity due to organic chemical changes in their water supply each generation of them would be born more and more Savage finally they found themselves in their current state on the black Coast being on par if not a bit below the intellect of many similar creature one of these creatures would be responsible for the death of the pirate Queen bit one of the only women Conan ever truly loved best theorized to be an eight-man offshoot of the four armed ancient alien ancestors of the giant king as well as the giant Kings themselves are the Scorpion archers in the ruins of KET marking them as truly unique is their elongated skulls and in some cases forearms they also resemble monkeys instead of gorillas like most Apen their intelligence is clearly much higher than average for devolved humanoids having a full culture complete with royalty blacksmiths who make full plate armor and religious traditions of veneration for an old aaronian God very likely related to jabel Sag and family like hanaman known as the Scorpion God selet KET is located in the western coast of Stiga the condition of impishness or impis comes from too much corruption or natural demonic blood being present in a living being it is marked by having three-fingered hands three toes and a bulkier than average body these features void of the usual deformities present in those transformed into imps Mark the yees of the exiled lands which take up north and Western Tran and Southeastern hyperboria as true demon beasts their healthy symmetrical features marking them as being bred over multiple Generations given that a token of friendship can be earned from them along with hanaman worshippers being present in the area we can theorize that these are the guardians of all those who earn the true favor of the ape demon god this family of Yetis includes the gray ape men of the Jungle areas white yetis of the north and rare black yetis in the same area very similar to the gray Apen of the yetis found in the exiled lands but void of demonic traits are the various Island eight men Conan Encounters in The Story shadows in the Moonlight which our opening quote of this video is from their fur ranges from black to Gray and they possess the normal human five fingers five toes digit morphology noted for their size and upper body strength very similar to the yetis they do not possess any form of real culture it can be best understood that cross mating between this group and the yetis of the exiled lands resulted in the gray impish ape men that can be found there these Apes we will call iron Apes as they are most frequently encountered on the aisle of iron shadows and iron statues in some context depending on what you're reading this is also a great representation of the most common ape man type being called the Hib borian great ape or common great ape throughout the world they come in as many fur colors and sizes as all beasts and men named here after their only named member are the Zoran THX featured in the classic Conan story Rogues in the house while mainstream Zoran culture has many Gods dedicated to Pure wickedness in the form of their demon spider God zath and Bell the god of Thieves in contrast the Barbarian Eight Men of tha's tribe are beholden to an honor culture of battle and freedom they resemble half human half Gorillas with black to brown fur by the end of Rogues in the house Conan has such respect for the way the Beast Man fought that he held a great funeral in his honor having a very similar value system to himself saying very clearly I have slain a man tonight not a beast I will count him among the Chiefs I have sent into the dark and my women will sing of him thank is displayed as being much stronger than Conan who only defeats him with aid from another figure it is said in many versions of the story that he has the strength of 12 men issue number two of Conan from the 1970s gives us a look into the ape man of Asgard called snow Apes they also refer to themselves as the true beastmen like the Scorpion Apes they have higher than average intellect for Apen and are more upright than either the thax or winged Apes like the THX they have a warrior culture but unlike them they have one totally void of honor it was through the brutal torture of Asgardian prisoners that they would learn the ways of war and weapon smithing after this they would found the underground city of Bruth him among the ruins of an ancient city that may have been their own human ancestors their culture possesses several Chieftains who operate under a king their naming structure follows a two- syllable structure for the first and last names G T zagor Harlan and their King grie are all examples of this found in the comics obviously these eight men possess white fur and are normally man-sized they frequently enslave humans and force them to fight for their entertainment they are also known to use human women as sex slaves just as the honor culture of the thax can be contrasted with the wicked culture of Zamora so too could the dishonor culture of slavery be contrasted with the honor culture of Asgard parts of the same eternal Lage that would birth all of Robert Howard's great Heroes such as Cole of Atlantis Conan the Samaran and bran mcmorn are the tragic trites marked by pitch black eyes tusks which jut from their lower jaws and brown fur they mark their faces with paint designating different tribal responsibilities and are said to have a similar culture to the PS of the time while not true for all trites many possess a third eye which is the result of the pineal gland of the brain moving closer and closer to the front as Devolution meets mutation it is worth noting that this eye blinks sideways as it is smaller and more slanted on Shaman cast members this is also one of the only few types of