Before Conan the Barbarian, Robert E. Howard created Kull the Conqueror, revealed later by Howard to be an ancestor of Conan. Kull, like Conan is a vicious and bloodthirsty barbarian but in some ways is a more contemplative and thoughtful character. In these, the first two Kull stories Howard published, we find Kull dealing with a conspiracy to murder him by a race of shapeshifting lizard people in "The Shadow Kingdom" and we see Kull contemplating his place in the world and even his own r...