Spelljammer Like This

To my mind, the these works and works provoke an impeccable Spelljammer vibe:

Don Lawrence (Storm)

Al Williamson

Magnus (Milady 3000, I Briganti)

Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon)

Howard Chaykin (Cody Starbuck, Ironwolf)

Inspiration Excavation

Earlier this week, Anne reminded us of an old post where she discussed her earliest, fantasy inspirations. It reminded me of my own fantasy genre prehistory. I wrote a bit about it in my very first post on this blog back in 2009:

In my personal pre-history (which is to say the mid-seventies to the dawning of the eighties), there was already in my brain a nascent cauldron of fantasy abubble: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz conjured by the voice of a babysitter, King Arthur for boys illuminated by NC Wyeth, four-color barbarians on spinner-racks, Myth and legend sifted by Bullfinch and Harryhausen, singing hobbits and rotoscoped orcs, power swords split in twain on not one, but two, alien worlds; an elf, a dwarf, a giant--and a slayer named Hawk, the doom that came to Vermithrax Pejorative, fantasylands with oracular pigs and messianic lions.

I also not in the post the inspiration for my first character (in AD&D): An elf fighter/magic-user inspired by the protagonist in the Endless Quest book by Rose Estes, Mountain of Mirrors.

That's not the only thing in my gaming history I can trace to a specific source. For another example, I've used flightless birds as mounts in several campaign worlds I created, I suspect all traceable to this cover by James Gurney for a book I haven't read:

There are numerous things like that. Some probably borrowed from sources so long ago, I don't even remember their origins.

Why Isn't There A Game for That? [Update '25]

I wrote the original version of this post in 2014, then I updated it in 2019. It's probably time to check back in and see how the rpg landscape is changed. There are a number of genres/subgenres that are under-utilized or not utilized at all in rpgs, despite the fact they would probably work pretty well. Here are the ones I listed originally and have been following up on:

Humorous Adventure Pulp
Basically this would cover the whimsical, fantastical, and often violent world of Thimble Theatre (later Popeye) and the Fleischer Popeye cartoon. A lot of fist-fights, fewer guns. This would also cover Little Orphan Annie, various kid gang comics, and (on the more violent end) Dick Tracy.
Update: Still nothing, really. Acheron Game's Helluva Town does a sort of Roger Rabbit or Cool World sort of setting, so references things like Popeye, but it's not quite the same thing.

Wainscot Fantasy
Little creatures hiding in the big world. Think The Borrowers, The Littles, and Fraggle Rock.
Update:  Some progress here! Household by Two Little Mice does this sort of thing, though from its specifically about fairies. There's also a game called Pixies and one called Under the Floorboards that specifically namechecks The Borrowers.

Kid Mystery Solvers
Scooby Doo is probably the most well-known example, but you've got several Hanna-Barbera returns to the same concept. Ditch weird pet/side kick, and you've got The Three Investigators, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys. 
Update: There's Meddling Kids I mentioned in 2019, and then there's The Mystery Business that debuted in 2024.

Wacky Races
I've written about this one before--and Richard has run it. Still needs a game, though.
Update: Still just the board game, so far as I know.

Peacekeeping Mission to Mars

I was thinking about Leigh Brackett's Mars today (as I often do) and reflecting on how it isn't very science fictional at all, so that if you advanced the timeline of its colonial Mars about half a century to a century, you might get something that looks a bit like our modern world except with spaceships where Terran peacekeeping forces get bogged down in insurgencies or civil wars on Mars (or Venus).

With a set up like this, you could do the pulp Mars version of modern films set in conflict zones like Blackhawk Down or even better Three Kings. If you went with Earth in a sort of Cold War, you could even wind out with a Twilight:2000 sort of situation would troops lost on Mars and trying to figure out what to do next.

Ozoom Revisited

Scott Martin can be blamed for this post for pointing out the similarities between Oz and Edgar Rice Burroughs fandom....

Mars is dying and has been for millennia. The only truly fertile land left is the squarish Land of Oz, surrounded on all side by deadly desert.