Apen we have seen to have a dedicated Shaman or magic focused cast in their society their elongated arms and larger ears giving them more of a chimpanzee appearance if one were relating them to an animal primate it is best theorized due to their tusks and close Habitat to many frost Giants that cross breeding at one point must have occurred between them further showing possible evidence of the cross breeding with frost Giants are the valy yeetes to the south of the trites which seemingly are two-eyed Haier and larger versions of their Northern cousins their five fingers and five toes show us that they are not demonic like the yetis of the exiled lands while not having a true culture they possess the ability for advanced tool use the desire to take trophies of their victims which they hang as skulls around their belts and as just mentioned the creation of crude clothing from skinned animals and men they often wield law from large trees as Weapons the comparison my brain can't avoid making when it comes to both the trites and vetes is that they are like the frost Giants if the frost Giants never learned how to forge metal and were less intelligent as one travels through the jungles of the pictish Wilderness King Kong fans will be happy to know both of the bull apes and gigantopithecus while in the real world these are both classifications for different types of theoretical and real orangutang in the world of Conan they are giant gorillas they vary wildly and intelligent with some being Geniuses such as Conan's first vampire called V who was also a talented Necromancer before his great transformation but most are truly Savage beasts able to be called forth by priests of hamon often acting as his protective aspect over the priest who conjures him while the black skull ritual allows said priest to commune with the dead these are theoretically the least violent of the eight men as if they were truly aggressive there would be no PS left in the pictish wilderness the aisle of cpta off the coast of Stiga has been home to demonic Wars between serpent men as well as alien influence in the form of eldrich Abominations and The Intergalactic black matter they seem to always bring with them this combination of insanely unique circumstances which result from demonic influence foreign Intergalactic bacteria and other Oddities all tied together through a tropical weather system has resulted in a thousand unique adaptations for much of its inhabitants this was also the case for the horn Giants as one can guess from their name these creatures defining feature other than being the same size as the pictish bull apes and gigantopithecus are their enormous Bine like horns like gigantopithecus these Apes do not seem to possess any form of Higher Culture but unlike them they do possess more man apik qualities standing upright on two legs like a Sasquatch they also possess large canines both on their top and bottom Jaws their social hierarchies are based on a simple size differentiation with the eight men of largest size both in horns and body being designated the alpha and Wars for dominance between them being a regular event for those looking for other Oddities to use that are apman themed but not immediately connected to the Savages we've talked about here we have included this odd section on those entities that would come up in this family of Concepts but are not truly children of hanan's guidance I have ordered them in degree of weirdness from least to greatest zimba was a Golden Ape worshiped as a false god by cultists while more of a mutant ape than an ape man it shares many of the same mutations as the horned Giants minus the obvious ones while having no Supernatural elements about it other than fangs albinism of the eyes and the mutant gold fur it gives us a good insight into how even the most Savage of beasts will be held up as a God by some of the more superstitious members of the setting lovecraft's cave Beast featured in the story The Beast in the cave 1918 is fully complimentary to our subject matter today despite this story taking place well after the time of Conan it asks the question of how far Devolution can go in only one generation in the story a man is tracked through a dark cave by what is in truth merely another man who was lost in the cave before him over this time the stalker has gained night vision stress has turned his hair white and surviving in the cave has turned him into a muscular Hulk The Savage is killed and the horror of the story comes from realizing that this was once a human being last on our list is an apan in Aesthetics only this is the great old one known as ithaka who is as much an eight man as cthu is a cuttlefish also called the wo and wind walker a deeply Darwinism a white Yeti the only goal of ithaka is to produce an offspring which is stronger than itself on its ice planet called borea it kidnaps many alien species to worship it and Aid in this greater Pursuit due to its form and might makes right mentality it clearly deserves a spot on this list praying to ithaka will gift the worshipper with his Blessing making the follower amus to hypothermia and negative effects from cold this is a very flexible God to you should you choose to have a God that a group of eight men worship who are not a part of mainstream apman religious tradition as it naturally evolves or due to its very flexible views and desires would make a great God for any enemy cult I know many people were expecting this video to be much longer but eight men don't have that much complexity to them they are humans and other races of a sentient nature devolved into their own view of savagery they contrast with whatever civilized culture surrounds them and are effectively the Orcs of the Conan Universe this is especially true