This video outlines the story behind Conan Exiles. Within the game the lore is delivered piecemeal though the random discovery of lore stones, NPCs and written notes. It can be hard to keep track of everything so I've tried to present the main story elements and explain the origin of the Exiled Lands. Hope you enjoy it.
I need a movie about all of that. A special game about before the great cataclysm and another game about the serpent man alone. This lore alone is better than most movies of the past 20 years.
I'd be up for that too. King Kull (another Robert E Howard character) was from Atlantis, but I've not read any of those stories. Something I've got to catch up on.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming I think I prefer the character of Kull to Conan but both settings are very fun. There’s maybe more of an air of mystery to the Thurian age.
its actually nuts how much good story telling is in this game, 2 years late to this comment but i just got into conan and the tablets spread around the map with little bits of story just got me so intrigued i had to see the whole lore
Well I for one found that very informative. My dear old dad was a huge Conan fan back in the day. I think he would have adored this game If he was around now.
Xalthar (child of tyros and telith) may have survived the war and left the exiled lands with some lemurians to create the Acheron empire. Acheron was said to be of lemurian descent and the Xal/Xel part of the name (Xaltotun as high priest of Set and Xaltana as the witch queen of Acheron) is kept by the rulers of Acheron that Conan fights in the book “The Hour of the Dragon”.
Excellent I think you hit all the major beats. You really nailed the location I think. The game is more complete now with some new journals and stories in the game. There is a dead scout report on the cliffs between the Tower Of Bats and the Summoning Place that suggests imps are infact Dafari who have undergone some kind of ritual in the summoning place. The God Kings aren't from outer space per se, more like the "outer darkness', a kind of 'outer space' in the astral/etheral realm, Lovecraft and Howard talk about this a lot in thier stories and thier letters to each other. Great video. I really enjoyed it.
Hi Gary, thanks for the info. And glad you enjoyed the video. I hadn't realise some fresh lore had been added to the game. I'll have to watch out for it in my next playthrough.
The exiled lands are Australia. Due to the sandstorm in time everything but the coastal regions became desert. Australian natives are the descendents of those that stayed in the exiled lands. All was peaceful until a ship of people with bad teeth appeared and decided to make it the exiled lands once more
I recently discovered this game and now I'm totally addicted to that... I always loved the low fantasy lore of Conan and was unfair that no one made a game on it, until I discovered this game, I absolutely love it, i only have preferred there was much more role-playing in that but better than nothing 🙂 anyway thanks for the video, it explains many things and has been very useful to understand the game.
Glad you like it Nicola. The lore is pretty spread out and hard to decipher which is why I made the video in the first place. Aside from the main lore there's lots if journals and notes you can find lying around the place. Those are fun to find. It's a great game. You'll enjoy the Isle of Siptah too, but the main game will keep you busy for months.
From what Razma say when you talk to her after the fight in the palace of the witch queen, she was there as she says she doesn't blame you for trying to kill her. However she was only a passenger in that state, the conciousness of the last Witch Queen takes her over and Razma experiences her memories and knowledge, telling you about her daughter and the birth of her grandson. Also Conan tells you that he journeyed to the Archive in the unnamed city and found Razma's companions dead, so it is likely that the Archivist had the mask and it took over Razma there and she slaughtered her companions as a result. I am not familiar with the Conan stories, I'm too young and british, so I was hoping to hear when in the timeline the Exiled Lands is set. It would be interesting to see how the game intersects with the story of Conan.
Thanks for the info. I'd completely forgotten Conan's recollections of his visit to the Unnamed City. Another piece to the puzzle. With regards to the story of Conan there's really no firm narrative. The very first Conan story shows him as a barbarian warrior who's risen to become the king of Aquilonia. Later we read tales of him as a young warrior. But most of the stories are of his random adventuring across Hyboria, so Conan Exiles would fit somewhere into that middle period.
The lore found in the sunken city suggest that at least some of the Lemurians were blessed by Dagon (Dagan?) and became the "fish people" that you fight in the different sections. This is by no means all of them but a select few were transformed into this state.
We need a part 2, more in depth descriptions. This was such an awesome recap of the story, but theres still so much i wanna know! Why is conan in the exiled lands, how does this fit in the conan universe? Who are the bosses we fight throughout the game? How are the gods involved with the lands, being called to serve? Who dont they respond outside of the exiled lands? You have a great format, hope i get to see your next recap 🤗
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming Extremely well done. I met a player once who swore they knew the name of the Unnamed City and told me to explore online to find it. I lost contact with them, but I've been hunting for awhile now. As I work through the Conan books looking for possible clues as well - nothing really lines up perfectly - though there is so much that's accurate to tone and temperment with the lore. Thank you for this video, and if I could add my vote to follow-up videos dealing with any more connective insights. Your narration, editing, and quality is top tier. Thank you so much!
Additional small information: Tyros, the son of the Priest King and an unknown Human, singlehandedly killed a dragon in the Arena. He felt some sort of compassion for killing the noble creature and placed the Star of Champions in it's head. Later he led some of the God King's forces against the Lemurians, but fell in love with Telith(as stated in the video) which he ended up killing his own father, who became cursed to remain next to the Mounds of the Undead as, The Barrow King. Tyros himself was cursed with eternal life and lived to see his family die. Driven mad by his eternal torment, he became the Kingscourge.
Yeah when I heard him say the daughters name was Telith this seemed like the instant conclusion considering the name of the weapons you craft from the kingscourge
This is the best, easiest-to-comprehend lore video for Conan. I'm trying to learn more about the game since I want to play more. I'm going to go watch your Isle of Siptah lore video. Thanks!
Hi Lemons, glad you liked it. Parts of the lore are still a little 'mysterious' but I enjoy trying to make sense of the clues. Hope you like the Siptah one.
Good job placing the Exiled Lands on the northwest coast of the Vilayet Sea. I've been thinking it's a pocket dimension, and if it had a physical location at all, it would be in the deserts south of Zamboula. Howard tended to drop weird prehuman cities in the deep desert, but the fact that there's a coastline kinda blows a hole in that theory. :)
Ot has to be somewhere between southernmost Hyperborea and northernmost Darfar, also west of the Vilayet sea.Identifyingbthe exiled lands volcano with Voormithadreth also amkes it more difficult... Voormithadreth is in the southernmost Eiglophian Mountains which are south of Hyperborea.
If you look hard enough, you will find Lemurians at The Pagoda of Boundless Lust, and at the end of the sunken city dungeon, where Dagon makes his appearance.
I read either a note or a lore item explaining that the imps scattered in the world are the product of Darfari practicing black magic on other exiles. If I find it I'll share the link to it.
That could be right. If you go to "The Summoning Place" southwest of the Sinkhole, you can find the Witch Doctor feat to learn from a note on one of the two side platforms. It's mostly how to create reanimated creatures, but seems related to dark rituals that could create the blobs as well.
You're right, any theory you can come up with is going to be a bit thin in places, but I prefer basing the potential location on geography rather than the recollections or opinions of characters who might not be that reliable (I've heard that Razma 'likes a drink', if you get my drift) 🍸
been playing it for just over a month.. fuuking love it and this vid has opened my eyes a bit to what is actually going on lol. cos i aint got no idea, cheers mate
Here's hoping a worthy developer/publisher buys the franchise and exiles IP and does that. The game isn't bad, but has no real structure or weight. All the struggles and battles are empty.
Thankyou. I really enjoyed your narration. For some reason I was reminded of Alan Rickman. 👍 - Lots of powerful imagery in this, game(?) The fact that your character starts off naked, really raises the stakes on a definitively primal level. - and thats only the beginning.
I kind of like how they did lore in this game, it was very original and refreshing to find it in pieces.I also like how you find stuff from modern day as well as stuff left in the past.
Thank you, nicely done. My gaming group previously did a complete play through of Exiles on a private server and we're planning to do it again after Chapter 4 gets released, it's going to be further enriched by this lore framework in the back of my mind as we progress.
Hyborian, is the age. The continent is The Thurian Continent. There is no Hyborian continent or Hyboria. Sorry to be a stickler. Aside from that, a very informative video. Thanks
I'd say this video is very well researched and well done, however I would say you did have one mistake in that you didn't cover the part where the last survivors of the former Giant King civilization actually split off to the north of Stygia or west of pre-Turan and created the Acheronian Empire which would rule over most of the lands and the ancestors of those people in those regions, up until their own civilization crumbled as well from slave revolts, war, and another cataclysm that had destroyed much of their settlements in the process. All of this taking a few thousand years prior to the official Hyborian age mind you. Plus, the ancient Khari civilization within the exiled lands were the ancestors of the Stygians, and those who also escaped from those lands after the collapse of the Giant King civilization migrated south and established Stygia alongside Acheron, as Stygia and Acheron were said to be as old as one another.
