Kull of Atlantis
A hypothetical timeline of Kull's life.
Timeline developed by
Dale E. Rippke
Disclaimer: the following is a conjectural timeline using the sources in the Kull saga by Robert E. Howard and Lin Carter. Nothing in this chronology should be considered official, although I attempted to make it as accurate as possible. At the bottom of the list are a list of notes about the placements.
| Key: | Meaning: |
|---|---|
| * | Unfinished story written by Robert E. Howard and later completed by Lin Carter |
| Estimated Age | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Birth | Kull is born to a woman of the Tiger Valley tribe of Atlantis. | |
| 3 | The Tiger Valley tribe is destroyed in a terrible flood. Kull survives and becomes a feral child, running with tigers and wolves. | |
| 6 | Kull is captured by men of the Sea-Mountain tribe and is adopted by them. | |
| 16 | Exile of Atlantis | Kull interferes with an execution and is forced to flee Atlantis. |
| Kull falls captive to the Lemurians and serves as a slave, chained to the oars of a galley. | ||
| 18 | Kull wins his freedom and becomes a Lemurian pirate. | |
| 20 | Due to his boldness and prowess in battle, Kull becomes the captain of his own pirate galley. He ranges the Atlantean Sea, from harassing the far Isles of Sunset to raiding settlements along the coast of the Thurian continent as far south as the southern jungles. | |
| 23 | After his galley is sunk off the coast of Valusia, Kull flees inland and becomes an outlaw in the hills of Zalgara. | |
| 24 | Kull is captured and confined in Valusia's dungeons. Given the choice of execution or service in the gladitorial arena, he chooses the latter. | |
| 26 | Kull's prowess as a gladiator makes him famed throughout the City of Wonders. | |
| 27 | He is befriended by Murom bora Ballin, who helps gain Kull his freedom. Sensing opportunities, Kull enlists in the Great Army of Valusia, and begins to rise through the ranks. | |
| 29 | The Curse of the Golden Skull | Due to his familiarity with the Isles of Lemuria, Kull is sent by King Borna to aid Lemuria's king in defeating the renegade sorcerer, Rotath. |
| 30 | Upon his return, Kull is promoted to commander of the mercenary forces in the Great Army of Valusia. | |
| 31 | With the backing of the mecenaries and certain discontented Valusian noblemen, Kull strikes for the Topaz Throne. He slays the despotic King Borna and rips the crown from his gory head. Kull crowns himself King of Valusia. Over the next six months his army puts down anarchy and all counter-rebellions and welds Valusia back into one piece. Internationally, he breaks the back of the Triple Federation and crushes the power of the Grondarians. | |
| 32 | The Shadow Kingdom | Shortly after his triumphant return to the City of Wonders, Kull learns of a threat to his throne by a race called "the Snake that Speaks," also known as Serpent-men. He narrowly averts disaster with the aid of Brule the Spear-slayer, a Pictish warrior. |
| Kull begins a campaign to eradicate the serpent-men from the cities of Valusia. | ||
| 33 | Delcardes' Cat | Kull delights in a talking cat and incurrs the emnity of the dreaded sorcerer, Thulsa Doom. |
| The (Screaming) Skull of Silence | Kull battles the Spectre of Silence after freeing it from its age-old prison. | |
| Kull winds up his campaign against the serpent-men as they flee to the hidden corners of Thuria and bother Valusia no longer. | ||
| 34 | *Riders Beyond the Sunrise | Kull lets his vengeance lead him to the World's Edge, where he battles Thulsa Doom for the final time. |
| *The Black Abyss | Kull takes a vacation in the pleasure-city of Kamula. | |
| 35 | By This Axe I Rule! | An assassination attempt empowers Kull to raise the King's Will above the Rule of Custom in Valusia. |
| The Altar and the Scorpion | Kull forbids human sacrifice within the borders of Valusia, and rides at the head of his army to enforce the edict. | |
| 36 | Kull's rule has made Valusia prosperous. It is a time of peace and quiet. The storehouses are bulging with grain, trading ships ride heavy with cargo, merchants are growing rich, and the people are happy and well fed. | |
| 37 | *Wizard and Warrior | Brule reminisces about his coming of age. |
| 38 | Swords of the Purple Kingdom | A Verulian plot to usurp the Topaz Throne is swiftly averted. |
| 39 | The King and the Oak | Adventures on the road to the sea. |
