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Messantia - City of RIches Book I: Games Master’s Guide

Messantia – City of Riches, Book I: Games Master’s Guide is © 2005 Conan Properties International LLC. CONAN®, CONAN THE BARBARIAN® and related logos, character, names, and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Conan Properties International LLC unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved. Mongoose Publishing Ltd Authorized User. Conan the Roleplaying Game 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 pulisher is expressly forbidden. See page 96 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. Printed in China.

Credits 2Introduction 3History of Messantia 4Avenues and Alleyways 8Beyond the Walls 35Messantia, Day-to-Day 48Power and Politics 62Movers and Shakers 76Games Mastering 93 License 96

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CreditsThe Chroniclers of Our Time

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AuthorGreg Lynch

Editor and Line DevelopmentRichard Neale

Cover ArtScott Clark & Chris Quilliams

Interior ArtistsAnthea Dilly, Sergio Villa Isaza, Vitor Ishimura, Celso Mathias, Chad Sergesketter, Ronald Smith & Alejandro Villen

Studio ManagerIan Barstow

Production DirectorAlexander Fennell

ProofreadingRon Bedison

PlaytestersAdam Brimmer, Andre Chabot, Simon Galea, Kenneth Gatt, Robert Hall, Trevor Kerslake, Alan Marson & Sam Vail

Special ThanksTheodore Bergquist & Fredrik Malmberg

at Conan Properties.

SupportContinuing support for Conan the Roleplaying Game can be found at www.conan.com, www.mongoosepublishing.com and in the pages of Signs and Portents magazine.

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CreditsThe Chroniclers of Our Time

IntroductionWelcome to the Messantia

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Messantia stretches before you, though take heed; for beyond the salt-rimed timbers, weathered quays and gilded towers of Argos’ greatest city lie the and clapboard shacks, riotous bazaars and cramped alleyways, lit only by the flash of knives. Messantia is a city of intrigue and peril, a city of lords and merchant houses, all scheming their way through The Thousand Faces behind the gates and doors of their barricaded villas. While honest men labour and toil to earn an honest wage and greedy merchants hoard their gold desperate refugees and fugitives, gladiators and adventurers kill for copper. So make ready lads, toss a purse of silvers to the harbourmaster and make ready to enter the Golden City itself.

Like a gilded pearl gleaming in the sand that rises above the surf, Messantia, the Golden City, capital of Argos and home to one of the mightiest navies of the Hyborian Age, glitters on the shore of the Western Ocean.

Standing astride the banks of the Khorotas River and blessed with a wide, deep-water harbour, Messantia is perfectly suited to be the trading capital it has become. In an age as vital and deadly as the Hyborian Age, however, it takes more than mere geography to build and hold a seat of power like Messantia. It takes strength, it takes cunning, it takes avarice and above all, it takes gold.

Downriver on the Tybor and the Khorotas from Aquilonia, along the famed Road of Kings and from the streets of Messantia itself, flows enough wealth to seize a throne or cast one down. From the city’s busy docks, however, that wealth, stowed in the holds of trade ships, sails out into the rest of the world.

This shining metropolis, whose wealth and glory only partially hide the underbelly of crime and corruption, is as integral to the Conan stories as are weird beasts and scheming sorcerers, but Messantia is far more complex than either of those when presented in a roleplaying setting. Conveying the bustle, the people, the very feel of a great city is a true test of a Games Master’s abilities. ‘How do people act?’ ‘Where is the best place to buy a sword?’ ‘What is there to do here?’ ‘What kinds of inns are available?’ All of these are questions familiar to Games Masters when the characters enter a city for the first time. Whether the Games Master is bringing the characters through Messantia’s port on their way to their next adventure, is planning to run a single city adventure or even an entire campaign based in Messantia, the difficulties of convincingly depicting a fantasy city will arise. Games Masters who have experience running a city know the devil is in the details, and the details are in this sourcebook.

What is really going on behind Messantia’s guided façade? These sourcebooks endeavours to answer that question. Within is a treasure trove of detail to bring the city of Messantia roaring to life at the gaming table. This series of books is devoted entirely to this fascinating city, revealing its history, culture, customs, points of interest, economy, intrigues and people.