Oz has four countries, each home to a different race of men. The east is the home of the Blue Men, short in stature and friendly. It was once under the tyrannical rule of an ancient crone, but she was felled by a little girl from Earth. In the South is the Country of the Red Men, ruled by a benevolent queen. In the west are the Yellow Men, who are renowned for their technological skill. They are ruled by a metal man. The northern country is the land of the Purple Men. They've been ruled by a succession of queens, each with a mastery of the powers of the mind.

In the center of Oz is the Emerald City-State, and it's lofty spires and magnificent domes are made entirely of crystal. Their true color is in a part of the spectrum neither human nor Martian eyes can perceive, but the city's people wear optics which convert the color to green. It was formerly ruled by a man of Earth, a charlatan and huckster, but the rightful queen has been restored, after having spent her youth in exile, disguised as a boy.

Young Dorothy Gale was transported to Mars by a strange storm that tossed her, along with her dog and her home across the astral void. She killed a witch, exposed a charlatan, and helped restore the rightful ruler of Oz. She didn't do it alone. She was aided by a Lion Man, exiled for his supposed cowardice, an artificial man without the ancient brain that formerly guided him, and a Yellow Man whose mind was had been placed in a metal body. The companions took the Golden Road that followed the ancient canals that terminated in the great Emerald City, then undertook a quest to depose the witch that ruled the Yellow Men and who forced them to use their knowledge to build her an army of conquest.

This was only the first on many trips Dorothy Gale made to Mars. That young farm girl became a dying world's greatest hero.

The original version of this post appeared in 2018.

Prophet of the Wyvern's Word

Though the deadline's are tight, I thought it would be fun to join the Appx. N Jam over on itch. The challenge is to create an adventure homaging the style of the pulpier fiction of the fantastic of Appendix N. Your given a title and you have to work with that to create your short adventure.

I got "Prophet of the Wyvern's Word," for which I think I'll take inspiration primarily from one of my favorite's: Leigh Brackett, as well of a lot of general pulp fiction ambience. It will be a challenge getting everything done in the time less than 25 days remaining, but since it has to be 4 pages of less, I figured it was worth a shot.

Above is my work on a banner. I based it on the hand drawn title text of the Ace Double of People of the Talisman from 1964.

Further Thoughts on Magic

Thinking about my Monday post further (and reading more examples of magic in McKillip's Heir of Sea and Fire), I feel like the part that perhaps the most central element to number of these magic systems I like is that they demonstrate Frazer's concept of sympathetic magic.

Raderle can create a powerful illusion of large lake, by digging a fist-sized hole and pouring water into it. Arthur in The Revolutions can snap a chair leg by snapping the stem of a wine glass. These are both examples of similarity, or like producing like.

The other common employed aspect of sympathetic magic is contagion. It shows up quite a bit in The Revolutions, but I don't think I quoted an example. It's where an item that was once physically connected to someone or something else still has a magical connection to that thing. This is being able to cast a spell on someone because you have a lock of their hair or the like.

Similarity shows up some in D&D spell material components, but I think more of these are sort of jokey correspondences instead.  These things are fine and could even be flavorful for bigger spells or more complicated rituals, I think more spells that used a perhaps caster-specific but reasonable application of similarity and contagion. 

Magic Systems I Like: The Riddle-Master series

I wrote a post almost a year ago related to portrayals of magic in fiction I'd like to see magic in fantasy rpgs be more like. In reading Patricia McKillip's excellent Riddle-Master series, I've come across more examples that are perhaps even more adaptable to fantasy adventure rpgs than some of the ones I mentioned previously.

In McKillip's setting, there are wizards but they are hidden/in hiding at the beginning of the story. The examples I've given here reflect the things able to be done by talented individuals (explicitly not everyone is capable of learning them) but not by people who either have the highest aptitude or training.

She had left, in front of Rood's horse in the College stable, a small tangle of bright gold thread she had loosened from her cuff. Within the tangle, in her mind, she had placed her name and an image of Rood stepping on it, or his horse, and then riding without thought every curve and twist of thread through the streets of Caithnard until, reaching the end, he would blink free of the spell and find that neither the ship nor the tide had waited for him. 

