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Author Topic: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)  (Read 6054 times)

Offline Rhoderic

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The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« on: July 30, 2008, 03:07:23 PM »
This started out of a thread (link) over in the Rattrap forums that I was coming dangerously close to kidnapping, so I figured it was best to start a new topic instead.

Some time ago I asked what Hyborian Age locale I should start my Broadsword Adventures project with. Of the various interesting hot spots (the Black Kingdoms, Pictland, etc) I finally decided for Zamora. This is partly because it's such a core location to the whole Conan mythos ("The Tower of the Elephant", maybe the most popular and influential of all the Conan stories, is set there), and partly because the whole "eastern mystique" thing that Zamora has going on is so typical of S&S as a whole. With a typically Zamorian collection of scenery and miniatures I can also represent many other parts of the world of Conan (or any other, generic S&S world). I suppose it's somewhat arbitrary to say I'm modelling Zamora in particular when it might just as well be any other "generically eastern" location, but there you go.

So I've been underway with this project in earnest for a couple of weeks now (mostly building scenery, as - frustratingly - I'm away from my miniatures and paints at the moment) and I'm starting this thread hopeful that I can start showing off the fruits of my labour in the near future. For now, I'll just share with you the plans I've made so far and ask for your ideas and suggestions.

Miniatures to paint:

  • 9 Zamorian guards, using the Black Tree fantasy Saracens
  • 8 Thieves, using ancient Persian peasants also from Black Tree, converted (when needed) to carry daggers and bludgeons
  • A number of Eureka cultists
  • Lots and lots of mainly middle eastern civilians/bystanders using miniatures from many different companies (really trying to go for an eclectic look here, but I'll probably start out with the Perry muslim civilians)

Scenery to build (enough of each to fill a standard Broadsword Adventures board of 2' x 2' unless otherwise specified):

  • A slum/caravan quarter of shanties and tents
  • "Regular" adobe buildings
  • Fancy buildings and gardens for a palace/temple district
  • A few market stalls, complete with brick-a-brack

For now, I'm excluding a "palace/castle/temple interior" board and a "sewer/dungeon" board as I have to draw the line somewhere. At some point I'll want to move on to modelling another location instead. At the moment I've got jungles lined up as my next project following this one.
"When to keep awake against the camel's swaying or the junk's rocking, you start summoning up your memories one by one, your wolf will have become another wolf, your sister a different sister, your battle other battles, on your return from Euphemia, the city where memory is traded." - Italo Calvino

Offline Aesthete

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2008, 09:18:12 PM »
That sounds awesome.  I can't wait to see this.
Dispatches from the Miniature Front - my occasionally updated blog

Offline commissarmoody

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2008, 08:32:22 AM »
intersting  :)
"Peace" is that brief, glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.

- Anonymous

Offline Doomhippie

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2008, 08:57:56 AM »
Cool! Zamora certainly is the place in a Hyborian setting. I'm looking forward to seeing some pics.
Roky Erickson flies my spaceship!

Offline Ironworker

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2008, 02:49:21 PM »
Looking forward to it!  I just started reading the Conan tales and I was supprised how quickly I became wrapped up in the setting.  It's a very well done world and I like Howards style better than most modern fantasy writers.  Actually right now I'm liking him better than Lovecraft or Tolkien and Hyboria seems just as solid a world as Middle Earth to me. 

Offline Rhoderic

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2008, 04:39:46 PM »
Great to see another convert!

Funny though this may sound, I'm actually trying to find reasons to "de-solidify" the setting a bit, to allow me to weave in my own adventures into the Hyborian Age. And it's actually not that hard. After a while, you begin to notice some contradictions in the stories, suggesting that Howard (quite naturally) revised some of his earlier ideas as he kept writing (not entirely unlike Tolkien's method in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, BTW - suddenly Goblins weren't just Goblins anymore).

I've been browsing the various texts that the Conan RPG gamers are using (http://hyboria.xoth.net/ is a good place to start for this kind of stuff) and I have the impression that many of them get too caught up in the small details, using these details to try map out the whole Hyborian world, failing to register that there's also a whole lot of unexplored ground in between. These uncharted territories (both literal and figurative) are a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Without them, there would be no adventures left to be had in Conan's wake, because he'll have already done/seen/killed/shagged it all. If Howard hadn't killed himself when he did, he'd surely have continued to invent more additions to the world he created. I'm continuing along those lines. I like to think, for instance, that there are numerous smaller city-states (with varying degrees of independence) scattered around outside the borders of the "named kingdoms". I also like to imagine numerous islands in the western ocean that don't show up on the maps, partly because it justifies the existence of the seafaring nations a little more, and partly because it lets me throw some Amazonian/Caribbean-type natives in there somewhere.

Of course this is just my own take on the Hyborian Age and I definitely don't want to enforce it on other people. Every Conan fan should have their own ideas of what the Hyborian Age contains and doesn't contain. But it's good to remember that a lot of the material used by the RPG gamers (including most of the maps) is likewise based on non-canonical stuff, so who's to say it's right and You're/I'm wrong?

Oh, and as for the project, I'm underway building the shanty town right now. I hope to have pictures of the scenery up soon, but the figures will probably take longer.

