Ancient Web: Hyborian Age d20 Built Conan a Community Rulebook

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

Before publishing companies could agree on how to turn Conan into a tabletop role-playing game, one fan was already stocking the Hyborian Age with monsters, maps, and adventures.

Visit the Hyborian Age d20 Campaign Site

The creator used the name Thulsa, and later identified himself as Morten in an interview about Xoth publishing. His project grew around the arrival of third-edition Dungeons & Dragons and its d20 rules. The parent Xoth.Net site dates the campaign website to 2001, while the creator's blog says 2002; the safest conclusion is an early-2000s origin, not a falsely precise birthday.

The preserved site offers a full menu of reference sections: characters, classes, races, sorcery, gods, monsters, a gazetteer, history, maps, reviews, and adventures. Its About page explains the original aim: translate Robert E. Howard's world into D&D-style gaming material, without treating the result as official licensed content.

The campaign was bigger than its author

The adventures index contains adaptations of Conan stories including The Tower of the Elephant, Rogues in the House, and The Devil in Iron. Many are credited to contributor Wesley Connally. Others include original adventures, adapted classic modules, and character sheets.

That matters because the site invited outside submissions. A single gamemaster's notes turned into a resource in which other fans translated short stories into playable scenarios, with stats, settings, and house rules for fellow players to modify.

Contemporary discussion documents its use. A February 2004 Mongoose Publishing forum post recommends the site for instant adventures, maps, and character material. The author later wrote in March 2010 that the site still drew thousands of monthly unique visitors. That audience figure is his report, not an independent measurement.

A modern publishing business eventually developed around the creator's sword-and-sorcery work, but the original fan archive remains visibly connected to the early d20 era.

This is what a healthy old game fandom could build: a hand-maintained reference that made obscure details playable, with readers becoming contributors instead of just customers.

Explore the adventure collection or the full Hyborian Age index.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.