Pictish Wilderness

The Pictish Wilderness is a country of the Hyborian Age.

Geography
Nobody knows much about this savage country. There are marshes and vast dense forests. Some legendary beasts survive there: saber-tooth tigers, ghost snakes, dire wolves.

The Pictish Wilderness stretches along the coast of Western Ocean. To the east lies Cimmeria, the country of their ancient enemies. Thunder River separates this land from Aquilonia to the south-east. Vanaheim is in the north. Zingara is in the south.

It's said that the lands of the Picts are rife with game and teeming with fish. It's known as a hunter's paradise, and the Picts have never developed animal husbandry or agriculture.

Population and culture

 * Main article: Picts

The Picts are an extremely primitive and barbaric people who live in clans, and are known to reproduce quickly. Extremely hostile to outside contact, they seem to be frozen in time, with no technological or cultural advancements. They are also often feuding or in outright war with other Pict tribes. They build tents of hides or live in crude huts. They mostly live by hunting. The Picts know how to plant grain, but prefer to steal it from their neighbors.

The Picts were eventually introduced to outside culture and technology by Arus, a Numedian priest who successfully contacted and lived in the Pictish Wilderness, teaching them of Mitra and how to mine and smelt the iron ore found in their hills. Arus inadvertently encouraged the Picts to migrate (as mercenaries) to the outer lands and to eventually invade and conquer them.

Stories set in the Pictish Wilderness

 * Beyond the Black River [wikisource]
 * The Black Stranger
 * Conan of Cimmeria: Volume Three (1935-1936) — Wolves Beyond the Border, Draft A
 * Conan of Cimmeria: Volume Three (1935-1936) — Wolves Beyond the Border, Draft B

Characters from the Pictish Wilderness

 * Zogar Sag — a shaman/wizard from Gwawela village who united about 16 clans and pushed the border to Thunder River.
 * Old Garogh - a shaman.
 * Gorm — a very successful chief.