RENRUTANITRENRUTANIT
Real Name: Renrutanit
Identity/Class: Unclassified magic-user
(demon vs. human);
Hyborian era
Occupation: Witch Queen of El Shah Maddoc, Witch
Queen of Shem
Group Membership: The Witches of Shem
Affiliations: The monster in Maddoc's Reign, Conan;
presumably Raggadorr (and perhaps other mystic principalities)
Enemies: Conan, Keiv,
Maddoc I, Maddoc II, Ravager
of Worlds (Imhotep), General Soto and his
soldiers, Tetra
(Pathir);
possibly the Council of Seven
Known Relatives: Her "daughters"
Aliases: Ren;
"She-dog" / "wood-demon" (Conan's name-callings)
Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
formerly Shem, the Dark Forest, hideout in the large
swamp;
formerly the Empire of Koth, City-State of El Shah
Maddoc, in the Tower of Maddoc (Maddoc's Reign)
First Appearance: Conan the Barbarian I#180 (March, 1986)
Powers/Abilities: Renrutanit's magical abilities were likely the most powerful and varied of all the witches she led.
Ren and her daughters were able to fly.
At least in combination with her daughters, her magic could sustain for years the lives of King Maddoc and a
monster guardian. Renrutanit was able to neutralize Keiv without
struggle, noise or difficulty, even when Keiv was in monstrous form
which was quite invulnerable to many effects.
Ren knew how to use the
Mists of Ragador (sic) to make a truth serum able to affect the monstrous
Keiv.
Her magic allowed her to move a little hill underwater and
up-water; it was a column of rock, soil and mud, 30 feet tall, which she
used to imprison her enemies.
Her sorcery enabled her to walk on water
and to allow others to do the same. She could take the appearance of a
beautiful human woman, probably via shape-shifting vs. illusion-casting. When in her monstrous
appearance her eldritch power could strangle her enemies without
touching them, firstly depriving them of air, but also applying a force strong enough to break a human neck.
She could feel pain, and she could be
wounded, apparently mortally, but her head could survive even if severed
and separated from the rest of the body. In that status she could speak;
however, she seemed unable to exert magic powers.
As a witch Queen, she commanded over many other
witches, and felt the responsibility to protect them. She was ruthless
against the beings not under her rule, and she was able to plan a strategy taking
into account enemy armies of men and monsters. Even when her head was
cut off her body, she remained of a great value to her daughters. They
obeyed to Tetra until she wielded the head.
Height: Unrevealed; approximately 5'5" (Conan
seemed almost a head taller than her and Conan is around 6'3" - 6'5")
Weight: Unrevealed; approximately 130 lbs.
Eyes: Large and yellow, reptile-like, in monstrous form.
unrevealed (perhaps honey/light brown) in human form.
Hair: None. She had scales on the head and something resembling
semi-rigid rachides without barb.
Blonde (in human form)
History:
(Conan the Barbarian I#181 (fb) - BTS) - Renrutanit was
the Queen of the Witches of Shem, yet, when Maddoc I had been ruled El
Shah Maddoc for almost thirty years.
When King Maddoc had the high tower "Maddoc's Reign"
built at El Shah Maddoc, as a symbol of his power, Renrutanit and her
witches kidnapped him and imprisoned him in his tower. The witches'
magic kept in life the king and his guardian, an ape-like man-eater
monster, for almost 15 years.
In the those years, several adventurers tried to explore the high tower and free the King, but none of them returned. Screams, yells and growls came from Maddoc's Reign. The liberators' bones lied in the stairs of the tower. Rumors spoke of witches and demons. The witches' sorcery kept alive the King and the monster.
Meanwhile, Maddoc's son ruled as King Maddoc II.
Five years before the coming of Conan, the King
disappeared. The people of El Shah Maddoc believed Maddoc I dead, but he
was still alive, as well his guardian.
About half a century after the
foundation of El Shah Maddoc, the Witch Queen put in motion his plans in order to divert Imhotep's attention from her people. She probably heard that Imhotep had already destroyed the
City-State of Becharadur in Shem, and realized what it meant for her
daughters and herself. The witches left Maddoc I and his tower for the
Great Forest.
Her plan worked. The witches hid into
their Keep in the great Dark Forest, where a part of the Kothian army
followed them. Led by General Soto, the Kothians believed her to be
weak because of the Nocturnal Equinox. But the Kothians and Soto had
been thwarted, because it was the Witch Queen that had made the rumor
up, to lure the Kothians where she wanted. Renrutanit and the witches
knew well the swamp inside the forest, a hidden place where the army
could not find them. So, they hid there. Had the Ravager of Worlds
reached that region, the burden of the fight would fall upon Soto and
his army, and the witches would be spared.
