The PS Inspiration Thread

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sciborg2's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

The man in the mask swings a sword of bright stars
The cloud of his breath is the shroud of the earth.
But the man in the robe from a book reads our fears,
And ticks off the minutes from death until birth.

The woman in white is the mother of hope,
And the twin doves of peace rest on her twin breasts.
But the woman in black, with a knife and a rope,
Is the watcher at gateway,
the guardian of ghosts.
— Henry Treece

(Courtesy of Gaiman's Brief Lives)

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Canto XII from The Heights of Macchu Picchu
by
Pablo Neruda

Arise to birth with me, my brother.
Give me your hand out of the depths
sown by your sorrows.
You will not return from these stone fastnesses.
You will not emerge from subterranean time.
Your rasping voice will not come back,
nor your pierced eyes rise from their sockets.

Look at me from the depths of the earth,
tiller of fields, weaver, reticent shepherd,
groom of totemic guanacos,
mason high on your treacherous scaffolding,
iceman of Andean tears,
jeweler with crushed fingers,
farmer anxious among his seedlings,
potter wasted among his clays--
bring to the cup of this new life
your ancient buried sorrows.
Show me your blood and your furrow;
say to me: here I was scourged
because a gem was dull or because the earth
failed to give up in time its tithe of corn or stone.
Point out to me the rock on which you stumbled,
the wood they used to crucify your body.
Strike the old flints
to kindle ancient lamps, light up the whips
glued to your wounds throughout the centuries
and light the axes gleaming with your blood.

I come to speak for your dead mouths.

Throughout the earth
let dead lips congregate,
out of the depths spin this long night to me
as if I rode at anchor here with you.

And tell me everything, tell chain by chain,
and link by link, and step by step;
sharpen the knives you kept hidden away,
thrust them into my breast, into my hands,
like a torrent of sunbursts,
an Amazon of buried jaguars,
and leave me cry: hours, days and years,
blind ages, stellar centuries.

And give me silence, give me water, hope.
Give me the struggle, the iron, the volcanoes.
Let bodies cling like magnets to my body.
Come quickly to my veins and to my mouth.
Speak through my speech, and through my blood.

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sciborg2's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Buddy of mine put me on these, they're even called Planescape Paintings:

http://io9.com/5926862/landscape-paintings-from-an-interstellar-mission?...

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"Wolf is the Grand Teacher. Wolf is the sage, who after many winters upon the sacred path and seeking the ways of wisdom, returns to share new knowledge with the tribe. Wolf is both the radical and the traditional in the same breath. When the Wolf walks by you-you will remember."
-Robert Ghost Wolf

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"He could have made her beautiful"

"Like you?" Tanaros asked quietly. Cerelinde's hands fell still.

"No," she said, "Like *you*."

Tanaros stopped, meeting the old woman's eyes. They were milky with
cataracts, blinking under his regard.

"You don't understand" he said to Cerelinde, gazing at Sharit.

"To Lord Satoris, she ~is~ beautiful."
-Banewrecker

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Quale's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

That reminds me this picture

http://daotyr.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/end.jpg

looks like the Crawling City

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

This is a video of what happens when you put high frequency/energy electricity next to water:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EBZ81N2kX8&feature=related

The upshot is that the water burns.

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Surrealist animation called Destino. It says that it was a collaboration between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dIznsAdTOE

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

The bow I carry with me into the wilderness, I made of Este.

She died just before dawn, ten days before. She had seen her death
while working in her garden, saw the places between plants where she
no longer stood, an uncapping of momentum in the afternoon sun. She
prepared me for what had to be done, walking back into our simple house
and removing her straw hat, returning it to its shadow and nail on the
north wall.

