MORU

Moru was drawn up when CONAN THE ADVENTURER writer Roy Thomas wanted a supporting character to represent a "pict" in our story arc. He really wasn't a fully representational pict as history described them, but more of an amalgam of a savage Filipino tribesman and European picts.

When the Conquistadors first arrived in the Visayan islands of the Pacific they encountered fearsome warriors that were fully tattooed. They called them "Pintados" for the "painted ones".

That's where the idea of Moru came from, a pict that wasn't historically accurate (and some Robert E. Howard fans would probably debate whether his picts were as well) but embodied the same mentality. The one interesting detail was that the picts were also fully tattooed.

Historical Pict




I have been scanning some old originals and will post more of Moru and how he slowly evolved visually throughout the series.