for the trogloditas as more human or ap-like in some cases you can even make them green as the great ape common AP man is prone to more mutations than any normal human or beast as you have witnessed through this list today one of the key elements of both Conan and the cthulu Mythos are the inherent disgust reactions that Humanity has in the face of non-human s and races which is usually one half of what makes conflict inevitable with any alien species while the serpent men and deep ones may see this feeling is mutual there exists a race of beings who can only be called victims of this Instinct these are the Frog folk known as the thuma or voiceless ones from the Doom that came to sarnath later reappearing in Conan Exiles as Isle of syta DLC expansion as the thuna they were originally natives of the continent of Manar which traveled in between Earth and the dreamlands on full moon nights before the rise of human dominance during this time the serpent men as they founded their city of sarnath would see them as a non-issue being peaceful neighbors who kept to themselves in a great lake however after their human slaves overthrew them and took the city they would Slaughter the grand majority of the Frog folk in an attempted genocide the motivation for this coming from nothing more than an overwhelming urge to destroy born from the same natural disgust reaction so common to the setting this would nearly fail with enough Survivor to perform rituals to summon their God bokrug the water lizard to take their Revenge which through aspect magic manifesting the creature wipe the men of sarnath out in a single night in Conan Exiles we encounter them as part of the melstrom weather event as like the weather system they have a natural history of traveling between Earth and the dreamlands when one looks at their name and their lack of livable structures anywhere we can see how the original meaning of their name which was voiceless ones in the context of th which means mute in some old languages is changed to thha or free ones if we use the context of the naming scheme so Thun can also mean free in some older languages specifically in uh Norse or Old Norse dialects this shows us that sarnath was a defining time of adaptation for the Frog folk who took an extreme nomadic interdimensional lifestyle after their destruction they also now have a hostile view towards Humanity culturally but there is no evolutionary component to this this means that allies can be made by earning the Friendship of the Frog folk who may also make good guides into the Dreamland if one is looking for an alternative to trusting ghouls or rat things a token can be earned by defeating one in combat as they have adapted a defensive rather than offensive but still Warrior honor Culture by the time of the Hib borian age which again it should mention is about 2.5 million years plus after the Doom that came to Sarat story common voiceless one skin colors are often spotted or patterned red brown or green eyes have been noted to be purple red orange or blue their Anatomy is notably squishy being more vulnerable to cuts and piercing damage than humans and their purely amphibious nature makes them far more weak to poisons or infections despite this their Warrior lifestyle has put them on par in the Modern Age with Humanity in terms of upper body strength and obviously above them in terms of lower body strength due to their extended lower limbs they also possess less bone density in return for more flexibility when compared to a human their most common weapons are throwing javelins Spears and archery preferring to keep their distance from their enemies as much as possible their armor covers as little skin as possible due to the nature of their slimy body it carries similar dotted patterns to their skin and is usually made from a combination of leather gold scales bones and kiten bones and leather are also used in their fashion of jewelry taking the form of nose rings and leather bracelets respectively as their original name suggests they are mute and communicate through a species specific sign language if you would like to learn the language of the Frog men then may I suggest our video sponsor Ronan craft an independent 3D printing service specializing in weird creatures like the ones we're going over today Ronan is known for their excellent customer service and ability to stay in touch with you as you get a product whose quality surpasses any Master their God bokrug we went over in our second episode of God of Conan Beast gods of Beast men which is linked in the list below there we go over their veneration of the full moon as a possible mother goddess figure with bokrug being the protector or father and their previous pacifist beliefs which have likely evolved into a simple cartic sense of justice since the time of sarnath since they are natives of the Dreamland where reality warping is common and groups frequently become unrecognizable versions of their parent species in both morphology as well as ability such as the intelligent spiders of a l we can assume that voiceless one simply evolved from normal frogs in the dreamlands lining up with their preference for Lake based living this would mean that they lay eggs underwater which hatch into tadpoles thuna make great low to mid-level enemies and unique Quest elements for any tabletop campaign in the Hib borian age through the thicket was thrust ahe of nightmare and lunacy grinning Jaws Beed rows of Dripping yellow tusks above the yawning mouth wrinkled aoran like snout huge eyes like those of a python a thousand times magnified stared unwinking at the Petrified humans clinging to the Rock above it blood smeared the scaly flabby lips and dripped from the huge mouth the head bigger than that of a crocodile was