Darfar
"He understood now (...) the riddle of the black drum thrumming out there beyond the palm groves, and that pit of charred bones -- that pit where strange meat might be roasted under the stars, while black beasts squatted about to glut a hideous hunger. The man on the floor was a cannibal slave from Darfar." -- Robert E. Howard: "Shadows in Zamboula"
A black kingdom of hot, humid jungle lying between Kush and Keshan, south of the Purple Lotus Swamp of central Stygia.
It is inhabited by cannibals and raided by slavers from Shem. The men dress up their hair with mud, building up a hornlike coiffure. Their teeth are filed. The cannibals live by hunting, as the tenets of Yog prevent them from eating any kind of plant. Their hunts for sacrifices prey on the weak and helpless, and even then three to four Darfar gang up on a single victim.
They have no domestic animals, and live in rough huts coated with dried mud in small villages of 40 to 80. These villages are occasionally raided by Stygian slavers, who sell them either in Stygia or in Shem and Turan.
Darfar has a great variety of wildlife. Lions prowl the jungle; small antelope are very common. The trees are filled with birds, monkeys and giant sloths. One kind of monkey, the waguke, is highly prized for its manlike form; the Darfar cannibals consider waguke brains a delicacy.
The natives of Darfar worship the demon-god Yog. The Darfar cannibals are the last remaining worshippers of Yog. The ancient Khari temples are still held sacred by the Darfar, although almost all of the spiritual implications of Yog worship have faded over the millennia, until all that remains are the forms and the blood lust. In Stygia, Yog is viewed as a demon subordinate to Set, and is assigned the spiritual task of consuming Set's enemies in the afterlife.
References: Hawks over Shem, Shadows in Zamboula, Conan the Buccaneer.
- Population: 890,000
- Capital: Gazal (pop. 34,000)
- Ruler: Various chieftains and priests of Yog
- Major cities: Tibu (pop. 11,000)
- Resources: None
- Imports: Bronze weapons
- Allies: The Ghanata slave lords and the masked Tibu tribes
- Enemies: Stygia, Kush, Keshan
- Tech level: Savage
- Religion: Yog