Sword & Sorcery Tropes

SWORD & SORCERY TROPES

The Southlands campaign is intended to feel a bit like Conan the Barbarian if he were written by Fritz Leiber, with a dash of ER Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, et al), and even the Den & Taarna sequences from 'Heavy Metal'.  Here's a fun list of compiled Swords & Sorcery tropes from rpgnet I think should fit Altanis well:

Originally Posted by Carl Stanford 

The World
Decadent, Fading Empires
Remnants of a greater, ancient age.
Pyramids good; Ziggurats better.
Bands, tribes and hordes of nomads who are savage, greedy and a bane of all civilized travellers, but might be honourable and you might win their respect
Degenerate cannibal savage half-men who don't have any honour and probably worship something bad
Fat merchants in palanquins involved in slave,wine and art trade
'City of Thieves'
Steamy jungles
Inbreeding, usually but not always amongst the nobles, in a isolated locale, generally a jungle city, cavern complex, or wind swept plateau.
Lost city of the ______ people!
Domes and Dais made of lapis-lazuli
Grotesque idols and statuary.

Sorcery and Evil
Human sacrifice to Dark Gods
Sorcerers have pacts for power with strange, dark and/or alien gods.
Necromancers stealing the remains of ancient warlords for their undead armies.
Evil magic users who are the off-spring of human god/demon/alien mating.
There are only two kinds of magic, Necromancy and Demon-Summoning, oh and there's that sissy stuff with herbs and nature that womenfolk and crazy wood people do, but nothing else!
Cults preaching serenity, peace or enlightenment are probably a front for something much worse.

Barbarism vs Civilization
The inherent nobility of the savage condition.
The inherent corruption of the civilised condition.
Fear of death just makes you stronger and stronger.
Heroes who speak many languages and are literate because they are just that well-traveled.

Women
Sultry sorceresses wearing far too little clothing
Undead wizards falling for the hero's woman.
Large-breasted naked princesses in need of rescue therefrom.
The heroes always have some hot chick hanging around. She can be the chick who screams in the background or a mighty warrior in her own right. Either way she is gone by the beginning of the next session.
Warrior-women are almost always redheads.
Peace between warring kingdoms that will save thousands if not millions of lives is far less important than a hot piece of ass.
After capturing the hero, the evil queen is obliged to torture him in a titillating manner, and / or offer him a chance to rule by her side.

Combat
Striking your enemy so hard that your sword gets lodged in his spine.
One in five of your sword strikes will decapitate your enemy.
As a last-ditch effort, throw your sword, it always works.
One of the other four sword strikes will result in your sword "Sticking out between the shoulder blades" of your enemy.
No matter how powerful or ancient the creature is, if you stab it in the face with a sword, it will die or be so badly wounded it has to flee. Might need to be a special sword or a really hard stabbing, or you might need to drop a building on it after stabbing it  but the undefeatable Elder Evil has no place here.

Bestiary
Giant inhuman but-not-straight-fantasy beasts... Dinosaurs?
God-monsters from beyond the stars.
Pre-human serpent people - remnant of the snake people lingers in some remote location, scheming to destroy the fast-breeding monkeys!
Man-apes
Giant intelligent Apes
Snakes are evil incarnate. If you come across a ruined temple with tons of snake statues, you know great evil lurks.

Work and Between Jobs
Drinking and brawling.
Working for Wizards
....Whose Magic is actually Technology

Loot
Enjoy the treasure you won for all of 3 minutes before losing it forever and ever.
Gold equals whoring, drugging and getting drunk.
You can a get a kingdom but you can never keep it.
Companions come and go
Sooner or later one of your most trusted friends will turn you in for the reward.