Cosmic Horror Made Comprehensible

by Cliff Hamrick

What is cosmic horror?

A superficial look at the sub-genre will show tentacled monsters lurking at the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean and the crazed cultists that worship them. But further reading will show existential themes questioning free will and the significance of humanity. Spoiler alert: humanity, much less an individual human, isn’t significant at all.

The term “cosmic” horror relates to the idea that the creatures featured in stories of this sub-genre are often powerful aliens who seem more like gods than anything out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But cosmic horror is as much about inner space as it is about outer space with themes related to the human condition, otherness, consciousness, and self-determination.

Cosmic horror is one of the few genres of literature that can be traced back to a single individual: H. P. Lovecraft, which is why cosmic horror is sometimes referred to as Lovecraftian horror. To quote H. P. Lovecraft from the first paragraph of his short story “The Call of Cthulhu”:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

Themes

The themes found in cosmic horror have a bleak and pessimistic tone and seek to rob us of our sense of control and meaning.

The Unknown and the Unknowable

Lovecraft is famous for his ponderous language and refusal to describe the awful things he put in his stories, and contemporary authors of the genre like to follow in his footsteps. His use of dense writing with long, running sentences and archaic words such as eldritch, squamous, and Cyclopean was an homage to the authors of weird fiction that influenced him, namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Robert W. Chambers.

His lack of description of the creatures or events in his stories, other than unnameable, blasphemous, or loathsome, lent to his belief that phenomena that are unknown, or unknowable are far more terrifying than anything that could be described easily. Two quotes from him sum up this idea best:

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown.”

“Explain nothing.”

The Insignificance of Humanity

H. P. Lovecraft was a student of astronomy in the 1910s and 1920s, a new Golden Age of astronomy. This was a time of discoveries that we simply take for granted today. The idea that our solar system is just one of billions in a galaxy in an ever-expanding universe of countless galaxies is taught in middle school science classes around the world today. But back then, these were new concepts to a culture that was still rooted in the Biblical teachings of history. For instance, the Scopes Monkey trial which challenged a teacher’s ability to discuss Darwinian evolution was in 1925.

I believe these new discoveries, as well as his atheism, led Lovecraft to conclude that humanity can’t be special in the grand scheme of the universe, and therefore creatures far older and far more powerful than humans must exist. Perhaps some exist on Earth today…

Madness and Insanity

The themes of the unknowable as well as the insignificance of humanity carry through to the theme of insanity as the minds of the characters in the stories break from the strain of trying to understand that which the human brain is simply incapable of understanding. This is such an important theme to cosmic horror that it has carried over into other depictions of the genre. Any role-playing or video game that features anything remotely Lovecraftian must include some kind of system to show a character’s descent into madness through their experiences in order for it to be taken seriously by fans of the sub-genre.

Legacy

A common theme in cosmic horror is the notion of a familial line that carries down to the protagonist. Whether it is an unknown bloodline like in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” or a collection of newspaper clippings leading to a global doomsday cult in “The Call of Cthulhu,” the protagonist is lead through a series of horrific encounters that have been determined before they were even born, questioning the whole notion of free will.

This theme most likely grew out of Lovecraft’s past. Both of his parents were mentally ill and spent at least some of their time in insane asylums. Considering his lifelong struggle with his own mental and physical ailments, he must have wondered how much of them were due to his family’s lineage.

Tropes

The Great Old Ones

This trope is so prevalent that it has also crept into the mainstream. The Great Old Ones, Elder Gods, Outer Gods, however they are named, are powerful alien beings who seem like deities to us. We might think of them as evil, but they don’t think of us at all. Their “evil” comes from their complete indifference to humanity. In some stories, the destruction brought on by the Great Old Ones is more of a side effect of their presence than any conscious act of malice on their part.

Fitting with the theme of the insignificance of humanity, there is nothing that humans can do to stop the inevitable rise of the Great Old Ones from their slumber and their annihilation of the world. The only thing saving humanity is that these great evils are hidden or locked away, saving us from the mind-shattering knowledge of their existence.

Cults

Despite the nihilistic indifference of the Great Old Ones, there is always a group of people who worship them. These cultists are usually insane, because only a crazy person would worship an alien being that is more likely to squish you like a bug than give any kind of blessing. Sometimes the cultists are global secret societies or sometimes localized into a small, remote area. There are also stories featuring just one person who has gained power from an ancient text or artifact, and desires more even if they don’t fully understand what that will cost them.

