Ultimate Guide to Khitai Quests (max rewards per hour)

A while ago I did a guide on how to get MOAs in Khitai (the guide is horribly outdated). I wasn't quite satisfied with that guide because it was about me trying to squeeze the best MOA per hour out of the factions I have picked for the gear they were offering. There had to be a better way. During my total faction switch I have discovered new and interesting quests and figured out the best possible way to chain them together to create optimal results. This guide will provide you with step-by-step tips on how to gain, in my humble opinion, the maximal rewards out of 1 hour playing session in Khitai.

Before we go any further I would like to state that this whole thing has been researched and written from the perspective and experience of a veteran Assassin with loads of AA points and mostly epic Khitai gear. I cannot tell if what I am describing below is do-able for other classes or with slightly lower amount of AA and gear score. Probably is, so worth a shot, ain't it?

Completing the quests in this guide should take around 55m-60m. This is how I am doing my solo PVE in Age of Conan: I have about an hour to play in the morning so I have been always looking to get the most out of my gaming. I suppose you could tweak the quest rotation to get even more MOAs, but without the Refuge instance and with Paikang included. I highly recommend doing Refugee runs, especially for casual players that will never do any Hard Mode runs. Just by doing daily Refuge runs I was able to buy 2 Khitai epics and the bag drops alone are worth the effort. I am giving out some tips on 3 quests that you can do while following my guide, but completing them would take little more than an hour (probably something around 1,20h). I am calling those "extra quests". The thing with extra quests is that during your 1h run you will always kill 2-3 mobs that are required for "extra quests" so you will do those quests eventually, as a result of your normal questing.

If you are an assassin you might want to consider the build I have suggested for solo PVE in Khitai.

What you will need:
Hyrkanians - rank 2
Brittle Blade - rank 2
Scarlet Circle - rank 2
Children of Yag-Kosha rank 2
Jiang Shi - maxed out (not sure about this)
 

Wagoner route maps - my guide uses very interesting mechanic that is present in Kara Korum. This zone has only one fast travel NPC which allows you to use Route Maps (can be bought from NPC standing next to wagoner)  to "jump" around the map, saving you a lot of time.
Swift Horse - you need to be fast in order to get all the quests done in 1 hour.
Accelerated Feat - use it whenever you can to get around faster.
Pots and Food
Path of Asura bound to village in Grass Lands
Veteran reward path to Chosain
 

Here is what I had before I began my 1h run:

Gold: 44g 47silver
Insignias: 94
Marks of Acclaim: 282
Rare Tokens: 49

 

 1. First you start in Grasslands. Bind yourself to this place if you haven't already.

2. Mount up and ride to Kara Korum. The entrance is very close.

3. Talk to Scarlet Circle NPC in Kara Korum and take "The Backbone of Khitai" quest. You will need to gather 30 bones from humanoid NPC. Don't worry, you will get those bones in Refugee solo instance.

4. Talk to Brittle Blade NPC and take "The Bones of the warriors". This is extra quest that you might want to do, but it is not in my rotation.

5. Talk to Children of Yag-kosha NPC and take "Lost Logs" and "Furnace of Fengu" quests.

6. Go around and pick up corpses.

7. Talk to Jiang Shi NPC and take "Infinite Matters of Trust" quest. You might also want to take extra quest which name I cannot remember (I had it on cooldown). You need to kill 30 Kang Zai and loot their skulls.

8. Jump down and burn the corpses on the pyre.

9. Go back to the entrance and talk to Jiang Shi NPC. She will follow you. Don't run too fast or the quest will fail.

10. Take the Jian Shi NPC to the entrance to the village. Be prepared to fight two weak NPCs.

11. Finish the quest and mount up. Next stop: the Palace.

12. Following the route shown above will take you safely to the corrupted village near the palace.

13. Talk to Children NPC and take "The Endless Curse of the Crater" quest.

14. Dig up the near-by treasure.

15. Use the "cure" on the neutral corrupted NPCs. Attack them and kill as soon as you have used the cure on them.

16. Return the quest to Children NPC. 

17. Mount up and ride to the palace.

18. In palace talk to Brittle Blade NPC and take "The Pride of Pra-Eun". I will give the name of this NPC because she is so freaking cool: Szeto.

 19. Go to the top floor of the palace and talk to Scarlet Circle NPC. Take the "Disarming the Defectors" and "Deciphering Reality" quests.

