I'm thinking of creating a free LOREGEIST discord server for fantasy discussion and also for writers to help each other with some beta reading. Let me know if you're interested below 👇, so I can assess if there are enough people who are into the idea 👻
I found sword and sorcery when I was finishing college, unenamored by society, lack of job and fun ,The pulp became my motivation and the short stories were really fun for my long travels on the metro. Good vid
I like the character development sword & sorcery does by having the characters be in wildly different situations every adventure. So we see how they react to different events every time.
Yeah, it’s a bit less like a regularly plotted book and more like a Sherlock Homes type of character study where you see how they react to different situations like you said
I knew of S&S but always felt like the Conan stuff was a little cheesy, so I never felt interested to learn more until watching this. Really well-crafted explanation and examples that frame how it stands apart from other subgenres of fantasy. My dude's got me itching to write some S&S short stories now
Yeah, I think maybe Conan was a bit cheesy because of the time. I'd be curious to know what a Conan tv series would look like these days (maybe similar to the Witcher? lol). Glad the video inspired you 👊
Conan could be hit or miss at times, but Red Nails is one of the best, and you can listen to it as an audiobook. th-cam.com/video/2_7OZjk58K0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=LGwwlfv8le61ar0e As for inspiring you to write some Sword and Sorcery of your own, go for it. We need more of it these days. I'm about 15k words into one of my own, and it's been a blast.
Conan was Howard's main moneymaker, during the Depression as magazines contracted, so some stories were written to get income in quickly, rather than for quality. The early stories are often the better ones, but towards the end there are some good ones again (like Red Nails mentioned below), as Howard's attention wandered to other genres (Westerns) and he incorporated those into the Conan stories. The God in the Bowl and Tower of the Elephant, as well as Conan's debut in The Phoenix on the Sword, are good starting points. The latter is a re-write of a Kull story he couldn't sell, he was asked to give it more weirdness, so if you read both Phoenix and the Kull story By This Axe I Rule, you'll get a sense of the pressure he was under to meet his market. I personally prefer the Kull stories, The Shadow Kingdom is one of the best fantasy short stories ever written. Howard had a lot of other characters that are nothing like anything ever written, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art, Turlogh Dubh O'Brien, and Solomon Kane, who is probably next best known after Conan and Kull. The final thing about Howard's Conan is that the character's post WWII resurgence is because of mass produced paperbacks, and then the comics that leaned on them, and those paperbacks often had a) edited stories, b) non-Conan stories by Howard converted to Conan stories, c) outlines of stories by Howard but finished by others, d) stories entirely written by others under Howard's name (the real authors get a co-author credit on those) and e) stories openly written by others. So a lot of Conan isn't Howard's Conan. Thankfully we now mostly have the original stuff available; those old paperbacks are still usually fun, but there's a caveat to them. Some are godawful.
@@chrisrobinson196 I read a collection of the original Conan stories by Howard, and was struck by how well most of them had aged. They are required reading!
What I like about S&S (typically) is that they aren't the hero in so much as they are just doing their thing... compaired to High Fantasy where the main character is the "chosen one" type thing. I also like the nature of how some of the older stories were more akin to when you tell someone about some thing you had done some time... rather than a contiguous story.
I think where High Fantasy bears resemblance to national epics like The Iliad or The Nibelungenlied, Sword and Sorcery is more along the episodic lines of Norse sagas or Beowulf. Conan and Solomon Kane always feel like there are more adventures than just what Howard wrote (which I think contributes to their continued popularity and ability for new stories to be written). What Howard had too was a feeltof verisimilitude- even though Conan takes place in a lost "Hyborian Age", you could imagine it taking places just at the edges of things going on in the Old Testament or parallel to the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Antiheros are cool, even an epic fantasy can still be a series of sword and sorcery chapters with an overarching plot connecting them together... it remains dark and gritty and personal, while at the same time can benefit the expansive world building of epic fantasy to have a much more colorful verity of challenges presented against the hero.
