A serpent-coil ring appears on the finger of Thoth-Amon, one of Conan’s deadliest foes. Centuries later, that same ring tests Solomon Kane’s faith in a dark hour. By the 1930s, it torments the occult investigator John Kirowan with ancient Stygian magic. What’s going on here?
While modern audiences marvel at interconnected movie universes and sprawling TV sagas, Robert E. Howard quietly pioneered this approach nearly a century ago. Hidden within his pulse-pounding adventures lies an intricate web of connections that spans thousands of years, dozens of characters, and the very boundaries of history itself.
Each connection Howard crafted – from mysterious artifacts to ancient evils – served a greater purpose. In his world, nothing exists in isolation. But to fully grasp the scope of his achievement, we need to explore how deep these connections truly run.
Howard’s Blueprint for Connected Storytelling
In the depths of the mythic Thurian Age, Kull of Atlantis – an exile turned king – grapples with serpent-men, court intrigue, and the very nature of reality itself. At his side stands Brule the Spear-Slayer, whose Pictish heritage plants the first seeds of Howard’s grand design.
Millennia later, as the Thurian Age crumbles beneath geological catastrophe, Kull’s Atlantean people migrate north to become the Cimmerians – and from their savage bloodline springs Conan. The Hyborian Age blazes with raw vitality, where civilization and barbarism clash beneath shadow-haunted skies. Here, Conan battles against forces unleashed by Thoth-Amon’s serpent ring and faces the monstrous serpent Satha in “The Scarlet Citadel,” while the descendants of Brule’s Picts maintain their ancient traditions in the untamed wilderness.
These epochs flow like tributaries into our own historical era, where Bran Mak Morn – last king of the Picts – wages a desperate campaign against Rome’s inexorable advance and, centuries later, Solomon Kane encounters the dreaded serpent ring in “The Right Hand of Doom”. The ring’s final appearance in “The Haunter of the Ring” reveals its true nature as an ancient Stygian relic, with occult investigator John Kirowan discovering its terrible power in the 1940s.
Howard’s masterstroke lies in how he anchored his fantastic realms to our own world. The Hyborian Age’s Stygians become the ancestors of ancient Egypt; the kingdoms of Nemedia and Aquilonia sow the seeds of medieval Europe. Even James Allison’s modern-day visions reveal his past life as the warrior Niord, who encounters the same Satha that Conan faced, while El Borak discovers ancient temples to Set and Yag in his Afghan adventures, suggesting the persistence of Hyborian gods into the modern era.
This intricate layering of tales achieves something fascinating: it suggests that our own history emerged from the ashes of forgotten ages. Through these connections, Howard transforms our familiar world into something far stranger and more wonderful than it first appears.
Building the Future of the Past
The concept of shared universes dominates modern entertainment, but few realize just how antique this approach is. While Jules Verne experimented with crossovers in 1874’s “The Mysterious Island” and Frank Baum built the interconnected Land of Oz starting in 1900, these were simple connections compared to what would come. Even Tolkien, who began envisioning Middle-earth in 1914, wouldn’t publish until 1937. It was in the 1920s and 30s that Robert E. Howard revolutionized the concept, creating something unprecedented: a universe that spanned tens of thousands of years, multiple genres, and the very boundaries of history itself.
Of course, today’s audiences are all too familiar with shared universes – and their frustrations. Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos masquerading as meaningful connections. Easter eggs that lead nowhere. Worst of all, the daunting feeling that without encyclopedic knowledge of every story ever told, you’re somehow missing the “real” experience.
But Howard’s universe offers something different.
There’s no need for convoluted continuity when your stories span tens of thousands of years. No pressure to catch every reference when each tale stands proudly on its own. We understand this fundamental truth: the best shared universes don’t demand complete knowledge – they reward curiosity. Every story, whether it’s your first or fiftieth in the Howardverse, should feel like discovering a new page in an ancient tome, one that deepens the mystery rather than gatekeeping it.
This is what makes Heroic Signatures’ vision so exciting. We recognize that Howard’s universe is at its most satisfying to experience when it’s treated as a living tome, waiting to be expanded and explored. The winged horrors that appear across multiple stories and eras suggest ancient threats that could resurface at any time. The recurring themes of civilizations rising and falling, of barbarian wisdom confronting civilized decadence, feel more relevant than ever.
To prove this, all we have to do is look at how we treat one of Howard’s characters. Take Dark Agnes. A 16th-century French swordswoman, her origin story sees her kill her would-be husband and fleeing an arranged marriage. Combine this with her berserker fury, a rage so powerful it can resist magical influence, and it’d seem easy to explore her separately from the rest of the legendary characters Howard had created.
But that’s not what we did. Instead, in our groundbreaking comic series “Battle of the Black Stone,” Agnes becomes a central character in the comics that span space and time, fighting alongside Conan against a primordial evil. In this way, we’re ensuring that characters like her who Howard didn’t live long enough to flesh out get to take her rightful place in a tradition of his legendary heroes.
This is to say nothing of the introduction of entirely new characters, like Brissa the Pict, who strengthen existing connections while opening doors to fresh narratives. In pursuing Howard’s grand vision with such vigor and courage, we’re doing more than preserving a literary tradition – they’re refining it.
While the modern “shared universe” is everywhere these days, it’s easy to think of it as nothing more than a neat marketing trick.
But there’s something different happening in “Battle of the Black Stone.”, something beyond forced cameos or sprinklings of Easter eggs.
With the “Battle of the Black Stone”, the door to Howard’s universe stands open, and through it lies every adventure you’ve never dared to imagine.
Step through.