You mentioned in the video, that the Lemurians have vanished, either absorbed into the ranks of the newcomers or degenerated into imps, but the ancestors of Lemurians are Hyrkanians with their biggest tribe Turanians living on the west side of Vilayet Sea, which includes the Exiled Lands. Just wanted to clarify if you are talking about the Lemurians, then you mean Turanians since they are also a playable race in the game?
Thank you so much. Just started the game and loving it a Ton. Was trying to learn more about the lore as it's quite confusing like you said as it's scattered rightly so. I'm glad to see someone who has compiled it :)
I cannot say that I agree with the location of the Exiled Lands as hypothesised in this video. The Dark Horse comic which Funcom shipped with the Barbarian Edition of the game placed Conan and Natala (the latter being a character from the REH tale Xuthal of the Dusk/Slithering Shadow) only "a few days after leaving Xuthal" when they come across the Exiled Lands. That alone makes it much too far south (Xuthal is south of Stygia) and west to make a location on the coast of the Vilayet Sea a plausible spot for the Exiled Lands; there is no reasonable way to get from Xuthal to *any* part of the Vilayet in only a few days. In the Isle of Siptah expansion, they also add that a ship from Argos bound for the Exiled Lands is caught in a storm. Taking prisoners to the Exiled Lands by boat from Argos would be nonsensical if the Exiled Lands were east of Argos and in the interior. Thirdly, the in-game map in the exiled lands has a suspicious orientation (Joel Bylos alluded to it in a live-stream once, I'm pretty sure); the sun in the game rises in what, according to the in-game map, is south(ish), which would imply that the body of water which the large river runs into on the east of the game map is actually in the north(ish). If we take into account that the comic places the story of Conan finding the Exiled Lands as being near Xuthal and then take into account that a boat from Argos should be able to reach the shores of the Exiled lands, then, I would suspect that the main river in the exiled lands runs into the Western Ocean somewhere in the Black Kingdoms, perhaps into a bay where the river exits into the ocean in a northerly direction. That would place some desert (which is south in game map terms) to the east and west of the large river (which could work for some parts of the Black Kingdoms). The snow-capped mountains do provide some problems for this hypothesis, but I would posit that since they form the edge of the map, there could be some temperate slopes, unseen in the game, sloping down towards the western ocean on their other side and that they are snow-capped in the same way as Kilimanjaro seems to be due to elevation on "this side" but on the "sea side" of the mountains they revert to jungle or temperate forests again. Given that Conan described the figures depicted in the art of Xuchotl (in the REH tale, Red Nails) as seeming to be Easterners: ["Maybe, hell!" broke in Valeria rudely. "We'll never know. Look at these friezes. They portray men. What race do they belong to?" Conan scanned them and shook his head. "I never saw people exactly like them. But there's the smack of the East about them-Vendhya, maybe, or Kosala."] I do not think that it is a stretch to epxect that the Lemurians might have made it to the western shores of the Black Kingdoms to find themselves in the Exiled Lands given that on a continental scale, Xuthal and Xuchotl are practically next door neighbours and perhaps the easterners depicted in the friezes were Lemurians (but I may have to re-read that tale to be sure). Apart from this, great video! (Also, I'd like to hear the thoughts of others on their ideas about the location of the Exiled Lands) :3
Many thanks for your detailed notes. I wasn't aware of the Black Horse comic. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on a copy some day. I agree that the Exiled Lands being 'a few days'' away from Xuthal is a problem for the Vilayet Sea hypothesis. However, I'm less convinced of the idea that a ship transporting a prisoner from Argos to the Exiled Lands means that the Exiled Lands must be accessible from the ocean. It's certainly a reasonable assumption, but it's never categorically said that the ship is taking them all the way there, so it might be that the sea voyage is just the first step in a longer journey. I can imagine an Argos ship trading along the coast as it goes east through the southern sea to Iranistan where it drops off Exile prisoners to join a caravan that will take them north to the Vilayet Sea. The orientation of the Exiles map is odd given where the sun rises, but while I can make an East-is-really-North orientation work for the Vilayet Sea, I find it much harder for a Black Kingdoms location, though the 'Land of No Return' at the southern end of the Kingdoms sounds suspiciously apt in this context. (Not having seen the comic, could it be that the narrator simply confused the Land of No Return with the Exiled Lands when trying to describe the journey? Drink might have been involved.) For me the big issue is the volcano and the surrounding snowlands. These seem too substantial to be analogous to Kilimanjaro, which is simply a snow-capped peak, not a frozen landscape full of conifers, mammoths and ice giants. For me this (and the fact that the geography of eastern and central Hyboria aligns very well with the Witch Queen's story) means the Exiled Lands have to be bordering the cold north. We shall see. Perhaps more evidence will emerge. Thanks again. Very impressive Conan scholarship.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming I certainly agree that being on a ship towards the Exiled Lands does not necessarily mean that the ship would take one the entire way there. However, there are strong arguments to be made against the notion of the ship taking them as far as Iranistan (or anywhere else) for the purpose of finding passage to the Vilayet. Firstly, we have the direct quote from the very first text in the Dark Horse comic: "Shortly after leaving the cursed city of Xuthal...". From the REH tale, Xuthal of the Dusk, itself, we get a fairly good idea of where the city of Xuthal was located: "With a Stygian host on its heels, it had cut its way through the black kingdom of Kush, only to be annihilated on the edge of the southern desert." This places Xuthal well inside the Black Kingdoms, and on or near the (southern) border of Kush. At the end of the tale we also learn that Conan and Natala fled in a southerly direction out of Xuthal, and on foot: "'...That way is south,' a bronze muscular arm indicated their course; 'so somewhere in that direction lies the oasis. Come!'" The comic itself confirms them going about the journey on foot. If Conan and Natala had discovered the Exiled Lands only shortly after having fled Xuthal, and on foot, then it cannot be very far south of Kush (making the shores of the Vilayet even less likely), which, even if not *on* the coast would at least make it close enough to *a* coast to explain that a journey from Argos by ship would make sense. There is also the fact that the Road of Kings is the main trade road which runs from Messantia in Argos along a much safer, shorter and less uncertain route which leads all the way to Aghrapur in Turan; this makes it a much more likely means (in terms of efficiency, cost, safety, etc.) by which to get people transported (covertly, or otherwise) to the shores of the Vilayet, than by a ship which would have to sail all the way around the uncertain southern shores, at least if Argos is the country of origin. I do not think that, if the Exiled Lands lay on the shores of the Vilayet, that prisoners from Argos would have been taken there by such a round-about route if they could just be dragged along the Road of Kings; in fact, there would be benefits to using the RoK as you could collect exiles from other kingdoms it went through on the way (more on this below). In terms of the climates of the various biomes, you make valid points about the snowy mountains; they are troublesome for my argument, indeed, although I think that it is worth keeping in mind that the biomes were, as described in the lore, somewhat artificially maintained by sorcery. The map rooms show the Exiled Lands as they once were, hardly any sign of desert; green and lush. Only when the sorcerous sandstorm, which was created as a weapon against the humans, got out of control, did the landscape change into the state that we see it in now, and so it does not have to make complete sense to see a desert so close to snowy mountains even though there is little difference in elevation (or any other distance) between them. And this brings me to my next point (and these are more personal musings, and not so much argument in favour of or against any particular placement of the Exiled Lands): I am not a fan of the Exiled Lands premise, for several reasons (but I'll list my main reasons here for brevity). Firstly, to me it feels a lot like the lore was made up on the spot as the game evolved. Originally, there was only the desert and in that respect, the hints at proximity to Stygia and Darfar made sense: there are pretty many Darfari "exiled" there and this is strange coming from a land and a culture which would not bother to exile their criminals if they could just murder and eat them at home :P ; it always felt to me that the Darfari in the Exiled Lands were there really due to their native proximity to the place rather than through exile. Then the highlands, the volcano/snow-capped mountains and the jungle/swamp were added and it felt (to me, at least) as if they then added the lore associated with those biomes in a way that did not take previously established lore into account. Their hinting that the map orientation might be incorrect due to where the sun comes up in-game feels a lot like a post hoc rationalisation on Funcom's part, rather than something which was planned as part of the lore from the outset and which was integrated organically. And since they wanted to allow people to play in all the main types of biomes, I think "magic sandstorm and sorcery climate change!" was an easier solution than to rework what was perhaps already technical constrains on how the map could be oriented/expanded upon to make it fit into the world in a lore-compliant way, rather than to admit that they now had an in-game landscape which, if geographic features were to be taken into account, could not actually be where their "establishing shot" lore had stated it to be. Next, and as already alluded to, exile (to the exiled lands) would simply not make sense in most cases; many races, like the Picts, Darfari, Cimmerians, Vanir and Aesir would not bother with the whole Exile thing; they'd just murder perpetrators at home or kick them out of the tribe to fend for themselves (and likely die). For more "civilized" kingdoms, the cost of taking someone whom you could simply kill at home or imprison there (or exile in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. expel them from your country on pain of death, but without really caring which other lands they went to roam) along with the logistics involved of making sure that you secure a prisoner until he reached this exiled land (which is far away and that nobody ever heard of but you somehow know where it is and can take people there) feels odd. And again, the tacked on lore about "Thoth-Amon having made deals with kingdoms to take their prisoners" feels very much like post hoc lore made up to plug a plot hole; ironically, this would favour using the Road of Kings as an Exile Collecting highway if you wanted to get as many exiles as cheaply as possible from mostly all the Hyborian nations. I know it is only a game and so, in the great scheme of things, it matters little, but as a long-time REH and Hyborian Age fan, I feel that the lore could have been treated somewhat more sympathetically with the making of the game; I believe that just because a world is fictional, it does not mean that you do not need to make it internally consistent and sensible, and lore honouring is foundational to achieving that. Lore-wise, the game has some good ideas, but it seems to have lost its way somewhat and so I can completely understand why people find it hard to agree on the placement of the Exiled Lands. The launch day comic places it near Kush when, even though I disagree with the proposed placement of the Exiled Lands being on the Vilayet, I can totally understand why, when looking at the game map at face value and taking some other game content into consideration, one might argue for that; in fact, if the in-game map was the only clue to go by, I would totally agree with your proposed location for it. Anyhow, thanks for your comment and your videos - I find these kinds of discussions enjoyable, especially when had with other fans of the world of Conan and gaming in general
I mean they were called giant kings lol. Every lore stone, and note says Giant kings not God kings. Not to mention the bracelets are referred to also all over the place as slave bracelets. The bracelets were made by the people who built the circle of swords and ruled before as a means of controlling their slaves, that or the giant kings did indeed make them to control human slaves, at no point is it ever hinted that they were used by both humans and giant kings in collaboration of some form. I mention the first one because I've seen a lot of people online mention that that is the origin of the bracelets. I mean otherwise good video, the location seems like spot on.