20. Use your Route Map scroll and you will be instantly ported to Fengu village.

21. Mount up and ride to the Ghost Hill.

21. Along the way, without dismounting, click two times on "Lost Villager" NPC. This will complete the quest for Szeto (do we love her or what?)

22. Ride to the Ghost Hill taking the route near the Living Forest. If you have armored horse or any other mount with added protection from knocking you off it NOW is the time to change the mounts. There will be loads of NPC trying to kill you, be sure to use accelerated and cat's paw if you are an assasssin.

23. In the Ghost Hill village pick up the medical logs and loot the hidden chest.

24. Dig up the treasure and pick up quest for the Brittle Blade. Turn around and run to the entrance to the Refugee of Apostate while killing the ghosts and picking up medical logs for the Children quest ("Lost Logs") until you are done.

25. Talk to the NPC near the entrance to the Refugee of the Apostate and take "The Collector's Agent" quest. I firmly believe that this quest is "broken" because it gives 1 insignia (I suppose it was intended to give 10). We will NOT go back from the instance to return this quest. You will finish it during your next 1 hour run.

26. Enter the solo instance. You will get bones for the "Backbone of Khitai" by killing NPC in here. Proceed to kill the Corpse Walker boss firs.

27. Fight your way to the maze. The screenshots show you the order in which you must use the switches to pass trought.

28. Before you enter the room with the boss use mouse scroll to zoom in to the "First Person Perspective" mode at pay close attention to the NPCs. The real Boss will be clapping. Remember which NPC clapped.

29. In the nightmare you need to reach the spots with the light and then use dubble tap backwards as the Boss try to knock you back. Make use you dubble tap in a direction that will allow you to land on the ground :X If you are an assassin then use accelerated and just run through the nightmare giving the Boss the finger.

30. Attack only the Boss that previously clapped. Use crossbow to get thim in the middle. If you are an assassin then this is simple tank&spank Boss. As the Boss prepares to unleash his devastating magical attack use Dull Pain to mitigate 90% of the damage and again, make sure to flip him off.

31. Loot the Boss, take notes and use portal to the palace.

32. Mount up and run to the palace. Talk to Szeto and return the quest. Run to the top floor. Talk to Scarlet Circle NPC and return the quests. Use Route Map to port to the Fengu village.

33. While in Fengu you can take extra quest "Collection of Cacti" from the quest board. The quest can be taken from the poster in the middle. If you didn't get the right quest first time then delete whatever quest you have taken and try again. Mount up and ride outside the village until you reach the statue (very close), jump behind the fence and ride down to the area where Kang Zais are.

 34. Ride until you reach the end of the map. You can now do your extra quests: pick up cactai, kill the boss (for the chest) and then kill 30 Kang Zai. If you want to do the quests in 1h then skip this part and go to number 35.

35. Click on the circle and that will spawn Kang Zai. Run away from the spawned Kang Zai until you have lost the aggro and hide. Use you path to Shaulun.

36. In Shaulun take the quest "Bloodshed in the shadows" off the board and then talk to Brittle Blade NPC for the quests "Bloody Bargains" and "Contract killer".

37. Take the scrolls of the shelves to spawn the random quests. All of them are similarly fast and easy except "Kill Jiang Shi in Chosain". If you get the Jian Shi quest then delete it and talk to NPC to take the quest again. Repeat until you get new quest (should be pretty fast 2-4 tries max).

38. Kill 12 Shadows of Jade NPCs in their base and then, depending on your other 2 quests, kill the Kai-xi and the recruiter.  Killing family members or the Herbailist is exacly as easy.

39. Return the quests to Brittle Blade NPC and then use your Path of Asura to port back to Grasslands.

40. Talk to the Children of Yag-kosha NPC and take "Demon in Disguise" quest. Take the flasks and run up the nearby stairs to the House of Healing.

41. In the House of Healing talk to the NPCs. The last NPC is upstairs and he is bugged (no "?" will be shown above his head), but talk to him anyway. After the dialog ends the priest of Yun NPC spawns. Kill him and run downstairs to the quest giver.

42. Return the quest and run towards the Hyrkanian camp.

43. Mount up and ride to the Hyrkanian camp. Switch your main weapon to crossbow. It is VITAL that you talk to NPC and take the quests in the order shown above because one quest has a time take will start asap you take it. Talk to Hyrkanian female NPC and take "Venom in the Blood". Talk to the bold male NPC and take "A Hard Course" first and then "The Stallion" and lastly "Target Practice".