(Conan the Barbarian I#180 - BTS) - Renrutanit's spies
spotted strangers in the Dark Forest. They saw a "flame-tressed
girl-child" (Tetra). Then a Shemite army Warlord (Conan) with a
monstrous hulking humanoid made of grass and roots (Keiv) arrived. The
two had apparently lost their way to El Shah Maddoc. A chanting spell
captured the hulking monster, under the General's feet, completely
unaware about what and how it happened. Ren suspected that the girl also
worked for the Cimmerian.
Renrutanit was eager to get information
from people that came from the same direction of Imhotep's devastation.
So, the Queen of Witches used the Mists of Ragador (sic) and made a truth
serum, and she had Keiv drink it. Renrutanit learned about Imhotep, Conan
the Cimmerian (and probably Tetra). Ren saw the possibility to further
weaken the enemy forces using the Cimmerian. She gave orders to her
witches to lead Conan by her.
(Conan the Barbarian I#180 - BTS) - Meanwhile, Conan had met
General Soto of the Kothian army, and had been warned about the presence
of the witches in the forest. Conan tried to persuade Soto to turn back,
for the Ravager of Worlds was coming, and would destroy the witches, but
Soto had orders, and believed Ren to be at the bottom of her magic
power.
Conan was found in the woods while searching for Keiv, and was led to meet Renrutanit.
(Conan the Barbarian I#180) - The Queen of Witches, in a pleasurable human form, welcomed Conan, and she asked him about the "flame-tressed" girl. Conan was unaware of Tetra's presence, so he didn't tell a lie when replied he knew nothing. Ren made her proposal: In exchange for Keiv, Conan had to bring her Soto's head. She reckoned that the General's death would have weakened the forces of El Shah Maddoc and that their defeat at the hands of the Ravager would become certainty. But, before that, Conan had to carnally please her.
Conan fulfilled the initial part of the pact and left
for Soto's campsite. Ren was thusly convinced to let Conan live, for a
while.
That night, Renrutanit was satisfied when
she saw Conan back in the hidden swamp with the bloodied sack, apparently containing the
General's head. Keeping her part of the pact, she gestured at the center
of swamp, and her magic caused an upheaval from the swamp bottom. A monolith
of rock, mud and corpses emerged from the waters, and there Kiev was,
still alive, but immobilized. With another small amount of magic, Ren walked
on the waters, enabling Conan to do the same, and the two were able to reach
the giant monster.
Only there Renrutanit examined the head in the sack,
finding the corpse of a little swamp drake. Recognizing the betrayal,
the Queen abandoned the human appearance to punish Conan. Her skin
became scaled, her mouth became like a piranha's, her eyes became
reptilian, and her hands developed talons and membrane between fingers.
Her magic grabbed Conan's throat, cutting his breath, but her grip was sufficient to
break a man's neck. However, Conan was not an ordinary man, and his neck didn't break
and he did not fall. He resisted and fought back. Swinging the sack
containing the bloodied beast and the ball of a morningstar, he struck Ren,
after which he again reached her, grabbed her, and hit her again. The Queen lost her
concentration,on the enchantments.
Conan was able to breathe again, but for a very short time, because the sorcery that enabled the two to walk on the water was broken, too. Underwater, Renrutanit's throat was still held by the barbarian, who touched the muddy bottom and unsheathed a dagger. When the waters broke, it was Conan to stand, with the witch's monstrous head in hand. Many were the witches gathered in that band, floating around that foe from another land. Revenge would come soon, if not for an "Attack!!" command. It was the army's true errand. Soto had followed Conan. The witches, without her queen, flew away.
After a few instants had passed, in the sky, the horde of demons
appeared. The Ravager of Worlds had arrived bringing the destruction. The
entire Kothian army died, as did the land where once were the woods,
the swamp, the monolith and the Keep.
After the devastation, Conan and Kiev were down but
alive, saved by Conan's amulet. After a while Tetra, the "flame-tressed"
girl, arrived on the scene. Renrutanit, too, was alive. Her body was
lost, but her head accused Tetra of being the cause of her defeat. Tetra
admitted that she plotted behind her back, but also pointed out that
Ren's plan worked, mostly, because her daughters survived, and the
soldiers died.
Tetra took Ren's head and self-proclaimed the new
Queen of the Witches of Shem. Ren's witches followed her.
(Conan the Barbarian I#181) - Days later, in the city El Shah Maddoc, Ren's head was still in Tetra's possession. The new Witch Queen briefly appeared to Conan at the top of the immense tower of Maddoc.