Cursed Objects

Sometimes evil isn’t a person, but a thing. Cosmic horror stories often feature an item that will corrupt the body or the mind of someone simply being exposed to it. Reading forbidden texts is the most common theme with the information hidden away inside unlocking the reader’s mind to terrible knowledge. Or, as in the case of the play The King in Yellow or the movie Cigarette Burns, a piece of art is created with the express purpose of driving people insane.

Things That Should Not Be

Creatures that do not fit into any evolutionary tree created on Earth or architecture that follows non-Euclidean geometry that bends the senses are also common features in cosmic horror. Oftentimes, just the sight of these Things is enough to shatter the common mind.

Examples of Cosmic Horror

Literature

Just about anything by H. P. Lovecraft, but a few stories stand out: At the Mountains of Madness, “From Beyond,” “The Colour Out of Space,” and “The Call of Cthulhu”
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
“The White People” and The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
The Hyperborean Cycle by Clark Ashton Smith
“The Black Stone,” “The Children of the Night,” and “The Haunter of the Ring” by Robert E. Howard

Movies

In the Mouth of Madness
Cigarette Burns (from the Masters of Horror series)
Dagon
The Mist
The Void
The Thing
Annihilation

Cliff Hamrick, as well as being a counselor in private practice, is also an author. Follow this link (https://www.amazon.com/stores/Cliff-Hamrick/author/B081X9QZLC) to view his books that are available from Amazon.com.

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(The Lovecraft inspired figurines used to illustrate this article are on sale at Etsy. Check their website.)

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Bonus: A different take on “Cosmic Horror” from The Ghost #3, May 1945

Consumed by Cthulhu!

by Cliff Hamrick

Overview
I’ve been playing tabletop roleplaying games ever since the kid across the alley showed me the Basic Set of Dungeons and Dragons in 1981. And though D&D has dominated much of my gaming life, I have also played many other games. In this article, I want to discuss one of my favorites: Call of Cthulhu.

What is a Tabletop Roleplaying Game?
For decades, we just discussed “roleplaying games” (RPGs) with no other distinction. An RPG is a game in which players take on characters and go on some kind of adventure, solve a mystery, or complete a mission. Usually, there is one player who is in charge of running the game and challenging the players. In D&D, that person is called the Dungeon Master (DM). In Call of Cthulhu, that person is called the Keeper.

A tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) is an RPG played in the same way we did in the 80s with a group of people sitting around a table, rolling dice, and referring to physical copies of books to play the game. The term TTRPG distinguishes that sort of RPG from other kinds. For instance, a VTRPG is a virtual tabletop roleplaying game. These games are run like a TTRPG except they are played over the internet like some kind of Zoom conference call. Then there are the myriad forms of computer games which are also RPGs but have nothing to do with the sort of game I’ll be discussing in this article.

What is Call of Cthulhu?
Call of Cthulhu (CoC) is a TTRPG that has been around since 1981, which makes it almost as old as D&D. It was created by Sandy Petersen and based primarily upon the horror fiction of H. P. Lovecraft though it also pulls in references from Robert W. Chambers, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and many of the pastiches that came out after Lovecraft’s death in 1937.

The game gives players a chance to live the life of one of Lovecraft’s protagonists. These are often ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. The game focuses on investigations in order to solve a mystery which usually involves some of the Mythos from Lovecraft’s weird fiction. As such, CoC has developed a reputation among fans of roleplaying games: you play until your character either dies or goes insane.

Though CoC invented the use of insanity as a mechanic and combat is often deadly, the game has this reputation because of 1) poorly run games, 2) stupid decisions by players, or 3) a game experience that’s limited to one-shot, demonstration scenarios that aren’t meant to last more than a few hours. These games should be thought of as a horror movie in which success, much less survival, is not guaranteed.

Though it’s been around almost as long as D&D there are significant differences between the two games in character creation and how the game is played.

Character Creation
In D&D, player characters are called “adventurers,” but in CoC, they are called “investigators.” This first distinction should give you a good idea of the major difference between the two games. Investigators are just everyday humans. One might be a psychic, a military veteran, an accountant, a private detective, or even a world-renowned scholar of antiquities. But otherwise, they are just like anyone on the street.

Unlike in D&D, there are no classes. Instead, players choose an occupation. Everything I listed in the paragraph above is an occupation that one can play in CoC (yes, including the accountant). With D&D, a class gives the character abilities that are usually not available to other classes. But in CoC, the choice of occupation doesn’t limit what the character can do but describes what they are most likely good at when they start. After all, an accountant can shoot a machine gun, but the military veteran is probably better at it.