If I call them god-kings at any point, then that's my mistake. However, regarding the creation of the bracelets, on the seventh Lemurian Lore Stone we read: "When we met the ones we call the Giant-kings, some of us fell to our knees in worship. Surely these were gods in living flesh, come to offer us respite at the end of our long journey. We could not speak their language, but our sorcerers and theirs came together and worked a powerful ritual. Enchanted gemstones enabled our communication. We forged bracelets to hold them, thus could our communion with the Giant-kings begin."
Came here from the geography discussion on Reddit you linked back to this, but trying to place this into the world is pretty fun. By no means a lore expert for the greater universe, but this could work in tons of areas. Game map could be oriented wrong, size and scale of the map itself (or parts of it) could be larger or smaller, main maps/descriptions of Hyboria could be incomplete, out of date, slightly wrong etc. So long as you know there's gotta be water access that eventually leads to sea, and it's somewhat South of Shem (if you believe the NPC) then you get a lot to work with.
What about the artifacts that allow you to remove the bracelet? Some of the in game lore states that the bracelets and the wall were made using said artifacts and that's why if you collect them all you can remove yours.
Hi Draconis. I made a video about completing the game a few weeks ago. You have to gather the artifacts the take them to a specific altar. You can then leave the Exiled Lands, but you lose all your progress and have to start the game again.
The plaece of Exiled Lands is wrong. In game Razma said she is going to head north - to Shem. Also west coast of Vilayet sea is heavly inhabitet by Turanians and Hyrkanians, there is no way they did not noticed a huge piece of land surrounded by a magic barrier. I'd say that Exilend Lands are a part of one of the Isles near the Black Coast. It would make much more sense.
Hi Michał, it's certainly hard to pin down, but on balance I think the Vilayet Sea location ticks most boxes. However, I've heard other people suggest locations on or near the Black Coast as potential alternatives.
It's a fabulous video, I have always wonder where the EL are supposed to be in Conan lore. I do understand also create the real map of Hyboria to play in will have required at least 5-7 years of development (aside the tech limitations of UE4) just to get an alpha build so well, EL are better than nothing. Still, the video is very interesting, because the story is complicated to get using the talking stones in the game. Thank you so much for that.
Some interesting ideas, and the most plausible attempt at placing the Exiled Lands within the Thurian continent that I've seen - certainly the steppes north of Turan are a decently 'empty' area that fit most of the requirements. There is, however, one key issue that messes up this theory - the sun in the Exiled Lands travels from south-southwest to north-northeast (and since the Hyborian age is a pseudo-history of earth, we know the sun should travel east to west). The problem being that simply rotating to fit also doesn't work, since then the Lemurians are no longer in the east and the Stygians are no longer in the west. Not sure what the answer is, but it definitely raises the possibility that the Outcast (Frost Giant) is correct... One little addition regarding the imps - they're not just accidentally twisted - this is something that was actively done to them, by Darfari at the Summoning Place - there's a set of 'Scouts Notes' scattered around on the north side of the Summoning Place (outside the camp, actually on the cliffs that surround it) that explains it. Good job pulling it all together, it makes for an interesting video.
Great comment, thanks. You're certainly more observant than I am. And thanks for the imp info. I'll look up the Scout notes. I don't think I've ever come across them.
@@hurry_up If you mean the notes I mentioned that talk about the Imps - go to The Summoning Place (main Darfari camp) and head to the north side of it (outside the camp not inside). There's cliffs that you can climb up pretty easily that would let you get all the way up to climb down into the camp from the side if you wanted - the notes are all up on a ledge up there - you'll find the remains of a little camp and the notes are several little bits of paper scattered around that area. (On the map it's around G/H 5 - pretty much around the line of G and H towards the top end of that line before it would go to 6.)
The warmaker says: "When the world was shattered, your people came to us as refugees. We were generous, we gave them the wild north. They build a city there amongst the trees...." If you flip the map that the jungle is in the north you have the explaination for the sunrise/sunset. if the jungle is in the north the sun will go east/west. (from the desert to the volcano)
For any who are interested, that second map is very far off of what Howard wrote for the Hyperborean age. It is like someone tried to shrink Eurasia/Africa so that it superimposed the Atlantean age map, but Howard draw a map of the regions and it was nothing like it.First off, Howard drew a map of the main Hyperborean region leaving off the the Stygian and Khitai region, being foreign and unknown. He made this map by considering what the Seven Seas would look like if there was no water in them from the Ice Age that would have been happening at the time. And, his original map was superimposed over the European and Middle East areas. Another nail in the coffin in the second map is that it doesn't match with Robert E Howard's essay on the history of the Hyperborean age. The Picts, Atlanteans, and Lemurians were involved with such a great war they caused the first cataclysm, which sunk the whole region. All of them fled, the Atlanteans becoming the Hyperborean regions of Hyperborea, Cimmeria, Aquillonia, Turan, and Hyrkania. The Picts, inhabiting islands the western lands, are supposed to be at war with the Lemurian who didn't flee into the hands of the Khari. If anything, the Exiled lands should be on the eastern edge of the Hyrkanian dessert, which Howard never mapped, he only wrote vague descriptions of the Khari, Khitia, and Vendyahy areas. Finally, Mu just completely shifts its position after the cataclysm , What's with that?
