Oktar

Oktar is a Hyrkanian master swordsman who appears only briefly in Conan's youth, yet his role is decisive in the making of the Cimmerian warrior. He is the man who, at Valamo on the distant borders of Hyrkania, imparts his secrets to the young barbarian, completing the martial education that Toghrul, the pit master, had begun. In the vast geography of the Hyborian Age, where shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars, Oktar stands as a quiet, almost anonymous figure of transmission: the eastern master who gives the western barbarian the final polish of the blade. Without him, Conan would have remained a creature of raw strength and instinct; with him, Conan becomes a finished swordsman, ready for the career of thievery, reaving, and eventual kingship that the Nemedian Chronicles would later record.