- Heir of Sea and Fire

Raederle (the "she" above), is also able to use this same technique to trip someone immediately (like in a combat situation by throwing a tangle of thread or similar material in front of them. She also is noted to be able to make a thorn bush into (or perhaps seem to be) a difficult to traverse bramble and to find her way out of a magical forest that confounds visitors and gets them lost.

These abilities seem more like spells of the AD&D sort, though they are perhaps wider in application than many and certainly less flashy than most. Another commonly employed magical ability in the series is "the shout:"

...Rood caught his breath sharply and shouted.

Morgon dropped the crown. He put his face against his knees, his hands over his ears. The wine glass on the desk snapped; the flagon on a tiny table shattered, spilling wine onto the stones. The iron lock on a massive book sprang open; the chamber door slammed shut with a boom.

- The Riddle-Master of Hed

More magical powerful individuals can generate more powerful shouts, even to the point we are told of laying low armies in rare instances. We are told that individuals able to shout are only able to do so at times of intense emotion, so it isn't exactly an "at will" power. Still, fairly D&D spell-like.

It's interesting to me how, in broad strokes, the magic conforms to Isaac Bonewits concept in Authentic Thaumaturgy in that, at base, its most common presentation is psychic phenomena. Characters are able to communicate telepathically and invade the minds of others to read their thoughts or memories. There is also a psychic attack--the mental equivalent of the shout--that came overwhelm the mind of an unguarded person and stun them or knock them unconscious. I suppose this psychic magic is hardly uncommon in literary (at least older lit) and real world belief, but it's very different from the energy-wielding magic of many modern portrayals.

Shape-changing is also common in the series, though a number of practitioners only have one form they are able to assume. Danan of Isig, for instance, is only able to turn into a tree, but that's a usual talent for hiding or resting in overland travel. Others are able to assume multiple forms in a way that would give a lot of rpgs fits due to concerns of game imbalance.

Overall, though, I think D&D magic could be molded more in the direction of this series pretty easily. A lot of it would be in reconsideration of the special effects of spells really. Oh, and for you bard fans, there's a bit of harping magic in the series too.

A Partial Gazetteer of the Planet Sagar

Sagar is the alien world that astronaut John Blackstar found on the other end of a black hole as revealed in the Filmation animated series Blackstar (1981). Here are a few of the fantastical locales he visited in the series:

CITY OF THE DESERT DWELLERS. A walled city beyond the Gorge of Winds where live an elfin people (perhaps related to the Desert Sprites) who possess the Healing Stone and guard it from the gargoyles who serve the Overlord. [ep 05]

DEMONLANDS. A barren region of jagged, coral-like formations and strange trees with boil-like growths where demons are particularly easy to summon. It is the location of a temple where the Overlord’s ally Taleena is high priestess and last worshipper. [ep 12]

MARAKAND. Floating city of the rapacious Shaldemar, the Zombie Master. The passing of Marakand leads to destruction of cities, but living beings are helplessly drawn up by its beams and Shaldemar uses his Sphere of Souls to transform his captives into soulless automatons, subject to his will. [ep 13]

TAMBORIYON. A lost city of the Ancient Ones, it lies on a jungle-choked island in the middle of a lake beyond the volcanic Flame Mountains. Tamboriyon's slender spires and domes bedecked with precious metals and jewels are now jungled-choked ruins, but the giant aumaton, Sumaro, who is the city's guardian, merely slumbers and may be reawakened by the unwise. [ep 02)

The Patchwork Kingdom Crawl

 As has been pointed out before, the kind of frontier envisioned by old D&D owes more to Westerns than it does to the Western European Middle Ages or most of the fantasy works in the Appendix N. The modern idea of the "points of light" setting is perhaps closer to these things but still tends to miss the mark for many sources of the game's inspiration.