further extended on a long scaled neck on which stood up rows of serrated spikes and after it crushing down the briers and saplings waddled the body of a Titan a gigantic Barrel bodied torso on absurdly short legs the whitish belly almost R the ground while the serrated backbone Rose higher than Conan could have reached on tiptoe a long spiked tail like that of a gargantuan scorpion trailed out behind what are dragons dragons are a loose beastial family of savage powerful creatures best described as a mix between demon fire Elemental dinosaur and old one Bloodlines each type of dragon leans more or less heavily into one of the four type one dragons are called black or magma dragons and are said to be powerful full demons these appear as what one classically thinks of when the image of an evil dragon comes to mind black scales four legs giant fire breathing and the only known dragon type to be able to fly at least in full the type five as we'll get to do have flying variations type two are called basilisk or kitan dragons and resemble something like a tentacled horror crossed with a quadrupedal dinosaur this Eastern iteration has acidic abilities in addition to a trademark for eyes and mouth tentacles it is important to note here that despite the mouth tentacles which would appear to be something of an aquatic feature along with the term basilisk which does invoke a sense of watery Dragon it is important to note that the basilis does not have webbed toes or fins anywhere on its body making it still a land Beast very important for our future Theory type three are effectively normal big reptile looking versions of the type two with a clear relation to their type 1 partial parent group through being wingless offshoots of the same creature clearly more mixed with physical creatures despite having demon blood depictions of the type three heavily vary from being more dragon-like in appearance to appearing as a carnivorous offshoot of a Stegosaurus in many drawings of the creature the more black dragon looking type 3s are usually classified by color red which retains the fire breath of type 1 white and green respectively while the carnivorous stegosaurus offshoot is usually referred to by habitat with the most common being called a forest dragon but if we were to mimic the sort of breeding patterns and look of the more draconic looking ones we would say perhaps a snow dragon and a perhaps magma Dragon are also possible though it is unknown whether the more carnivorous stegosaurus type would have the fire breath as it does seem to take more after the type five as we'll get to parent type four is easily the most alien in body plan due to countless generations of adaptation to underground living which are the serpent-like worm known to hypnotize their prey before devouring them we can see a clear relation to the type three through the horns and Teeth part of the body plan as well as scales this means it clearly as an entity is within the more reptilian Dragon family rather than being descendant from insects of some type lastly there are the type five which are the only members of the Dragon family with no Supernatural elements to them whatsoever that is because the last member of this family is easily the most diverse that being the all living necromantic revived or fully resurrected groups of dinosaurs whether it be the Tyrannosaurus Rex pterodactyl triceratops or previously mentioned stegosaurus all dinosaurs appearing in Conan are ritualistically referred to as dragons both by the narrator of the story and by characters in it this means that while some type fives can fly as you will see in our future Theory not all of them have a place in this particular theory of Dragon Evolution now that we've explained the five different types of dragons let's go through a timeline of events to see how they're all connected as we continue remember that this is only a theory that I've said a million times and your thoughts on the matter are always welcomed and appreciated in the comments below the purpose of this video is to get the community thinking about this subject not to tell you what to think with all that said I should have a clearly labeled Source list below the only reason this video is including a theory is that well if it was just dragons and Conan there's the video from hell to Kai or March of the Dragons Our Story begins an unknown many years after the time of Elder Knight when the beings who walked the Earth who would later become demon gods and greater demons were banished to the various hell Realms known as the outer dark these intelligent powerful beings would deal with the trauma of their genocide in different ways but Chief among them was set also called yig the father of serpents far from a tragic figure even before the trauma of banishment set was known for his love of manipulation destruction forced sexual intercourse producing new and holy Abominations and now a true unyielding hatred for Humanity the new inheritors of the Earth in line with the occult science of demonology that dictates a hierarchy of savage low demons mixed with intelligent powerful ones which Howard's work takes reference from and Jebel SG another demon god having children with a fire Elemental as talked about in the story Beyond the Black River it can be assumed that a similar instance occurred here between set and a lesser fire Elemental of some type I'm usually thinking and depicting in my head when I'm thinking of this a classical fire-based hellhound it would explain the fire breath when mixed with a demon blood upset at least in the loose canonical logic of demon on demon mating this monstrous Union would produce a small race of strong but still Savage fire breathing demons known as the black dragons or type one it is implied