Odd Sources for Inspiration

[MilitiaJim]

These pictures made me think of Sauron's lands after a few hundred more years of his control, maybe Isengard a bit.

The modern land of Mordor

Those are absolute nightmare fuel.

Would you like a snarky remark about that being where lack of property rights gets you or a link to tvtropes' selection of Nightmare Fuel examples?

[ThunderMonkey]

These pictures made me think of Sauron's lands after a few hundred more years of his control, maybe Isengard a bit.

The modern land of Mordor

Those are horrible. It's amazing that we treat members of our own species in such a manner.

[TheAuldGrump]

Some things that I constantly use as inspiration - naming conventions, the more boring the better. There is nothing like the PCs discovering that Fortune's Island was originally Four Towns Island, and renamed to encourage folks to move there from the mainland. The light dying in their little eyes is heartworming heartwarming.

Real world inspirations: Kangaroo - translation 'I don't know'. As in 'What's that?' 'I don't know.'

Here in Maine there is  Mount Katahdin - translation 'mountain'. As in 'What's that?' 'Mountain.'

Iceland was named that to discourage immigration, while Greenland was named that to encourage the same.

So, Baron Redcastle lives in a castle made from brick (not the best material for building a castle, but the area is clay rich). Edard Thallman is very tall (for a dwarf), etc..

The Auld Grump

[Krensky]

Real world inspirations: Kangaroo - translation 'I don't know'. As in 'What's that?' 'I don't know.'

Here in Maine there is  Mount Katahdin - translation 'mountain'. As in 'What's that?' 'Mountain.'

Ah, linguistic myths.

Kangaroo comes from gangurru, the local language's word for what we call a grey kangaroo.

Katahdin is the Penobscot word for "greatest mountain". So technically Mount Katadhin is as silly and wrong as Rio Grande/Bravo River.

[TheAuldGrump]

Real world inspirations: Kangaroo - translation 'I don't know'. As in 'What's that?' 'I don't know.'

Here in Maine there is  Mount Katahdin - translation 'mountain'. As in 'What's that?' 'Mountain.'

Ah, linguistic myths.

Kangaroo comes from gangurru, the local language's word for what we call a grey kangaroo.

Katahdin is the Penobscot word for "greatest mountain". So technically Mount Katadhin is as silly and wrong as Rio Grande/Bravo River.

Hey, these are my yarns, and I'm sticking to them.

Vermont, the Green Mountain State.

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

Reading Raymond Chandler again, and ran across a line in Pearls are a Nuisance that I might need to find a use for....

He snorted and hit me in the solar plexus.
I bent over and took hold of the room with both hands and spun it. When I had it nicely spinning I gave it a full swing and hit myself on the back of the head with the floor.

Ah, the glory days of pulp!

The Auld Grump, when in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.

[Agent 333]

The Auld Grump, when in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.

You have no idea how many campaigns I've saved using that trick...

[Wolverine]

Here's something we encountered this week in my Mutants and Masterminds campaign - the Zen Shop.

The idea was that the shop could not be found when actively searched for, it could only be stumbled across at random. The GM make us all roll DC15 Will saves, with the lowest failing roll determining how long it took us to find the shop (1 minute of 'searching' for each point it failed by).

This might be fun to use on players who don't instantly realise how to locate the shop. Let them make all the Search rolls and ask all the NPC's they want, then have them stumble across it once they give up.

[TheAuldGrump]

NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH - Nothing too horrific, but if dead bodies disturb you, then best not to watch.

A short documentary onThe Body Farm (The Anthropology Research Facility of the University of Tennessee.) One of the odd things about the farm - they actually get more 'volunteers (donated bodies) than they have either the space or the researchers to handle. Folks kind of want to help in this endeavor.

I met Bill Bass once when he was doing the book shop circuit for his mystery series, written with Jon Jefferson under the pen name of Jefferson Bass. Not a bad series, better, in my estimation at any rate, than Cornwell or Reichs.

The Auld Grump

[Crafty_Pat]

That's awesome! I've kicked around where my corpse might wind up - I have zero interest in wasting space on the planet with a grave or even an urn - and I've thought about willing the ol' sack to science. Maybe this might make for a decent alternative.

[MilitiaJim]

They can make your body into a gem.  My idea was to get a nice statue and decorate it with gems made out of folks as they pass.  I am told this is a twisted idea.

[Wolverine]

That's awesome! I've kicked around where my corpse might wind up - I have zero interest in wasting space on the planet with a grave or even an urn - and I've thought about willing the ol' sack to science.

I think there are a few places that accept whole body post-mortem donations. If I remember rightly, Stephen Fry visited the farm on his trip through America. It's not the nicest place in the world, but they do good work.

Personally, I'm hoping for a Viking-style funeral. That would be suitably epic.

[MilitiaJim]

Personally, I'm hoping for a Viking-style funeral. That would be suitably epic.

My fiancee keeps telling me those are illegal.  I keep explaining that my friends will make it happen.

[Crafty_Pat]

They can make your body into a gem.  My idea was to get a nice statue and decorate it with gems made out of folks as they pass.  I am told this is a twisted idea.

Equally awesome, though not as socially conscious, I'm afraid. Will pass it along to the rest of the clan, though!

Personally, I'm hoping for a Viking-style funeral. That would be suitably epic.

Crafty_Steve wants to have me stuffed or bronzed in a jockey outfit and mounted on his lawn. That seems fitting, though I'm not sure I could justify giving back to just one person (maybe a dozen, if you count all our morbid friends, but still).

[Mister Andersen]