She was born a seer and some part of her seeing lived in the expectancy
of her departure, a breeze before a wave, before a storm. Seers die in a
threefold lapse, from the outside in. The details and confinement of each
infolding had to be carefully marked and heard without panic or emotion
on my part, for I then took on a different role.
-The Vorrh

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sciborg2's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"I think it was then that I told him truly why I was not on his side: Because the Good was more of an adventure."
-Roberto Calasso, Ruins of Kasch

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sciborg2's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Bug Instruments: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/scandinavian-designlab-paristexas

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"The black clouds I'm hanging
This anchor I'm dragging
The sails of memory rip open in silence
We cut through the lowlands
All hands through the salt lands
The white caps of memory
Confusing and violent

I had a dream last night
And when I opened up my eyes
Your shoulder blade your spine
Were shorelines in the moon light
New worlds for the weary
New lands for the living
I could make it if I tried
I closed my eyes I kept on swimming"

-Change of Time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJIFL34aTss

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

By the way, loved both those video Wicke!

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

I am the voice of the voiceless;
Through me the dumb shall speak,
Till the deaf world’s ears be made to hear
The wrongs of the wordless weak.
And I am my brother’s keeper,
And I will fight his fight;
And speak the word for beast and bird
Till the world shall set things right.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Cloud Atlas Trailer

UN-$!$!$@#@#-ing-BELIEVABLY GORGEOUS:

http://io9.com/5929189/first-6+minute-trailer-for-cloud-atlas-is-simply-...

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

New film for Silent Hill, with subheading Revelation:

http://www.firstshowing.net/2012/watch-first-psychologically-twisted-sil...

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Any sunset, look at him: standing there,
like between his legs there's a horse
somehow, on either side of it a saddlebag
of loss, a pack of sorrow, and him Kid
Compromise his very own shoot-'em-up,
'tilt to the brim of his hat self, smirk to match,
all-for-love-if-it's-gotta-come-to-that half
swagger,
half unintentional, I think, sashay.

The silver spurs at his ankles where maybe
the wings would be, if the gods still existed,
catch the light, lose it, as he stands in place,
scraping the dirt with his boots: lines, circles
that stop short, shapes that mean nothing—
no bull, not like that, but scraping shyly, like
a man who's forgotten that part of himself,
keeps forgetting, because what the fuck?

As he takes his hat off; as he lifts his head up
like if right now he could be any animal he'd
choose coyote; as all the usual sunset colors
break over his face,
he starts up singing again,
same as every night, same song: loneliness
by starlight, miles to go, lay me down by
the cool etc.—that kind of song, the kind
you'll have heard before, sure, somewhere,
but where was that,
the singer turning this
and that way, as if watching the song itself—
—the words to the song—leave him, as he
lets each go, the wind carrying most of it,
some of the words, falling, settling into
instead that larger darkness, where the smaller

darknesses that our lives were lie softly down.

"Riding Westward" by Carl Phillips

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Dalmosh's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

I am just reading Milton's Paradise Lost, it is the most epicly planescape classic literature I have ever come across. I cannot recommend it enough.

e.g. (Satan emerges from Hell's Gates to journey through the Abyssal chaos)

Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne
Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread
Wide on the wasteful Deep! With him enthroned
Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,
The consort of his reign; and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon; Rumour next, and Chance,
And Tumult, and Confusion, all embroiled,
And Discord with a thousand various mouths.
T' whom Satan, turning boldly, thus:- "Ye Powers
And Spirits of this nethermost Abyss,
Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy
With purpose to explore or to disturb
The secrets of your realm; but, by constraint
Wandering this darksome desert, as my way
Lies through your spacious empire up to light,
Alone and without guide, half lost, I seek,
What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds
Confine with Heaven; or, if some other place
From your dominion won, th' Ethereal King
Possesses lately, thither to arrive
I travel this profound. Direct my course..."

WTF? That was PALE NIGHT! I had no idea she was actually drawn from something in literature.
Maybe Discord needs statting out

sciborg2's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Whoah. Great find Dalmosh!

Apparently, what follows is an untitled piece by Genevieve Valentine: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valentine_11_10/

After it was over, they pulled her from the sea.

Even as they lifted her into the rescue boat she was saying, "No, no; we could have made it."

She was cradling the hand the Captain broke.

