By Crom !

Conan was born in Cimmeria to a clan who claimed an area in the north-western part of this barbaric kingdom. We know that Conan's birth was probably during a fight between his tribe and a horde of Vanir, but there is little solid information about his young life. His grandfather, a member of the southern Cimmerian tribes, fled from his people because of a blood feud. After long wanderings, some into the Hyborian regions in the south, he returned to Cimmeria and took refuge with a tribe in the north. At night before the fire, Conan's grandfather would spin elaborate tales of his travels outside of Cimmeria, and nobody would listen more intently than Conan himself.

Even early in life, Conan proved to be a powerful fighter. One story from Conan's youth tells of the boy fighting off an entire pack of wolves, barehanded, in order to save a hunter trapped beneath a fallen tree. When he was fifteen years of age, Conan took part in the sacking of the Aquilonian outpost of Fort Venarium.
Conan enjoyed life as a raider with the Aesir, while crossing blades with Vanir and Hyperboreans alike. He bled as a laboring slave, gladiator, sell-sword, and prisoner. He lived as a thief in the streets of Shadizar, making a living on ill-gotten treasures and "forgotten" coins. Conan has lived on both sides of the law, as a ship's captain and pirate, as a mercenary or soldier, and finally as King of Aquilonia itself. He has slain beasts, monsters, and demons, never sparing their dark, sorcerer masters. His blade has tasted the blood of hundreds, and his travels took him across thousands of leagues. But, not all of his adventures were born of blade and blood.

He has also loved as fiercely as he has battled. Women from many lands have earned the Cimmeran's attention throughout his travels. Some say that few even held his heart for a time; perhaps longer than even Conan would like to admit. No matter his past loves and conquests, it's Zenobia, the Nemedian who helped him escape from Xaltotun, who would share Conan's life and become his wife and Queen.

Conan has "sullen blue eyes, long black hair, stands 6'2 ft. tall, and weighs 210 pounds as told by Howard as an exact physical duplicate of another character. In most of the stories, no human is ever described as stronger than Conan, although several are mentioned as taller (such as the strangler Baal-Pteor) or of larger bulk. Although Conan is muscular, Howard frequently compares his agility and way of moving to that of a panther.

"Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."

- The Nemedian Chronicles.



Map of the Hyborian age :