It is an unfortunate fact that Robert E. Howard, Conan’s creator, left us with only a handful of details about golden Messantia. In the writing of this sourcebook we have striven to include all we could from both his works and those of his successors. As for the rest, it is all of this author’s creation. With new material carefully constructed to fit seamlessly with the old, both players and Games Masters will find Messantia – City of Riches a tremendous boon to their own campaigns in the Hyborian Age.

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History of MessantiaThe Birth of the Golden City

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Messantia has its beginnings in the early days of the Acheronian civilisation, when it was founded as a trading post at the mouth of the Khorotas. With the fall of the Acheronians beneath the swords of the Hyborian barbarians, the small city where Messantia now stands was destroyed. Many battles were fought between the Hyborians and Sons of Shem for the land now known as Argos, but ultimately the Hyborians were victorious.

As the years passed, Messantia lapsed into a simple fishing village. In time, it waxed again, attracting more and more settlers due to its sheltering harbour, abundant seas and position at the mouth of the river. It became again a small city, and its people began to discover the knowledge of engineering and architecture left behind in the ruins of the city they had inherited from the Acheronians.

The fishermen of Messantia were adept at their craft, and soon they were bringing to port more fish than the citizens demanded. Preserving fish by packing it in salt or pickling it was an old trade even in those days, having been practiced as a means to stave off hunger in even the leanest of times. Barge traffic began to flow upstream along the Khorotas, the first pale beginnings of a trade route along which wealth unimaginable would one day flow. A busy river trade began, as barges of trade goods were hauled upstream to the land-locked peoples to the north. The barges returned laden with iron and meat, as well as more settlers to swell the burgeoning population of Messantia.

As demand grew, the fishermen of Messantia cast their nets farther each year, feeding the hunger of not just their city, but that of dozens of tribes and villages inland as far as the Aquilonian border. Soon, they found themselves competing with the fishermen of southern Zingara for the best fishing grounds, the first sparks of an enmity which

still blazes today. As time passed and more people came to settle in Messantia, they discovered the other wealth

the land had to offer.

Inland lay wide, flat plains ideal for grazing or farming. In the hills along the coast were

hidden iron and gold. Combined with the wealth of the sea and

the deep, sheltered harbour,

Messantia became a small, booming city. Wealth like this, however, always attracts those who wish to take it by the point of a sword. Raids from barbarous tribes and nearby lands began to increase, and there were threatening rumbles from Shem. The pirates plying the seas also came to see Messantia as a plump fruit, ready for picking. It was in this time that the land of Argos first formed itself into a nation, with Messantia as its capital and Danaus as its first king.

To protect the capital, a low stone wall was constructed, shielding it from the depredations of the barbarian raiders. More importantly, however, the Messantian shipwrights began to turn their attention to the art of maritime warfare, the advent of which lead to the founding of the strongest navy of the Hyborian Age. The shipwrights turned their skills to developing faster ships that sat low in the water and were powered by the oars of slaves. This period also saw the experimental use of bronze plated hulls, specifically designed for ramming, and deck-mounted light catapults. With such defences in place, the city was kept safe, and continued to grow.

The growth of Argos’ navy demanded more and more space in Messantia’s harbour for shipbuilding and dry-docking. Finally, King Cassius commanded that the city’s shipyards be moved elsewhere. After considering several of the other cities on the coast, Cassius decided instead to use a natural harbour located only four miles west of Messantia. Ringed with brief cliffs that all but prevented access inland, it was unsuitable as a site for a city, but would serve well as a shipyard. As an added bonus, relocating the naval yards there would keep away the smugglers who were fond of using it to evade Messantia’s taxes and tariffs. The place still goes by the name the pirates and smugglers gave it, but Freecove is now home to several hundred shipwrights, workers and slaves who build and repair the ships of Argos’ mighty navy.

It was during the reign of King Gellius that the city’s growth spilled over the old wall, homes and businesses mushrooming up outside the ancient line of defence. Gellius, whose father Menetus lived to a ripe old age, had come late to the throne and took the crown with years of experience riding the borders and treading the decks of warships. He was wise in the ways of battle and reasoned that Messantia had

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History of MessantiaThe Birth of the Golden City H

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little to fear from a land-based attack – that if a hostile host marched overland to the city, the land of Argos itself would have already been conquered, its army vanquished. It was from an attack by sea that Gellius reasoned Messantia must be defended. Despite numerous entreaties and proposals by the Merchant Houses to build another wall for the city’s defence, Gellius resisted, instead focusing his efforts on creating an ever more powerful navy.