44. Ride around the camp and shoot up the dummies. Then take the course challenge. Use accelerated to beat the clock.

45. Time to tame a stallion. Dismount and shot one of the large, black horses with a crossbow. The horse will aggro, separate from the pack and attack you. Use your whip (given by the NPC) and then use cat's paw and stay with active blocking up until the whip goes off the cooldown. The horse is immiune to CCs and you should NOT attack it. Use pots. The horse should be tamed after several whip hits. Run with the stallion to the nearby field where the demons are.

46. Find a snake and hit him with only your weapon ("white hits") in one direction so his shields stack up. You want all shields to be in same direction as you are hitting. The snake should NOT die. Keep hitting the snake until you get the nasty debuff and CC it and run away or kill it. Run back with your horse to the Hyrkanian Camp.

47. Again the order in which you return the quests  is VITAL because you could lose the stallion. First go near the bald male NPC so the stallion disappears. Then return the snake quest to the female and THEN talk to male NPC to return all 3 quests.

48. Mount up and ride to the Kara Korum.

49.In Fengu village kill random NPC for the Birttle Blade quest you picked up in Ghost Hill.

50. In Fengu village return the quests to Scarlet Circle NPC, to Brittle Blade NPC, to Children of Yag-Kosha NPC and to Jiang Shi NPC.  Open your expedition packs and the sell all random loot to the NPC. Buy back 2 wagoner route maps for future use. That is it!

The Stats:

Gold: 46g 51 silver - 44g 47silver = 2g 2 silver earned (extra quests would add 20 silver more)
Insignias: 103 - 94 =  9 gained (extra quest would add 7 more)
Marks of Acclaim: 554- 282 = 272 gained (extra quests would add 38 more).
Rare Tokens: 51 - 49 = 3 gained

Expedition packs = 10 looted

What mysteries do you guard, Wise Devil?

There are no screenshots for you in this post because of this:

The new content in this update, including everything in the Savage Coast of Turan, is considered to be protected under the EULA that you accept when you launch the game on Testlive. (See the section of the EULA quoted at the end of this post). If you upload any videos or screenshots of the new content on Testlive to any third party site, or if you link any posted video or screenshots on any other site, it will be considered a breach of the EULA and your accounts can be permanently

If you want to check the visuals then go to this thread on TL forums. No TL access? Sux2bUm8 and I guess you will have to settle for my mad, mad ramblings.

Welcome to the savage coast..

The Ardashir is a port city. It is by no means the capital of Turan nor one of it's major cities (such as Akif). By AOC game standards I would say the city itself is somewhat smaller than Khemi. Visually it very much resembles the architecture of Turkey or Emirates and it is what Turan should be. The city itself is "integrated" into the zone so it works very much as cities in Khitai: you can do quest/pvp inside city, but you can also, without any loading, go out side. Both new raid zone and group instance are close by and accessible. You can also go to the port and take one of the two boats (sadly "take" means "click on") to the new solo instances. The zone itself is quite massive with diverse landscape. Surprisingly you will have a chance to interact (one way or another) with some of the most famous "factions" (in traditional sense, not Khitai grind :X) in the Hyboria: the Black Seers of Yimsha (check People Of The Black Circle), the Red Brotherhood (Shadows In The Moonlight) and the Kozaki (A Witch Shall Be Born). Hell, even our good friends Children of Yag-Kosha from Khitai (far, far to the east, beyond the devil haunted towers of Zamora and wind toss waves of the Vilayet sea) make an appearance. Sadly it is a lvl50 zone when it comes to out door PVE. I myself can see several reasons for that decision:

1.     movie tie-in - it is quite possible that the devs want to put people drawn into Age of Conan by the movie into familiar setting fast. It would be awkward to say: "loved the movie? want to see what happens 20 years later? Ding lvl80 and then grind Khitai for 4-7 months and come see the Savage Coast". I think not :P
2.     F2P casual population - I believe (and I am pulling this straight out of my ass) that the large chunk of F2P people will be in their 40-50' levels as the adventure pack hits live server.
3.     Free level 50 character - Again Funcom is going to give us a free, instant 50 lvl character as they did after 1.5 (so says Massively)
4.     Problems with 80 lvl content - I firmly believe that Funcom shot itself in the foot with Khitai expansion AA system. It can only be fixed by next expansion that is going to introduce 10 new lvls. You see there is an ocean of difference between 80lvl character and 80lvl Khitai veterans and I am not talking only about the gear. Having 80lvl population being split into several smaller groups (freshly dinged 80lvl, Khitai Beginners, Khitai advanced players and Veterans with most AA stuff unlocked) makes creating new content extremely difficult. Example? Refuge of Apostate instance: my assassin kills the last boss with 90% hp in about 20s (without breaking any sweat), other players need 1g HP pots running and some luck to bring him down and sometime several tries 0_o. Then again the new "Breach" and "Forgotten City" content is useless for me because the mobs can die due to my character talking too loudly or farting. Same will happen to the new "Isle of the Iron Statues" solo instance: the monkey boss gave me hell and I cannot see someone having problems with "Refuge" attempting this with much success. In other words: the 80lvl content is either too hard or too easy for 80lvl character depending on their progression in Khitai. Perhaps future expansion, by adding 10 new levels, will make all the AA progression giving players about +5% in total power (it is MUCH more than that now) and the end game content will be made same for everyone.