Shortly later, Conan freed the old King Maddoc I from the
tower. Atop Maddoc's Reign, Tetra still held Ren's head, and she spoke to
the daughters of Renrutanit, reminding them that their serving her
orders complicitly kept Ren alive; she further noted her goal of
destroying "he whom she loathed above all men" and that all
was going according to plan.
In the following days, Tetra visited the time-stream several times to
fulfill her plans, but Renrutanit was not seen again.
Comments: Created by Jim Owsley, John Buscema, and Bob Camp.
Renrutanit's name is more
understandable to the 80ies rock music fans, when read backwards.
Why did Renrutanit suspect Tetra of any trickery?
How did Tetra mess with Ren's plans? The events don't show it, nor
there are behind-the-scenes hints. Was it Conan's fault? Imhotep sensed
the presence of the amulet he was seeking, when Conan was hidden in the
Great Forest. Anyway, Imhotep would have destroyed the Dark forest as
well. Ultimately, it was Ren's fault. She was intrigued by Tetra's
appearance in the forest, but in the end, kidnapping Keiv, she put
herself on Conan's path. Without involving Conan, Imhotep would have
annihilated the Kothian army and the forest, the witches would have
escaped as well, and Ren would have kept her head on the shoulders.
Unless... Tetra's actions went way back, before Conan's arrival.
In Conan the Barbarian I#185, Tetra traveled twenty
years in the past, she kidnapped the King, and imprisoned him in the
Tower. But...
In Conan the Barbarian I#181, Maddoc I told that many
years before his liberation, Renrutanit and the witches imprisoned him
in the tower. He also told Conan that he knew no red-haired girl.
In Conan the Barbarian I#186, letters page, it was
confirmed that the witches put the monster in the Tower (even if this
could be happened after Tetra's kidnapping).
Time travel can cause paradoxes and absurd
situations. The easiest way to explain the differences is that Tetra was
still inexperienced at time-travel, and slipped into an alternate
reality. The bad alternative is that she rewrote the past, so that
almost everything that happened to Maddoc I, and something supposedly
done by the Witches in CB181 should be considered... to have never happened.
The third hypothesis is that Owsley had a more
complex plot in mind, but the final result was not as clear as he wanted
to be.
Profile by Spidermay.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Renrutanit should be distinguished from:
Soto has no known connection with:
Soto was a Kothian General sent to
vanquish the witches of Shem.
He was too young to be a General, and Conan reckoned that he was very
inexperienced. His men followed him even if rather frightened by
Ren's reputation.
Soto treated Conan with courtesy. He recognized the Cimmerian as a
barbarian from north; nonetheless he believed the Cimmerian to be a
Warlord of the Shemite Army.
Soto had fallen into Renrutanit's trap.
Soto was lured into the great forest believing that in those days
Renrutanit's magic powers were waning due to the Nocturnal Equinox, but
it was a false information made up by the Queen of the Witches. Soto had
no hope to find the witches, for they knew the far, hidden recesses of
the swamp, which the Kothians did not.
Chasing Renrutanit, Soto had placed his
army on the path of Imhotep's horde. Even when Conan explained him what
devastation was arriving on the forest, Soto didn't waver from his
mission. He was firmly convinced that the greatest danger was posed by
Renrutanit.
When Conan went back to the Kothian camp to make up the fake "gift" for Ren, he told Soto that he was going back to the witch.
This revelation saved Conan's life, because Soto and
his soldiers managed to follow Conan's tracks, without his knowledge. In
that way they succeeded in finding the witches' Keep without getting
lost. The soldiers arrived just at the time when Conan decapitated the
Queen but was surrounded by the other witches. Their attack frightened
the witches, who flew away.
Soto and his army died anyway. Imhotep arrived as
foreseen. The storm wiped out the forest, the swamp, the bodies of the
men and consumed their souls.
--Conan the Barbarian I#180
images: (without ads)
Conan the Barbarian I#180, pg. 9, panel 1 (Renrutanit in human form);
pg. 9, panel 2 (Ren, head shot);
pg. 14, panels 1-2 (Ren, transformation
from human to monstrous form);
pg. 6, panel 4
(General Soto);
Appearances:
Conan the Barbarian I#180 (March, 1986) - Jim Owsley (writer), John
Buscema (penciler), Bob Camp (inker), Larry Hama (editor)
Conan the Barbarian I#181 (April, 1986) - Jim Owsley (writer), John
Buscema (penciler), Ernie Chan (inker), Larry Hama (editor)
First Posted: 04/07/2024
Last updated: 04/07/2024
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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