The difference between occupations is their skills.

Skill Mechanics
During character creation, the player will get assigned skill points based on the occupation they choose. As you’d expect, a military veteran is going to get more skill points in firearms and an accountant will get more points in…well…accounting. But players are also given some extra points to put in whatever skills they want. So that accountant could spend a lot of weekends at the gun range and be pretty handy around a rifle.

Here’s a selection from the few dozen or so skills in the game:

• Appraise (determining something’s value)

• Charm (impressing someone)

• First Aid (keeping someone alive during combat)

• Library Use (researching)

• Psychoanalysis (helping characters recover from the mental trauma of investigations)

These skills are assigned a percentage. For instance, our world-renowned scholar of antiquities might have a 60% in Archeology, the skill of knowing about ancient artifacts. So when our scholar is presented with a strange statue made from an unknown black stone, the player rolls dice and tries to get a result of less than 60. If the player succeeds, then the scholar knows something about the statue. If they roll higher than 60, then the scholar either doesn’t know anything about the statue or might even get something wrong and think they know something when they’re actually incorrect. As you can see, the higher the skill, the less likely a character is to fail at a skill. Of course, our accountant with a 1% in Archeology doesn’t stand much of a chance.

Unlike in D&D, characters don’t acquire experience points as the game progresses. There are no levels in CoC. Instead, when a character succeeds at a skill roll, the player puts a little check next to that skill. At the end of the game session or scenario (depending on what the Keeper wants), the player then can attempt to raise that skill. So, the more a character tries new things and is successful, the more likely they are to become better at it. Nothing succeeds like success!

Skills are also an integral part of combat in the game.

Combat
In CoC, combat skills are just like any other skill, and the mechanics are essentially the same. If a character wants to shoot the raving cultist, he rolls against his Firearms skill using the appropriate subskill. (Pistols, rifles, heavy weapons, etc.). Of course, most people won’t politely stand still and let someone shoot at them, so they are going to dodge, hide behind something for cover, or at least wear some kind of body armor. Because of this, combat is a little more complicated than the usual skill tests. But rather than get into all the crunchy details of how combat works, let me highlight some of the ways it differs in CoC versus other RPGs like D&D.

First, there is no such thing as Armor Class (AC). An attacker rolls a combat skill to hit the defender who can then decide if they want to dodge the attack or fight back. The attacker and defender roll their appropriate skills and see who is successful. Then the damage is rolled and applied to the loser. Armor is rather rare in the game and only lessens the amount of damage taken rather than making the defender more difficult to hit.

The damage taken by the defender is removed from their current hit points. It is not uncommon for characters to start with as little as 8 or 9 hit points. And because there are no levels, you are unlikely to ever get more than that. And a single shot from a 1911 .45 ACP pistol can easily do 15 points of damage in one shot.

The reputation of CoC as a deadly game is very true. Just like in real life, being shot can instantly kill a character or, at the very least, take that character out of the game for some time as they heal. In CoC, there are no clerics, no healing spells, and no healing potions. Characters can use the First Aid skill to prevent other characters from dying, but that’s as close as it gets. Otherwise, healing can take weeks or months and may result in permanent damage to the character. Take an arrow in the knee? You might have a limp for the rest of your life.

The upside to such a deadly combat system is that it forces players to think tactically. There won’t be a fighter with 157 hit points in a full suit of plate armor with a shield standing in a doorway taking all the hits while the cleric stands safely in the back of the party and casting healing spells to keep him alive. In CoC, players have to think of ways to protect themselves while trying to beat the bad guys.

This creates a combat system that is dynamic and fun.

Sanity
One of the other reputations of CoC is that characters will eventually go insane. CoC was the first game that I’m aware of that created a system by which characters are affected by the things they see and do. No wizard in D&D has ever had to risk going mad from summoning a demon. But in CoC, just reading about one can drive a character insane.

As the title says, this is a horror roleplaying game in the world of H. P. Lovecraft. Anyone familiar with his stories knows that insanity was an integral part of his fiction. And this insanity wasn’t due to some failing on the part of the characters. They were driven mad by understanding the true history of humanity and the actual nature of the universe. In CoC, “knowing isn’t half the battle” and “ignorance is bliss.”

At creation, characters will have a certain number of Sanity Points. Unlike hit points, these can be as high as 100 and can rise and fall (but mainly fall) during the life of the character. Whenever a character comes across something awful (the rotting corpse of their best friend) or becomes aware of the truth about our world (sees an actual Deep One for the first time), then the character must make a sanity test.