Fort of Ardashir

I will defiantly give this instance a try. As I was typing this the www.mmorpg.com posted an exclusive on this. So far no word on the lootie, but I would be horribly horribly disappointed if it was lower on the power scale than whatever Khitai has to offer. Oh and there is a new type of tokens: "golden taurus" (seriously Funcom don't we have enough of those already?), but I firmly believe those will be for raiding.

The Dead Man's Hand

The most interesting and bold content so far. Basically it is a "private" solo zone that will scale depending on your level. It is, however, by no means "a villa" type of place, but rather a large quest hub with several quest givers, main story line with a lot of side-stories. The island itself is very "moody" with dark clouds hanging above the pirate island. I am getting Tortuga vibe from it. I don't know the replay-a-bilitiy (is there such a word? Probably not) of this content, but it looks very cool.

The Isle of the Iron Statues

This one is very well done. It is a solo instance aimed at veterans. It has several bosses and it gives 2-3 rare tokens, some undisclosed items and social gear (I got some nice turban on my first run). First of all it is deeply rooted in the lore as it's an island from "Shadows In The Moonlight" story. Funcom, as always, does banging job with the immersion and the creative use of REH writing: when you take first step in this instance a parrot will fly by and scream: "Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla". Sounds familiar?

""Crom!" muttered the Cimmerian. "Here is the grandfather of all parrots. He must be a thousand years old! Look at the evil wisdom of his eyes. What mysteries do you guard, Wise Devil?" Abruptly the bird spread its flaming wings and, soaring from its perch, cried out harshly: "Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla!" and with a wild screech of horribly human laughter, rushed away through the trees to vanish in the opalescent shadows.".

Visually it is pleasing, but somewhat similar to "Dead Man's Hand" instance.

In closing:

The Savage Coast looks like a pretty sweat addition to the Age of Conan and us actually watching the movie and knowing all the tie-ins can only make it sweeter. I can only hope that it is going to replace my Khitai questing routine (as I can barely stand that place anymore). I give my firm support to FC's idea of adventure packs: the more the packs the more Hyboria we will be given chance to see.

 

PvP - on a stranger tides

Monthly development update is in and, as foretold by Shaggy, it pretty much covers PvP additions/changes for the upcoming months. Let's go over these, shall we? (not that you have a choice).

Systems and Balance updates

Funcom already has proven that they are ready to take Age of Conan into a new, bold places and kick PVE in the nuts while doing so. Proof? The freaking CC changes. Thank you. Indeed there are many fixes and changes to be made in order to make more feats/perks viable choices in PvP. Rogue general tree would be such example and many, many other in Assassin tree. Good to hear that FC is willing to get down and dirty with most mundane of problems.

Resurrection system in mini-games
This one is pretty weird. Right now if you die you respawn and can re-joing the fray almost instantly. I would assume that FC will allow you only to respawn when every member of your team is dead? Sounds like slowing down the action....a lot. But on another hand it would enforce making tactical choices more meaningful. Example: the whole team bashing Priest of Mitra to a bloody pulp for 2 minutes only to find him re-joing the fight in less than 10s. Not with the proposed system. It would also make "kamikaze" style of play less effective (many assassins are guilty of this) because there would be penalty for dieng. I had my feel of this kind of game play when back on 1.6 on TL server assassins were losing all their shards upon death so it was very beneficial to last long in minis. It was a very different and intberesting experience. Honestly I can go both ways, bring it!

