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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

New Years Free Sword and Sorcery Download ~ The Solomon Kane Stories By Robert Howard

Available right over 
HERE
 Why not begin 2014 right with the two fisted tales of Robert E. Howard's Puritan Adventurer Solomon Kane!
Who is Soloman Kane?
He's one of Robert Howard's greatest creations ever to step foot off of the page and into the imaginations of a million readers or more since his introduction!
Solomon Kane is a fictional character created by the pulp-era writer Robert E. Howard. A late 16th/early 17th century Puritan, Solomon Kane is a somber-looking man who wanders the world with no apparent goal other than to vanquish evil in all its forms. His adventures, published mostly in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, often take him from Europe to the jungles of Africa and back.
Howard described him as a sombre and gloomy man of pale face and cold eyes, all of it shadowed by a slouch hat. He is dressed entirely in black and his weaponry usually consists of a rapier, a dirk, and a brace of flintlock pistols. During one of his latter adventures his friend N'Longa, an African shaman, gave him a juju staff that served as a protection against evil, but could easily be wielded as an effective weapon. It is revealed in another story, "The Footfalls Within", that this is the mythical Staff of Solomon, a talisman older than the Earth and unimaginably powerful, much more so than even N'Longa knew. In the same adventure with N'Longa, Kane is seen using a musket as well.
Kane's tales remain a favorite and he has his own role playing game but when I read of him in Appendix 'N' in the Advanced Dungeon's And Dragon's Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax ever so long ago. Kane was a stranger to me but after I read about his tales. Kane has remained a favorite and influence down through the ages. Here and there we see echoes of other Robert Howard creations surviving down through the ages into Kane's time and his journeys  into Darkest Africa.
 Kane's tales remain perfect fodder for a pistol and long gun style OD&D campaign which I've run many times. The facts are that Kane's adventures share as much in common with with many other Howard creations. I think part of the enduring charm of Solomon Kane is that he exists within the frame work history so to speak. He's not super human at all and indeed is an all too human hero even one that is wandering from one sunset to sun rise across the face of the Earth.
 Solomon Kane has it all from sword play, darkest magic, two different strains of vampires, incredible amounts of horror, ghosts, bits of Lovecraftian horror scattered throughout and lots of long gun actions as well the master hand of Robert Howard. They remain as they have always been old favorites of mine.
Happy New Years my friends and happy gaming in 2014 


Trademark on name Solomon Kane and the names of Robert E. Howard's other principal characters are claimed by Paradox Entertainment of Stockholm, Sweden, through its US subsidiary Paradox Entertainment Inc. Paradox also claims copyrights on the stories written by other authors under license from Solomon Kane Inc. Since Robert E. Howard published his Solomon Kane stories at a time when the date of publication was the marker, the owners had to use the copyright symbol, and they had to renew after a certain time to maintain copyright, the exact status of all of Howard's Solomon Kane works are in question.[7][8]
The Australian site of Project Gutenberg has many Robert E. Howard stories, including several Solomon Kane stories.[9] This indicates that, in their opinion, the stories are free from copyright and may be used by anyone, at least under Australian law.
Subsequent stories written by other authors are subject to the copyright laws of the relevant time.

 Since Robert E. Howard published his Solomon Kane stories at a time when the date of publication was the marker, the owners had to use the copyright symbol, and they had to renew after a certain time to maintain copyright, the exact status of all of Howard's Solomon Kane works are in question

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