Hi Eric. I'm always interested. And many thanks for your thoughts. It's true that Howard only sketched out the north-western part of Hyboria but I think it's reasonable for later scholars to try and fill in the gaps of a world map. Howard's sketch and the later maps always looked pretty similar to me. If we think of the map as a globe that might help address the other issues. On the map the Picts and Lemurians are on opposite sides, but would have been more-or-less neighbours on a globe. The Lemurians who went west would have landed on the eastern coast of Hyboria; those going east would have banged up against the Picts on the western coast. The same with Mu, depending on how you decide to flatten out your globe, Mu could appear on the extreme left or right of the map.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming That is true, if you base Howard's writings on a Pangean based world. I always think of it as an Ice age based world, which is from where my disagreement stems. It's rare for a creator to pay attention so many months after the posting. Thank you
There are some things that are not quite like that, but in general a good video, I really liked how you have structured it and I am going to use that structure to create a video in Spanish, I hope you do not mind, greetings, and as I said, good video Gaudia ;)
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming I found an interesting tidbit when talking to her after "beating up" the Witchqueen, since then one can enter her home in Sepermeru with the key. It was indeed Razma wearing the mask, giving her godlike abilities. One thing she mentions is that she's considering to travel to the north, back home to Shen. Or maybe travel with Conan. At least the NPCs are aware of the (rough) location of the exiled lands =)
This is one of those games I picked up for the ps4 and less then 5 mins in was like "fuck not only is it censored but it's one of those dam survival games" and never played it again
I've never seen a map with Sepermeru on it, so if you could send a link that would be great. But in the game Sepermeru appears to be a new city built by Exiles after the ghost wall was created, I don't think it ever featured in the original Conan lore. I've never seen any reference to it. In any event, if you wanted to explain it you could say there was an ancient Sepermeru somewhere else and the Exiles named their new city after the old one.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming Yeah I’ve never seen any original maps with the exiled lands or siptah either. It’s fair enough to assume they just haven’t decided, since this is all outside of the canon of Howard’s work anyways. The Thoth-Amon angle is the only real bit of this that anchors it to any of the original stories.
I am curious. Who exiled you to the exiled lands? Who tied you up? How did they get you past the wall and how did they leave? Can the remaining god kings leave and if they can, why don't they wage war against what remains outside? How did the exiled lands start? If the exiles found the exiled lands as a refuge, what caused them to come here in the first place? Theory, could it be possible that all life outside the dome has gone extinct and the wall actually protects the exiles?
The idea is that the Exiled Lands have become a dumping ground for criminals and other 'undesirables'. Anyone can come and go from the Exiled Lands as they like, but once they a bracelet is put on your wrist you can't travel beyond the ghost wall. There's only one God King left alive, the Warmaker Klael, so he's not going to be able to wage much of a war by himself. The other questions should be answered by the video.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming Also something of note: The guy you can talk to on noob beach, Arcos the Wanderer I think his name is, tells you that he has travelled all the way around the ghost wall and once saw people on the other side, also with bracelets, but of a different color. So that would mean there may be more than one exiled land?
I never played extensively good ol' age of conan but i remember reading somewhere that the giant-kings looks like acheronian in the aforementioned mmorpg
There's definitely enough lore to make a prequel game. Like, the same map but before it became the Exiled Lands. The Unnamed City and the surrounding area in its prime (I guess you can say that?) Or during the war.
By chance, do you know if there is a video available showing footage of the "lore stones, NPCs and written notes" being discovered in game in the proper order?
I'm pretty sure I've seen videos like that for the notes and I think there are probably ones for the stones too. But it's been ages since I last looked for anything like that. Don't know about the NPCs.
I do hope we get a more linear storyline in conan exiles someday and perhaps rebuilding the old ruins,we either find a way to escape or we find a way to restore everything so we can live a normal life, i would r4eally like that to happen.
You can escape the exiled lands by finding the items needed to remove the bracelet. If you try to remove the bracelet without the key your character will die instantly. By the way, your idea for the game is good.
You know the Serpent men they both have connections with lovecrafts too But there's a link between Robert E Howard and HP Lovecraft somehow I doubt they were Friends.
There's two versions in the story. When we hear the Witch Queen tell the story, the bracelets were made by the Lemurians (herself) working with the God Kings. But when we hear the version from the God Kings, they don't mention the Lemurians being involved. The Frost Giants are slackers, they didn't help at all.
Just got this game for my PC a couple of weeks ago. The Xbox version was too hard to figure out. Now that I think about it, I never got a good look at the faces on those statues.
The game doesn't give you much help. Even simple things like cooking meat baffled me at first. But there's plenty of advice on the web. Drop me a line if you have any questions. Hope you enjoy the PC version. I've never played, but there are a lot of good looking mods for it.
It's funny that since the Conan franchised is owned by Marvel if went back to the Golden Age stuff, the man we could ask for info is the Watcher, he seen it all, hell bet we could even as were Conan's Tomb is, or who are his descendants,
This video outlines the story behind Conan Exiles. Within the game the lore is delivered piecemeal though the random discovery of lore stones, NPCs and written notes. It can be hard to keep track of everything so I've tried to present the main story elements and explain the origin of the Exiled Lands. Hope you enjoy it.
Siptah next?
Thank you so much
I need a movie about all of that. A special game about before the great cataclysm and another game about the serpent man alone. This lore alone is better than most movies of the past 20 years.
I'd be up for that too. King Kull (another Robert E Howard character) was from Atlantis, but I've not read any of those stories. Something I've got to catch up on.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming I think I prefer the character of Kull to Conan but both settings are very fun. There’s maybe more of an air of mystery to the Thurian age.
You could read the essay by Robert E. Howard.
You should try Conan exiles
its actually nuts how much good story telling is in this game, 2 years late to this comment but i just got into conan and the tablets spread around the map with little bits of story just got me so intrigued i had to see the whole lore
Well I for one found that very informative. My dear old dad was a huge Conan fan back in the day. I think he would have adored this game If he was around now.
Glad you liked it. Thanks for the feedback.
I'm sure he would've :,)
Thanks!
Cheers Gordie. I think you're the first person to use the 'Thanks' button. Glad you liked it.
Probably the coolest video I have ever seen about this game.
Appreciate it. Thanks.
Xalthar (child of tyros and telith) may have survived the war and left the exiled lands with some lemurians to create the Acheron empire. Acheron was said to be of lemurian descent and the Xal/Xel part of the name (Xaltotun as high priest of Set and Xaltana as the witch queen of Acheron) is kept by the rulers of Acheron that Conan fights in the book “The Hour of the Dragon”.
Wow. Thanks. Really interesting.
So Acheron a civilized empire after the godkings????
About to run a tabletop RPG set in the Exiled Lands. This video is the perfect precis to the setting. Nicely done!
Thanks, Dan. I appreciate it.
That . . . . . . was . . . . . .awesome! I think everyone who plays Conan Exiles should watch this. Hell, I'm gonna watch it again!
Thanks, Ian. Glad you liked it.
Excellent I think you hit all the major beats. You really nailed the location I think. The game is more complete now with some new journals and stories in the game. There is a dead scout report on the cliffs between the Tower Of Bats and the Summoning Place that suggests imps are infact Dafari who have undergone some kind of ritual in the summoning place. The God Kings aren't from outer space per se, more like the "outer darkness', a kind of 'outer space' in the astral/etheral realm, Lovecraft and Howard talk about this a lot in thier stories and thier letters to each other. Great video. I really enjoyed it.
Hi Gary, thanks for the info. And glad you enjoyed the video. I hadn't realise some fresh lore had been added to the game. I'll have to watch out for it in my next playthrough.
The fact that you had to seek the lore out in game was the part that got me hooked on Conan Exiles and then conan books.
Best video I've seen so far that actually dives into the lore of the game
Thank you. Very kind of you to say so.
The exiled lands are Australia. Due to the sandstorm in time everything but the coastal regions became desert. Australian natives are the descendents of those that stayed in the exiled lands. All was peaceful until a ship of people with bad teeth appeared and decided to make it the exiled lands once more
I think you might be onto something...
Thank you very much. This is the best conan exiles lore video in existence i believe. Great work. Thank you. Best regards.
Thank you Avocado. Much appreciated.
I recently discovered this game and now I'm totally addicted to that... I always loved the low fantasy lore of Conan and was unfair that no one made a game on it, until I discovered this game, I absolutely love it, i only have preferred there was much more role-playing in that but better than nothing 🙂 anyway thanks for the video, it explains many things and has been very useful to understand the game.
Glad you like it Nicola. The lore is pretty spread out and hard to decipher which is why I made the video in the first place. Aside from the main lore there's lots if journals and notes you can find lying around the place. Those are fun to find. It's a great game. You'll enjoy the Isle of Siptah too, but the main game will keep you busy for months.
What an incredible wealth of information, framed perfectly in a compact form.
Glad you enjoyed it.
...and I don't mind a little informed speculation at all! Great documentary voice btw :)
From what Razma say when you talk to her after the fight in the palace of the witch queen, she was there as she says she doesn't blame you for trying to kill her. However she was only a passenger in that state, the conciousness of the last Witch Queen takes her over and Razma experiences her memories and knowledge, telling you about her daughter and the birth of her grandson. Also Conan tells you that he journeyed to the Archive in the unnamed city and found Razma's companions dead, so it is likely that the Archivist had the mask and it took over Razma there and she slaughtered her companions as a result.
