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<blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 1395686" data-attributes="member: 2205">Howard did that on purpose.&nbsp; His friend, H.P. Lovecraft actually criticised him for it, but he didn't understand either.&nbsp; Making the Hyborian nations be sorta equivalent to modern population groups was a shorthand -- Howard wrote short stories, not novels, and detailing the setting wasn't actually a priority.&nbsp; In fact, he wanted to avoid having to spend valuable time in the short story explaining what a Commorian was, for instance (a nation from his earlier Kull stories) so he decided to use short hand.You may not know what a Vanir or a Stygian is, or where and what kind of country Hyrkania and Khitai are, but you can guess pretty well, without having to be told.&nbsp; They have resonance without even trying.&nbsp; For that matter, a setting like FR has the same strength -- because everything is fairly cliche, you don't need to spend a lot of time wondering what such and such country is like.&nbsp; &quot;Oh, those are the FR Mongols,&quot; for instance.&nbsp; The difference being, it was a new idea when Howard did it, and he wasn't cheesy about it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Desdichado, post: 1395686, member: 2205"] Howard did that on purpose. His friend, H.P. Lovecraft actually criticised him for it, but he didn't understand either. Making the Hyborian nations be sorta equivalent to modern population groups was a shorthand -- Howard wrote short stories, not novels, and detailing the setting wasn't actually a priority. In fact, he wanted to [i]avoid[/i] having to spend valuable time in the short story explaining what a Commorian was, for instance (a nation from his earlier Kull stories) so he decided to use short hand. You may not know what a Vanir or a Stygian is, or where and what kind of country Hyrkania and Khitai are, but you can guess pretty well, without having to be told. They have resonance without even trying. For that matter, a setting like FR has the same strength -- because everything is fairly cliche, you don't need to spend a lot of time wondering what such and such country is like. "Oh, those are the FR Mongols," for instance. The difference being, it was a new idea when Howard did it, and he wasn't cheesy about it. [/QUOTE]

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