| “ | Suffering from success
— DJ Khaled
|
” |
Today, I will be comparing two of fantasies most iconic characters, with both being foundation figures to modern fantasy as a whole. Both Conan and Drizzt have been major figures in the public eye for decades now, with both playing large roles in the foundations of fantasy as a whole in Conan's case, and both Dungeon's and Dragon's and adventurous high fantasy in Drizzt's case.
Sadly, both have also had quite unfortune publication histories as well, with both having become degraded and changed for the worst as time has went on, with the continued publications of Conan turning the once verbose and fair soldier of fortune into a the stereotypical dumb brute Barbarian, and the over saturation of Drizzt books turning the once relatable and fallible hero into a bland as milk Gary Stu demigod.
Conan[]
| “ | I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.
— Conan
|
” |
Born into the barbaric lands of Cimmeria, Conan was destined for greatness from a young age. Conan was a natural born warrior, with his combat skill being extraordinary, his reputation for battle being spoken about by the tribes of Cimmeria when he was only 15 years old. When Conan was a young man, still considered a youth, he would leave his homeland in search of something better, traveling the known world as a soldier of fortune. In Conan’s travels he would see many strange and foreign lands, meet many people both foul and fair, steal into the homes of ancient treasures and battle men, and more often than not, creatures beyond our wildest imaginings.
Abilities[]
Melee Weapon combat: As a seasoned warrior and Cimmerian barbarian, Conan was an extremely skilled melee weapon fighter. He could compete with enemies of an extremely high caliber, easily overmatching master swordsmen and cutting down hordes of heavily armored warriors. His personal fighting style was extremely wild and savage, being based on his own barbaric intuition, something which makes him highly unpredictable, even to true masters of the blade.
Unarmed combat: As an extension of Conan’s weapons training, he was also an expert hand to hand fighter. He was a good striker and grappler, being able to beat down and throw around physically grown men, along with grappling large beasts like Thak the ape man. Just like his weapons skills, Conan’s fighting style was extremely chaotic and unpredictable, something which made him highly dangerous to his opponents.
Superhuman physicality: Conan was a hulking beast of a man, standing a solid 6 feet in height and being made of thick corded muscle. Beyond just looking like a bodybuilder, Conan was extraordinarily strong and tough, but not at the expense of his speed.
- Strength: Conan’s most well known trait was his strength. In terms of raw brawn, Conan could easily overpower grown men while unarmed, break and smash bone bare handed, and once shattered a man's helmet, sundered in his skull, and obliterated the sword he was wielding in the process.
- Speed: Despite what his large bulk would suggest, Conan was still very fast and agile. He was able to dodge swarms of incoming arrows, block attacks from monsters like the demonic Jhebbal Sag, and is described as moving so fast that he appeared like a blur to even trained warriors.
- Durability: Conan was incredibly tough, being able to survive an absurd amount of punishment. He has been stabbed, slashed, bludgeoning, torn, burned, fallen from great heights, been mauled by giant monsters, and either walked it off or recovered quickly, suffering no lasting physical disabilities.
Superhuman perception: One of Conan’s most notable abilities was his superhuman senses. He was noted for having hearing and smell like a hound, being able to spot the location of a stalking opponent based on his hearing and sense of smell alone, even while stalking in a rainforest. His night vision was like a cat, being able to move around and see in the dark with no real issue.
Equipment[]
Broadsword: Conan's primary melee weapon. Conan's sword was a wide, cut and thrust style sword with a most one handed grip, though Conan has been able to hold it two handed before.
Hand Axe: A simple one handed axe which Conan used as a side arm. The axe was small, with Conan primarily using it as either a back up or off hand weapon in melee, or as a surprise throwing weapon at range.
Drizzt Do'Urden[]
| “ | Change is not always growth, but growth is often rooted in change.
— Drizzt Do'Urden
|
” |
Born in the Underdark of Faerun, in the city of Menzoberranzan, Drizzt Do’Urden would never truly fit into the complex evil of Drow society. Being born as the 3rd son of house Do’Urden, and only barely avoiding death at birth from ritual sacrifice, Drizzt would eventually grow into being an exceptional talent in weapons combat. However, Drizzt would never truly fit in the brutal culture of the Drow, being one of the few of his species to actually have what he would later learn is called a conscience by the people of the overworld. This distance would eventually cause Drizzt to exile himself from the Drow, and would eventually come to the surface world in search of a better life among better people.