There's another option that shows up often, in disparate places from Le Morte d'Arthur to Star Trek, and many works in between. We have heroes wandering from one place to another, perhaps with a goal, perhaps not. These places are more or less civilized jurisdictions, but they have unusual customs (from the perspective of the protagonists) or eccentric or antagonist authorities. While one of the examples I mentioned above describes voyages covering a significant amount of territory (interplanetary!), some fairy tale-ish or picaresque stories (like Oz novels) do the same thing over a much smaller area: A patchwork of fiefdoms or petty kingdoms. The sort of campaign that could easily be made from a map of Holy Roman Empire:

This differs from the points of light setting in that there really isn't a distinction between wilderness for adventure and civilization for safety. In fact, the challenges of the wilderness in such stories may be much more limited than the challenges of civilization. The various eccentric monarchs and humorously dangerous social situations Manuel finds himself in in Figures of Earth are good examples, as are the strange and isolated cities John Carter visits in his wanderings across Barsoom.

The advantages of this sort of setting to me would be that it's very easy to work in all sorts of adventures from social conflict and faction stuff to traditional dungeons and overland travel.

Religion in Middle-earth

Art by Falmarin de Carme

I came across this site a couple of weeks ago that compiles additional background material generated for a Finnish Middle-earth based role-playing campaign. What I found most interesting is its extrapolation and elaboration of the religions for Middle-earth. 

This is a perceived area weakness pointed out in Tolkien's work in the past. In Imaginary Worlds, Carter notes critically that Tolkien's world "has no religion in it." In Dragon #127, Rolston in his review of Lords of Middle-earth for MERP gets to the gamer brass tacks of it:

According to Lords of Middle-earth, Middle-earth has a "seemingly inexhaustible collection of deities, pantheons, practices, and religions." However, all of them are wrong. Eru is the only god, and the Valar and the Maiar are simply his servants. Enlightened folk (Elves and Dunedain) practice a nonritualistic monotheism with no formal clergy - pretty boring stuff by FRP standards. 

A lot of epic fantasy has followed Tolkien's areligious example (Jordan's Wheel of Time series, for one) and as modern society becomes ever more secular, it probably is less and less seen as a deficit. Still, if you think of religion is a fascinating aspect of the real world well worth including in imagined worlds (where you at, Gloranthaphiles?) it's cool to see the work Sampsa Rydman has done here. The religions described build on the details provided in Tolkien's extensive writings and (so far as I am familiar with the lore) the new things added seem consistent.

For instance, the orthodox worship of Númenor is as described in terms of its simple ritual and insistence that only the king prays to Eru. The description of a Trinity of Eru, Word, and Flame Imperishable seems a credible extrapolation from details given. Likewise, the sort of Satanic faith of the Black Númenoreans is given a creed that is consistent with what me know about the downfall of their land but with reasonable details as to what Sauron might have convinced them to get them on his side. "Doing evil" (from the point of view of the doer) has historically not really been a common motivator for human religions, so it makes more sense that those that Sauron seduced to his cause were given some other line: "The Valar have wronged both you and the true god, and the true god will redress that wrong if you help him out."

Art by Angus MacBride

Of course, an issue with religion in Middle-earth is canonically we know what's true and what isn't. For a game campaign I think it might be more fun, as Rolston implies, if that weren't true. Going as far as Jacqueline Carey's The Sundering duology and switching the moral polarity of the two sides doesn't really help, but borrowing her idea that the Creator is out of the picture and the lesser gods have differing understandings or interpretations of how to carry out their mission leads to a more ambiguous situation with more possibilities for equally valid appearing religions. In other words, something like the sort of cosmologies or interpretations offered in fantasy works that utilize Judeo-Christian mythology as their backdrop. Really just making the complete truth unknowable to beings within the world (even immortal ones like the elves) would serve the same purpose, though I think most people familiar with Middle-earth would tend to make assumptions that would make this minimal change approach Less effective.

I don't think a Middle-earth game (or a game in any setting) has to have religion (unless you got clerics, in which case, you sort of already do), any more than you are required to explore any other element of culture, but if you're planning to run a long campaign I think it's an interesting facet to add.

Urshurak

Scott 'Dwarfland" Driver once opined that there was often more gaming inspiration to be had from "bad" fiction than from good. He was specifically talking about the works of Lin Carter, but I think this is often true in general. I haven't read Urshurak by the Brothers Hildebrandt and Jerry Nichols, so I can't comment on it specifically, but that seems to be the internet consensus. Here's a typical review.