| 40 | The Striking of the Gong | Kull begins to ponder the concept of reality after an assassination attempt becomes a metaphysical excursion. |
| 42 | Kings of the Night | In an event that leaves him amazed and bewildered, Kull is transported through time to fight a Roman army on the side of the Pictish King, Bran Mak Morn. |
| 44 | The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune | A subtle assassination plot, with Kull nearly ensnared by the enchanted mirrors of Tuzon Thune. Thus ends the Saga of Kull the King. |
Legends of King Kull
| Estimated Age | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 31 | Kull the Conqueror | Alternate timeline only, as it doesn't fit in plausibly with the Kull's Saga by directly conflicting with too many other stories, most notably the evil empire of Acheron existing 3000 years before the story, when in reality it didn't exist until nearly 3000 years after the Great Cataclysm. |
Notes on the Saga
I've placed Curse of the Golden Skull before Kull's kingship due to the story's internal evidence. 1st point is that Kull is never directly referred to as a king, only as Kull of Atlantis. The 2nd point is even vaguer. The King of Lemuria requests help from "foreign kings." While this might be interpreted as referring to Kull, I think that it would be highly unlikely for Kull to travel halfway around the world to kill a wizard that hadn't posed a threat to him (Riders Beyond the Sunrise notwithstanding). However, if King Borna was asked to send help to defeat the wizard, he may well have sent Kull, the ex-Lemurian pirate. The one man in his army with relatively current knowledge of the ways of the Lemurian Isles. Also, if Kull's popularity was propelling him upward in rank and prestige, sending him on a dangerous adventure away from Valusia would have been a politically astute move on Borna's part.
Black Abyss was placed after Riders Beyond the Sunrise because after the long and weary trek back to Valusia from the Edge of the World, Kull was probably in need of a good vacation.
I've placed The Altar and the Scorpion after By This Axe I Rule because it is a good example of Kull putting the King's Will into action. Valusia either didn't have laws forbidding human sacrifice, or had laws upholding the practice. Either way, Kull saw fit to change the law to his own way of thinking.
In The Striking of the Gong, Kull learns that reality is much more subjective than he ever realized. All of the stories after this episode explore this theme to one degree or another, showing Kull getting progessively more introspective the older he gets.
I've ended the last Kull story, The Mirrors of Tuzon Thune, with the good King at the same age as Robert E. Howards other king, Conan of Aquilonia, in his last appearence in Hour of the Dragon. It gives the Saga a esthetic sense of symmetry.
Finally, my thoughts on Baron Kaanuub of Blaal. There are some questions as to why Kull let him live after the events of By This Axe I Rule. A careful reading of the story shows that there is really only hearsay evidence implicating Kaanuub in the plot. Everyone with any direct knowledge is dead. In basic terms, it would come down to Kaanuub's word against that of a slave-girl. Remember, Kull has been told by Tu on many occasions that Valusia will rise in revolt with even the smallest violation of its traditions. I think Kull was astute enough to realize that if he took the word of a slave over that of a noble, he would have a real rebellion on his hands in short order. It might be better to keep the Baron on a short leash by telling him the King knows of his part in the conspiricy.
The assassination attempt in The Striking of the Gong may or may not have had Kaanuub's backing behind it. We are not told who the instigator was. Someone pretty high up would have had to be involved to place the assassin in the palace. If so, Kaanuub covered his tracks pretty well.
The last recorded attempt was much more subtle. If Brule hadn't pulled Kull's fat out of the fire, he would have disappeared into the mirrors of Tuzon Thune. Once again it would have been the word of a slave-girl against that of the Baron. At this point I'm sure Kull would have been getting more than a bit tired of Baron Kaanuub's plots against him. A direct move against Kaanuub would make Kull appear to behave no better than the despotic King Borna. It may well have been time for Kull and Brule to make a midnight visit to the Baron's estate. Problem solved.
12/29/98 02:27 PM
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