deity with human sacrifice and actively venerate serpents, and Ishtar's worshippers follow the pleasures of the flesh. In Vendhya, the followers of Asura seek truth beyond the illusions of the physical world, and the Hyborian devotees of Mitra are almost Christian in their merging of asceticism with a commitment to compassion and justice. Crom Crom is a deity in Robert E. Howard's fantasy tales of the Hyborian Age. He is acknowledged as the chief god by the lead character Conan, and his proto-Celtic Cimmerian people. The name Crom is probably derived from the ancient Celtic deity Crom Cruach or Crom Dubh. Crom is the chief god of the Cimmerian pantheon, and he lives on a great mountain, from where he sends forth doom or death. It is considered useless to call upon Crom, because he is a gloomy and savage god who hates weaklings. However, Crom gives a man courage, free will, and the strength to fight his enemies. Crom doesn't care if individuals live or die, and his name is typically only invoked as an oath or curse. He is the only member of the Cimmerian pantheon named with any regularity. Crom is never depicted as directly intervening or otherwise explicitly causing any event in the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. There is little consistent evidence in his works that Crom actually exists, in contrast to the demons and highly advanced aliens appearing in "The God in the Bowl" and "The Tower of the Elephant", while the story "The Phoenix on the Sword" implies that Set is one of H. P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. Howard's story "Black Colossus" features a princess vocally directed by Mitra to recruit Conan as her champion, but Crom makes no such appearances. Crom is exclusively a Cimmerian god, with other civilizations paying him little attention, and Conan swearing with Crom's name immediately identifies him as a Cimmerian. Mitra Mitra is a personification of good, popular amongst people of the era. He is probably loosely based on the Vedic and Zoroastrian figure by the same name, and in the Hyborian universe, his worship generally represents Christianity. In the essay "The Hyborian Age", Howard writes that followers of Mitra are urged to forgive their enemies (though many of them fail to do so). Mitra's religion is missionary; its adherents are sometimes martyred trying to spread their faith to hostile peoples. Mitra's worship is