Abilities[]
Swordsmanship: Due to his extensive martial training under Zaknafein, Drizzt was an exceptional swordsman. Even in his youth, Drizzt was able to compete with his master Zaknafein, who was considered one of the deadliest weapons masters in Menzoberranzan. His fighting style was fast, crisp and clean, using his own natural agility to unleash flurry’s of quick slashes and cuts to make mince meat of an enemy.
Superhuman physicality: Drizzt was built like a typical Drow warrior, being short (5’4”), slim, and lightweight. However, he made up for his petite build with a large amount of raw physical might and training, being superhuman fast, tough and strong.
- Strength: Despite his slight build and short height, Drizzt was deceptively strong. He was able to physically beat up a normal warrior while bare handed, strike a fellow drow hard enough to throw the man off his feet, and once kicked a solid wood table in half with a single strike.
- Speed: As one would expect for someone so slim and flexy, Drizzt was extremely fast and agile. He could cut arrows and thrown blades out of the air with his swords, perform high levels of parkour and acrobatics casually, and was noted on several occasions to move so fast normal people had trouble simply perceiving him.
- Durability: Just like with strength, Drizzt was exceeding tough, despite what his appearances would suggest. He could survive bad injuries, bouncing back from rib break blows, being submerged in freezing water, along long sheer drops into ice, snow, and stone.
Drow abilities: As a Drow, Drizzt was innately able to use several specialized abilities based on a mixture of underground adapted biology and straight up magic.
- Infra-vision: As a denizen of the Underdark, Drizzt had the ability to shift his vision into the infrared spectrum, allowing him to read body heat signatures in complete darkness, along with track the residual heat of a persons fresh foot prints.
- Faerie fire: Drizzt could cast a simple combat spell, creating colorful flames. While these flames don’t burn or damage things as normal flames do, they do illuminate a target, making stealth difficult, making them easier to track, and making it easier to hit.
- Darkness: Drizzt could innately cast the darkness spell, creating an orb of pure, otherworldly darkness. This orb was an excellent distraction, as the darkness itself could not be seen through, even by Drizzt himself. It made for excellent cover and was a good source for a distraction.
Instinctive state: When pushed beyond his normal limits, Drizzt could enter a self imposed trance, were he let his instincts and intuition take over and guide his actions. While in this state, Drizzt was far less controlled and far more vicious and unrelenting. However, Drizzt didn’t do this often, only falling into it when truly pressed.
Equipment[]
Scimitars: Drizzt carried a pair of Drow scimitars These swords were short, thin, curved blades designed to deliver extremely fast slashing attacks. These blades were single edged and quite light weight, making them well suited for Drizzt's light build.
X-factors[]
Tactics[]
Both Drizzt and Conan are highly intelligent battle tacticians. However, while Drizzt used his abilities with a lot of tact, using his spells as a good supplement in battle, he was still primarily focused on a martial victory, relying more on his own raw skill. Conan, on the other hand, was far more willing and comfortable in using things like the terrain, nearby objects, and improvised weapons which he can basically make from anything within reach. While Drizzt's deft use of spells and Drow powers to augment his combat abilities and make him an even trickier threat to overpower on the back of pure skill, Conan will be grabbing and using everything on hand as a weapon, while manipulating and using the terrain to give him and advantage while putting Drizzt at a disadvantage.
Armor[]
Both Drizzt and Conan are fairly lightly armored, with Conan wearing a sleeveless mail shirt and Drizzt wearing leather armor. Both armor sets are fairly light weight and don't impact their wearer's mobility in any real way, so this'll primarily be a comparison of durability and body coverage. Conan's mail is stronger, as it is made of actual metal, but it only covers' his torso, cutting off at his beltline and having no sleeves. Drizzt's leather is weaker, but it covers a lot more of his body in comparison.
Scenario[]
I will be using Conan as of Beyond the Black River.
I will be using Drizzt as of The Crystal Shard.
This fight will be a standard battle, set in a cold northern territory. The fight will be a random encounter, with neither Drizzt nor Conan knowing of the other’s abilities before running into each other.
