Crom is the chief god of the Cimmerians.
Biographical Sketch
- Name: Crom.
- Aliases: The Grim Grey God, The Lord of the Great Mountain
- Identity: Unknown.
- Gender: Male.
- Aspect: Unclear. War. Death. Honor. Earth god.
- Appearance: Unknown.
- Symbol: Grey Mound.
- Powers and Abilities: Unknown
- Weakness: Unknown.
Affiliations
- Group Membership: Cimmerian pantheon.
- Allies: Unknown.
- Enemies: Unknown.
- Known Relatives: Unknown
- Base of Operations: Unclear. His abode is visualized to be atop a great mountain.
- Culture: Cimmeria.
History and Cult Practices
Crom is worshipped by the bulk of the Cimmerian people. Crom is a grim and gloomy god, ever watching from atop his mountain in dark clouds and obscuring mists, ready to pass a disapproving judgment on any and all, but he is said to approve of courage and tenacity, even if the human is too frail to succeed. He is not so much worshipped as invoked (In Howard's works Conan exclaims things like "Crom and his devils"), as a swearword or when trying to gather one's courage. Not that he ever does anything, good or bad, to mortals. It is said that his sole gift to men is to bestow them at birth with "[the] power to strive and slay" - the courage to go on, survive, and vanquish adversity. He has few actual worshipers and no priests.
In the canonical stories, Conan remarks in conversation that it is best to avoid doing anything that would draw Crom's attention, as he hands out only dooms and trouble.
Crom only directly intervenes in Conan's life once, unasked, to save a middle-aged Conan from a dishonorable death at the hands of a malevolent magician. Crom is saving him, presumably, for a more honorable one involving overwhelming odds, heaps of mangled corpses, and rivers of blood. Conan is aware of the intervention, and afterward sheepishly makes his first sacrifice to Crom since boyhood, doing it secretively for fear of others thinking he has "gone religious in [his] dotage."
In the 1982 film
In Conan the Barbarian (1982), Crom is referenced similarly to in Howard's works, with one exception. During a theological discussion, Conan says that when he dies, he will go in front of Crom who will ask him the Riddle of Steel, and if he does not know the answer, Crom will mock him and cast him away from Valhalla. The Riddle of Steel is not mentioned in Howard's stories, though it may reflect Crom's similarity to Odin.
The early scene of Conan confusing the "Thing in the Crypt" with Crom has no parallel in the stories.
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