[1] At the age of 13, Howard, being of Scottish-Irish descent, began his studies of Scottish history and became fascinated with what he calls "the small dark Mediterranean aborigines of Britain".
When Atlantis, Lemuria, and Valusia sank into the sea thousands of years after Kull's time, the Picts survived and were flung into a period of cultural decline.
In "Tigers of the Sea", taking place in the time of King Arthur, Picts are one of the groups active in the turbulent British Islands in the aftermath of the Fall of Rome.
Cormac Mac Art, Howard's Irish Viking character, alternately fights them or makes temporary alliances with them, as circumstances dictate.
Howard's Picts still seems to be a mysterious, active fighting force during the Norwegian occupation of the Scottish islands under Magnus Barefoot as late as the 11th Century.
They seem to be withdrawing from civilization at this time: "When the Scot Kenneth McAlpine broke the Kingdom of Galloway, the last remnant of the Pictish empire faded like snow on the mountains.
Howard also wrote tales about the last King of the Picts, Bran Mak Morn, set in real historical time and they figure commonly as enemies of Cormac Mac Art.
It is hard to tell whether this is a case of inconsistency on the part of Howard, or a throwback to their earliest origins and savagery, as Hyborian Picts are definitely more primitive and savage than those Kull knew.
This previous race sought refuge underground, and over long millennia they evolved into stunted and hideous creatures, who were the initial subjects of tales concerning elves and dwarves.
Howard's descriptions of the later Picts portray them as very small in height, squat and muscular, adept at silent movement, and most of all brutish and uncivilized.
They had a custom of burning enemy prisoners alive, a ceremony usually presided over by their 'wizards' or priests, whom Howard portrayed as having a twisted philosophy and mindset produced by many years of hatred, in direct opposition to the Pictish warrior-king Bran Mak Morn, who attempted to restore the Picts to their honourable place in the world and drive out the Roman invaders.
Bran Mak Morn's mindset was very unusual for his time and location, because he favored an alliance between the "native" British populations, including the Picts, Bretons, and Celts, against the Romans, in a setting when each of these tribes fostered an intense hatred or mistrust for all the others.
[1] These Picts were a "race" with whom Howard felt the most affinity, and for this reason they were one of his favorite subjects, despite being almost wholly fictitious and deviating from historical fact.
In a synopsis for an unwritten Bran Mak Morn story, Howard dates the character's time period to the end of the 3rd century of the Christian Era, while Rome was ruled by the co-emperors Diocletian and Maximian.
Twice in Worms of the Earth mention is made of the black gods of R'lyeh, resting place of Cthulhu in the works of H. P. Lovecraft, a friend and correspondent of Howard.
In the earliest extant copy of Worms of the Earth, mention of Cthulhu himself is made by name although this was later changed to Nameless Gods in the final edition.
Howard's stories, poems, and fragments featuring Bran Mak Morn have been published several times as a collection in book form.
Dark Horse Comics published Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword which features stories such as "Worms of the Earth" to "Men of Shadows" to "Kings of the Night".