WHAT HAVE YOU READ THAT'S INSPIRED YOU FOR YOUR RPGS GUYS? WHAT BOOKS?
I'm nearly finished with the novels of the Old Kingdom by Garth Nix. pretty good fantasy series. musical necromancers and sigil magic.
and the audio version is also narrated by Tim Curry.
Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy is good at the least for the idea of the Black Kakari, and pretty good for underworld and organized crime ideas
the March series by David Weber and John Ringo is FUCKING FANTASTIC for setting.
Sabriel was good, I've been using the Shannara series
>The Bells
I love the Old Kingdoms take on necromancy so much. Charter and Free magic are nice and all, but the Rivers of Death and the way it all works is so vivid and self consistent.
I've yanked the Precincts and made them into a Dominion for a Geist game, players loved it.
Now for my own inspiration, the True Game.
Bloodline-ish based powers that pull heat from the area to fuel themselves, hugely complicated social structures and a codified set of rules for warfare between Demesnes and their rulers/subjects, hundreds of classifications depending on what powers you have and how strong. The Wise-ards, Immutables, all so good.
And Dat rhyme.
>Minds mistress, moon's wheel
>Cobweb Didir, Shadow-steel
>Mighty wing, lord of sky
>Lofty Tamor, hover high
>Night-dark, dust-old
>Bony Dorn, grave-cold
>Flesh-queen, love-star
>Lust-pale, Trandilar
>Pain's maid, broken leaf
>Dealpas, heart's grief
>Cheer's face, trust's clasp
>Far and strong is Wafnor's grasp
>Far-eyed Sorah, worshiper
>Many gods who never were
>Here and gone, flashing fast
>Hafnor is trusted last
>Chilly Shattnir, power's store
>Calling Game forevermore
>Fire and smoke, horn and bell
>Messages of Buinel
>Shifted, fetched, sent-far
>Trickiest is Thandbar
>When all time is past
>Eleven first, eleven last.
In matching order, the powers and basic titles are: Telepathy (Demon), Flight (Armiger), Raising of Ghosts (Necromancer), Charm/Self illusions (Ruler), Healing (Healer, duh), Object Telekinesis (Tragamor), Clairvoyance (Seer), Teleportation vie sight (Elator), Power Storage (Sorcerer), Fire Starting (Sentinel), Shape-shifting (Shifter).
For example, someone with a little shifting and a little fire starting isn't a Sentinel or Shifter, they're a Dragon. Got someone who can heal and charm, that's a Priestess, and so on.
Really makes me wish there was more in the series, but the author went full on ecoterrorist femenist with her writing soon after finishing it all..
>greentext
makes me think of the power classification rhyme from Worm
whats it about?
All of the people with powers (gamesmen) in the setting are descendant in one way or another from one or more of the original 11 Gamesmen, named and defined in the poem.
So if you're a shifter, that means that somewhere way way way way way the fuck back in your family tree is Thandbar, the first shifter.
That poem is all that's listed in the book, but there's a footnote that says how most versions of the children's rhyme go on for another 50-60 verses to name the most common combinations of powers.
The series itself is a trilogy of trilogies. The first set is about Peter, son of Mavin Manyshaped, and his (mis)adventures after leaving magical boarding school. He growths throughout the books and puts down some evils, then stumbles onto the PLOT that yadda yadda fate of the world. He also awakens to the most broken of the broken powers in the setting and wrecks everyone's day mostly by accident.
Second set is about his mother, Mavin Manyshaped, best damn shifter ever, and her history along with explaining backstory and showing how things got to be the way they were for Peters setup.
Last three follow Jinian star-eye, a Wise-ard and companion of Peter, slightly overlap with his books, and then she goes off to keep the planet from committing suicide via depression because men are raping it for power. Yea, the author kinda drank the cool-aid towards the last book...
Clariel is out this month or last month, and Goldenhand is out in October. Good times for The Old Kingdom.
...Tim Curry you say? I don't usually audiobook but damn
The Gentlemen Bastards series by Scott Lynch. Honestly, it was what sold me on the whole "low fantasy" thing.
Clariel has been out for awhile, and it's a good read. Nice bit of look into how Free Magic works.
Knowing how she ends up makes me sad though.
the first 3 of them anyway. from a packet I may or may not have gotten from piratebay
oh?
I need some conquistadore fiction I can read for a darkest africa/uncharted jungle kind of game.
I'm reading Heart of Darkness just for the form of things, but it's much further along than I actually want for the flavor.
Yes.
>Ctrl+f Malazan
>you know the rest
care to synopsize?
whats that?
is it good?
I know it's probably the most generic answer I can give, but Dune.
>care to synopsize?
A group of thieves travel around a rennessance-inspired world, stealing from people and generally killing whoever's dumb enough to think they can control them, while also dealing with a powerful cabal of mages called the Bondsmagi. It starts a little slow, but it's worth a read.
None. All fantasy authors are shit now, for some reason. Or maybe it's just the ones I've read in the past 20 years.
