Who hasn't dreamed of running through far reaches of sand and stones, humid forests and windy plains wearing only a loincloth and the necessary belt to hold it and your trusty, ridiculously badass-looking sword in place?
Okay, maybe not that many people, but in the vast and rough world of Conan, these are the kind of images that my mind would have expected, along with the scantily-clad women tied to a nearby pole as if we were meant to cross the desert to come across her... Happy was I to find the scantily-clad woman tied to a pole within the first five minutes of Age of Conan, and the rest of the world was lush and lively (for the most part), as I hoped. A pity it was nowhere as vast, however.
In the Conan literature, Hyboria is a huge land. Over twenty years before Frodo, Sam and friends had crossed the vast and largely empty Middle-Earth in the 1950s, Conan, in Howard's small stories, had already crossed much of Hyboria, a vast continent inspired by ancient Europe and very similar in its inspiration and design to Middle-Earth.
Cimmeria to the north is a mountainous and harsh land of cold winds, icy nights, scattered resources and dangerous creatures. Its people, the belligerent Cimmerians (of which Conan himself is a proud member) are similar to the Celts of the Roman age, with their blue war painting and barbaric raid parties.
Stygia, on the other hand, is a land covered by endless deserts, punctured with pyramids, ancient temples and tombs ridden with curses and dark magic, directly inspired by Ancient Egypt and its largely spiritual and superstitious people.
Then there is Aquilonia, a nice foot to the balance holding the other two plates, a civilized kingdom with a rich culture of political intrigues and scholarly pursuits, relative religious and social freedom and a powerful and organized army, obviously inspired by Ancient Rome or Greece.
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