Regardless, the art was surely the main selling point for purchasers in 1979. That and curiosity got me to pick it up on ebay a few months ago. It's gorgeous if you like the work of the Hildebrandt Brothers, though it could easily, I suppose be derided as too traditional or even generic nearly 50 years on. Certainly, the images and a thumbnail description of the plot mark it as a work of a more naive time when it comes to genre fantasy. There are heroes and a quest with swords and sorcerers and elves and dwarves in a vaguely faux Medieval Europe sort of setting. There are some sci-fi elements (it's a bit of fusion of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars), but no gestures toward realism, grittiness or deconstruction to be found.

Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but naive fantasy has a certain sort of appeal to me, though. It's not that I never want fantasy to go new places, but having seen the new places it has gone over the decades become, in their own way, stale or cliched or really shine in their focus on aspects other than adventure and action (which are the most relatable of fictional elements to the gaming table), I sometimes feel the pull for gaming inspiration to the things that wouldn't have made my reading list a decade or so ago.

And honestly, more fantasy epics could probably benefit from high tech Amazons. 

A Pantheon from Kirby's New Gods

Art by Alex Ross

Jack Kirby's so-called "Fourth World," an interconnected group of series at DC Comics from 1970-1973, posits a new group of god-like beings emerging from Ragnarok. These beings are presented and engage in action largely like other modern-era superheroes, but I've been thinking about whether one could make a pantheon from them usable in a traditional, medievalish fantasy game.

A notable trait of the so-called New Gods is that they are arranged in a sort of dualistic polytheism (not unlike the gods of Tekumel in Empire of the Petal Throne). The gods of New Genesis are the "good" gods and those Apokolips are the "evil" gods. 

As presented in the comics, the portfolios of the Apokolipsian gods (to the extent they are clear) are modern evils. They are mostly related to concerns of its author in post-World War II West, rather than traditional concerns of ancient or Medieval peoples. They will require some modification. They work better as devils or demons, probably, as Apokolips is pretty much Hell.

Interestingly, the stories that take place on Apokolips regarding the escape of Mister Miracle and friends have an almost gnostic dimension. Darkseid is a Demiurge sort of figure, while the Promethean Himon is the serpent in the stifling, poisonous Garden of Apokolips leading Mister Miracle to freedom.

In contrast, the gods of New Genesis are a bit more straightforward, harkening in many cases to Norse or Greek polytheistic figures. The problem is they just don't always have really clearly portfolios. 

Anyway, here's what I've got:

New Genesis:

• Highfather - Patriarchal leader of the gods of New Genesis. God of Wisdom, Diplomacy, and Rulership.
• Lightray - God of light, probably the sun too.
• Orion - God of War; given to berserker rages.
• Mister Miracle - A dying and rising god, probably with a mystery cult.
• Big Barda - Warrior goddess; defector from Apokolips
• Black Racer - Psychopomp and god of Death.
• Lonar - the Wanderer; god of horses and hospitality
• Metron - God of knowledge and travel.

Apokolips:

• Darkseid - Supreme god of evil.
• Kalibak - Monstrous son of Darkseid; god of violence and destruction.
• DeSaad - Lord of torture and cruelty
• Doctor Bedlam - God of Madness
• Female Furies - A (more) evil version of Valkyries
• Glorious Godfrey - God of Lies
• Granny Goodness - The cruel mother; a stealer of children, perhaps a Baba Yaga sort?
• Kanto - God of assassins
• Mantis - Vampiric lord of plagues and pestilence
• Steppenwolf - Dark lord of the hunt

Setting Folklore

I was on vacation last week and visited Antwerp where I saw the Brabofontein in the Grote Markt. It depicts events related to the legendary founding of Antwerp, where Roman soldier Silvius Brabo defeated Druon Antigonus, who had been demanding tribute to use a bridge over the River Scheldt. Brabo's killing of the giant provides the folk etymology of the origin of the name Antwerp as Brabo did to Druon what the giant had done to unfortunates who couldn't pay his toll: he cut off his hand and threw it across the river. Hence, the name Antwerp is supposed to come from handwerpen (throwing hands).