It was also during this time that Argos was wrestling with Stygia for mastery of the seas and the pirates of the Barachan Islands, growing ever bolder, began to harry the merchant ships of both powers. Weary of sending warships out to fruitlessly hunt these pirates, Gellius hit upon a simpler, far more effective plan. He offered the Barachan Pirates, mostly Argossean by blood anyway, safe harbour in Messantia in exchange for safe passage for Argossean merchant ships. After only brief consideration the pirates agreed and so began a strange, sometimes tenuous, relationship that continues still. The heads of the Merchant Houses, whose cargoes had been stolen and ships sunk or taken by the pirates, howled with rage at this truce, but the gold which flowed to them more steadily than ever before soon silenced their cries.

The Blackblood Plague

The history of the coming of the plague has never been written, and is known only to a privileged few within the gilded halls of Messantia’s palace, the Dome of the Sea and some of the older Merchant Houses.

Intent upon reclaiming sole mastery of the seas from the upstart Argosseans, the Stygian sorcerer Amenkuhn had travelled north to the burgeoning city of Messantia. With false promises of wealth and alliance he arranged a secret meeting with Karnes Accertius, the head of the Accertius Merchant House. Karnes’ hopes for easy wealth and power died only seconds before he himself was slain by the wizard. Using an item of dark power known as the Orb of Semblance, Amenkuhn took the form of Karnes and assumed leadership of the House. His new guise enabled him to come and go from the palace as freely as any noble, even presenting him with the opportunity to meet with Calemos, the then king of Argos. His plan was simple, to use the orb once again to take the throne from the old king.

Calemos was a cagey old monarch and ever concerned of the strength of his grip on the crown, knowing full well that a throne was a dangerous place to sit. Even in his disguise as Karnes, Amenkuhn found it difficult to earn the king’s trust. The wily Stygian had prepared for this possibility,

however, and offered up to Calemos advice and counsel which led to the unmasking of false Stygian plots laid by Amenkuhn himself, in the event he should need to convince Calemos of his loyalty and the value of his counsel.

Calemos began to trust the disguised sorcerer, but his son Miklus grew more and more wary of this man who constantly bent to his father’s ear. He gave orders to those guards loyal to him that he was to be informed whenever Karnes met with Calemos, and began to consult with Padrisha, an improbable priestess of Mitra who hailed from Vendhya. It was she who began to pierce the veil the Orb had drawn over Amenkuhn’s true features, yet she could not piece together all that had happened. She could only warn that if left too long alone with the man who seemed to be Karnes, Calemos would perish.

What made Miklus bide his time still is unknown, though those few who do know this part of the story suspect that he, like many others, had his eye on the throne. The Accertius family watched with glee as their fortunes waxed on the counsel of the disguised sorcerer, ignorant that he was not one of their number at all. Privately, they began to whisper of the possibility of King Karnes, and the wealth that title would bring, both him and his entire House. They were not alone in this. The other Merchant Houses saw, or so they thought, all too well what the future would bring with Karnes whispering in Calemos’ ear and began moving to block and discredit him. More than once, the galleons of these rival Houses broke into open battle on the wide sea, the first skirmishes of impending war.

Before war came to Messantia, word came to Miklus that Karnes had sought and been granted a sudden and unexpected audience with Calemos in the dead of night. He gathered a handful of loyal men and approached the king’s chambers stealthily, quickly incapacitating the pair of surprised guards who stood their posts outside the royal doors. Miklus and his men burst inside to confront the sorcerer, who had forsaken Karnes’ appearance and was in the midst of stealing Calemos’ visage. When the struggle was over Calemos and half of Miklus’ guards lay dead and Amenkuhn had fled.

Exactly how Calemos died, or whether the prince could have reached the chambers in time to save him, are questions few have asked and none have answered. Miklus took the crown that very night, and each of the surviving guards was granted a knighthood by the new monarch, but nothing more is known of the events in Calemos’ chambers. It is here the secret parts of the tale end and more commonly known history begins, though none but those who know the first part

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