Besides Appendix N proper, what inspires your home-setting?

[TheNobleDrake]

I have grown curious of what other Judges around here are into when it comes to setting inspiration for their home-brew.

That fact surprises me because I have never before encountered a forum community that not only liked the game I liked and signed in to talk about but liked it in the same way, or for the same reason, as I did. Almost every other gaming forum I am signed up for... I feel like the people that post there are people I'd never last through a single session at the same table as, but the folk around here make me wish I could make the convention circuit or otherwise find myself crowded around a table slinging dice with everybody around.

So please, share what - besides the obvious - inspires your settings and adventures.

I'll start by listing a few bits of my own inspiration not mentioned in Appendix N:

Stephen King, especially the Dark Tower series - a span of infinite worlds/dimensions all held together by a tower at the center and operating on cyclical time.

Shadowrun the RPG - the idea, again, that what once was can be again shows up in the dormancy and return of magic to the world, so I have a waxing/waning magic (overall, not in any perceivable fashion during a single campaign) theme in my home setting.

[Flexi]

For myself, the weird stories of Clark Ashton Smith (as mentioned in the inspirational section of DCC), British horror films, English ghost story writers like M.R James and Algernon Blackwood, the dark and bloody Kane books by Karl Edward Wagner (a sadly forgetten writer) and lashings of random tables from books like TOAD, Insidiae, Ultimate Toolbox etc.

[fuel]

First and foremost, REH, but then that is Appendix: N. I get a lot of inspiration from old Marvel comics I read as a kid, especially Savage Sword of Conan. As cheesy as it may sound, I want to really work on a world like Thundarr the Barbarian. Or rather, how I interpreted that as a kid (which was way less cheesy then how I see it now). Something about that weird science and magic post apocalyptic world really gets my juices flowing. Also, the movie The Beastmaster. That movie was awesome in the 80s. Lol. I want to eventually do a Yojimbo (Fistfull of Dollars) storyline where two factions are trying to control a town and the town and the PCs at caught in the middle.

[sheriffharry]

Mainly a bunch of movies, I'll limited myself to 20:

-The Dunwich Horror (obviously...)-1970
-The Brides of Dracula-1960
-The Gorgon-1964
-The Land that Time Forgot-1975
-Twins of Evil-1971
-The Golden Voyage of Sinbad-1973
-Pit and the pendulum-1961
-The Prisoner-TV 1967
-Lost in Space-TV 1966
-The Wicker Man-1973
-Hercules in the Center of the Earth-1961
-Son of Frankenstein-1939
-Visit to a small planet (Jerry Lewis' best)-1960: Every campaign needs a little humor.
-Twin peaks-TV 1990
-Monty Python and the Holy Grail-1975
-Hercules Unchained-1959
-The Black Cat-1934
-Barbarian Queen-1985
-The 300 Spartans-1962
-Goliath vs. the Dragon-1960

Well, you get the idea...

[TheNobleDrake]

Beautiful, especially that list of movies I have also enjoyed over the years.

A lot of what is posted is either stuff that I count as inspiration, or stuff I have never heard of and am now interested in finding - so thanks for posting guys.

[RevTurkey]

Sherifharry...if you like those then check out these (if you haven't):

Blood on Satan's Claw
From Beyond The Grave
Tales From The Crypt
Asylum

I must add that my favourite Jerry Lewis films are:

The Nutty Professor
The Patsy
The Errand Boy
The Bellboy
The Ladies Man

(basically the ones he either wrote, directed and/or produced from 1960-1964)

The man was a creative comic genius and I am sure when my rpg games take a turn to the bizarre and funny, my love of his films comes out somewhere!

I would add that Hitchcock is up there, when looking at how to structure suspense, you can't go wrong with watching the master

[Ravenheart87]

...English ghost story writers like M.R James...

Kudos for mentioning M.R. James! I read him for the first time last year, his work is amazing.

What inspires my home setting, besides Appendix N? Almost everything:

• Other works of fantasy literature, especially Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.
• Other products of the rpg industry, especially Judges Guild and Arduin products.
• Video games, mostly Might & Magic I-IX, Wizardry 6-8, Quake I, Hexen I-II, Heretic I-II.
• Rock and metal bands, including Black Sabbath, The Sword, Bal-Sagoth, Therion.
• Movies, like The Thing, Valhalla Rising, Ray Harryhausen movies.
• Cartoons, like Thundercats, Korgoth of Barbaria.
• Marvel Comics.

[TheNobleDrake]

Tales From The Crypt

Now that is something I need to hunt down on DVD or blu-ray. I used to watch every time it came on, and even liked some of the movies they made.

[RevTurkey]

The 'Tales From The Crypt' I meant was the 1972 film

Books...pretty obvious stuff but lately I really enjoyed (and no doubt got influenced by):

The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie (and the follow up books...)
The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (and the sequel)
Perdido Street Station & The Scar by China Mieville (his recent books not so much)
The Laundry Series by Charles Stross (modern Cthulhu fun)

[fuel]

Thanks for mentioning Korgoth of Barbaria, Ravenheart. I had never seen that before. It was awesome. With all the total crap on Adult Swim, why didn't they make that a series? It was badass!

