Editing Conan the Barbarian (section)

==Influences on Later Works==
As one of the earliest examples of fantasy fiction, published even before [[The Lord of the Rings]] (and The Hobbit), Conan had a huge influence on the genre. The most obvious example is creating the cliche of the "savage but honourable barbarian hero"; without Conan, there would be no [[Barbarian]] class in D&D or [[Space Wolves]] in 40k.

While the Fellowship of the Ring can be argued to be the original adventuring party (being a group of heroes of different species and classes united for a single quest), Conan himself is arguably the first proper "adventurer", being a lone wandering mercenary who travels the world slaying monsters and looting treasure. Given how he never settles down until he becomes a king in his forties and how he is very openly a self-serving thief/pirate/bandit, you can go futher and call Conan the first [[Murderhobo]].

In addition, the Conan stories were perhaps some of the earliest examples of the [[Dungeon Crawling|dungeon crawl]]. Many stories involved Conan exploring some ancient ruin or haunted dungeon that is protected by monsters and deadly traps, sometimes motivated by the presence of a great treasure hidden within.

[[Frazetta Man]] also owes its existence to the many "ape-men", creatures halfway in evolution between human and ape that were Conan's third most common foes after giant serpents and evil sorcerers. The most famous of these was Thak from "Rogues in the House", who interestingly had his intelligence heavily emphasized to the point where Conan himself respected him and said "I have slain a man tonight, not a beast".