Hyrkania is a country of the Hyborian Age.
Geography[]
Hyrkania is an immense nation, stretching across the continent east of the Vilayet Sea. Much of the land is composed of deserts (in the extreme north and south), but there also exist large stretches of steppes and hills as well. Along the coast of the inland sea, the land is much greener. Hyrkania's border with Khitai to the east is marked by an immense chain of mountains.
To the south, Hyrkania effectively controls a number of smaller regions with little permanent government of their own. However, these provinces have significant socio-cultural distinction, and are not a formal part of Hyrkania.
Reportedly, there are thousands of elephants inhabiting this country.[1]
Hyrkania has some self-governed city-states:
- Pah-Disha
- Makkalet, sister-city of Pah-Dishah. It was besieged by Yezdigerd, crown prince of Turan. Finally, it fell to the Turanian army.
History and politics[]
At first, in the mountains east of the Vilayet was a curious race of intelligent aborigines. These were joined by descendants of Lemurian survivors. This was the beginning of the Hyrkanian civilization.
Red Sonja is actually a Turanian. Turanians, who can have Hyborian blood, are likely a western branch of Hyrkanians. Lemurians are darker-haired and tawny-skinned, originally of a southeast nation akin to Indonesia. The oldest "local" ancestry of Hyrkania is an Asian-like group of woodland hunters. As ice age periods turned woodland into steppe, many of the cultures moving through this region fused and began a pastoralist, hunter-herdsman lifestyle. By the rise of Hyborian presence, Hyrkanians were a race of diverse and hardened plains raiders of warriors.
3000 years after the Cataclysm, a kingdom known as Turan is established on the southwestern shore of the inland sea. Toward the latter half of the period, northern Hyrkanian clans push around the northern extremity of the inland sea, and clash with the eastern outposts of the Hyperboreans.
In the following centuries and years, Hyrkanians assailed the western kingdoms and were one of the factors which destroyed the Hyborian civilization and established their own empire in the west, formed by these former kingdoms. However, roving bands of Æsir (Aesir) came and clashed with the Hyrkanians, assailing them so savagely that they retreated back toward the Vilayet. Then came the Cimmerians, and during their irresistible wandering southeastward, destroyed Turan.
As the Hyrkanians fled, they destroyed all their cities, and after butchering those captives not fit to make the march, rode back into the east, skirting the northern edge of Vilayet, herding thousands of slaves before them (Zamorians and Zingarans).[2]
Stories set in Hyrkania[]
- Conan the Unconquered
- Conan the Marauder
References[]
- Savage Sword of Conan #1. "Red Sonja" story.