Tracking system & Stealth system

I would say it was most surprising and pleasing part of the letter. Both of those mechanics are CORE to the Age of Conan system and I would rather expect the Devs to roll back the game to 1.4 than to even touch that with a stick. And yet here we are. I find both of those features broken beyond belief and ruining open world pvp. Whatever changes we will get will be welcomed ones. One can only hope that the stealth changes will bring something new and interesting to assassin table. The stealth should be the name of OUR game, the rangers can keep some sort of nerfed tracking and the rest, I hope, will get shafted.

Animation and Combat updates

This will address the issue-we-are-not-speaking about. Oh wait, I am not on a forums right now? I meant the fucking combo skipping exploit. Some classes (like assassin) can literally shave-off good chunk of their combo animation while dealing same damage. Hell, assassins can skip the whole animation on Deaths Whirlwind, making the damage instant. On another hand some combo animations are so long that it really discourages the usage of such combos (Castration being one of those). The changes will make the combat more fluid, dynamic and above all: fair.

New PVP content - World bosses incoming...

"These massive foes will spawn in locations in the Border Kingdoms, and will challenge players to organise to take them down. However, they will always appear in an open and unrestricted PVP setting, so anyone wishing to take them on will have to compete with their fellow players as well.

It also appealed on the nostalgia level, many of us on the team have fond memories of pitched battles over open world bosses or locations that you used to see in games like Anarchy Online and Dark Age of Camelot, and we want to try and reproduce that feeling for this addition.

So the next content addition will take the form of new PVP world bosses that will appear in the other Border Kingdoms."

Ok, I won't go "HOLY CRAP" on you and freak out (althou I would really like to). I have never experienced this kind of content in other games, however these are my 2 cents:

Like many I have full time job and family to take care of. I do only pvp/solo pve in MMOs for various reasons, but above all because this kind of content is always available to me regardless what time I log on. So rather making my schedule fit Age of Conan I have made Age of Conan fit my schedule.

On a side note: I am very much aware that people with same lives have also found a way to fit Age of Conan into their lives. We have, however, different approaches to this: I rather have small gaming time here and there and some enjoy having only 1-2 "raiding nights" during the week.

Back to the bosses:
Creating pvp content that can only be done in specific time frame ultimately will "force" me to show up at certain hour in order to participate in it.

This will not be an addition to pvp that I could enjoy on a daily basis. And we all know its all about ME (My Enjoyment).

It would be "ok" to have this kind of "PvP raid bosses" as a minor and just one of many pvp additions that will be made during the year. But it seems like this will not be a minor addition and nor one of many in 2011.

In other words: if this content is "time frame exclusive" I am stuck with same minigames for 4th year in a row.

I REALLY want to see this in action, but as many have suggested this content might be very hard to implement in a game without two opposing factions. What will stop the major guild from "sharing" the bosses, picking the days in a week when each of the guild downs the boss? Obviously we know very little about this content, but just having it "time frame exclusive" (and I cannot imagine FC going any other route) makes me go QQ. Time will tell (as it always does).

PvP level 9

Ok so it is here: old school, purely minigame-grown pvp lvl 9. It is also the very first level in my Age of Conan gaming that didn't give me squat. Nada! I have no desire for Bori gear (the stats difference is marginal at best anyway) so there is absolutely no benefit for me for reaching this level. That's some damn good game design!

However I have noticed a MAJOR shift in minigames quality on Fury: much less ass-hats, less complaining, better team work.
I remember how horrified I was when for the first few days on Fury I have seen people going for kills and nothing else. Such is no longer the case.

Overall getting to pvp 9 was suprisingly easy and fast.For the duration of the last 20% I was using pvp xp books and cash-shop pvp pots, but the rest of the level was pretty much unbuffed.

Another thing was how pleasurable and more skill based the pvp has become after the CC changes. Honestly I cannot simply imagine how we could ever have played this game in any other way that with casting time and being able to knock back all the classes.

Even the dreadful SAG 12 vs 12 minigame got improved since its initial launch and it is no longer "rush center + keep that sucker".

It is all good, but sadly there is simply no carrot to be had in this scenario: I will push pvp lvl 10 eventually and it will be pretty much same as getting lvl 9 with no reward waiting for me in the end. Part of the fun in pushing the pvp level progression was getting that sweet, sweet piece of lootie and  non-Bori players are deprived of that "completion" feeling that was always associated with dining another pvp level.

And I don't expect Funcom to shower me with purplezz(ororor0r0r0r0z)  at every level so I can

overpower any player that hasn't been pvping since 2008, but how hard would it be to allow me to buy new hair style, tattoo, social cloak or a pvp mount (yeah, where are THOSE?). You know: all the fluffy stuff that makes your e-peen all that little bigger.