Yeah, I like the idea of having sort of a “spin off” sword and sorcery character doing episodic adventures on a epic fantasy setting of another series, I could see that working really well in LOTR, WoT, asoiaf etc
The one sword and sorcery character that almos nobody knows about is Imaro by Charles Saunders. Basically a sword and sorcery story based in a fictional version of Africa were the reader follows the title character. This is a highly underrated series that deserves as much attention as Conan but for some reason almost no one has heard of it. Another character would Prince Corum, another creation of Michael Moorcock who like Elric is an eternal champion in the author's multiverse. He serves as a counterpart to Elric were, in my opinion, Corum leans more closer to Order as opposed to Elric's Chaos and his story is more closer to a heroic legend. There's also Hawkmoon, another eternal champion written by Moorcock that some say is closer to the traditional tales of sword and sorcery like Conan but I haven't read them yet so can't say much about them.
Sword and Sorcery is truly the Rock Anthem of Fantasy. Also fun fact, Michael Moorcock assisted Blue Oyster Cult with Veteran of the Psychic Wars and their song Black Blade is about Elric.
Nice overview of the subgenre. Interesting that you did not tie in DnD. One thing that would have helped is where to start a story from. I obviously come from the writing side. I am guessing the immediate quest would be the starting point. S. John Ross made a nice list of them for RPG, but did not categorise them. What are the general quest categories and can you suggest any new ones?
I'd say, the general quest categories are what you find in MMORPG...Fetch Quests, Escort Quests, Monster Extermination Quests, Espionage/Infiltration/Sabotage Quests, ... Plus the non-Quest Personal Goal plots: Treasure Hunts, Temple Raids, Heists, Monster Exterminations, Vengeance, Espionage/Infiltration/Sabotage, ...
@@StarlasAiko I know that DnD comes from a Poul Andersen epic fantasy story, but the similarities between sword and sorcery and RPG were striking. I used DnD instead of RPG because for the former is clearly recognisable where RPG is very broad and I cannot speak for all branches. Thank you for the expansion.
Honestly, to me starting with Conan and Elric would probably give you a good overview of the genre. The problem with this type of work is, some people will recommend starting from one specific volume / issue, some people with specific novels that explain the character particularly well. It’s kinda like recommending comic books 😅 the work surrounding Conan is pretty spread out and diffuse.
I like the core concepts of sword and sorcery (the pulpy/campy writing of it), but rarely find the execution all that appealing. The episodic nature is such a turn-off. I know some ppl love that each story is relatively contained and there's not much bleeding over between tales beyond the characters or setting, but I prefer the grand scale of over-arching narratives that go into epic fantasy series. I want deeper themes and character arcs that simply can't be explored in a single narrative. I want the world-ending stakes. I want the sprawling POV's. Unfortunately sword and sorcery just doesn't scratch that itch. That's not to say they can't be written well or have good character work. I'm just looking for more.
I also prefer an overall arc. It can be a bit deflating when you know the status quo will always be restored at the end of the day. On the other hand S&S is good for character exploration. You can put Conan in any type of situation you can imagine weekly and explore how his character would react to it. It is similar to what people do with Sherlock / Agatha Christie stories
I'd love to hear your thoughts on Kratos and the God Of War series. Would Kratos be classed as a Sword and Sorcery protagonist, and would his saga be classed as a Sword and Sorcery tale or, as I like to call it Dark Mythology.
I mean, this is debatable because of the nature of the media but in my view GoW is closer to Sword and Sorcery than other sub genres. It’s gritty and the worldbuilding is more of a backdrop to put Kratos in different situations than anything else. But I could see a written God of War series being more epic fantasy and working well
I personally would like to see an episodic structure return. There can be an overarching progression as that is still common across seasons. It seems like the serialized approach is used to promote watch time to the end of a season, rather than for interesting content. A Conan episodic series would do well I think in the current streaming landscape. The episodic nature works very well in tabletop I think. Create an adventure, run it with a party. You could reset the party for the next one or return to the existing party, depending on the play group's preferences. Books benefit from the one shot nature. I find many writers adopt the serialized nature just to sell more books easier.