Note for readers: Both Conan and Drizzt have a myriad of other abilities, with both being insanely stealthy and excellent trackers, along with other notable features which may appear in a small way in the prologue which I didn’t go into depth describing in the actual battle. These abilities won’t really be impactful on the actual battle, as most are non-combative, such as Drizzt’s Animal handling skills or Conan’s rock climbing abilities.
Prologue[]
Conan walked slowly across the cold expanse, the frosted grasses and think layer of crusted snow crunch crisply in the night. The sky was dark and overcast, but Conan didn't need a light source to see on this tundra. This land was just like his home of Cimmeria Up above the vast black sheet of clouds, Conan could see faint glimpses of moving light, a common phenomenon for lands this far north.
His thick woolen tunic and animal skin cloak concealed turned the harsher breezes, though he wore his shirt of black iron mail over his clothes. He grunted and he climbed a wide but relatively flat boulder, trying to get some vantage point to get a better grasp of the local area. He looked out across the flats, but only saw more wilderness.
"Damn." he said. He'd hoped that the settlement on his map would be close by. However, it appeared that the fort was even further North, too far North for him to arrive at that even. He sighed with disappointment, now realized he'd have to seek shelter in this frozen hell. He began to walk again, before something else caught his attention.
A scent was on the breeze, one which Conan recognized. "Meat." he thought. He could smell freshly cut venison of the air, likely only a few hours old. The smell was feint, meaning it's point of origin was far off. He looked back into the darkness, at first unable to see what he was looking for, before finally spotting a small, cloaked figure, only a few miles off behind him.
...
Drizzt stalked his path slowly, keeping his eyes low to the ground. While he could move around just fine in the darkness, his vision adapted for low light conditions, he had actively switched into his Infrared vision in order to spot anything prowling around in the darkness. Earlier that night, Drizzt had spotted the tracks of a wound caribou, and had only an hour before downed the beast. He had been trekking back to his den with the choicest cuts of his kill when he had spotted a new set of tracks
They were booted, human sized feet, heading due north. Drizzt new few men could survive in these cold wastes for long, not before the cold or one of the Ice Lizards got you. He decided to follow the tracks, as he knew he had time before sun up, and he didn't want to let some poor foolish soul get killed for no good reason out here.
Drizzt had been following the boot prints for over and hour before he knew he was getting close. While weak, his Infra-vision could pick up traces of heat on ground. "Fresh." he mumbled, before continuing forward. As he continued to move, the heat from the prints became less and less feint. This interloper was close, likely only a few hundred yards.
Drizzt could see a small mound up ahead, it's slopes covered in snow. The prints moved past it, inspiring Drizzt to move it. However, as he did, he felt as if something was wrong. He instinctively tensed, laying his hand on his off hand scimitar, as he dropped down to inspect the tracks. He moved slowly, up until he got to a point just past the mound, when he saw the tracks suddenly stop.
...
It was only the sound of Conan's sword exiting it's sheath that altered Drizzt to the attack. Like lightning, Drizzt instinctively turned, drawing his blade as the same time, as he saw a hulking barbarian flying down from the top of the mound, falling upon him like a Wraith. Drizzt barely had even a moment to block the incoming strike, with steel shrieking against steel as Conan barreled down on him.
Drizzt used the moment of the enemy's strike to himself fall back into a backwards tumble, landing on one knee facing his attack. He quickly offloaded his cache and drew his other blade. He could see the dull red outline of his foe cut against the darkness. The man was big, rugged, sporting a mane of wild hair, and carrying a mean looking broadsword.
Conan could make out his intended target in the darkess, his catlike eye's picking up on the small tracker's appearance. He was thin, lean, but athletic, with long white hair and dark black skin, his amaythst eyes cutting through the darkness like a raging fire.
"What sort of dark fiend are you?" Conan snarled. Drizzt couldn't understand the Barbarian's words, as he was speaking in a tongue unfamiliar to even him.
He poised himself in a loose guard, ready to fight back. Conan met his posture, holding his broadsword in a feral guard. Both men eyed the other, their night adapted eyes piercing the other like daggers. They both remained still for just a moment longer, before they both surged forwards.
Battle[]
...
Epilogue[]
...
Conclusion[]
...