Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
I got nothing against fantasy (see: username). I don't get anything out of mixing it with history though - particularly fantasy of a very modern bent. The appeal of history is that it happened you see, while the appeal of fantasy is that it has things in it not contained in reality. The two are fundamentally somewhat incompatible in my mind.
That makes sense, I suppose. Personally, I like having some historical (or real-world mythological) elements in my fantasy, because it provides a sort of touchstone connecting it with the reality I know. For me, starting with something real and then modifying it based on the changes that would be made by magic/highly advanced technology/alien space bats results in more verisimilitude than creating one that's totally unconnected to ours, but which happens to have humans and a lot of Earth's wildlife. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.