[Ravenheart87]

Thanks for mentioning Korgoth of Barbaria, Ravenheart. I had never seen that before. It was awesome. With all the total crap on Adult Swim, why didn't they make that a series? It was badass!

You're welcome, and I agree. It is the most badass sword & sorcery cartoon I've ever seen.

[Flexi]

Blood on Satan's Claw
From Beyond The Grave
Tales From The Crypt
Asylum

I like those old 1970's British portmanteau horrors like the last three you mentioned. Dr Terror's House of Horrors and Torture Garden are worth a look at too. The House that Dripped Blood is one of the best.

+1 for Blood on Satan's Claw and the Wicker Man. They are great British folk horror movies.
I have grown to love the original (Nicholas Cage I love thee but the sequel was an abomination!) The Wicker Man over the years.

I am plodding through a huge pile of Marvel/Dark Horse Conan and Kull volumes and they are ideal sword & sorcery fodder. The Savage Sword of Conan volumes are nice, lurid comics.

[sheriffharry]

Just bought the Savage Sword of Conan vol.7 on Free RPG Day!

For other movies idea, here's my IMDB list (including my 533 ratings, YES I'm the only person in the world to rate Starcrash ABOVE Return of the Jedi...):

http://www.imdb.com/user/ur7423688/ratings

Should be visible to all IMDB user. I encourage everyone to register and rate movies, it's fun!, and useful sometimes.

[Flexi]

Almost forgot three of my most loved films, that are always useful to watch for an inspiration injection.

Mr Vampire - Hopping oriental vampires. Unusual and funny film.

Horror Express - you truly cannot go wrong with a film that stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and has Telly Savalas as a cossack captain! A train roaring across wintry wastes, blind undead soldiers, a reanimated proto-neanderthal corpse, an homicidal memory-sucking alien intelligence that jumps from body to body, this film has it all!

Ninja Scroll - A colourful and wild manga film. Very gory.
Nice climax with the ship on fire with molten gold and the hero screaming "Burn in your golden hell!"

[finarvyn]

An interesting question. My top Appendix N inspirations for homebrew campaigns are probably Middle-earth, Lankhmar, Conan, and Elric. Those books really show what a good adventure should be like.

Getting away from Appendix N, however, my greatest inspirations are probably gaming products and not literature.

When I get stuck for ideas, I dust off...

• My little brown books of OD&D and re-read them. So many cool things in such a small space.
• Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign, as detailed in the Judges Guild product First Fantasy Campaign.
• The Judges Guild product Ready Ref Sheets is awesome. It has lots of random tables and stuff.
• Strategic Review and early issues of Dragon magazine. Going back to that stuff gets my creative juices flowing.
• The Wilderlands campaign, by Judges Guild. Another great example of how to run a world. Few details but room for me to add things.
• Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk Folio. Not the boxed set, but the one before that. Nice maps, kind of vague information designed for me to fill in details. The way a campaign should start. I could also add in Gary's "Gord the Rogue" books here, which are based on Greyhawk.
• TSR's "Monochrome" modules. There were about a dozen modules of this era -- G1, G2, G3, D1, D2, D3, S1, S2, T1, B1, C1, maybe I missed one -- mostly written by Gary and really fun. Typically short modules, often less than 20 pages.

Basically, I have a box of old TSR stuff and another box of old Judges Guild stuff. When I want inspriation I go to those boxes and just start reading to see how the masters did it.

[Hereandnow]

Suggestions from my childhood: summer afternoons, shrilling cicadas, the silence of my home surroundings, the wood...everything able to get me back to the days I discovered those red, blue and green magic boxes! And old movies as well: Conan, Willow, The Dark Crystal, Legend, Labyrinth...

The flavor of classic fantasy apart from Appendix N comes from pure, free, unconditioned leap of creativity.
My inspiration comes from the excited state of mind when I think back to my past as a kid.

Even a Van Halen album can do the magic.

Suggestions and memories linked to my past.

[Flexi]

Even a Van Halen album can do the magic.

ELO brings back a lot of old skool magic for me. When I play 'New World Record', old skool D&D nostalgia bubbles up, evoking a lot of memories of past exploits and plans.

[beermotor]

On the music idea, nothing says Lovecraftian horror to me quite like Morbid Angel, esp Altars of Madness (tracks 1-5 or 6), Blessed are the Sick ("Brainstorm"), Covenant ("God of Emptiness"), Domination (first couple tracks), and all of Formulas Fatal to the Flesh. The first track w/intro on Gateways to Annihilation ("Kawazu") is really good, too.

For epic sword sorcery, The Sword is great, esp Age of Winters.

I'm exploring a sort-of post-apocalyptic thing with quasi-familiar religious stuff, so Sleep "Dopesmoker" (aka Jerusalem) is also great.

When I need to chill some, I enjoy Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works.