This is done by rolling dice and trying to get under the character’s current sanity. If the character fails the roll, then they lose a number of Sanity Points based upon what it was they experienced. But some things are so disturbing that the character may lose some Sanity Points even if they succeed. If a character loses all of their Sanity Points, then they become permanently insane and are essentially dead as a character.

Though some people think of Sanity Points as another form of hit points, the sanity system is really a great tool for roleplaying. For instance, if a character loses five or more points in one instance, they go temporarily insane. This doesn’t mean that they become a drooling vegetable (though that’s a possibility), but they could also flee by any means necessary, convinced that singing is the best way to resolve the situation, or obsessed with getting a precious item back from a certain Hobbitses.

Magic
For those used to D&D and the fantasy genre in general, magic is an important and common part of the game. This is somewhat the case in CoC. Just like in the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, spells, witches, and necromancers are a part of the game. But also like in his fiction, these are not the purview of normal humans. Even understanding that magic Is real challenges the preconceived notions of what constitutes reality. As such, using spells drains a character’s sanity and maybe even hit points.

Does this mean that no one can use magic in CoC? No! But it does change the way the players think of magic and how capricious they are in its use. There are no frivolous or utilitarian spells in CoC. No one casts a spell at a party to impress chicks. (Well, unless they’re an insane cultist searching for new recruits.) There is no “light” spell. (Well, unless it involves using your own rotting eyeball that you cut out with an obsidian blade during a dark moon.)

In CoC, magic is dark, strange, and scary. It’s something that only desperate characters would study. Whether they are desperate for survival or desperate for power is up to the player.

Ways to Play
CoC can be played in a variety of ways. The original game was conceived to take place in the United States during the 1920s, the time period in which H. P. Lovecraft wrote most of his fiction. But the game can also be played during the modern era. Also, there are many supplements that give players and Keepers options to play in Australia, Berlin, or Harlem. Also, games can take place in the Wild West, Ancient Rome, or the Middle Ages.

Pulp Cthulhu is a variation of CoC that puts the game in the 1930s and follows more of the action-packed pulp fiction of that time. Characters usually have more options, and the system allows for more survivability. Globetrotting to foil some world-ending plan is a common theme in these games.

Another form of CoC is Delta Green. These games follow a short plot point at the end of Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” in which federal agents descend upon the town to clear out the dangerous and degenerated inhabitants. Delta Green plays with the idea of what it would mean if the US Government became aware of the horrors of the universe and allows players to play characters along those lines. Think “X-Files” meets “Call of Cthulhu.”

Final Thoughts
Call of Cthulhu has been one of my favorite games for years. Unfortunately, I haven’t had many opportunities to play it because either not enough people know about the game or they have no interest in playing it. This article was meant to address the first issue. But let me explain who this game is for.

First, it’s a horror game. Themes of murder, suicide, abuse, and insanity are quite common. Players have to be ready to accept these dark themes in order to really enjoy CoC. If you love horror movies, then this game is for you. If you’re rather squeamish, then you either should stay away or talk with your Keeper about how much you’re willing to deal with. After all, this is a game, and games are supposed to be fun.

Second, being a horror game, characters can die or become changed in ways that aren’t beneficial to the character. Players have to be ok with losing control over their character’s destiny. Unlike in D&D and most other RPGs, the player can’t really plan out the development of their character as they develop. Sometimes things go sideways during a scenario that no one can predict.

Third, being a game focused on investigations, it is great for players who love mysteries and trying to solve them.

This game is certainly for people who like being surprised about where their character goes in the future. This is one of the things that I like about the game. For instance, our accountant might have never heard of or experienced anything supernatural. But through no fault of his own, he gets pulled into an investigation for which he is completely unprepared.

Having survived and learned that monsters are very, very real, how does he respond? Does he get to the gun range and the gym to prepare for the next fight? Does he seek out ancient tomes that might help explain what is happening to the world? Does he break every accounting ethic he knows to embezzle money from his clients to fund a secret society dedicated to fighting those monsters? What does he do when he loses his job as an accountant? What does he do when he loses a hand because a Deep One bit it off?

This is the sort of thing that keeps me going back to the game.

Cliff Hamrick, as well as being a counselor in private practice, is also an author. Follow this link (https://www.amazon.com/stores/Cliff-Hamrick/author/B081X9QZLC) to view his books that are available from Amazon.com.

