Books that inspire your games...

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pblackcrow
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Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by pblackcrow »

What are some books that have inspired your games? Both gaming and non-gaming books. I mean other than Palladium books.
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by Stone Gargoyle »

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by kiralon »

*looks at bookcases* that's a big list. I did an adventure based off the following books plus a few more.
Magician series, Raymond feist - better version of chaos wars, pc's were Thomas and pug also seriously, the best way to kill an old one is to crash a moon into it.
Swords of power, fritz leiber - The shackles that held xy when he was betrayed were reforged into the swords of power, all were needed to stop the ya blik and co. Xy was a lot more like Ashen-Shugar in the fact that he wanted the palladium world for himself so wanted to protect it. One pc was tomas
Wheel of time, Robert Jordan - Faceless man and trollocs are cool enemies.
Avatar Series, troy denning - Have the gods kicked to palladium world and made mortal, and if you kill one you get a random magic zone effect and they leave behind an essence pearl that basically gives their powers to whomever picks it up (wasn't a good time to be a god)
Lord of the ring, J Tolkien - Pet genestealer eats Frodo
Dragonbone chair, tad Williams - the ice tree was truly cool
Otherworld, Tad Williams - More fairy stuff
Bitterbynde series, Cecilia dart thorton - Lots of great fairy stuff.
Age of misrule series, mark Chadbourne - more fairy stuff
Shannara series, terry brooks - The creatures of the outer dark, dadga mor and his staff. This mixed with a bit of feist was the basis for the bad guys.
Daggerspell, Katharine Kerr - scout comes running back in, totally panicking, the enemy army is here. PC's go scout, find an armed scout patrol obviously ahead of main force, pc's kill them all, then spend a long time looking for the army, go back to fort, say they found the scout squad but not the army, npc scout responds, what scout squad. Armies here are tiny.
Moonshae series, Douglas Niles - Moonwells are cool, so are hidden elf and elf knights.
Dragonlances - enuff said.
Curse of the azure bonds and pools of radiance
Dune - Shai Hulud
Belgariad, eddings - a couple of magic stones
Diskworld, Terry pratchet - Faeries, funny stuff, wee free men (love watching pc's try to figure out what's stealing the cows lol).
Gord the rogue, gygax - One pc was based of gord, even had the ring of 9 lives. Used first set of nine lives over a four hour period of rolling 1's to save and 1's to parry. Most Diey character ever. Recharged ring more than 7 times, died more than 100 times over life(hehe)span of character. Player still has trouble rolling over 10.
Runes of War, Jane Welch - First Prophecy was basically this one except stole idea from Janny wurtz about the end being a crashed alien spacecraft, second was tree of rime/rhyme (see dragonbone chair) the tree was carved into a frozen waterfall, the carving is tiny writing that says the full second prophecy.
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by Reagren Wright »

Dresden Files
Joe Pike and Elvis Cole
Special Agent Penderghast
Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
Super Hero Novels
Edward Lee Novels
Lots of individual novels
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by eliakon »

Besides many of the above...
The Black Company gets a special mention as being very highly influential to me
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by smkeyes »

“THE DEED OF PAKSENARRION and the paladins legacy series by Elizabeth Moon. Now the first book of the deed of paksenarrion is very good read and has some nice ideas for a mercenary campaign
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by Library Ogre »

While I haven't used them as such, I think the Vlad Taltos books from Stephen Brust would integrate pretty well into Palladium... though they're a fair bit higher-powered, what with the relatively easy resurrection and teleportation. There's psychic powers, which are distinct from sorcery, but related to witchcraft. There's equivalents to the rune weapons, of varying power.
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

i'm not sure i can actually list all of them..
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by tmbn »

We used the whole Lankhmar series to fill in the hole that Palladium Books left us in Land of the South Winds. So basically we use Lankhmar as capital of South Winds and have filled in the land around. But it is a very good series and could be use in many settings. The City is big and can be placed wherever you like in Palladium. The book series have many great adventures and characters.

https://www.google.no/search?site=&sour ... 7o1FZqLCZ0

It worked out so good. Even if they will release a book on South Winds I think we will keep using this. If not the setting could be adapted.
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by Wōdwulf Seaxaning »

I tend to be inspired by:
The Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser series
R.E. Howard's Conan saga
Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga
Karl E. Wagner's Kane stories
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim XBox Game
Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen XBox Game
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by Hotrod »

One great pair of novels I haven't seen mentioned so far: Blade of the Poisoner and its sequel, Master of Fiends by Douglass Hill. The pair of novels demonstrates a world of both magic and psionics, angels and demons, and the plot follows a diverse small group dealing with terrible circumstances, obstacles, and enemies.
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by Tannhauser »

Wōdwulf Seaxaning wrote:I tend to be inspired by:
The Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser series
R.E. Howard's Conan saga
Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga
Karl E. Wagner's Kane stories
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim XBox Game
Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen XBox Game


All the books you mention were a huge influence during my last Palladium campaign. I can't speak to the Xbox games, as my last Palladium gaming was well before the Xbox :-D
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Re: Books that inspire your games...

Unread post by Hendrik »

Tannhäuser is a great name!

Robert E. Howard books, mainly Conan and Solomon Kane - Conan is just the greatest fantasy hero of all
Lovecraft
Steven Brust, Vlad Taltos series and the Khaavren "fantasy world musketeer" stories - Draegara is the best analogue to the Western Empire for me
Tolkien, all, but I love the Hobbit novel dearly - started my journey into fantasy novels
Steven Erickson, Malazan Book of the Fallen, has impressed me greatly and made me think differently about divinity in games
Patrick Rothfuss, Kingkiller Chronicles are among the best fantasy books ever written in terms of sheer artfulness of the writing and great story, made me think again about world building
Joe Abercrombie, First Law Trilogy, made me think that I would love to be able to describe combat so well
Michael Scott Rohan, Winter of the World trilogy - just awesome, epic, great vivid writing, and the magic of smithing - the ethos of the mastersmiths impressed me
Katherine Kurtz, Deryni saga - the first time I thought that psionics actually made sense along (other) magic
Gene Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun - for its unlikely hero, a torturer, and its impressive sweep - also for the sword "Terminus Est", a model for Runeweapons for me
Scott Lynch, Gentlemen Bastards series - excellent tableau for thieves in games - also, a jolly good read!
David Eddings - The Belgariad and The Mallorean series - I played on that world a long time in the 1980s and the books are a great joy.
Jack Vance - anything really but mostly Lyonesse for fantasy
Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light and everything else - greatest character descriptions

Honorary Mentions
Michael Moorcock - I am very torn about his work, but Elric of Melniboné is seminal
Poul Anderson - "Three Hearts, Three Lions" for the EPIC sweep of the story and to see Ogier the Dane fight Nazis; "The Broken Sword" because one MUST have read this as a "viking novel".
James Blish - made me think out of the box - especially "Cities in Flight" and "A Case of Conscience" - which is elementary for SF and fantasy, I think

Just to name a few.
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