Introduction
The Curse of the crimson God. Cross Plains Library has an original draft of this story.
Originally a Kirby O’Donnell story titled ‘The Trail of the Blood-Stained God’. It was re-written by L. Sprague de Camp into a Conan story titled ‘The Bloodstained God’. De Camp changed the names of the characters, added the sorcery elements, and recast the setting into Howard’s Hyborian Age. The story was first published in the hardbound collection Tales of Conan (Gnome Press, 1955), and subsequently appeared in the paperback collection Conan of Cimmeria (Lancer Books, 1969), as part of which it has been translated into German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian. The stories elements were used on the 1976 Peter Pan Records audio drama record: Conan the Barbarian, entitled The Jewel of the Ages.
Alternative titles:
THE BLOODSTAINED GOD and THE TRAIL OF THE BLOOD-STAINED GOD.
Published in:
- SWORDS OF SHAHRAZAR, Orbit, 1976
- SWORDS OF SHAHRAZAR, FAX, 1976
- SWORDS OF SHAHRAZAR, Berkley, March 1978
- TERRA FANTASY 80: DER SCHATZ DER TARTAREN, Erich Pabel Verlag KG, 1980 (German)
- KIRBY O’DONNELL, NeO, September 1984 (French, as “The Trail of the Blood-Stained God”)
- SWORDS OF SHAHRAZAR, Ace, November 1987
- SZABLE SZAHRAZARU, Wydawnictwo PiK, 1992 (Polish)
- THE CURSE OF THE CRIMSON GOD (MOICHANIE IDOLA), North-West, 1999 (Russian)
- EL BORAK AND OTHER DESERT ADVENTURES, Del Rey, February 2010 (as “The Trail of the Blood-Stained God”)
Re-written by L. Sprague de Camp into a Conan story titled “The Bloodstained God.” It appears in the following places:
- TALES OF CONAN, Gnome Press, 1955
- FANTASTIC UNIVERSE Volume 5 Number 3, King-Size Publications, April 1956
- CONAN OF CIMMERIA, Lancer, 1969
- CONAN OF CIMMERIA, Sphere, 1974
- CONAN VAN CIMMERIË, Zwarte Beertjes, 1976 (Dutch)
- SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN #9, Marvel, 1976
- CONAN OF CIMMERIA, Prestige, 1977
- CONAN EN DE KONINGIN VAN DE ZWARTE KUST, W & L Boeken, 1983 (Dutch)
- CONAN OF CIMMERIA, Ace, 1984
- THE CONAN CHRONICLES Volume 1, Sphere, August 1989