Anyway, the legend and the statue caused me to consider why isn't there more of this sort of folklore and folk etymology in settings? I sort of did some of this with the City and Weird Adventures (see "Thraug's Head", and perhaps "Saint Joan of the City" and "Short People, Big Worm"--admittedly, these blur the lines because they are depicted as relating history, not folklore, but I think they serve a similar purpose in their fancifulness and mostly not direct applicability to adventuring), but I haven't really done much of that in other settings.

I feel like little details like this both make places feel more real, but also potentially provide springboards for adventure because in fantasy worlds, even the strangest details might well be true. I suppose some people might think this sort of thing is excessive or maybe even unhelpful because it might confuse player's about what's true and what isn't, but I would argue a ruthless economy of setting details, limiting them to only things relevant to adventuring/dungeoncrawling and the need for every one of those details to be literally true or at least definitively falsifiable loses an aspect that differentiates rpgs from other sorts of games, that is, the ability to truly explore an imagined world.

24 Hours in Ancient China

I've recently been listening to the audiobook of 24 Hours in Ancient China: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There by Yijie Zhuang, part of the 24 Hours in Ancient History series that includes volumes of Rome, Athens, and Egypt by various authors. The conceit of the series is that in a succession of vignettes about various characters over a 24-hour period, something of the daily life of the time and place is revealed. 

In this volume, the time and place is 17 CE, the fourth year of the reign of the usurper Wang Mang, which the book refers to as the Western Han dynasty, but Wikipedia frames as the brief Xin dynasty. In the space of 24 hrs we meet craftsmen and criminals, labors and scholars. Each vignette drops us into mundane drama of regular life--often which ends unresolved because the purpose of the series is instructive. Still, it's a conceit that delivers the information in a more entertaining way than a textbook approach would have.

Of particular interest to gamers might be the nocturnal larceny of the gang of tomb robbers led by a self-styled knight errant (youxia), the trials of the minor official maintaining a small, frontier fort in a time of increased Hun raids, the criminals being marched to a work camp, or former Imperial concubine exiled to superintend her Emperor's mausoleum.

It's a fascinating read. If the other volumes in the series are as good as this one, then I look forward to checking them out as well.

A Pantheon from a Picture

The above illustration by Enrique Alcatena, Argentine comic book artist extraordinaire, inspired me to create a group of deities. 

Werdagda, Dying-and-Rising, Green God of Growing Things.

• His rites are performed in sacred groves and in fields at planting and harvest
• Bees and other pollinators are considered his messengers
• Scarecrows are often made in his image
• Both wine and hallucinogenic mushrooms are used in his ceremonies

Ulumé, Lord of the Cycles of the Heavens and Fate.

• He has a dedicated priesthood of astrologer-priests who inform the community of the most auspicious time for various actives. 
• Groups of ascetic sages contemplate his mysteries and are often considered mad and touched by divinity.
• There are few rituals dedicated to him directly, but he is invoked in the beginning of most rituals to other gods and always the first and last god praised of a year.

Onorgul, Judge of the Dead

• He is depicted with the head of an onager, a beast associated with the desert wastes, and the barren, gray plains of the afterlife. By tradition, the dead are carried to their resting place on the back of a kunga.
• A braying of a donkey at night is considered an ill-omen because of its association with the god
• In the courts of the Underworld, he weighs the souls of the dead and adds those of sinners to the folds of his Hell Robe.

Tlasheeng, Lady of Beauty, Vanity, Glory and Vainglory

• Called Pavonina, for her garments of peacock feathers; peafowl are holy to her.
• Green eyes are taken as a sign of her favor.
• She is called upon by those who wish the other gods to see their deeds.
• Her festival in Midsummer called for the wearing of colorful, extravagant costumes, making extravagant boasts, and the attendance of masked revels.

Hernarl, Horned Lord of Beasts

• Guide of the hunter, but also a god to be propitiated when a kill is made.
• Acknowledged at trail-side shrines center around phallic pillars or stones
• Gives blessings in the forms of large herds, plentiful game, and healthy children
• The tolling of his bell pronounces a person's doom.
• As The Howler he is worshipped by a mystery cult in wild dances and acts of ecstatic frenzy.

