Quote Originally Posted by Taranaich
Full plate as seen in high-late middle ages is described:

At her command they brought harness to replace Conan's chain-mail - gorget, sollerets, cuirass, pauldrons, jambes, cuisses and sallet. When Yasmela again drew the curtains, a Conan in burnished steel stood before his audience. Clad in the platearmor, vizor lifted and dark face shadowed by the black plumes that nodded above his helmet, there was a grim impressiveness about him that even Thespides grudgingly noted. - Black Colossus

That's probably the most extensive description of plate, but since Khoraja was a small Hyborian kingdom it's logical that the plate-mail referenced by the more powerful and lucrative kingdoms would be of a similar type. Plus Tarascus is described as "clad in black plate", and Conan wore "full plate" in Hour of the Dragon, so it's pretty much a given that the great and the good of at least Aquilonia, Nemedia and the Kothic realms had full plate for their knights.
Yeah, thanx again for the references, it has been some time since I read the original and older books, although I have read some of the newer knock-offs and have all the books, original, older, and newer, mostly in PB except. Khoraja was small, could have used mercenaries to some degree, maybe even some Shemites and Turan/Hykrania/Desert tribes types.

Do you have Scott Bizar's and Lin Carter's Royal Armies of Hyperboria wargames rules, circa 1975?? They are not bad, and explain the generally limited use of magic and give some possible examples of battlefield magic, plus gives some OK descriptions of the nations. Has a good piece on Hyperborea and the ruling lords and magic users and sorcerer/ess cults, plus the original stoneworking history as you have here. Not a bad book. I don't have a good scanner, in fact I disconnected and maybe even trashed the old piece of Win95 age junk, otherwise I would send you some pages that are very interesting. Good write up on the Picts too, if I remember correctly. You'd find it interesting, if you don't already have it.

Chris