sean.blog

Sometimes it takes a little spark to get things going.  I got an e-mail the other day wondering what was going on with the blog.  I can typically be counted on for a post a month or so, but it had been a good long while since anything new was available here.  All the typical reasons abound of course.  I was on vacation to Disney World, Houston was messed up by Ike (while I was on vacation actually, and we missed the whole thing – damage included thankfully), I have been busy at work and other reasons as well.  That aside, sometimes it just takes someone reminding you that your voice is part of a global community to get you back into the swing of things.

I have been listening to a lot of audio books recently, as well as reading through a good number of books on the Amazon Kindle.  At the same time all of these stories have been flowing into my head, I have been working somewhat slowly on an adventure for 4th edition D&D.  Lots of inspiration means lots of new ideas continually working their way into the story.  In particular, three books stand out as having a major effect on what I am planning for the game.

The first story that got me thinking, and made it’s way into the adventure, was Ogre’s Passing by Paul Melniczek.  This was the first book I actually read on my Kindle, and as I was reading I used the Kindle’s annotation feature quite a bit.  A couple of new creatures and a main story line for the adventure came out of this book.  I was really quite amazed by the quality of the book, and the general story.  It follows a small group of people on a mission in the service of their king.  The perfect thing to turn into a D&D adventure.  The book is inexpensive in both paper and digital form and is worth the read.

Second up for me was the audio book of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.  This was the first of two stories that inspired me both for the fantasy side of the story, but also by the way they carry off the fantasy setting inside of the world of modern London.  Cars, jobs, telephones, vampires, people who speak with animals all mixed into the same world.  I found out after I read the story that it was a short series on the BBC back in the 90’s.  I have added it to my Netflix queue.  A number of characters were so intriguing that they had to become NPC’s in my story.  I have not read many Neil Gaiman books, but I was very saddened at the end of this one to read that there were no sequels to the book.  It is a story that could easily become a series, as there are plenty of unanswered questions, interesting characters and story lines to explore.

Most recently, I have been listening to the Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud.  Again, it is a story that mixes fantasy and magic into modern London.  In the story, the first of a trilogy, the magicians derive their power from their ability to summon demons, imps, and djinn from another world.  These summoned beings then carry out the summoner’s wishes.  It is an interesting story, and the heavy reliance on summoning gives some interesting ideas for a fantasy campaign.  Especially some of the unique ways that the summoned creatures are used in the book.  Wikipedia shows that there is a possible movie in the works based on the book, which would be cool.

Overall, the D&D adventure is still a bit of a mess.  I have the general background of what is going on pretty well settled out.  I have a number of different scenarios in the middle, but they are not well organized.  I would say though, that each of these stories has done a good job of helping me to fill in the empty spots.  Often times it is by providing a good NPC or sub-plot to help drive forward the story as a whole.  As for these books?  I would recommend all three to anyone who likes fantasy novels.