Postcards from the Flanaess

 In thinking about Greyhawk for my recent posts, I've been inspired by Anna Meyer's great maps. Particularly her climate map which has challenged me to consider locations in the context of not just their historical European cultural inspirations, but their often not-European climate.

Ket

I didn't mention it in my post on Ket, but Meyer places it in the Dfa (humid continental) region which would make it like much of the American Midwest, perhaps Nebraska as pictured above.

Perrenland

Greyhawk's Switzerland Meyer puts in the Bsk (cold, semi-arid) Köppen climate region. Something like Denver or Boulder CO would be similar.

Lordship of the Isles

On Meyer's map, these islands fall into the Cfa (humid subtropical) region like the American Southeast or Bermuda. Given that they are in the tropics, though, I wonder if they might be better represented by Cuba or the Florida Keys and be mostly tropical savanna (Aw)

Keoland

Though the U1 describes the area of Saltmarsh being like the coast of Southern England, its location would put it in a climate region Af (tropical rainforest). 

In Translation

Constructed languages, at least for naming, are a big part of fantasy literature. Evocative coinings like Minas Tirith, Lankhmar, Aes Sedai, An-Athair, Khaleesi, Tharagavverug, and sranc are an important part of the enjoyment.

In fantasy rpgs, however, even constructed naming languages can be tough for some players. Not only can names like Hrü'ü be hard for some to pronounce, but a number npcs with difficult/unfamiliar names may be difficult for players to keep straight or remember at all and so keep those players from fully engaging with the imagined world.

Tolkien, bitten though he was by the conlanging bug, offers a solution: translation.

We all know, of course, that we must imagine translation as having occurred so that we can read books and play characters in rpgs in our native languages and not in whatever language exists in the setting. Tolkien, unlike most authors, doesn't just leave this to necessary convention. He tells us that the book he ostensibly got the story of LotR from was in Westron and that the names of the Hobbits Bilbo Baggins and Peregrine "Pippin" Took (for example), are translations/localizations of Bilba Labingi and Razanur "Razar" Tûc, respectively.

Those nice details aside, Tolkien goes a step further. Other imaginary languages in his work beyond Westron get rendered as different, real languages: Rohirric, the language of Rohan gets translated into Old English, and names in the tongue of Dale and that of the dwarves get translated into Old Norse. This allows him to retain the "foreignness" of those other tongues from the perspective of Westron which has become mostly invisible since it's rendered as Modern English.

But he's not done there! Tolkien often chooses languages to "translate" into that retain the essence of the imagined linguistic relationship between his fictional languages. For instance, the names of the ancient kings of  Rhovanion are rendered in Gothic, preserving in Gothic's relationship to Old English something of the relationship of the tongue of ancient kings to Rohirric and Westron. This graph from Wikipedia shows it:

Chiswick Chap

I think this approach is a natural fit for rpgs. True, any use non-Modern English (or whatever the native language of your group is) might present difficulty for some players, but I think "coding" the use of unfamiliar languages to only certain groups both aids the memory and decreases the total number of unfamiliar things to remember. If Elvish names are translated as French (or Farsi, or whatever you like), well maybe the player still can't remember a particular elf's name, but they stand a better chance of recognizing names as Elvish.

There was a Dragon article back in the 80s that sort of hit upon this. The author suggested using a mix of Old and Middle English to represent the ancestor of Common. In my Azurth campaign, I have high elves speak in sort of the cod-Shakespearean manner of Marvel Comics' Thor to represent how their long lives left them behind current language changes.

The Fruitful Inconsistency of the Hyborian Age

The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) describes Howard's Hyborian Age and similar imagined worlds as "fantasylands" in contrast to the more serious, Tolkienian worldbuilding of "secondary worlds." This perhaps undercuts the quite serious world-building Howard did in places like his "Hyborian Age" essay but also obscures the fact that all world-builders (Tolkien included) borrow or are at least derive inspiration from history or other works of literature.

Still, it's hard to deny that the Hyborian Age tends to wear its undiluted influences or antecedents proudly. Perhaps not as totally as say D&D's Known World or some other rpg settings, but to a greater degree than Middle Earth or most other literary fantasy settings. I can't be too critical of these game settings as it allows people to get a handle on different lands or cultures quickly, but it does strain suspension of disbelief for some folks.