Offline Ironworker

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2008, 08:08:56 PM »
One of my pet peeves with a lot of gamers who play in established worlds is that they take each line from the source material as an absolutely literal statement about the setting.  For instance in The Empire Strikes Back Han Solo says of Hoth "There isn't enough life on this rock to fill a space cruiser".  Now a smart person would see that as sarcastic humor but some folks see it as an absolute statement about life on Hoth despite the fact that Solo isn't a biologist but in fact a smuggler.  They will argue till they are blue in the face that the only life on Hoth is Tan Tans and Wampa ect....  Every time I play in an established setting I find these types of players.  A lot of players think these worlds start and end with the source material and won't accept any deviation no matter how logical.  They can't see where the author was headed or what they would have done with the material if they had infinate time and resources to flesh it out. 

I've read that Howard was edited pretty heavily expecially in some later printings.  I don't know how true that is but the source I was reading claimed the origional drafts shared a lot more of Lovecraft's Mythos than what got published.     

Offline Doomhippie

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #7 on: August 01, 2008, 11:20:01 AM »
I agree that there has to be freedom to work with a given world. My personal favourite remains Tolkien. I am a little nerdy about Middle-Earth but I am also a RPG fan. So if I want to play in that setting, I have to make sure there is liberty to explore the world. A good example was a campaign I wrote dealing with the fall of Arthedain in the year 1974. The group was actually heavily involved in politics and I always let them have the feeling that they actually could change the outcome of history. Of course they didin't but they had the time of their life as they had the feeling to take part in a historically acurate setting.

The same goes for the Hyborian world. I remember this story where Conan stumbles accross a ruined city in the dessert that has been cursed in some way. All we learn is that it was once a powerful and lively city state but has by now been all but forgotten. Well, if one such state is mentioned, there might as well have been more of the like. Plus numerous settlements where caravans stop, small towns and cities that are of some kind of economic interest without being gigantic cities.

So I'd say go on and take your liberty. After all, it's a typical Hyborian feeling you' re trying to create. As long as that works out you have it right!

Offline El Grego

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2008, 04:56:34 PM »
Sounds great Rhoderic!

There is plenty of room for action in Hyboria or Tekumel or Melnibone or other settings - good gaming is the goal   :D


Offline archangel1

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #9 on: August 03, 2008, 05:42:40 PM »
When I was looking for something to peruse while using the 'reading room', I came across a set of rules I had picked up about 30(!) years ago.  It's called 'Royal Armies of the Hyborian Age' and was co-authored by Lin Carter, who was involved in writing about a dozen Conan novels (so he should know!), way back when.  As well as providing a simple set of wargaming rules, it also provides descriptions of the uniforms, banners and troop types of the various national armies of the period.  Zamoran troops, for instance, apparently favoured white or white trimmed in red.  The banner was a white crescent centred on a red field.
If anybody's interested in how they broke down the troop types for army composition or in colours/banners, let me know and I'll post the info.  Unfortunately, I don't have an XP compatible scanner or else I'd scan the relevant pages.  (The rules are also printed in red type, so I don't know how well they would reproduce, in any case.)
Why take Life seriously? You'll never get out of it alive!

Offline dyscordya

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #10 on: August 04, 2008, 07:50:17 PM »
I wanted to see it. :)
I am going to begin a project and any serious good help. ;)

Offline UncleRhino

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2008, 03:31:34 AM »
First off, I can't wait to see how your Zamora project works out, I have been thinking I would perhaps tackle Zamboula next, but the difference between Arenjun and Zamboula might just be in the population concentrations of the region.  In more plain gamer-speak, what models you put in the streets will make it either Zamboula or Arenjun!  The beautiful thing about wargaming in Hyboria is that you can pull from the vast ranges of historical models and get pretty damn close to how they " read " in the stories.  Robert E. Howard was a voracious reader of histories and loved nothing better than writing history in the guise of fiction. 

If you want pure, unedited Howard, throw down your Lancer and Ace editions, discard your Gnome press additions and go pick up some of the recent ones that Del Rey has done, they are the stories written as REH wrote them, period.  It took a long time and a lot of hard work from more people than I could name to finally bring that series about, and it was about damn time.

Archangel1, I am very, very interested in seeing scans of the book, post them up here some time for us to have a look at.

Keep at Zamora, I can't wait to see pictures.

RWF

Offline commissarmoody

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #12 on: October 07, 2008, 04:47:25 AM »
So how the project comeing along?

Offline Rhoderic

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #13 on: October 07, 2008, 02:17:35 PM »
I scrapped some of the initial scenery pieces because they didn't look right. Now I'm underway with my second try at a shanty town which is turning out better. It's a mix of flat-roofed wattle-and-daub buildings (inspired somewhat by traditional Masai dwellings), reed huts (inspired by the mudhifs of the Marsh Arabs, but smaller and dinkier) and various tent-like cloth structures. After this I'll make either an "old slum" (crumbling stone buildings) or a bazaar.

Haven't painted any miniatures yet. I've decided to start using the GW washes but I'm a little afraid to get started.

Offline Doomhippie

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Re: The Zamora project (pictures to come - but later)
« Reply #14 on: October 07, 2008, 04:47:14 PM »
No need! Just start with one or two minis just to get into the flow. - Then again, you're a veteran of figure painting so you know the drill. I personally always have the problem of deciding on the colors I want to use. Plus the usual problem of how to manage a lot of minis. These days I never paint more than 5 at a time. Otherwise it's becoming too tedious fast. But once you have three or four batches of 5minis together (even if they are in different armies or from different groups) it becomes easier, as I always have the feeling that even an individual figure added here and there just makes the whole bunch bigger - but I could play without them anyway. That way I don't have the feeling to actually have to paint any other figures...

Okay, what I wnat to say is: get going because I wnat to see the pictures (and probably break down in tears because they and your city will look so much better than everything I could come up with...)  lol

 

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