Age of Conan Regional Profiles: Eiglophian Mountains and the Cimmerians
By The Age of Conan team | Apr 4, 2007
With Funcom's help, GameSpy is pleased to present a series of exclusive Hyborean regional profiles. We'll be looking into the blank spaces of Conan's world and finding out how Funcom plans to fill them. We'll be showing off exclusive images, video-flybys and a sneak peek at the kinds of challenges and enemies that players will face in that region. In this special edition of our series, we learn about one of the game's three major races, the Cimmerians, travel through the Eiglophian Mountains and meet the savaga cannibals and Yakhmar.
The Cimmerians
A shroud hangs over the people of Cimmeria. One might assume it is the pall of the dark weather overhead that eternally threatens grim days and violent storms. The truth, though, is that the Cimmerians live under a shroud of impending doom. As the Hyborian Age enters its final centuries, few people feel it as acutely as the northern barbarian clans. It is a subconscious sensation -- more a subtle, ever-present melancholy than true despair, but it's in the blood and bones of every Cimmerian. They all feel the end is coming.
In Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, players will find the Cimmerians a varied experience. Their barbaric nature, their stout posture and their willingness to charge into a battle where the odds are against them should appeal to those players who would solve a dispute with the blade rather than with words. Despite their barbaric appearance, Cimmerians actually have an interesting culture that often runs deeper than the roots of mountains and exploring this society as a player will yield many surprises. Cimmerian hearts beat for the land that surrounds them and for their bloodline. Weaving an interesting story for a player's Cimmerian should pose no challenge.
Cimmerians are a people shaped by their harsh and dreary land to the point where foreigners look askance at the tribes of the north and wonder if they ever laugh or sing any songs beyond dismal dirges. To the world beyond Cimmeria, the barbarians of this cold and rugged region are locked in the misery of internal wars between feuding tribes and surviving through the efforts of dedicated hunters that provide for each community. The Cimmerians live hand to mouth in a hostile realm. It earns them the pity of the other nations, but it gives them a strength no training can ever teach.
While the Cimmerians acknowledge Crom as their god, they do not worship him as the Aquilonians revere Mitra and the Stygians fear Set. Crom watches and broods from his mountain throne, but he cares nothing for the lives of mortals. The Cimmerians believe that Crom gives them strength at birth to meet the trials of life. After that, they are on their own, as it should be. They have little in the way of writing or book-learning. Instead they pass their lore verbally in fireside tales or in whispered legends. They value martial prowess over their enemies, physical strength and the ability to provide above all else. While they have their seers and shamans, the supernatural holds terror for most barbarians, not wonder or tempting appeal. They pride themselves on working through life with their strength, skill and cunning, and never relying on the arcane mysteries that blacken the souls of the men in other nations.