The Hyborian Age does those similar gaming settings one better, however. In what I think was possibly Howard's best world-building idea (at least so far as things to steal for gaming), the overall action and theme of regions come through, even when his cultural inspirations are less clear. Visiting different Hyborian lands may not just mean travel through history with Fantasy Vikings here and a Fantasy American Frontier there but travel through different subgenres or modes of pulp/adventure fiction.

In his Conan yarns he gives us Golden Age of Piracy adventure stories, tales of the Crusaders and the Outremer, Frontier stories in the vein of the Leatherstocking Tales, and a few stories recognizable as just fantasy in today's genre standards. He does this often by dispensing with a lot of the historical things that led to these settings and situations and just gets down to the action readers (and presumably players) are looking for.

Vague or passing homologies are all he seems to need to get going. He doesn't worry about establishing a Christendom or an Islamic World--or even really a Holy Land to get his Outremerish setting. He handwaves some former colonies (now independent) of Koth (which is vaguely Italic maybe, but hardly Imperial Roman and with a capital whose name is borrowed from the Hittites) on a borderland coveted by Turan, and he just describes the players, setting, and action in a way that the vibe of crusades and Crusader Kingdoms comes through, regardless of the background differences.

Likewise, "The Black Stranger" deals with pirates and a treasure, sure, but to drive home we are now in Treasure Island territory, he dresses Conan for the part:

The stranger was as tall as either of the freebooters, and more powerfully built than either, yet for all his size he moved with pantherish suppleness in his high, flaring-topped boots. His thighs were cased in close-fitting breeches of white silk, his wide-skirted sky-blue coat open to reveal an open-necked white silken shirt beneath, and the scarlet sash that girdled his waist. There were silver acorn-shaped buttons on the coat, and it was adorned with gilt-worked cuffs and pocket-flaps, and a satin collar. A lacquered hat completed a costume obsolete by nearly a hundred years. A heavy cutlass hung at the wearer's hip.

Does this undermine the essential Medieval character of the Hyborian Age? Probably! Does it weaken one's ability to think of it as a sustained and complete world? Could be! Does it make it clear "we're now on the Pirates of Caribbean ride, behave accordingly?" Yep!

I feel like this tool can be put to good use by GMs. Even ones that are more interested in setting consistency perhaps than Howard. Even small details can do a lot.

Classic D&D Adventures in Real World Settings

 Lately I've been thinking about how well some classic adventures might adapted to real world settings. By real world, I mean historical fantasy--I'm not thinking of throwing out magic. Some monsters or at least, their abundance might be sacrificed, though. Harryhausen fil-esque beasts would be fine; tribes of orcs or goblins would likely be reskinned.

There are, of course, a number of dungeoncrawls which could take place pretty much anywhere with a little work. Here are a few that I recall with more distinct locations:

The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh: Given that we're told the setting of this one is meant to evoke a south-coast English town, the obvious placement for me (inspired by Captain Clegg) would be the set on the southeast coast of England in the area of Romney Marsh. Of course, that's not the only option. The Low Country would work, too. The significant presence of lizard men in the area might need to be reskinned as something else, but maybe having this have to do with Deep Ones off the coast would work?

Beyond the Crystal Cave: This one reminds me of The Tempest (though it's probably the similarity of the name Porpherio to Prospero and the island location that does that) so I would place it on Prospero's Island in the Mediterranean, which could be Pantelleria as some have suggested or a completely fictional Mediterranean isle.

Aerie of the Slave Lords: My initial thought on this one was the Barbary Pirates, but that name is usual reserve for pirates that are a bit later era than might be the sweet spot. Fortunately (in this context only!), slave trading in the Mediterranean was quite common in the Middle Ages. You don't have to go to an "evil" nation like a Pomarj, you just have to go to Venice.  Some Mediterranean port could be a stand-in for Highport, and a fictional mediterranean volcanic island in the Companian volcanic arc would be the sight of the slaver's secret base.

Anyway, you get the idea.