Odd Sources for Inspiration

[Mister Andersen]

[TheAuldGrump]

Definitely odd.... the art of Alexander Jansson...



The Auld Grump

[Mister Andersen]

[TheAuldGrump]

I was hoping to find some inspiration in Hellgate London... But it was not to be, plot wise the thing is drek. Sometimes fun drek, but between the tech, and the poorly realized setting it really does not inspire me in any positive way. Inspiration as to things not to do it has in plenty....

A better choice, in terms of Apocalyptic End Times fun is James Blish's Black Easter. Where a munitions manufacturer has the gates of Hell thrown open for a single night, as for how well that goes - the sequel is The Day After Judgment.

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

A good source for some of the more historically minded gamers out there - Landships! a site dedicated to WWI hardware.

I rediscovered it while transferring bookmarks from my old computer to the new.

The Auld Grump
*EDIT* I saw one of these back in the early '70s in a barn in Huron, Kansas - a WWI French tank, sans guns, that had been pressed into service as a tractor, many years before I was born. It was sitting there, quietly rusting, and may still be there today, for all I know.

[OverNinja]

There is one at Panssari Museo (The Armour Museum) in Parola, Finland.

The Defense Forces acquired some (both male and female) in the 20's and formed the Hyökkäysvaunurykmentti (Attack Tank Regiment).
Last of the FT-17's ended up as pillboxes during the Winter War.

[TheAuldGrump]

There is one at Panssari Museo (The Armour Museum) in Parola, Finland.

The Defense Forces acquired some (both male and female) in the 20's and formed the Hyökkäysvaunurykmentti (Attack Tank Regiment).
Last of the FT-17's ended up as pillboxes during the Winter War.

I still wonder how a French made tank made its way to Huron, Kansas of all places, but being ten years old at the time I did not think to ask. The turret was gone, and the inside pretty much gutted, a big old disk harrow still chained to it.

Great for climbing on though....

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

I don't know just what I am going to do with it, but Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas has got to be useful for something - the only place where diamonds found just lying on the ground are there for the taking.... The largest found was 40.23 carats.

Somehow, the fact that it is Arkansas of all places just adds to the, ummm, shine.

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

And Wowio...

Something that is not to my tastes, but others might find inspirational is the comic book Ellium - a dystopian future,  secret societies, unnamed conflicts.... Just, not my taste is all. (Why create dystopian futures when there is an encyclopaedia's worth of dystopian past to choose from.)

Less inspiring was A History of Cannibalism - strange as it may sound, given that it is a book on cannibals, for the love of mud, I found it overly sensationalized, and in a few areas at lest, less than perfectly researched. (Specifically the sections on Sawney Bean and on 'Liver Eating Johnson'.)

Much more useful are the books on pirates and piracy, and The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, both should come in handy for the FantasyCraft campaign I am setting in the court and times of Elizabeth I. Like John Dee Marlowe is a known spy of the era.

So, there is some good, some bad - but at three free downloads a day I am not going to complain overly much.

And for those who care about such things - the authors/publishers get paid a small amount the first time you download any book, generally fifty cents, if I recall properly.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* And one that may prove useful when I Spycraft Ravenloft - The Nazis and the Occult.

[TheAuldGrump]

There is one at Panssari Museo (The Armour Museum) in Parola, Finland.

The Defense Forces acquired some (both male and female) in the 20's and formed the Hyökkäysvaunurykmentti (Attack Tank Regiment).
Last of the FT-17's ended up as pillboxes during the Winter War.

I still wonder how a French made tank made its way to Huron, Kansas of all places, but being ten years old at the time I did not think to ask. The turret was gone, and the inside pretty much gutted, a big old disk harrow still chained to it.

Great for climbing on though....

The Auld Grump

Turns out that it is no great mystery after all - the first tanks the U.S. ever used were made by Renault - and the hundred or so that were brought back to the U.S. ended up being sold as tractors. As did the bulk of the Six Ton Tank M1917s, which we built under license from France. Most of those tanks had been moved to Kansas before being sold - so there were a bunch of them in Kansas, several hundred at the least....

