Neighbors of Aquilonia

The description of the nations were taken mostly from the Hyborian Age homepage. The maps are made by Chrysagon.


This is the whole continent of Hyboria. The red rectangle shows the location of the more detailed map below.



Aquilonia and its neighbors.

• Pictish Wilderness
  
  Also called the Pictish Wilderness, the far western region of the world continent, lying west of Aquilonia, north of Zingara, and south of Vanaheim. The Aquilonian frontier of Pictland seems to have fluctuated between Thunder River in the east and Black River in the west. The land in between, Westermarck, was rather optimistically deemed a part of Aquilonia. The coast of Pictland, some 1300 miles long, had not a single port city. It was the domain of the Sea-Land Picts, who had small villages and were on a lower cultural level than their inland brethren. They did not go to sea, but apparently scavenged the strand for walrus and whale carcasses, which yielded ivory that could be traded. Interior Pictland is described as a "howling wilderness". It is presumed to have been a slowly rising coastal plain, a vast marine forest with mild winters, broadleaf to the south, mixed with conifers to the north -- humid, rank, and tangled with briars, thick, shrubby undergrowth, ivy, and other vines.
  
  The Westermarck, a western frontier of Aquilonia and source of much needed farmland, lies between the Black and Thunder River adjacent to the Pictish lands. It will be there were able warriors and adventurers will have a hard time building new settlements or forts for the Picts hotly contest Aquilonian encroachment upon the area and the frontier is site of incessant brutal warfare between native Picts and Aquilonian pioneers.
  
  
  
• Nemedia
  
  Second most powerful of the Hyborian kingdoms, it lies east of Aquilonia, south of the Border Kingdom, west of Brythunia, and north of Corinthia and Ophir. The Border Range lies between Aquilonia and Nemedia. Most of the passes into Aquilonia were in the northwest; two southern passes existed, one was a well-defended gap in the range that the Road of Kings ran through, the other was the difficult Pass of Oteron, which Conan once used. At the south end of the range lies the Tybor Gap, a large river valley that connects the kingdoms of Aquilonia, Nemedia, and Ophir. The rugged, impenetrable range of the Karpash Mountains lay on the southern border with Ophir.
  
  In the year 1293 A.A. King Conan was lured into a trap by Nemedias new king Tarascus and Xaltotun, a long dead wizard of ancient Acheron. Conan was emprisoned in Tarascus' dungeons and left there to die by the hand of a hideous creature. But Zenobia, a beautiful slave of Tarascus' harem freed him and thus Conan was able to return to Aquilonia to rise a rebellion against the new King who had been sat on the lion throne by Xaltotun. Conan was victorius and left Nemedia beaten and weak (The Hour of the Dragon).
  Depending on how much time has passed until Age of Conan will start, Nemedia might still be recovering from the war against Aquilonia.
  
  
  
• Ophir
  
  One of the Hyborian kingdoms, situated south of Aquilonia, Nemedia, and Corinthia, and north of Argos and Koth. Near the Aquilonian border, which was delineated by the Tybor River, Ophir had meadowlands and a few mountains near Poitain. Farmlands, forests, and fortresses covered the north between the Tybor and the capital city, Ianthe. Its royal court was called the Ianthium. Southern Ophir had craggy borderlands, lone and deserted, save for the ramshackle huts of peasants. Hills and a small river lay between Koth and Ophir. The impassable Karpash Mountains lay on the Nemedian frontier and produced the gold and precious stones, which have been linked to the destiny of Ophir down through the ages. The mountains were quite high, with very few mountain passes, and considered to be haunted by vampires, ghost mists, and terrible lightning storms.
  
  About 3 years before The Hour of the Dragon Conan loses a battle against King Amalrus of Ophir and King Strabonus of Koth who have lured him into a trap on the plain of Shamu. Conan manages to escape the dungeons under the Scarlet Citadel, returns to Tarantia and retakes the throne. After that his army rides against his enemies and defeats them at the city of Shamar. The king of Ophir as well as the king of Koth are killed in that battle (The Scarlet Citadel).
  
  
  
• Argos
  
  Hyborian kingdom situated southwest of Ophir, west of Koth and Shem, and south of Zingara -- where an Argossean panhandle juts westward. Argos was a nation of paramount seafarers, with cosmopolitan cities along the coast. Its capital, Messantia, lay on the coast at the estuary of the Khorotas River. The most fertile region in Argos is the Khorotas River valley. The valley is filled with fruit orchards, farms, and oak forests where Argos' shipbuilding industry gets its wood.
  
  The inland provinces were culturally rather backward. Along the Zingaran border were ghoul-haunted forests; south of these lay orchards and croplands.
  
  
  
• Zingara
  
  A non-Hyborian (according to Howard) nation situated south of the Bossonian Marches of Aquilonia and Pictland, west of Poitain and Ophir, and north of the panhandle of Argos. The Black and Thunder Rivers flowed through Zingara and emptied into the Western Ocean along the Zingaran coast. The shallow Alimane River formed the border with Poitain. The Zingarans were apparently agricultural, maritime, and pastoral, ruled by petty princelings only nominally subservient to the capital of Kordava. During Conan's time, Zingara was torn by civil war.