Obsessed with Conan Exiles!

by Cliff Hamrick

Conan Exiles has been a bit of an obsession of mine since it was first released in 2018. I didn’t play it much back then because there wasn’t a lot to do and there was no tutorial nor any online resources to help play the game. It often became a frustrating experience of trial and error as I figured out a few things until I finally gave up and moved on to something easier.

That all changed several months ago with the release of Age of Sorcery, which introduced magic into the game. It was a huge update to the game and brought in tons of new players. I decided to give it a try again, and I’ve been playing nothing else ever since.

What Is Conan Exiles?

Conan Exiles, produced by Funcom, is an open-world survival game. These are games in which the character is plopped into a vast world with nothing more than the clothes on their back. (And in Conan Exiles, you may not even have that.)

Survival games are not easy, and to be honest, Conan Exiles is one of the hardest of them all. This has gotten better thanks to recent updates, but when first starting the game, you will die a lot. Ever had a mountain goat headbutt you to death? Well, that can happen in this game.

Combat is fast and deadly. In the beginning, you will have nothing in the way of armor and you’ll be fighting with stone weapons. Luckily the game does a good job of easing you into the world by giving you opponents that aren’t much better off than you are. As you go up in level, you’ll be able to raise your attributes which will give you bonuses to your health and damage, as well as other aspects of gameplay.

Survival is the first order of business as a new character. Everything in the game wants to kill you. You have to gather food, drink water, deal with the elements, and even hide from monstrous sandstorms. You’ll deal with all of these problems by gathering up materials, using them to make weapons, craft tools, and build a shelter. Everything is useful in the beginning including the sticks you pick up off the ground. But as you play, you get experience points which can be put into knowledges which let you build new and better items. Eventually, survival doesn’t seem so dire.

The open-world of Conan Exiles means you get to play however you want. There are no classes in the game. You just acquire attribute and skill points and spend them however you want. Powerful warriors in heavy armor are just as viable as agile fighters in light armor. Or be an agile fighter in heavy armor. Archery is also a part of the game. You can even have thralls and pets do the fighting for you. And, if you go the route of sorcery, you can raise zombies or summon demons to fight for you as well.

System requirements

Conan Exiles can run on a PC, PS 4 & 5, or Xbox One. I have only played on a PC, so I can’t speak to the experience of console play. But I can say that the game is a beast on PC. Here are the system requirements taken from the Steam Store Page:

There are ways to mitigate the strain the game can put on a computer. First, just play a solo game from your PC rather than logging into an online server. Also, turn the video graphics display down. Even at it’s lowest setting, Conan Exiles is still a beautiful game.

Getting Started

If you’re playing on a PC, then to get started, the first thing you’ll need to do is download the game. I use Steam for all my games, so I would just type in ‘Conan Exiles’ into their search engine and start there. You’ll notice a few things come up with the game. These are extra DLC packs that you can buy that add more cosmetics to the game without changing actual gameplay.

As of the writing of this article, the standard edition of the game sells for $39.99 USD. Sometimes there is a sale and you can get it cheaper than that. Once you pay your money, it should download the game including all the latest updates. This will take a while, so I start the download just as I’m going to bed and let it run while I sleep.

Once you get into the game, the first screen you’ll see asks you to choose the gender of your character. This has no impact on gameplay and is just purely for cosmetics. Once you make your choice, the camera will zoom in a person crucified on a cross. Nice way to start.

While hanging there, you can choose from one of the races described by Robert E Howard. Again, this is purely cosmetic. A Stygian can be just as big and burly as a Cimmerian. Then you’ll choose your religion. This actually affects gameplay as this will be religion you will start with which will let you build a shrine which will allow you to build some of the things that will help you survive. Different shrines build different items.

After that, the other choices change the appearance of your character including your height. Also, you can change up your sexual characteristics. Yes, that’s right. You can have gigantic boobs or a huge schlong, if you’re into that. Conan Exiles allows for full nudity, which is why it’s rated M. That and the blood, but we’ll talk more about that during the section on combat.

Once you finalize your character, including your name, then you’ll be plopped onto an ancient road in the middle of a desert. For a long time, that was it. You just had to run around and figure stuff out on your own. But, Funcom recently added an expanded Journey System that will give you a short-term goal to help guide you through the sort of things you’ll need to do to survive in the game (gather resources, make items, build structures, and fight enemies).

Gameplay

Being an open world, you can play the game in multiple ways. Some people really like building large or complex structures, such as castles, fighting arenas, wizard towers, or small villages. With all of the different building materials and motifs in the game, you can spend your whole time just playing architect. There are many channels on YouTube dedicated to building in Conan Exiles.

