Conan d20 2e - Khitai.pdf

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Khitai
Contents
Contents
Credits
Khitai
Beyond the wall
Khitan Born
Ancestors,
demons
&
gods
1
2
3
4
28
50
Black Wisdom
Khitai at war
Khitai Gazeteer
Khitai Bestiary
Adventures in
Khitai
index
license
64
75
87
99
109
122
123
Khitai
is © 2008 Conan Properties International LLC. CONAN®, CONAN THE BARBARIAN® and related logos,
characters, names and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Conan Properties International LLC unless otherwise
noted. All Rights Reserved. Mongoose Publishing Ltd Authorised User.
Khitai
is released under version 1.0 of the Open
Game License. Reproduction of non-Open Game Content of this work by any means without the written permission
of the publisher is expressly forbidden. See page 123 for the text of this license. With the exception of
the character creation rules detailing the mechanics of assigning dice roll results to abilities and the
advancement of character levels, all game mechanics and statistics (including the game mechanics
of all feats, skills, classes, creatures spells and the combat chapter) are declared open content. First
printing 2008. Printed in the USA.
1
Credits
Credits
Author
Lawrence Whitaker
Editor
Charlotte Law
Layout
Will Chapman
Additional
Text
Vincent Darlage
Cover Art
Giles Meakin
Interior Artists
Furman,
Leonardo Borazio,
Marco Morte,
Phil Renne,
Robin Everett-McGuirl
Creator of Conan and Hyboria
Robert E. Howard
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Khitai
Khitai
“Then there were camels and yellow-skinned men who wore
silk robes and spoke in a weird tongue. ...He was a magician
from far Khitai, returning to his native kingdom after a
journey to Stygia. He took me with him to purple-towered
Paikang, its minarets rising amid the vine-festooned
jungles of bamboo and there I grew to womanhood under
his teaching. Age had steeped him deep in black wisdom, not
weakened his powers of evil. Many things he taught me --”
-- Robert E. Howard: “A Witch Shall Be Born”
Chapter Three
Ancestors,
Demons and Gods
The creatures worshipped by the Khitans – from the
ancestor gods, through to the demons summoned and
trapped on the earthly plane.
The inscrutable land of Khitai, insulated from the
barbarism of the west by its immense wall and its jungles
of bamboo and dense, green trees, is the subject of this
book. It delves deep beyond that wall, ploughing into those
jungles, examining the people of Khitai, their customs,
their politics, their rulers, their sorcery and their gods.
In this book you will find everything you need to know
about this mysterious land and the background necessary
to create compelling Khitan adventurers, opponents and
scenarios. It takes, as its source material, Robert E Howard’s
original stories and the background material presented in
Return to the Road of Kings. Further embellishment has,
of course, been necessary to fully detail but all additions
have been made in the spirit of Howard’s stories and draw
upon the rich myths and legends of the orient.
Khitai is divided into the following chapters:
Chapter Four
Black Wisdom
The magic and sorcery of Khitai.
Chapter Five
Khitai at War
A guide to the armies of Khitai and their traditions
Chapter Six
A Khitai Gazeteer
Personalities and character statistics for Conan Second
Edition
Chapter Seven
Creatures
Animals and monsters from beyond the Great Wall.
Chapter One
Beyond the Wall
An overview of Khitai; its history and its regions.
Chapter Eight
Adventures Beyond the
Wall
Scenario hooks for Khitai adventures.
Chapter Two
Khitan Born
The people, customs and culture of the Khitan people.
3
The Wall
Beyond the Wall
Which came first – Khitai or the Great Wall? Only the Ancestors know this for certain and they will not say because even
Ancestors must have their secrets but the Great Wall has always been with us, just as the Ancestors have always been with us.
It is possible, then, that Khitai and the Wall came into being at the same time or possibly the Wall defined Khitai and made
it real. Beyond that, there is no certainty.
Yet... yet we do know that there are
two
Great Walls. The first was not made of the stones we see now when we gaze to the
west. That first wall was made of bamboo and bone, knotted, slotted and slatted together so it was 1,000 miles long and 100
feet high. That first wall was the creation of sorcery, the bamboo cut in a single movement of a single scythe and strengthened
with the bones of the enemies of the east who had thrown themselves at the emerging wall in a bid to over-run the eastern
lands and defile them. The Ancestors, when restless, whisper something of the demigod who protected Khitai at that time;
a vast, foul being who was, for all her ugliness, a protector of our lands. She felled the bamboo and wove the wall and then,
when the enemies threw themselves at it in their thousands, she felled them and wove their bones into the bamboo so that
the two became indistinguishable. This made our enemies fear us – as they still do – because they witnessed the power of the
demiurges and knew that Khitai was strong with its gods and unwilling to brook invasion and oppression.
The wall of bamboo and bone was replaced perhaps 1,000 years later when the demigod had gone and God Emperor Z’xang
first ruled. He wished to march soldiers along the Wall so that they could keep watch on the enemies beyond it but it was
difficult for human feet to tread the bamboo curtain and anyway, men feared the moans and sighs emanating from the
demiurge’s wall, for the dead souls of the enemies were trapped, still, in the weave. So Z’xang commanded that the wall be
replaced, mile by mile, with stones but that the bamboo and bones should remain. So the wall of stone was built around the
wall of the demiurge, following its pattern but made greater with the towers set at each three mile interval. So now the Great
Wall is all of stone but is really two walls, for the bamboo wall is within the stone wall and the tormented souls of the dead
are contained forever.
Yet the wall still moans, and forever it will. That is what our enemies should know: come against Khitai and your souls will
be trapped within our land for forever. No rest, no mercy, not until the prophets of Yag command that time should end and
the Ancestors be brought forth to judge all crimes and atrocities. Then, our enemies shall come face to face with the wrath
and justice of our Ancestors!
Jung-Kao, Historian Sorcerer of Khitai, writing in ‘The Great and Glorious Scroll of the Khitan People’
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