His mother had been ill with tuberculosis his entire life, and upon learning she had entered a coma from which she was not expected to wake, he walked out to his car and shot himself in the head. Howard’s suicide and the circumstances surrounding it have led to speculation about his mental health. Howard remains a highly read author, with his best works still reprinted. With Conan and his other heroes, Howard helped fashion the genre now known as sword and sorcery, spawning many imitators and giving him a large influence in the fantasy field. The main outlet for his stories was Weird Tales, where Howard created Conan the Barbarian. From boy-thief to pirate, mercenary and outlaw, ultimately becoming King of Aquilonia, Conan carved a red swathe through lost cities and unexplored jungles, facing hideous horrors or supernatural menaces with nothing more than a sharp sword in his hand and a beautiful woman at his side. Howard’s Tabletop RPG Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of takes you into the world of Conan the Barbarian, where heroes raise blood-spattered swords against dire sorcery, exotic lands beckon to the daring, danger and treasure lurks in forgotten ruins, and where loathsome creatures haunt the spaces beneath. His greatest success occurred after his death.Īlthough a Conan novel was nearly published in 1934, Howard's stories were never collected during his lifetime.

Thereafter, until his death by suicide at age 30, Howard's writings were published in a wide selection of magazines, journals, and newspapers, and he became proficient in several subgenres. From the age of nine he dreamed of becoming a writer of adventure fiction but did not have real success until he was 23. A bookish and intellectual child, he was also a fan of boxing and spent some time in his late teens bodybuilding, eventually taking up amateur boxing. He spent most of his life in the town of Cross Plains, with some time spent in nearby Brownwood. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre. Robert Ervin Howard (Janu– June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres.

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