I would like to see a Conan tv series work. Also book wise I agree that the episodic nature of some series work in their favour, like Sherlock stories and Agatha Christie. The author can keep putting out stuff and it would usually sell because é of the loyal fan-base, the fact that they follow a similar structure with different “coating” also helps putting them out faster
Another thing Sword and Sorcory dose well too is that while your hero like Conan might be rough around the edges. But he like most protagonists in these stories has a moral compess of a sort. His honastly is very central to me. He speaks his mind and you know where you stand with him, he is honest, brutally honest and in his world that is great contrast to his foes. Scheming wizards, royalty and "civilized" men.
It’s kind of a commentary on the hypocrisy of “civilized” men indeed, as you put it. I think it speaks to people losing patience/faith with leaders and institutions because of the great wars
@LoreGeist Howared definatly used Conan to crique things during his time. I could definatly see how people at the time where unhappy and mistrusting of leaders. I think a good apeal of sword and sorcory is despite the more gray shades we see in protagonists. There are still clear indications of good and evil, the methodes of characters can be doubious even their motives. But even they won't simply ignore evil stareing them in the face.
Robert E. Howard. The same guy who wrote Conan. Kull just happened to be written first. I think his lack of popularity compared to Conan led to him not getting as well fleshed out, but I like Kull. Even the awful Kull the Conqueror movie was a lot of fun.
I'm thinking of creating a free LOREGEIST discord server for fantasy discussion and also for writers to help each other with some beta reading. Let me know if you're interested below 👇, so I can assess if there are enough people who are into the idea 👻
Ihrer Kanal gefällt mir viel. Bitte, wo wohnen Sie?
@@markpowell5228 Vielen Dank! Ich wohne in München, du?
@LoreGeist In USA, in der nähe von Augusta, Georgia.
@@markpowell5228 Right on! I thought we were in the DACH region because of the German 😅
Not interested, yet wishing you success for your #Discord idea!
After all these years, the riddle of steel continues to echo in my everyday life. The Hyborean Age is my Roman Empire.
Can’t go one day without thinking about the Hyborean age
It’s such a cool example of lore/worldbuilding
You're a Hyboraboo, too? 😊
Crom!
All that matters is that two stood against many.
I found sword and sorcery when I was finishing college, unenamored by society, lack of job and fun ,The pulp became my motivation and the short stories were really fun for my long travels on the metro.
Good vid
pulp is awesome. Wish it was stronger these days
@LoreGeist hopefully the Robert e Howard Titán líne could improve It, their new Conan cómic Is good And The upcoming Solomon Kane looks promising
I like the character development sword & sorcery does by having the characters be in wildly different situations every adventure. So we see how they react to different events every time.
Yeah, it’s a bit less like a regularly plotted book and more like a Sherlock Homes type of character study where you see how they react to different situations like you said
I like that Sword and Sorcery stories are character driven more than plot driven.
I knew of S&S but always felt like the Conan stuff was a little cheesy, so I never felt interested to learn more until watching this. Really well-crafted explanation and examples that frame how it stands apart from other subgenres of fantasy. My dude's got me itching to write some S&S short stories now
Yeah, I think maybe Conan was a bit cheesy because of the time. I'd be curious to know what a Conan tv series would look like these days (maybe similar to the Witcher? lol).
Glad the video inspired you 👊
Conan could be hit or miss at times, but Red Nails is one of the best, and you can listen to it as an audiobook.
th-cam.com/video/2_7OZjk58K0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=LGwwlfv8le61ar0e
As for inspiring you to write some Sword and Sorcery of your own, go for it. We need more of it these days. I'm about 15k words into one of my own, and it's been a blast.
Conan was Howard's main moneymaker, during the Depression as magazines contracted, so some stories were written to get income in quickly, rather than for quality. The early stories are often the better ones, but towards the end there are some good ones again (like Red Nails mentioned below), as Howard's attention wandered to other genres (Westerns) and he incorporated those into the Conan stories. The God in the Bowl and Tower of the Elephant, as well as Conan's debut in The Phoenix on the Sword, are good starting points.
The latter is a re-write of a Kull story he couldn't sell, he was asked to give it more weirdness, so if you read both Phoenix and the Kull story By This Axe I Rule, you'll get a sense of the pressure he was under to meet his market. I personally prefer the Kull stories, The Shadow Kingdom is one of the best fantasy short stories ever written. Howard had a lot of other characters that are nothing like anything ever written, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art, Turlogh Dubh O'Brien, and Solomon Kane, who is probably next best known after Conan and Kull.
