The Tower of the Elephant

We’re back and we’re preparing to pillage. This weird, shining tower looks like it should contain treasures, or at least an interesting story to discuss. There’s rustling in the undergrowth surrounding it, but we’ll just ignore that for now. If it proves to be something dangerous, Matt can rip up one of his rare Magic: the Gathering cards and blow the remains at it. And once we’re inside, we must find out why they call it Tower of the Elephant. Maybe there’s a petting zoo. Main Topic: The Tower of the Elephant After spending a couple of episodes discussing Robert E Howard’s life and works, we’re now exploring one of his stories. “The Tower of the Elephant” was the third Conan tale published and arguably the first to really pin down his character. As well as discussing the story itself, looting it for gaming inspiration, we use it as a springboard to talk about Conan in general. If you haven’t already done so, you may also want to check out our discussion of the sword and sorcery genre, of which “The Tower of the Elephant” is one of the earliest examples. Links Things we mention in this episode include: * Conan the Cimmerian* Weird Tales March 1933* Skull-Face and Others by Robert E Howard* “The Phoenix on the Sword” by Robert E Howard* “The Scarlet Citadel” by Robert E Howard* “The Tower of the Elephant” by Robert E Howard* “The Shadow Kingdom” by Robert E Howard* Kull of Atlantis* Conan RPG scenarios based on “The Tower of the Elephant”* Conan the Barbarian (1982)* “Red Nails” by Robert E Howard* Chronologies for the Conan stories* Drinking jacks* Zamora* The City of Thieves * Texas oil boom* A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft & Robert E. Howard* Black Lotus*