I am not familiar with the Conan stories, I'm too young and british, so I was hoping to hear when in the timeline the Exiled Lands is set. It would be interesting to see how the game intersects with the story of Conan.
Thanks for the info. I'd completely forgotten Conan's recollections of his visit to the Unnamed City. Another piece to the puzzle. With regards to the story of Conan there's really no firm narrative. The very first Conan story shows him as a barbarian warrior who's risen to become the king of Aquilonia. Later we read tales of him as a young warrior. But most of the stories are of his random adventuring across Hyboria, so Conan Exiles would fit somewhere into that middle period.
pretty sure the devs said that the exiled land story is set after xuthal of the dusk aka the slithering shadow a novelette by Howard
Awesome way to learn about story of this game and very well told, like watching to a History Channel. Can't wait for Siptah story.
Many thanks. Glad you liked it.
Anyone who dies in the exiled lands wakes up next to the last place they’ve rested. That’s lore and not just a game mechanic btw.
Really? Thanks, I didn't know that.
I wish Conan Exiles had more story in it.
The Conan Lore is great, and I would love to see more of it in the game.
It seems like an easy win to include more notes and documents that tell stories and reveal easter eggs. It wouldn't take much.
The best!!!!!!
I'm Brazilian and with the help of the subtitles I was able to follow the story.
Congratulations. great video
Glad you liked it Maximus.
Very interesting and helps the game make sense. Thank you.
The lore found in the sunken city suggest that at least some of the Lemurians were blessed by Dagon (Dagan?) and became the "fish people" that you fight in the different sections. This is by no means all of them but a select few were transformed into this state.
Thanks Whisperer. I didn't know that. In my next playthrough I'm intending to spend more time in the jungle and explore the sunken Dagon temples.
We need a part 2, more in depth descriptions. This was such an awesome recap of the story, but theres still so much i wanna know! Why is conan in the exiled lands, how does this fit in the conan universe? Who are the bosses we fight throughout the game? How are the gods involved with the lands, being called to serve? Who dont they respond outside of the exiled lands? You have a great format, hope i get to see your next recap 🤗
Thanks Biased. Glad you liked it. I might try a part 2 one day.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming Extremely well done.
I met a player once who swore they knew the name of the Unnamed City and told me to explore online to find it. I lost contact with them, but I've been hunting for awhile now. As I work through the Conan books looking for possible clues as well - nothing really lines up perfectly - though there is so much that's accurate to tone and temperment with the lore. Thank you for this video, and if I could add my vote to follow-up videos dealing with any more connective insights. Your narration, editing, and quality is top tier. Thank you so much!
Conan lore is amazing.
Additional small information: Tyros, the son of the Priest King and an unknown Human, singlehandedly killed a dragon in the Arena. He felt some sort of compassion for killing the noble creature and placed the Star of Champions in it's head. Later he led some of the God King's forces against the Lemurians, but fell in love with Telith(as stated in the video) which he ended up killing his own father, who became cursed to remain next to the Mounds of the Undead as, The Barrow King. Tyros himself was cursed with eternal life and lived to see his family die. Driven mad by his eternal torment, he became the Kingscourge.
Thanks for the info!
Yeah when I heard him say the daughters name was Telith this seemed like the instant conclusion considering the name of the weapons you craft from the kingscourge
This is the best, easiest-to-comprehend lore video for Conan. I'm trying to learn more about the game since I want to play more. I'm going to go watch your Isle of Siptah lore video. Thanks!
Hi Lemons, glad you liked it. Parts of the lore are still a little 'mysterious' but I enjoy trying to make sense of the clues. Hope you like the Siptah one.
Man, that was great. I've been playing this game on and off for years and still hadn;t managed to piece it all together. Nice bit of Lore there.
Hi Mr Husk. Glad you liked it.
Great video, loved it. You have an amazing voice for narration, keep it up!
Thanks Klurreh, much appreciated.
Good job placing the Exiled Lands on the northwest coast of the Vilayet Sea. I've been thinking it's a pocket dimension, and if it had a physical location at all, it would be in the deserts south of Zamboula. Howard tended to drop weird prehuman cities in the deep desert, but the fact that there's a coastline kinda blows a hole in that theory. :)
I can't take any credit. That location has been suggested by a number of people. Not sure it matters in the end, but it's fun thinking it through.
Ot has to be somewhere between southernmost Hyperborea and northernmost Darfar, also west of the Vilayet sea.Identifyingbthe exiled lands volcano with Voormithadreth also amkes it more difficult... Voormithadreth is in the southernmost Eiglophian Mountains which are south of Hyperborea.
If you look hard enough, you will find Lemurians at The Pagoda of Boundless Lust, and at the end of the sunken city dungeon, where Dagon makes his appearance.
Great job bro,
May money flow to you hands this day
Thanks again, Geordie. Much appreciated.
Fantastic - great video
Thanks Bjørn. Glad you liked it.
Fantastic video, we organized and narrated!
Cheers Julian. Glad you liked it.
Very nice video, thanks.
Thanks Rel3el Skum. Glad you liked it. I did another one on Siptah lore too if you're interested.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming I am I'll check it out.
I really enjoyed this. Thank you. Liked and subscribed.
Thanks Nicodemis. Appreciate it.
Excellent breakdown! Thank you.
Glad you liked it. (Love your name btw)
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming hehe thanks 🙏
I read either a note or a lore item explaining that the imps scattered in the world are the product of Darfari practicing black magic on other exiles. If I find it I'll share the link to it.
Thanks. I've heard the Dafari mentioned elsewhere. Be good to read about it.
That could be right.
If you go to "The Summoning Place" southwest of the Sinkhole, you can find the Witch Doctor feat to learn from a note on one of the two side platforms.
It's mostly how to create reanimated creatures, but seems related to dark rituals that could create the blobs as well.
The problem with the place you guessed to be the Exiled Lands is in the game Razma in her home says she's going to go North to Shem with Conan.
You're right, any theory you can come up with is going to be a bit thin in places, but I prefer basing the potential location on geography rather than the recollections or opinions of characters who might not be that reliable (I've heard that Razma 'likes a drink', if you get my drift) 🍸
been playing it for just over a month.. fuuking love it and this vid has opened my eyes a bit to what is actually going on lol. cos i aint got no idea, cheers mate
Glad you liked it TheRush. It's a great game.
That's all actually really cool. The Exiled Lands would definitely be a great setting for a good, much better polished, rpg game.
Here's hoping a worthy developer/publisher buys the franchise and exiles IP and does that.
The game isn't bad, but has no real structure or weight.
All the struggles and battles are empty.
@@aleckelsey2663 only because of the sandbox rpg/souls fusion they went for and tbh its great, just not executed well.
@@aleckelsey2663 they only feel empty because of the lack of in your face backstory/context.
Thank you for all of the hard work in piecing this video together for us! Lots of love from Canada, eh! ;)
Thanks Peter. Appreciate it.
thank you so much for this. but now i need more xD this story is so good. Thank you a lot
Thankyou. I really enjoyed your narration. For some reason I was reminded of Alan Rickman. 👍 - Lots of powerful imagery in this, game(?) The fact that your character starts off naked, really raises the stakes on a definitively primal level. - and thats only the beginning.
Alan Rickman? I'm flattered. It's a fun game and it can look incredible.
I kind of like how they did lore in this game, it was very original and refreshing to find it in pieces.I also like how you find stuff from modern day as well as stuff left in the past.
I enjoyed putting the pieces together, but it can get confusing if you're not paying attention, which is me most of the time.
Thank you, nicely done. My gaming group previously did a complete play through of Exiles on a private server and we're planning to do it again after Chapter 4 gets released, it's going to be further enriched by this lore framework in the back of my mind as we progress.
Glad you found it useful.
Hyborian, is the age. The continent is The Thurian Continent. There is no Hyborian continent or Hyboria. Sorry to be a stickler. Aside from that, a very informative video. Thanks
I'd say this video is very well researched and well done, however I would say you did have one mistake in that you didn't cover the part where the last survivors of the former Giant King civilization actually split off to the north of Stygia or west of pre-Turan and created the Acheronian Empire which would rule over most of the lands and the ancestors of those people in those regions, up until their own civilization crumbled as well from slave revolts, war, and another cataclysm that had destroyed much of their settlements in the process. All of this taking a few thousand years prior to the official Hyborian age mind you.
Plus, the ancient Khari civilization within the exiled lands were the ancestors of the Stygians, and those who also escaped from those lands after the collapse of the Giant King civilization migrated south and established Stygia alongside Acheron, as Stygia and Acheron were said to be as old as one another.