The final thing about Howard's Conan is that the character's post WWII resurgence is because of mass produced paperbacks, and then the comics that leaned on them, and those paperbacks often had a) edited stories, b) non-Conan stories by Howard converted to Conan stories, c) outlines of stories by Howard but finished by others, d) stories entirely written by others under Howard's name (the real authors get a co-author credit on those) and e) stories openly written by others. So a lot of Conan isn't Howard's Conan. Thankfully we now mostly have the original stuff available; those old paperbacks are still usually fun, but there's a caveat to them. Some are godawful.
@@chrisrobinson196 I read a collection of the original Conan stories by Howard, and was struck by how well most of them had aged. They are required reading!
What I like about S&S (typically) is that they aren't the hero in so much as they are just doing their thing... compaired to High Fantasy where the main character is the "chosen one" type thing. I also like the nature of how some of the older stories were more akin to when you tell someone about some thing you had done some time... rather than a contiguous story.
My favorite genre.
I think where High Fantasy bears resemblance to national epics like The Iliad or The Nibelungenlied, Sword and Sorcery is more along the episodic lines of Norse sagas or Beowulf. Conan and Solomon Kane always feel like there are more adventures than just what Howard wrote (which I think contributes to their continued popularity and ability for new stories to be written). What Howard had too was a feeltof verisimilitude- even though Conan takes place in a lost "Hyborian Age", you could imagine it taking places just at the edges of things going on in the Old Testament or parallel to the Epic of Gilgamesh.
That’s a pretty fair comparison
Antiheros are cool, even an epic fantasy can still be a series of sword and sorcery chapters with an overarching plot connecting them together... it remains dark and gritty and personal, while at the same time can benefit the expansive world building of epic fantasy to have a much more colorful verity of challenges presented against the hero.
Yeah, I like the idea of having sort of a “spin off” sword and sorcery character doing episodic adventures on a epic fantasy setting of another series, I could see that working really well in LOTR, WoT, asoiaf etc
The one sword and sorcery character that almos nobody knows about is Imaro by Charles Saunders. Basically a sword and sorcery story based in a fictional version of Africa were the reader follows the title character. This is a highly underrated series that deserves as much attention as Conan but for some reason almost no one has heard of it.
Another character would Prince Corum, another creation of Michael Moorcock who like Elric is an eternal champion in the author's multiverse. He serves as a counterpart to Elric were, in my opinion, Corum leans more closer to Order as opposed to Elric's Chaos and his story is more closer to a heroic legend. There's also Hawkmoon, another eternal champion written by Moorcock that some say is closer to the traditional tales of sword and sorcery like Conan but I haven't read them yet so can't say much about them.
I actually didn’t know Imaro and Prince Corum. Gonna check them out.
Corum is my favorite. Some of the details of a grimdark fantasy I'm writing were directly inspired by his story.
Sword and Sorcery is truly the Rock Anthem of Fantasy. Also fun fact, Michael Moorcock assisted Blue Oyster Cult with Veteran of the Psychic Wars and their song Black Blade is about Elric.
My favorite type of fantasy.
Swordcery. That is all.
Nice overview of the subgenre. Interesting that you did not tie in DnD. One thing that would have helped is where to start a story from. I obviously come from the writing side. I am guessing the immediate quest would be the starting point. S. John Ross made a nice list of them for RPG, but did not categorise them. What are the general quest categories and can you suggest any new ones?
I'd say, the general quest categories are what you find in MMORPG...Fetch Quests, Escort Quests, Monster Extermination Quests, Espionage/Infiltration/Sabotage Quests, ...
Plus the non-Quest Personal Goal plots: Treasure Hunts, Temple Raids, Heists, Monster Exterminations, Vengeance, Espionage/Infiltration/Sabotage, ...
@@StarlasAiko I know that DnD comes from a Poul Andersen epic fantasy story, but the similarities between sword and sorcery and RPG were striking. I used DnD instead of RPG because for the former is clearly recognisable where RPG is very broad and I cannot speak for all branches. Thank you for the expansion.
