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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr Simon" data-source="post: 6200299" data-attributes="member: 21938">Of these, I’ve managed to read:de Camp & Pratt: "Harold Shea" series – the first notable contribution is that the first story in the Harold Shea series is set in Norse mythology, with a confederation of hill, frost and fire giants conspiring to conquer the Aesir – very evidently the inspiration for the Against the Giants series. The other most obvious lift is where Shea and his friends categorise magic as having verbal, somatic and material components (their words).Derleth, August – August Derleth seems to have been one of those writers who dabbled in other people’s settings. I’ve read some stuff he co-authored with Lovecraft and with RE Howard, but nothing that could be said to be entirely his own work. Dunsany, Lord – Aside from the fact that I don’t think titles are catalogued as first names the way EGG has here, I love what I’ve read of Dunsany (Tales of Wonder et al.). Little vignettes in delirious prose, Dunsany’s stuff is very like Lovecraft’s Dreamlands works, with people, often from the “ordinary” world, visiting fantastic places that usually have a dark side to them. Worth mining for ideas for settings. I’ve not yet found anything that has a direct correlation in the game. Edit: Oh yes, the House of the Gnolls.Howard, R. E.: "Conan" series. The archetypal adventurer, making his way through life for gold, girls and glory (in any order). You could pretty much lift any Conan story for the basis of a scenario. Notable direct lifts that I’ve found are the giant (acid-spitting) slug and a creature that in the Conan stories is called a Remoraz, but in the game the frost worm is a better representation than the remorhaz.Leiber, Fritz: "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series; et al. Like Howard, Leiber’s characters are typical adventurer types with fairly selfish motives (Fafhrd less so than the Mouser). When they do act out of altruism and save the world, nobody notices. Lankhmar is the original amoral city setting, with a powerful thieves guild and a myriad of uncaring gods. Again, like the Conan books you can pretty much lift stories whole cloth and use them as the basis for an adventure. I did, as the basis of a long-running RuneQuest campaign. Stardock, Jewels in the Forest and Lords of Quarmall I managed to use largely unchanged, with some embellishments. Others I took apart and used bits and pieces in different places. Direct influences? Well the Nehwon Mythos is the only proprietry setting to survive to later printings of Deities and Demigods, there was a setting book and some adventures, and perhaps wererats are inspired from Swords of Lankhmar.Lovecraft, H. P. – Seems a little strange, doesn’t it, when there is a dedicated game for the works of HPL. But the Cthulhu Mythos were in that almost legendary first print of Deities and Demigods. The Elder Elemental Eye and Tharizdun have definite Lovecraftian overtones, as does the mysterious altar in the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. The monsters have crept back into the game via Pathfinder, which has stats for the likes of Shoggoths etc. The Dreamlands stories, I reckon, you could lift those almost whole cloth for a fantasy setting, and I have done with The Doom that came to SarnathMerritt, A.: CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP; MOON POOL; DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE; et al. I’ve read The Moon Pool, which is fairly standard “lost world” kind of fiction. No obvious direct influence except maybe the seeds of the Vault of the Drow (underground race with hatred of surface dwellers). A good idea for a secret door that could be nabbed, though.Moorcock, Michael: STORMBRINGER; STEALER OF SOULS; "Hawkmoon" series (esp. the first three books) – Plenty of fantasy elements, settings, characters and scenarios that could be nicked. I guess the most obvious influence is the Law-Chaos axis of alignment, but not much else works in D&D as it does in Moorcock’s books. Another setting that was cut from Deities and Demigods. You could, I reckon, do a kind of eternal champion thing if you had several different campaigns, whereby all the characters of a single player were multiversal copies of the same archetype. Tolkien, J. R. R.: THE HOBBIT; "Ring trilogy". Tolkien’s works cast a larger shadow over the game than any of the others on this list, and that’s probably because the original player character races are mostly a direct result of his works (except for gnomes). Orcs, of course. The Balor demon is evidently a Balrog in disguise (flaming sword and whip? Check). And the ranger class almost certainly stems from Aragorn (one of the old level titles was Strider). Beyond that, though, the influence is less than you might think. Later iterations of the game tended to cleave to the “epic quest” model of scenario, but in my experience it works better on the pulp short story model.Vance, Jack: THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD; THE DYING EARTH; et al. Although the D&D magic system is often referred to as “Vancian”, really the whole fire and forget model only comes from one set of stories – Rhialto the Marvellous (which also features Ioun Stones and the spells Temporal Stasis and Imprisonment). Mostly in Vance’s books magic either has no clearly defined rules, or magicians deal with otherworldly beings (archveults or sandestins) and coerce them into working for them. Vance’s books tend to be collections of shorter stories, and even his later Lyonesse