Wow! Good to know. I hadn't realised. I'll do some more research if I ever do a follow up video.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming I look forward to it. :D
You mentioned in the video, that the Lemurians have vanished, either absorbed into the ranks of the newcomers or degenerated into imps, but the ancestors of Lemurians are Hyrkanians with their biggest tribe Turanians living on the west side of Vilayet Sea, which includes the Exiled Lands. Just wanted to clarify if you are talking about the Lemurians, then you mean Turanians since they are also a playable race in the game?
you should write movies man ! this was factual and awesome
Thanks, Freddie. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much. Just started the game and loving it a Ton. Was trying to learn more about the lore as it's quite confusing like you said as it's scattered rightly so. I'm glad to see someone who has compiled it :)
Glad you liked it.
That was great! I am new to the game so thanks for the lore walkthrough.
Glad you liked it. Thanks for the feedback.
Liked and subscribed ! Awesome video! thanks!
Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it.
Really great synthesis!
Hi Diche, glad you liked it.
I cannot say that I agree with the location of the Exiled Lands as hypothesised in this video. The Dark Horse comic which Funcom shipped with the Barbarian Edition of the game placed Conan and Natala (the latter being a character from the REH tale Xuthal of the Dusk/Slithering Shadow) only "a few days after leaving Xuthal" when they come across the Exiled Lands. That alone makes it much too far south (Xuthal is south of Stygia) and west to make a location on the coast of the Vilayet Sea a plausible spot for the Exiled Lands; there is no reasonable way to get from Xuthal to *any* part of the Vilayet in only a few days.
In the Isle of Siptah expansion, they also add that a ship from Argos bound for the Exiled Lands is caught in a storm. Taking prisoners to the Exiled Lands by boat from Argos would be nonsensical if the Exiled Lands were east of Argos and in the interior. Thirdly, the in-game map in the exiled lands has a suspicious orientation (Joel Bylos alluded to it in a live-stream once, I'm pretty sure); the sun in the game rises in what, according to the in-game map, is south(ish), which would imply that the body of water which the large river runs into on the east of the game map is actually in the north(ish).
If we take into account that the comic places the story of Conan finding the Exiled Lands as being near Xuthal and then take into account that a boat from Argos should be able to reach the shores of the Exiled lands, then, I would suspect that the main river in the exiled lands runs into the Western Ocean somewhere in the Black Kingdoms, perhaps into a bay where the river exits into the ocean in a northerly direction. That would place some desert (which is south in game map terms) to the east and west of the large river (which could work for some parts of the Black Kingdoms). The snow-capped mountains do provide some problems for this hypothesis, but I would posit that since they form the edge of the map, there could be some temperate slopes, unseen in the game, sloping down towards the western ocean on their other side and that they are snow-capped in the same way as Kilimanjaro seems to be due to elevation on "this side" but on the "sea side" of the mountains they revert to jungle or temperate forests again.
Given that Conan described the figures depicted in the art of Xuchotl (in the REH tale, Red Nails) as seeming to be Easterners:
["Maybe, hell!" broke in Valeria rudely. "We'll never know. Look at these friezes. They portray men. What race do they belong to?"
Conan scanned them and shook his head.
"I never saw people exactly like them. But there's the smack of the East about them-Vendhya, maybe, or Kosala."]
I do not think that it is a stretch to epxect that the Lemurians might have made it to the western shores of the Black Kingdoms to find themselves in the Exiled Lands given that on a continental scale, Xuthal and Xuchotl are practically next door neighbours and perhaps the easterners depicted in the friezes were Lemurians (but I may have to re-read that tale to be sure).
Apart from this, great video! (Also, I'd like to hear the thoughts of others on their ideas about the location of the Exiled Lands) :3
Many thanks for your detailed notes. I wasn't aware of the Black Horse comic. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on a copy some day. I agree that the Exiled Lands being 'a few days'' away from Xuthal is a problem for the Vilayet Sea hypothesis. However, I'm less convinced of the idea that a ship transporting a prisoner from Argos to the Exiled Lands means that the Exiled Lands must be accessible from the ocean. It's certainly a reasonable assumption, but it's never categorically said that the ship is taking them all the way there, so it might be that the sea voyage is just the first step in a longer journey. I can imagine an Argos ship trading along the coast as it goes east through the southern sea to Iranistan where it drops off Exile prisoners to join a caravan that will take them north to the Vilayet Sea.
The orientation of the Exiles map is odd given where the sun rises, but while I can make an East-is-really-North orientation work for the Vilayet Sea, I find it much harder for a Black Kingdoms location, though the 'Land of No Return' at the southern end of the Kingdoms sounds suspiciously apt in this context. (Not having seen the comic, could it be that the narrator simply confused the Land of No Return with the Exiled Lands when trying to describe the journey? Drink might have been involved.)
For me the big issue is the volcano and the surrounding snowlands. These seem too substantial to be analogous to Kilimanjaro, which is simply a snow-capped peak, not a frozen landscape full of conifers, mammoths and ice giants. For me this (and the fact that the geography of eastern and central Hyboria aligns very well with the Witch Queen's story) means the Exiled Lands have to be bordering the cold north.
We shall see. Perhaps more evidence will emerge. Thanks again. Very impressive Conan scholarship.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming I certainly agree that being on a ship towards the Exiled Lands does not necessarily mean that the ship would take one the entire way there. However, there are strong arguments to be made against the notion of the ship taking them as far as Iranistan (or anywhere else) for the purpose of finding passage to the Vilayet.
Firstly, we have the direct quote from the very first text in the Dark Horse comic: "Shortly after leaving the cursed city of Xuthal...". From the REH tale, Xuthal of the Dusk, itself, we get a fairly good idea of where the city of Xuthal was located:
"With a Stygian host on its heels, it had cut its way through the black kingdom of Kush, only to be annihilated on the edge of the southern desert."
This places Xuthal well inside the Black Kingdoms, and on or near the (southern) border of Kush. At the end of the tale we also learn that Conan and Natala fled in a southerly direction out of Xuthal, and on foot:
"'...That way is south,' a bronze muscular arm indicated their course; 'so somewhere in that direction lies the oasis. Come!'"
The comic itself confirms them going about the journey on foot. If Conan and Natala had discovered the Exiled Lands only shortly after having fled Xuthal, and on foot, then it cannot be very far south of Kush (making the shores of the Vilayet even less likely), which, even if not *on* the coast would at least make it close enough to *a* coast to explain that a journey from Argos by ship would make sense.
There is also the fact that the Road of Kings is the main trade road which runs from Messantia in Argos along a much safer, shorter and less uncertain route which leads all the way to Aghrapur in Turan; this makes it a much more likely means (in terms of efficiency, cost, safety, etc.) by which to get people transported (covertly, or otherwise) to the shores of the Vilayet, than by a ship which would have to sail all the way around the uncertain southern shores, at least if Argos is the country of origin. I do not think that, if the Exiled Lands lay on the shores of the Vilayet, that prisoners from Argos would have been taken there by such a round-about route if they could just be dragged along the Road of Kings; in fact, there would be benefits to using the RoK as you could collect exiles from other kingdoms it went through on the way (more on this below).
In terms of the climates of the various biomes, you make valid points about the snowy mountains; they are troublesome for my argument, indeed, although I think that it is worth keeping in mind that the biomes were, as described in the lore, somewhat artificially maintained by sorcery. The map rooms show the Exiled Lands as they once were, hardly any sign of desert; green and lush. Only when the sorcerous sandstorm, which was created as a weapon against the humans, got out of control, did the landscape change into the state that we see it in now, and so it does not have to make complete sense to see a desert so close to snowy mountains even though there is little difference in elevation (or any other distance) between them. And this brings me to my next point (and these are more personal musings, and not so much argument in favour of or against any particular placement of the Exiled Lands):
I am not a fan of the Exiled Lands premise, for several reasons (but I'll list my main reasons here for brevity). Firstly, to me it feels a lot like the lore was made up on the spot as the game evolved. Originally, there was only the desert and in that respect, the hints at proximity to Stygia and Darfar made sense: there are pretty many Darfari "exiled" there and this is strange coming from a land and a culture which would not bother to exile their criminals if they could just murder and eat them at home :P ; it always felt to me that the Darfari in the Exiled Lands were there really due to their native proximity to the place rather than through exile.