And last, but not least: the tournament mode. It was supposedly designed as "Premade vs Premade minigames for bragging rights". That "bragging rights" made me go "oh noes!". Yep, that is a key word for "it will suck".

Since patch went live I couldn't get A SINGLE game in the tournament mode.  Everytime there is a team signed you can bet its a Bori farmed pvp lvl 10s with pretty much perfect setup when it comes to class composition. In opposite corner we have: you and pvp lvl 3 friends and no tank. Enjoy! The rewards are also the same which says: more work, more preparation, harder fights for.... same reward. Totally makes sense. How come developers can think of "Hardmodes" with epic rewards for those that are willing to put in a little more effort, but the same rule cannot be applied to pvp. Remove hardmore tokens and epic items from Hardmodes and make them "for bragging rights" and see how many Pvers will flood those instances.

Bragging rights my ass!

Update Notes 2.7 - 20th of July [Assassin]

Assassin

• Grave's Blossom and Death Whirlwind have been adjusted. They will now scale somewhat differently for 1-4 Soul Fragments, and should still do about the same for 5 Soul Fragments. Both these combos will now also hit a second target with full damage, but will follow the normal rules for damage reduction on any targets beyond the second.
• Grave's Blossom and Death Whirlwind damage has been reduced, but will now hit two targets with 100% damage.
• Fixed an issue where the cone for Grave's Blossom was skewed and would pick targets on the assassin's right side.

I will be posting assassin related patch notes under "Patch Notes" so returning assassins will have easy time checking out what has changed.

Total rebuild

As you can see I have done some re-designing on the blog (if you can use that word in relation to messing around with blogger's settings). Mainly I have ripped down the tag system and went for "folders". Here is what you will find in those categories: News - all the recent information from me, devs or straight forum madness Rants - me giving you pice of my mind on various topics PVE - all things PVE from exploration to content review and events PVP - all things PVP so it is like PVE, but better (coz its PVP) Podcast - things I do in my car when no one is watching (just kidding, I am doing it even when someone does) Archive - placeholder for out-of-date guides. This way all the stuff published in other categories will be applicable to the current state of the game. Guides - all my guides that you can find on official forums. All up to date. Bombay Sin - all the silly stuff that is still worth keeping, but won't fit any other category Lore - books, comics, movies, the works! Hope that now the blog will be a little more user friendly. On the totally unrelated topic: I have tried Facebook and I hate it :X Thank you!

 

Age of Conan: The God in the Moon

After reading all of REH Conan books I have been left hungry for more. Naturally I have turned to other, numerous Conan books, but quickly realized that those are poo (and by that I mean shit).

Not only the authors butchered Conan character (Conan praying to Crom? Me not think so!), but also continuously shown lack of basic knowledge about Hyboria.

Enter   Age of Conan: The God in the Moon by Richard A. Knaak.

The book is about Nermesa Klandes, young noble officer in the army of Aquilonia. The young lad idolizes Conan and joins the army to fight picts in the battlefields of the Westermarck.

First of all the story takes place in the pictish wilderness. I didn't enjoy this setting whole lot in the "Beyond the Black River" so I might be biased towards "The God in the Moon" because of that. Like Picts? Then you will digg this.

The story unfolds very, very slowly and for the most part of the first chapters its a yawn-fest. But then again Mr. Knaak did very well when describing the sword fights and battles. It's not REH, but still very dynamic style of writing.

The book's strong points is that it is very well researched. At first it seemed like the author is trying to put as many Hyborian words in the first chapters as possible (Bossonians, Gundermen, The Iron Tower etc.), but as the story unfolds it becomes more and more subtle. I have really enjoyed how old pict was talking about distant future when they bring down Aquilonia (check The Hyborian Age).

The author also did justice to Conan. The King makes short appearance, and pretty much acts as Conan. Zenobia also is portrayed in "The God..", but the author clearly drew his inspiration from Dark Horse comics, by showing that Conan threats her as his equal (which doesn't come up in REH story). Whatever, both Dark Horse and Marvel (King Conan series) did it so I guess it is ok.

The only thing that really annoyed me in this book was author overusing "blurry shadow leaped from the tree" motive. Seriously, if you were taking a shot of vodka every time someone jumped down from the tree you could get yourself pretty messed up.

Verdict: The book is entertaining in it's decency. Its decent at best, but it seems to be sufficient.

If you have finished up with all REH stuff give those books a try.