trilogy which post-dates the original Appendix N digresses into lots of little substories. Plenty of ideas could be nicked, although the way Vance's stories work they tend to have an ironic sting to the tale which is hard to do in a gaming situation without railroading things.Zelazny, Roger: JACK OF SHADOWS; "Amber" series; et al. Of these I’ve read the first Amber series, not the second generation one. I don’t think anything has been directly lifted, once again it’s more a matter of the idea of magical worlds that is the source of inspiration. I do like the concept of worlds behind worlds, of increasing “reality” – it’s a bit Matrix in a way – and I think the concepts of the mirror realms of Rebma and Tir Na Nog could be used – a magical staircase that appears under certain conditions of moonlight? Yes please.Burroughs, Edgar Rice: "Pellucidar" series; Mars series; Venus series. I’ve put this at the end because I’ve only seen the Disney film. I guess the girallon is based on white apes. Four things that struck me as immediately usable – a huge city that moves across the landscape despoiling everything (they kind of have those in Eberron), air ships (Space 1889), the green martian culture and a group like the white martians manipulating things behind the scenes (Scarlet Brotherhood of Greyhawk? Red Wizards of Thay or Zhentirim?)So that’s the original list, and two things that strike me are (a) how many I’ve still not read, nor even heard of and (b) how it’s largely pulp-y, wierd fiction kinds of works, quite often with a central protagonist who comes from the “real” world ending up in a fantasy world.So what others would I add to the list? Remember that these aren’t based on a judgement of writing quality, but on a source of inspiration and ideas.Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson) and Song of Ice and Fire (George RR Martin). Arguably the two fantasy colossi of our time, these sprawling epics would make poor D&D scenarios in themselves as in both of them the characters are spread across the land, acting independently and often at odds. You could run a game like that but it would be hard. Both are worth considering in terms of how to present a living backdrop to a world in turmoil, a kind of chaos theory of political manoeuvring and war stemming from small actions (and one side has dragons). Specific ideas that I’ve had my eye on – from Wheel of Time I like the idea of an earlier age of magic/technology (Netheril?) and I love the idea of the Ways, that have become corrupted by the Black Wind. From Game of Thrones, the Wall (and the reason for it) is a great D&D concept, and an organisation like the Night Watch, a place where misfits and criminals are sent, is a good starting place for a PC party, where they all meet up in some kind of... Keep, on the Borderland, say. There are some other good exotic touches like the Faceless Men or Shadowbinders of As’shai that sound good and D&Dish.Clark Ashton Smith – I include because he is a surprise omission from the original list, being contemporary with many authors on there. Similar to Lovecraft in many ways, but also to Vance sometimes – his Averoigne stories have a wry humour to them and were used as the basis for module X2 Castle Amber.Stephen R Donaldson  Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Not everyone’s cup of tea, I’ll grant you, mainly due to Donaldson’s simile-laden prose and that infamous rape scene, but there are some good ideas to be mined here, especially the Ravers – immortal evil spirits that can possess others and use them to do evil, often of a spiteful, petty kind which is a good way to get players to hate your bad guys. The ur-viles and wayhnim are interesting creatures too, with their wedge-fighting and mysterious magic. Later series introduce other powerful beings such as the elohim and the insequent, which could be usable if done so sparingly. Arcana Evolved, of course, has taken the concept of the Seareach giants for its giant race, and the Haruchai Bloodguard for the Oathsworn class. Some articles in early White Dwarf showed that converting things like the Staff of Law and the powers of the Lords, of Rhadhamearl and others to D&D stats is tricky at best.China Mieville and Iain M Banks. Mieville exemplifies the “new wierd” style, but both he and Banks are good examples of not being afraid to go over the top with your ideas. Quite often I’ve seen people be quite conservative with their idea of what constitutes “fantasy” (it must have elves and dwarves, for example – of all the books listed above, there’s only one author who does that!). Giant trains traversing an ever-changing landscape on a set of tracks that are laid down before it and taken up after it. A plant-like organism that covers an entire planet. A consortium of intelligent battleships several miles long. Go for it!Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost – sources for the architecture of heaven and hell – the Nine Hells and Seven Heavens stem from Dante, and you ‘ll find the likes of Geryon, the Malebranche devils, the Iron City of Dis and icy planes of Cocytus whilst in Paradise Lost Lucifer passes over the great abyss wherein lurk the chaotic monsters of Demogorgon and Orcus. So those were the ones I came up with on the fly, which suggest that they are uppermost in my mind for influences. More mythology could be included. Also what about the likes of Pratchett, Rowling and Meyer? They’re influential, yes, but any useful feedback into gaming? And let’s not stop at books. What about film, TV, comics, gaming media?</blockquote>

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