>Sabriel
Convenient solutions: the series. I couldn't get through the audio book, even though it was read by Tim Curry.
Though I will definitely give your series a try if he voiced that one too.
The Dark Tower Series is a big one for me
>author?
>is there an audio-version?
>is it any good?
>yes I am an audio-whore so sue me.
>Or maybe it's just the ones I've read in the past 20 years.
...then tell me about the not-shit ones from the long ago?...
>I couldn't get through the audio book, even though it was read by Tim Curry.
the next 2 are much better about that, and feature Sabriel herself only in passing.
>Though I will definitely give your series a try if he voiced that one too.
sadly no, but they do have some pretty good narrators.
also The March, has no official name and is Sci-Fi starts with the book March Upcountry and has some of the most awful cover-art you will ever see
>author?
Scott Lynch. I mentioned it in my original post.
>is there an audio version?
Yes, but be warned, the cover art is complete garbage.
>is it any good?
While I can't vouch for the audio version, I enjoyed the book itself quite a lot.
>Scott Lynch. I mentioned it in my original post.
I thought you were the Malazan guy.
I'll go look for that Gentelman bastard thing now I'm back on a sensible compouter
Cool. If you do get into the series, I should warn you that the third book has a very different tone than the other two so far. It's still good, just different. If you don't like that one, however, there are more on the way.
just so long as he doesn't pull a Robert Jordan and make the next several into snail-crawling shit-shows
>...then tell me about the not-shit ones from the long ago?...
I'm only 27, so I didn't get get through too many fantasy novels back then. But fair enough. Elizabeth Moon's books about Paksenarrion were pretty good. Minimal GIRL POWER for a book with a female protagonist, and only a single rape storyline I think it's called 'The Deed of Paksenarrion' in English.
I also recall liking the Dragonlance novels and David Eddings' Belgariad when I was a kid, but I don't think I'd like them as much now. Paksenarrion was solid, though, and so was the sort-of prequel, about one of the gods in the setting.
Moon's newer Paksenarrion books are complete shit, though. I bought the entire series, sight unseen, and I regret it bitterly.
Yeah, sorry, had to go for a bit. Malazan Book of the Fallen is a ten-novel series set in one of the most convoluted, but highly original fantasy worlds I've ever read. The writing of the first few books is pretty terrible, but you can really see the author find his feet by the fourth/fifth. It's really hard to sum up the plot, but I really recommend you check it out if for no other reason than that it does fantasy tropes in an extremely fresh, new way.
Everything and anything.
"Even when she was A- alive."
DUNE
Any suggestions for good audiobooks? Really liked Hobbit and LotR, don't care much for ASoIaF(too much sudden death for my preference, not much closure), liked the Icewind Dale books but felt like they got worse over time.
Wheel of Time, good "intrigue and politics for murderhobos" material. My personal favorite magic system.
The Martian is one of the best audiobooks I ever listened too
Addendum: I love Dune
The Well of Shiuan. It's a well done science fantasy book that, by the necessity of it's time-jumping story, has a real sense of history and progression with its setting, and gives it some real weight.
As another user have said, i too recommend Gentlemen Bastards. Had the first book both via audio and in epub format, personally favoring the reading version - but that's just me.
I'd also recommend China Mieville's books - The City & The City really makes me want to implement something just like it in my setting. His other standalone books, Kraken and Embassytown, are also worth a read - Embassytown especially, if you're looking for inspiration for an exotic intelligent race.
I'd also recommend his New Crobuzon series, mostly because of The Scar, though Iron Council is enjoyable and Perdido Street Station is 90% greatness.
Have there been any books that have caused you to avoid an idea?
I picked up a decent-seeming fantasy book whose name I can't remember, but I found its system of magic disconcerting. Something about taking strength from the strong or intelligence from the smart, and leaving them weak and dumb, didn't sit well with me.
>nobody has mentioned Swords / Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Fuck this thread.
Why is dune so weeb?
I will do as I have done.
what is that, and why is it good?
Saberhagen's Book of Swords? Because ghat dang I ate that stuff up as a kid.
Katherine Kerr, Daggerspell and all the cycle of Deverry. High intrigue and political webs, original magic system derived more directly from the celtic lore.
It's all feudalism and shit
The Night Lands
The most fun is never telling anyone that they're in it. Games entirely inside the Redout, never leaving the city-level that they started on. Using it as a dream interlude to remind them that sometimes, they need to run the fuck away from things.
The book was one of the big inspirations for Lovecraft, and it shows.
Should I look into more Garth Nix?
got a copy of The Lies
DAT PROLOGUE
I like it so far...
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Seriously, it has good ideas for plots, villains 'n shit. Phantom Blood fits quite well into "good ol' fantasy"
After reading The Powder Mage Trilogy, I've been trying to find a way to make powder mages, knacked, privileged and blanks work in any of the games I've played, or make a new system for it. Sadly, I'm not good at that.