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

I had originally planned to use Pict Song, by Rudyard Kipling, for the current ghostbusting SteamCraft game (that seems to have not ended on schedule...) but I think that it may work better for an espionage oriented one instead -

Rome never looks where she treads.
  Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
  And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on--that is all,
   And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
   With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk--we!
   Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you'll see
   How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
  We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
   We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe  killing  an  oak--
  Rats gnawing cables in two--
Moths making holes in a cloak--
  How they must love what they do!
Yes--and we Little Folk too,
  We are busy as they--
Working our works out of view--
  Watch, and you'll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,
  But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we'll guide them along
  To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
  Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you--you will die of the shame,
  And then we shall dance on your graves!

     We are the Little Folk, we, etc.

Put this in the mouths of some Welsh anarchists, and see what you get... And who are the Peoples they are speaking of? Given that Victorian England often compared itself to Rome you can see where this one is headed.

Completely separate, but also nifty - Wowio now has Gray's Anatomy available for download. If you are looking for printed props that might be sitting around a necromancer or reanimator's lab the illustrations, and even some of the text - redone in different fonts, can make a gruesome discovery or two.



I now have an image in my head of an anatomical/medical school with animated cadavers for dissection....

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

And in a picture book about the Portland Company (oddly enough, here in Portland Me....) I ran across an article on a Bicycle Locomotive - what pretty much amounts to a steampowered monorail. While built here in Portland it was destined for far off New York, where it ran its course at 80 MPH - in 1889. Armed with this I went for a quick dive into the archives of The New York Times (Link may be for subscribers only, I am not sure.)

Not a true monorail, it in fact had three rails, two above, one below. I think I have found an element that I need to add to my SteamPunk setting.



The Auld Grump

[MilitiaJim]

So between that and a few hours spent playing MarioKart Wii this weekend, I've got an idea for an adventure set in the Mushroom world:

The Mushroom and Koopa kingdoms are very close by, probably sharing borders.  (The Koopas being turtle looking folks and the Mushrooms apparently are sentient fungus though there are females.)  The two species can interbreed.  (In the GameCube Mario baseball game Bowser Jr. refers to Peach as his mother, and she does not dispute this.)

This sets the stage for the classic tale of the PCs being the personal guards of the missing Princess Peach and (dunno if Bowser should be the king already) Bowser; and they're trying to find their charges and keep the continent from plunging into bloody war.

(Goombas and yoshis will be around, mostly as nasty creatures living in the woods and jungles.  Yoshis have to be large, and they eat turtles whole, so their jaws are no joke.  The Koopas and goombas seem to coexist more or less peacefully, so either the goombas can't digest Koopas, or they've given up on getting through the shell.)

Obviously I'm completely insane, but I'm looking for some other thoughts.  (Especially some ideas for racial feats for Koopas and Toads.)




(Vague apologies for the pic being out, I don't know how to do the hide stuff thing.)

Thoughts round two:
Daisy is scheming with Mario to rebuild Sarasaland by annexing the Mushroom Kingdom after Peach's bid to shackle Mario as the Mushroom Kingdom's champion (by having Donkey Kong dispose of Pauline his fiancee) failed.

[Edited to add some more "thoughts."  And by thoughts I mean evidence of why I should not think.]\

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh, watched a couple of episodes of Space Precinct tonight, when I really should have been sleeping....

Despite being a T.V. show I definitely have to count it as an 'odd source for inspiration'.

The 'head bumps' campaign quality (from the old forums) is in full use on that show - the captain for the precinct is an alien, the main PCs, err, characters, are human. It might be a fun setting to try.

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

When it comes to odd sources of inspiration there is nothing, but nothing, odder than Weekly World News. I still miss seeing the lurid headlines while standing in line at the supermarket. (Super Hero Bigfoot Saves Boy!)

The Auld Grump