Then the highlands, the volcano/snow-capped mountains and the jungle/swamp were added and it felt (to me, at least) as if they then added the lore associated with those biomes in a way that did not take previously established lore into account. Their hinting that the map orientation might be incorrect due to where the sun comes up in-game feels a lot like a post hoc rationalisation on Funcom's part, rather than something which was planned as part of the lore from the outset and which was integrated organically. And since they wanted to allow people to play in all the main types of biomes, I think "magic sandstorm and sorcery climate change!" was an easier solution than to rework what was perhaps already technical constrains on how the map could be oriented/expanded upon to make it fit into the world in a lore-compliant way, rather than to admit that they now had an in-game landscape which, if geographic features were to be taken into account, could not actually be where their "establishing shot" lore had stated it to be.
Next, and as already alluded to, exile (to the exiled lands) would simply not make sense in most cases; many races, like the Picts, Darfari, Cimmerians, Vanir and Aesir would not bother with the whole Exile thing; they'd just murder perpetrators at home or kick them out of the tribe to fend for themselves (and likely die). For more "civilized" kingdoms, the cost of taking someone whom you could simply kill at home or imprison there (or exile in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. expel them from your country on pain of death, but without really caring which other lands they went to roam) along with the logistics involved of making sure that you secure a prisoner until he reached this exiled land (which is far away and that nobody ever heard of but you somehow know where it is and can take people there) feels odd. And again, the tacked on lore about "Thoth-Amon having made deals with kingdoms to take their prisoners" feels very much like post hoc lore made up to plug a plot hole; ironically, this would favour using the Road of Kings as an Exile Collecting highway if you wanted to get as many exiles as cheaply as possible from mostly all the Hyborian nations.
I know it is only a game and so, in the great scheme of things, it matters little, but as a long-time REH and Hyborian Age fan, I feel that the lore could have been treated somewhat more sympathetically with the making of the game; I believe that just because a world is fictional, it does not mean that you do not need to make it internally consistent and sensible, and lore honouring is foundational to achieving that. Lore-wise, the game has some good ideas, but it seems to have lost its way somewhat and so I can completely understand why people find it hard to agree on the placement of the Exiled Lands. The launch day comic places it near Kush when, even though I disagree with the proposed placement of the Exiled Lands being on the Vilayet, I can totally understand why, when looking at the game map at face value and taking some other game content into consideration, one might argue for that; in fact, if the in-game map was the only clue to go by, I would totally agree with your proposed location for it.
Anyhow, thanks for your comment and your videos - I find these kinds of discussions enjoyable, especially when had with other fans of the world of Conan and gaming in general
Really love this game and always enjoy the lore in games as well great video and thanks
Thanks for the feedback.
I mean they were called giant kings lol. Every lore stone, and note says Giant kings not God kings. Not to mention the bracelets are referred to also all over the place as slave bracelets. The bracelets were made by the people who built the circle of swords and ruled before as a means of controlling their slaves, that or the giant kings did indeed make them to control human slaves, at no point is it ever hinted that they were used by both humans and giant kings in collaboration of some form. I mention the first one because I've seen a lot of people online mention that that is the origin of the bracelets. I mean otherwise good video, the location seems like spot on.
If I call them god-kings at any point, then that's my mistake. However, regarding the creation of the bracelets, on the seventh Lemurian Lore Stone we read:
"When we met the ones we call the Giant-kings, some of us fell to our knees in worship. Surely these were gods in living flesh, come to offer us respite at the end of our long journey. We could not speak their language, but our sorcerers and theirs came together and worked a powerful ritual. Enchanted gemstones enabled our communication. We forged bracelets to hold them, thus could our communion with the Giant-kings begin."
i discovered the game 2 years ago, but I just got really into to, l love the gameplay and the mechanics, a mmorpg/survival game Im having a blast!
It's a lot of fun. Glad you're having a good time.
Excellent work, king Kull might have witnessed some of this surely
awesome video, my ADD causes me to zip thru the dialogue and notes, so i miss a lot of the important parts
Hi Victor, glad you liked it.
Came here from the geography discussion on Reddit you linked back to this, but trying to place this into the world is pretty fun. By no means a lore expert for the greater universe, but this could work in tons of areas. Game map could be oriented wrong, size and scale of the map itself (or parts of it) could be larger or smaller, main maps/descriptions of Hyboria could be incomplete, out of date, slightly wrong etc. So long as you know there's gotta be water access that eventually leads to sea, and it's somewhat South of Shem (if you believe the NPC) then you get a lot to work with.
Yeah it's fun to think about but ultimately always going to be pretty mysterious.
What about the artifacts that allow you to remove the bracelet? Some of the in game lore states that the bracelets and the wall were made using said artifacts and that's why if you collect them all you can remove yours.
Hi Draconis. I made a video about completing the game a few weeks ago. You have to gather the artifacts the take them to a specific altar. You can then leave the Exiled Lands, but you lose all your progress and have to start the game again.
Forever Conan.
bro thx for this...finally exiled lands are located and explained
Glad you found it useful.
The plaece of Exiled Lands is wrong. In game Razma said she is going to head north - to Shem. Also west coast of Vilayet sea is heavly inhabitet by Turanians and Hyrkanians, there is no way they did not noticed a huge piece of land surrounded by a magic barrier. I'd say that Exilend Lands are a part of one of the Isles near the Black Coast. It would make much more sense.
Hi Michał, it's certainly hard to pin down, but on balance I think the Vilayet Sea location ticks most boxes. However, I've heard other people suggest locations on or near the Black Coast as potential alternatives.
It's a fabulous video, I have always wonder where the EL are supposed to be in Conan lore. I do understand also create the real map of Hyboria to play in will have required at least 5-7 years of development (aside the tech limitations of UE4) just to get an alpha build so well, EL are better than nothing. Still, the video is very interesting, because the story is complicated to get using the talking stones in the game. Thank you so much for that.
Glad you liked it.
What an awesome video, Thank you!
2:29
That thing on the west looks like Africa, and there’s also india and SE Asia farther east.
You're right. I think Robert E Howard based his map on a squashed up map of Europe, Arica and Asia.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming Ok. Thanks for replying.
Some interesting ideas, and the most plausible attempt at placing the Exiled Lands within the Thurian continent that I've seen - certainly the steppes north of Turan are a decently 'empty' area that fit most of the requirements. There is, however, one key issue that messes up this theory - the sun in the Exiled Lands travels from south-southwest to north-northeast (and since the Hyborian age is a pseudo-history of earth, we know the sun should travel east to west). The problem being that simply rotating to fit also doesn't work, since then the Lemurians are no longer in the east and the Stygians are no longer in the west. Not sure what the answer is, but it definitely raises the possibility that the Outcast (Frost Giant) is correct...
One little addition regarding the imps - they're not just accidentally twisted - this is something that was actively done to them, by Darfari at the Summoning Place - there's a set of 'Scouts Notes' scattered around on the north side of the Summoning Place (outside the camp, actually on the cliffs that surround it) that explains it.
Good job pulling it all together, it makes for an interesting video.
Great comment, thanks. You're certainly more observant than I am. And thanks for the imp info. I'll look up the Scout notes. I don't think I've ever come across them.
How did we get Hunter's Notes?
@@hurry_up If you mean the notes I mentioned that talk about the Imps - go to The Summoning Place (main Darfari camp) and head to the north side of it (outside the camp not inside). There's cliffs that you can climb up pretty easily that would let you get all the way up to climb down into the camp from the side if you wanted - the notes are all up on a ledge up there - you'll find the remains of a little camp and the notes are several little bits of paper scattered around that area. (On the map it's around G/H 5 - pretty much around the line of G and H towards the top end of that line before it would go to 6.)
The warmaker says: "When the world was shattered, your people came to us as refugees. We were generous, we gave them the wild north. They build a city there amongst the trees...."
If you flip the map that the jungle is in the north you have the explaination for the sunrise/sunset. if the jungle is in the north the sun will go east/west. (from the desert to the volcano)
Hours upon hours upon hours of single player. This is a good game to chill and drink a beer while playing lol.
Agree 100%
Do you have a video on the Lore for the Isle of Siptah?
Here you go: The Lore of the Isle of Siptah: ruclips.net/video/Eu0PO76ZeH4/видео.html
If you put this in perspective its actually sad for the god kings they were successful before the serpent men and the lemurians came in
Yes. That didn't work out so well for them.
For any who are interested, that second map is very far off of what Howard wrote for the Hyperborean age. It is like someone tried to shrink Eurasia/Africa so that it superimposed the Atlantean age map, but Howard draw a map of the regions and it was nothing like it.First off, Howard drew a map of the main Hyperborean region leaving off the the Stygian and Khitai region, being foreign and unknown. He made this map by considering what the Seven Seas would look like if there was no water in them from the Ice Age that would have been happening at the time. And, his original map was superimposed over the European and Middle East areas.