heavily that black dragons are related to set as despite their very English depiction in both comics and games they are continuously referred to as serpent-like when even if one is using the classical division of big cat bird of prey and snake that go into the dragon clearly more cat-like features were emphasized the only reason to imply flying serpent in this context would be to connect the creatures to the father of serpents further evidence that these beings are indeed demons comes to US during the time of King Conan where those rare Cults that summon the great winged beasts did so through the same portals that one can see demonologists of the setting also use to conjure forth their bound servants a named black dragon referred to as the demon itself would be vist he would become a right of passage to best in combat to join the elite aquilonian Fighting Force Under King Conan of the same name the black dragons during his time physically manifested on Earth vri's diet would consist primarily of young Mammoth migrating to feed from hunting grounds in the north to nesting in the south of Western hiboria for centuries one such demon would appear over 65 million years ago in the age of beings also referred to as dragons later in history these would be the highly varied type five known to us as dinosaurs among these it is best assumed that a deeply unfortunate stegosaurus caught the eye of a lustful fiery son of set their offspring would become the Cornerstone of Dragon Evolution from which both basilisks and worms know as their parent group these would be the highly adaptable and straightforward type Three Dragons simply called dragons their half reptile 1/4 demon and 1/4 Elemental bloodline would make them incredible creatures of adaptation spawning several subgroups Red Dragons who adapted to the desert Green dragons who adapted to the Jungle white dragons who adapted to the frigid Northern snow covered Tundra and Forest dragons resembling their dinosaur parent most readily of course existing in the forest like many type fives the forest dragon would survive well into the Hib borian age due to what were networks of underground ecosystems untraveled by man however the same cannot be said of the red green and white dragons sadly for this branch of the Dragon family the new races of man and other sentient life would not allow ow these beasts to continue ravaging their homes eventually these three subtypes would be hunted to Total Extinction after an unknown amount of time the alien-like giant king race would enter the scene using Advanced scientific sorcery to fully revive the dead creatures to be used as Guardians and pets this revival reintroduced the half demon beasts into the Hib borian ecosystem and plays an important role in US understanding their nature despite being classified as demons dropping demon blood and worms having essence of set is one of their possible loot drops in Conan Exiles it is obvious that these beasts take more after animals than demons this new breed of type 3s are not the same as those of the past who would evolve and change into demon beasts of a true misanthropic Legacy but perhaps due to what seems to be a more material process of full Resurrection have now a more animal than truly violent nature before the extinction of type 3's similarities between the horn and teeth patterns would suggest that the extreme adaptability from demon blood present in the species was pushed to its limits as some were forced to adapt to underground living this would be a way to avoid Hunters either animalistic in nature it's very scary to think of a possible Predator that could prey on type Three Dragons or a way to avoid of course human Hunters which was most likely said Predator this process would force the reemergence of higher demon qualities from set's bloodline such as hypnotism out of a sheer need to survive as well as an increased sense of touch removing much of the other senses including eyes limbs were slowly decreased in size until eventually they were no longer needed this long evolutionary process had millions of years to take place which would turn them into the type fours or worms primarily the two environments they would adapt to would be the first breed or subtype of white dragons that would eventually become the ice worms and the second breed Red Dragons which would eventually become magma worms both are featured in Age Of Conan and Conan Exiles respectively The Reptilian bodies horns and mouth plan Are All That Remains marking them as the most unique members of the Dragon family finally we go to the east to Kai home to the type 2 dragon known as a basilisk its body plan obviously marking it as an offshoot of the type 3 dragons its physical appearance can first create a harsh mystery it's obvious to anyone that a great old one of some type certainly had a role to play in the making of such a beast its mouth tentacles multiple eyes and acidic abilities while interesting are not the key feature to look at it's more about what this creature doesn't have that being the absence of webbed feet fins or a tail made for balance under the ocean most great old ones are associated with the water or have a series of heavily aquatic features associated with them we have now ruled out the majority of the list simply due to the fact that the basilisk is still a landbased demon Beast we now have to ask the question which eldrich Horror family of old ones is associated with tentacles despite not being aquatic has multiple eyes and is associated with acid-like attacks the answer is closer to home than many Conan Exiles fans May realize let's take a simple comparing look at the Avatar of yog and the Basilisk of Age Of Conan both published by the same company which used similar assets in both games