Reading Gods of the North & Tower of the Elephant

Artwork from the Marvel Comic's adaptation of Tower of the Elephant. 

The first Conan story by Robert E. Howard I ever read was the Tower of the Elephant, based upon Matt Colville mentioning it in a video. That was an early influence as I first started playing RPGs, but I think that short story would be highly recognizable to any player. Reading these stories helps show the influences that resulted in our current games and media, and perhaps some themes, ideas, and atmosphere that we reinject to change up our games (what’s old is new again). Mild spoilers follow...

The set up of this scenario is certainly seen in how most D&D campaigns and quests are framed. It begins in a tavern or gathering place in an interesting city. Exposition identifying a fantastic location (in this case the mysterious tower) is provided. A hero has an initial fight, which demonstrates his cunning and strength. He even falls in with another adventurer who is doomed to an untimely death--though it could just as easily been Conan! The twists and the turns show me that you can set up a treasure of MacGuffin hunt, and still be flexible and offer some agency to player characters who may change the adventure (as when Conan mercy-kills the tower's sad prisoner, then follows its desires to destroy the tower and the evil mage who rules it).

The Gods of the North struck me with how similar it seems to some of the ideas I had long prior to reading it in the game I had with a single player (the saga of Hurkaz the mighty). Conan essentially is running through a similar land of cold and ice, and finds himself face to face with fantastic foes. I especially loved the descriptions of the frost giants. I think their description is certainly part of how our own frost giants developed.

Looking forward to chewing further through the collected stories of Conan and considering how they have impacted both our fantasy stories, and our fantasy roleplaying games.