Another nail in the coffin in the second map is that it doesn't match with Robert E Howard's essay on the history of the Hyperborean age. The Picts, Atlanteans, and Lemurians were involved with such a great war they caused the first cataclysm, which sunk the whole region. All of them fled, the Atlanteans becoming the Hyperborean regions of Hyperborea, Cimmeria, Aquillonia, Turan, and Hyrkania. The Picts, inhabiting islands the western lands, are supposed to be at war with the Lemurian who didn't flee into the hands of the Khari. If anything, the Exiled lands should be on the eastern edge of the Hyrkanian dessert, which Howard never mapped, he only wrote vague descriptions of the Khari, Khitia, and Vendyahy areas.
Finally, Mu just completely shifts its position after the cataclysm , What's with that?
Hi Eric. I'm always interested. And many thanks for your thoughts. It's true that Howard only sketched out the north-western part of Hyboria but I think it's reasonable for later scholars to try and fill in the gaps of a world map. Howard's sketch and the later maps always looked pretty similar to me. If we think of the map as a globe that might help address the other issues. On the map the Picts and Lemurians are on opposite sides, but would have been more-or-less neighbours on a globe. The Lemurians who went west would have landed on the eastern coast of Hyboria; those going east would have banged up against the Picts on the western coast. The same with Mu, depending on how you decide to flatten out your globe, Mu could appear on the extreme left or right of the map.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming That is true, if you base Howard's writings on a Pangean based world. I always think of it as an Ice age based world, which is from where my disagreement stems. It's rare for a creator to pay attention so many months after the posting. Thank you
There are some things that are not quite like that, but in general a good video, I really liked how you have structured it and I am going to use that structure to create a video in Spanish, I hope you do not mind, greetings, and as I said, good video Gaudia ;)
No problem Sergio. Glad you found it interesting.
The story about Razma and the Witchqueen is certainly odd.
Who did leave the key to her home with the witchqueen, all the way across the Exiled Lands?
It's a shame we don't have a more concrete explanation, but kind of fun thinking up solutions.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming I found an interesting tidbit when talking to her after "beating up" the Witchqueen, since then one can enter her home in Sepermeru with the key.
It was indeed Razma wearing the mask, giving her godlike abilities.
One thing she mentions is that she's considering to travel to the north, back home to Shen.
Or maybe travel with Conan.
At least the NPCs are aware of the (rough) location of the exiled lands =)
Thankyou this is brilliant
Thanks, Kev, I appreciate it.
I wish I couldve been a serpent man in exiles thatd be so cool
This is one of those games I picked up for the ps4 and less then 5 mins in was like "fuck not only is it censored but it's one of those dam survival games" and never played it again
The only way you can get the uncensored game is by renting a private server. Which is a bit of a cheek...
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming thought it was just pc version, didn't kno you also had to be on a private server
The Exiled Lands are in the south. The original map of Hyboria even shows where the city of Sepermeru is. And the Isle of Siptah is just West of it
I've never seen a map with Sepermeru on it, so if you could send a link that would be great. But in the game Sepermeru appears to be a new city built by Exiles after the ghost wall was created, I don't think it ever featured in the original Conan lore. I've never seen any reference to it. In any event, if you wanted to explain it you could say there was an ancient Sepermeru somewhere else and the Exiles named their new city after the old one.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming Yeah I’ve never seen any original maps with the exiled lands or siptah either. It’s fair enough to assume they just haven’t decided, since this is all outside of the canon of Howard’s work anyways. The Thoth-Amon angle is the only real bit of this that anchors it to any of the original stories.
@@DaiHachiHachi And Thoth Amon is a bit player in Howard's work, despite his rise to fame and glory thanks to Marvel.
Interesting! I always imagined the exiled lands must be somewhere between Turan and the Kezankian Mountains...
The question isn't settled. That's just my best guess based on what we think we know. Glad you liked it.
I love that Conan still uses Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body but they gave him the different face
Imagine a TV series about Conan with GoT budget (and hopefully better writers!), or even Kull (though I like Conan better).
That would be great. So much material. We can only hope.
Only if conan has a hairy chest!
I am curious. Who exiled you to the exiled lands? Who tied you up? How did they get you past the wall and how did they leave? Can the remaining god kings leave and if they can, why don't they wage war against what remains outside? How did the exiled lands start? If the exiles found the exiled lands as a refuge, what caused them to come here in the first place? Theory, could it be possible that all life outside the dome has gone extinct and the wall actually protects the exiles?
The idea is that the Exiled Lands have become a dumping ground for criminals and other 'undesirables'. Anyone can come and go from the Exiled Lands as they like, but once they a bracelet is put on your wrist you can't travel beyond the ghost wall. There's only one God King left alive, the Warmaker Klael, so he's not going to be able to wage much of a war by himself. The other questions should be answered by the video.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming Also something of note: The guy you can talk to on noob beach, Arcos the Wanderer I think his name is, tells you that he has travelled all the way around the ghost wall and once saw people on the other side, also with bracelets, but of a different color. So that would mean there may be more than one exiled land?
The answer to some of your questions can be found in the Conan exiles comic.
Are the 4 armed statues the original inhabitants or are they part of the god kings. Comic books aren't very popular here and go for a hefty price.
Wasn't Toth Amon the one who sends exiles to the place for search magic relics for him?
This video is great, but I wish that the intro music was not 2-3x louder than your speaking voice once the intro ended.
Sorry about that.
I'll keep them coming.
I never played extensively good ol' age of conan but i remember reading somewhere that the giant-kings looks like acheronian in the aforementioned mmorpg
I didn't know that. Thanks.
I'm not sure. It's on the wiki but who knows.@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming
There's definitely enough lore to make a prequel game. Like, the same map but before it became the Exiled Lands. The Unnamed City and the surrounding area in its prime (I guess you can say that?) Or during the war.
I would love to see the Unnamed City before it got wrecked and the Sandstorm chewed up the landscape. Great idea for a new map - a time travel portal.
my favorite thing about this game is that the devs spend most of their time making their equivalent of fortnite skins instead of improving the game.
By chance, do you know if there is a video available showing footage of the "lore stones, NPCs and written notes" being discovered in game in the proper order?
I'm pretty sure I've seen videos like that for the notes and I think there are probably ones for the stones too. But it's been ages since I last looked for anything like that. Don't know about the NPCs.
Loved it.
I do hope we get a more linear storyline in conan exiles someday and perhaps rebuilding the old ruins,we either find a way to escape or we find a way to restore everything so we can live a normal life, i would r4eally like that to happen.
You can escape the exiled lands by finding the items needed to remove the bracelet. If you try to remove the bracelet without the key your character will die instantly. By the way, your idea for the game is good.
xel- ha like some anciente mayan reference? also they look like ancient mayan king pakal.
Possibly. I don't know if the devs have ever said what influenced their design choices. I might try to find out.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming thank you!
You know the Serpent men they both have connections with lovecrafts too But there's a link between Robert E Howard and HP Lovecraft somehow I doubt they were Friends.
They-actually-were-Lovecraft-&-Howard-were-famous-penpals
Yes. Whole volumes of their collected letters exist. They talked extensively.
TLDW: Exiled Lands is magic Australia.
I know. But I'm paid by the Australian Tourist Board to keep it a secret.
I could listen to this guy read anything
wasn't the brealect made by the witch queen and the frost giant ? or am i thinking of something else ?
There's two versions in the story. When we hear the Witch Queen tell the story, the bracelets were made by the Lemurians (herself) working with the God Kings. But when we hear the version from the God Kings, they don't mention the Lemurians being involved. The Frost Giants are slackers, they didn't help at all.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming thanks
Thank you
Just got this game for my PC a couple of weeks ago. The Xbox version was too hard to figure out. Now that I think about it, I never got a good look at the faces on those statues.
The game doesn't give you much help. Even simple things like cooking meat baffled me at first. But there's plenty of advice on the web. Drop me a line if you have any questions. Hope you enjoy the PC version. I've never played, but there are a lot of good looking mods for it.
Should always be stated in these lore videos than the “lore” of Conan Exiles is non-canonical.
so its a huge prison lands, like the old days of australia by the british empire.
Australia was a prison long before humans existed. it's a continent sized Alcatraz
It's funny that since the Conan franchised is owned by Marvel if went back to the Golden Age stuff, the man we could ask for info is the Watcher, he seen it all, hell bet we could even as were Conan's Tomb is, or who are his descendants,
Now it's Conan vs the CCP