Hyborian World

Illustrated comic map of Conan the Barbarian’s homeworld.

The story of Conan the Barbarian began in 1932, when Robert Howard first brought the character to life in a serial comic publication called “Weird Tales.” At the time of Howard’s suicide in 1936, he had written 21 complete stories about the sword-wielding hero. The copyright to the character was passed through numerous hands in the ensuing decades, and lawsuits between conflicting claims continue to pop up occasionally.

This map, credited to an artist named Diesel (lower center), was issued as part of a boxed Conan the Barbarian role-playing board game in 1985. It shows the eponymous hero battling evil mages and vicious dinosaurs in the foreground, with the map element appearing in the form of a tapestry on the wall. It shows the whole of the Hyborian World, including the region of Cimmeria, where Conan was born. A scale is also provided purely for aesthetic purposes, as it does not provide a unit of measurement and thereby offers little practical information.