this shows us that these similarities as we explore them are meaningful rather than circumstantial as one can see the eldrich horor children of yog and the Basilisk not only have the exact same type of eyes differences in which can be explained by the type three dragon Side Of The basilisk's Bloodline but also have 10 tentacles total on their bodies the clustering of tentacles around the mouth for the Basilisk is even foreshadowed in the body plan of the eldrich horror as we can see tentacles between its upper and lower jum you will also notice a distinct gap of front teeth present in both creatures upper and lower teeth not present in any other member of the Dragon family so the tooth plan is partially influenced from the eldrich horror but in addition to that the clustering of tentacles around the mouth makes sense because the body needs room for the four legs of a largely quadrupedal group like the type Three Dragons while the body PL similarities are many as the Basilisk truly does look like what it is and most likely is a demon be Beast crossbred with a cannibalistic Savage spawn of yag Sao what I believe truly cements my case is the relation of abilities a key defining feature of the Basilisk is its acidic rather than fiery breath which is also the main form of attack used by the Avatar of yog in the case of the horror this takes the form of acidic ink sprayed in extreme volume beneath it much like the acid attack of the Basilisk doing damage over time rather than all at once much like set yog Sao would be known to get around in history having children with just about everything now that you know what dragons are and where they come from let's talk about them in modern times 10,000 BC dragons today or here there be dragons type one dragons as implied in our magic and Conan video can only be summoned by Master demonologists there is no guarantee that the demonologist or respective cult will be able to control the demon beast but to summon one is to have already been highly accomplished in your field what use does a person have for a dragon when they already possess a demon Army it is perhaps just as much due to requirement of skill as assured danger that these creatures are so rarely summoned type two dragons are native to Eastern hiboria in Kai type three dragons are seemingly the only ones that while rare still across the lands of Tran and hyperboria since their revival can indeed be trained and domesticated as demonstrated by the giant Kings it is possible that at this time they have already spread and diversified across the entire map type fours are incredibly resilient and can be found in any environment of extreme heat or cold respectively depending on subtype but also simply in the earth so desert worms obviously exist as well so if you want a dune worm in Conan here's how you get it this often results in magma worms living across the Middle East and Ice worms being creatures of far north caves lastly type fives depending on the again extremely diverse subgroups can usually be found in swamps and forest-like biomes which seem like the preferred environments of these prehistoric animals today we have a small video on one of my favorite Conan beasts everyone's favorite gorilla shaped Turtles known as shellbacks in the west and campas in the East they feature in a variety of different Conan media especially in the Dark Horse Comics the exiled lands of Conan Exiles and the kai areas in Asia of Conan as side enemies if we look a little closer at their behavior more than just their bodies take after great apes very similar to gorillas the males fight for the best mate thus being called shellback Kings upon Victory while the females raise the children keeping watch over them in a shoreline area after they hatch from eggs roughly the size of a human head the children are adorable in the exiled lands the shellback hatchlings and adult females are one of the only larger passive animals despite coming from an aquatic background in their evolutionary history living on land has changed their digit structure so that after generations of dealing with rough terrain their hands and feet are no longer webbed the upper body possesses powerful arms with five-fingered hands and the lower body possesses hind legs that resemble something akin to their quadruped ancestry and are very similar to something like a dinosaur while due to the sizable claws of the rubber digits we can assume this to be a primarily offensive adaptation with the thumb like digit again just kind of being being a leftover from their days as Turtles however this would still give them a great advantage in dealing with more complex physical problems like getting fruit down from trees or fishing for food in shallow water with their claws similar to bears as their mouth structure most readily resembles the common snapping turtle and they display something of both empathy for their young along with a complex socio dominance hierarchy we can assume a level of intellect on par with great apes making this also a case of neuroc convergent evolution the horn on Kings are likely similar in nature to the antlers of Stags being used in part to fight for dominance as well as made attraction in terms of their size among males lastly on their Anatomy their shells over time have become plating which acts as a natural protection for their torso and shoulders thus heavily increasing the protection of their vital organs when paired with their increasingly rugged exterior from their battle based lives while Western shellbacks tend to be brown red green or blue Eastern kappas tend to be slightly skinnier on average while coming in many tropical patterns while I was hoping there was more to these creatures they merely are one of the many diverse Fauna of the hiban age