Exploration is also a big part of the game. Unlike with many MMORPGs, there are no guides in the game. No random NPC is going to tell you to go to Goldshire and drop off a bundle of furs at his cousin’s shop. In Conan Exiles, you just head off in a direction without any real idea of what you’ll find, and just hope you don’t die along the way. While out adventuring, you might find an ancient dungeon, powerful creatures, or small towns of hostile inhabitants. You might find recipes to craft new weapons, boxes of treasure or supplies, or pick up powerful items.

You may also find hints of the history of the Exile Lands. There are storylines in the game that explain what the lands are, who created the ancient structures, and the interactions with the various people in the region. It’s like moving to a new country. It was there before you and it has a history that you can discover.

Combat

Of course, no Conan game would be complete without combat, and Conan Exiles delivers. As you play the game, you will fight against beasts, humans, undead, and monsters. Each kind of their own weaknesses and abilities that forces you to figure out different tactics to defeat them.

There are a wide variety of weapons in the game and each one is based on a different attribute and has different uses in the game. A pair of daggers is going to be best for an agility-based based fighter who dodges a lot and causes his enemies to slowly bleed to death. A two-handed hammer is best for a strength-based fight who will smash through his enemy’s armor, albeit slowly. Spears, axes, bows, and swords are all available. Fight with two hands or one hand. Hell, you can even punch your opponent’s to death in the early game.

Combat is fast and dynamic. If you just stand in one spot and smash buttons, you’ll just get clobbered. You enemies can knock you down, toss you around, poison you, or sunder your armor. You have to be ready for all of it. But when you finally do defeat your opponent, expect a fountain of blood. Characters don’t just lay down like they’re falling asleep nor do they quietly fade out. Instead, heads and limbs fly away in a gush of blood with cries of pain. Perfect for a sword and sorcery game.

Game Modes

There are multiple ways to play the game. First, you can run it as a single-player game from your computer where you have complete control over the difficulty of the game. You can set how long the day/night cycle is, the strength of your opponents, crafting speed, etc. You can even enter ‘creative mode’ in which the creatures of the game will ignore you and you have an infinite amount of crafting materials so you can build and decorate to your heart’s content without interruption.

If you want to play on a server (or run your own server), then you can choose player vs environment (PVE) or player vs player (PVP). In a PVE server, players cannot attack each other, they cannot steal from each other, nor can they damage each other’s buildings. In a PVP server, anything goes. Players attack each other, take each other’s equipment, and even raid bases.

There is a third option called player vs environment-conflict (PVE-C). Usually these servers are PVE except during certain times set by the server administrators. This is a good balance for players who want a little bit PVP but don’t want to have to deal with it every time they log on.

Recommendations

If all of this has gotten you interested in the game, but you’re not sure how to start out, then I recommend starting slow. The game has a steep learning curve. It’s not a steep as it once was, but there is still a lot to learn about the game. I’ve been playing for years, and I’m still discovering new things.

So, first, get the game and just play it single-player for a little while. You will have the whole world to yourself without having to worry about competing with other players for space or resources. You won’t have anyone to help you out, but I’ve provided a list of good online resources where you can find help.

Once you get a feel for the game, then try out a PVE server. There are some that are more focused on roleplay (RP) where characters are required to have names that fit within the Hyborian Age so you shouldn’t have to deal with a character named ‘n00bblaster5000’. But people who search out those servers are usually more interested in playing the game and are more likely to help you get started.

Of course, if you love the competition, then try out a PVP server. Lots of people play the game just to fight against other players rather than the AI of the computer, which can get rather predictable.

Online Resources
Conan Exiles wiki: https://conanexiles.fandom.com/wiki/Conan_Exiles_Wiki
Eradicati0n YT: https://www.youtube.com/@Eradicati0nn
KiahOnFire YT: https://www.youtube.com/@KiahOnFireOfficial
Pixelcave YT: https://www.youtube.com/@Pixelcave

About Me

As well as being a counselor in private practice in Austin, TX, I am also a writer. I create short stories and novels of sword and sorcery fantasy, mystery, with elements of horror. I just released a collection of short stories featuring Jarek the Scholar. I describe him as part Indiana Jones and part Phillip Marlowe in a Conan the Barbarian setting. Please follow this link (https://www.amazon.com/stores/Cliff-Hamrick/author/B081X9QZLC) to my Author Page on Amazon to check out my stories!