Honestly, to me starting with Conan and Elric would probably give you a good overview of the genre. The problem with this type of work is, some people will recommend starting from one specific volume / issue, some people with specific novels that explain the character particularly well. It’s kinda like recommending comic books 😅 the work surrounding Conan is pretty spread out and diffuse.
I usually prefer DnD for this as well but StarlasAiko list is pretty comprehensive
@@StarlasAiko Thanks for list
I like the core concepts of sword and sorcery (the pulpy/campy writing of it), but rarely find the execution all that appealing. The episodic nature is such a turn-off. I know some ppl love that each story is relatively contained and there's not much bleeding over between tales beyond the characters or setting, but I prefer the grand scale of over-arching narratives that go into epic fantasy series. I want deeper themes and character arcs that simply can't be explored in a single narrative. I want the world-ending stakes. I want the sprawling POV's. Unfortunately sword and sorcery just doesn't scratch that itch. That's not to say they can't be written well or have good character work. I'm just looking for more.
I also prefer an overall arc. It can be a bit deflating when you know the status quo will always be restored at the end of the day.
On the other hand S&S is good for character exploration. You can put Conan in any type of situation you can imagine weekly and explore how his character would react to it. It is similar to what people do with Sherlock / Agatha Christie stories
I'd love to hear your thoughts on Kratos and the God Of War series. Would Kratos be classed as a Sword and Sorcery protagonist, and would his saga be classed as a Sword and Sorcery tale or, as I like to call it Dark Mythology.
I mean, this is debatable because of the nature of the media but in my view GoW is closer to Sword and Sorcery than other sub genres. It’s gritty and the worldbuilding is more of a backdrop to put Kratos in different situations than anything else. But I could see a written God of War series being more epic fantasy and working well
I personally would like to see an episodic structure return. There can be an overarching progression as that is still common across seasons. It seems like the serialized approach is used to promote watch time to the end of a season, rather than for interesting content. A Conan episodic series would do well I think in the current streaming landscape.
The episodic nature works very well in tabletop I think. Create an adventure, run it with a party. You could reset the party for the next one or return to the existing party, depending on the play group's preferences. Books benefit from the one shot nature. I find many writers adopt the serialized nature just to sell more books easier.
I would like to see a Conan tv series work.
Also book wise I agree that the episodic nature of some series work in their favour, like Sherlock stories and Agatha Christie. The author can keep putting out stuff and it would usually sell because é of the loyal fan-base, the fact that they follow a similar structure with different “coating” also helps putting them out faster
The Elric art, who's the artist? 🙏
Some of it is midjourney, some of it is Google! Depends on which one you’re referring to 😊
Another thing Sword and Sorcory dose well too is that while your hero like Conan might be rough around the edges. But he like most protagonists in these stories has a moral compess of a sort. His honastly is very central to me. He speaks his mind and you know where you stand with him, he is honest, brutally honest and in his world that is great contrast to his foes. Scheming wizards, royalty and "civilized" men.
It’s kind of a commentary on the hypocrisy of “civilized” men indeed, as you put it. I think it speaks to people losing patience/faith with leaders and institutions because of the great wars
@LoreGeist Howared definatly used Conan to crique things during his time. I could definatly see how people at the time where unhappy and mistrusting of leaders. I think a good apeal of sword and sorcory is despite the more gray shades we see in protagonists. There are still clear indications of good and evil, the methodes of characters can be doubious even their motives. But even they won't simply ignore evil stareing them in the face.
The forgot the first sword and sorcerer hero Kull of Atlantis... By Frank Howard...
Robert E. Howard. The same guy who wrote Conan. Kull just happened to be written first. I think his lack of popularity compared to Conan led to him not getting as well fleshed out, but I like Kull. Even the awful Kull the Conqueror movie was a lot of fun.
I actually had a paragraph on the script for Kull but ended up cutting it out to round out the 15 min 😅 I’m surprised anyone noticed / minded.
Where did you get the artwork in the video?
If you created it, I may want to commission some art.
You mean the pictures used as examples? A lot of them are midjourney, some of them are from google
@ I believe the mid journey AI art. I’m putting together a self made sword and sorcery TTRPG and I’d like to use that style of art.