=-=-=

The first time Marika saw the night sky, she was terrified.

(Strange she wasn't terrified sooner. They'd escaped the city because of the water riots. The city wouldn't last long; the night swallowed it up one time too many, and then day just never came.

Maybe that's what happened to her — one terror swallowing another.)

The night sky was a battle of stars, a violent seam tearing through the center like a wound badly sewn up. The points of light marshaled in ways she didn't understand; the constellations she remembered were devoured by the hordes. Everything bled.

(This prepares her, a little, for what comes later.)

=-=-=

(What comes later:

A star dropping out of sight, a ship that holds three, a scattering of gold.)

=-=-=

It is impossible, from the ground, to look at a star....

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

When the world arises in me,
It is just an illusion:
Water shimmering in the sun,
A vein of silver in mother-of-pearl,
A serpent in a strand of rope.

From me the world streams out
And in me it dissolves,
As a bracelet melts into gold,
A pot crumbles into clay,
A wave subsides into water.

- Ashtavakra Gita 2: 9-10

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"It’s not more than a few hundred paces. But as he draws closer, he sees his error. It’s not a dwelling, destroyed or otherwise.

It’s a signpost.

A signpost made from some hammered dark alloy he doesn’t recognize, four fingers forked away from one another at right angles. The whole assembly is canted slightly downward out of true and stands behind a small mound in the tufted marsh grass terrain. The inscription on the pointers is illegible, scoured down by salt-sea winds and time, but he thinks the lettering looks like old Myrlic.

There’s a gauzy wrap of cobwebs spun down from the top and outward like some diaphanous triangle of sail run up the signpost’s mast. Marsh spiders hang in the gray midst of it, fist-sized and smaller, motionless, tending the strands with long poised forelegs. Ringil feels a sympathetic stab in his belly where the wound is …

It won’t kill you, hero.

Clicking, crow-rasp, indrawn breath of a voice.

Another stab in the belly as he realizes that what he’s taken for a mound is in fact something sat at the base of the signpost, something cowled and swathed in dark rags and so hunched and bent over that he can’t believe it just spoke.

Then it lifts its head and looks at him.

Later, he will be unable to remember exactly what it looked like under the cowl. He’ll recall only the way he steels up and looks back into the—what color were they? what shape? how many of them?—unblinking eyes."
-Richard Morgan, The Cold Commands

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sciborg2's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Ink, a movie set in the Dreamtime:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBGeErufQdY

Honestly, this little indie flick is one of my top fantasy movies. Also, interview with team that put it together:

http://blog.hulu.com/2009/12/28/exclusive-interview-ink/

(sadly not on hulu anymore I guess?)

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sciborg2's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Passed on from a buddy of mine -> So this guy makes all kinds of interesting weapons, thought y'all might get a kick of hit.

His Machete Crossbow:
http://www.youtube.c...&feature=relmfu

Full Auto: Gatling Slingshot
http://www.youtube.c...&feature=relmfu

Slingshot canon:
http://www.youtube.c...&feature=relmfu

Pump Action slingshot crossbow:
http://www.youtube.c...&feature=relmfu

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Miss Minchin: Don't tell me you still fancy yourself a princess? Child, look around you! Or better yet, look in the mirror.

Sara Crewe: I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us. Didn't your father ever tell you that? Didn't he?
-A Little Princess

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"One way or another, the world will go on being the place of epiphanies."
-Roberto Calasso, Literature and the Gods

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

here's one to chew on, it's something I can see as good fodder for debate:

"No one deserves to be subjected to the appalling instruments of cruelty. Nevertheless, even at the cost of misanthropy, one cannot afford to pretend that victimhood improves anyone in any way. If we do not remember that anyone can be a victim, and if we allow hatred for torture, or pity for pain, to blind us, we will unwittingly aid the torturers of tomorrow by overrating the victims of today. One may be too easily tempted to think of all victims as equally innocent because there cannot, by definition, be a voluntary victim. That may have the consequence of promoting an endless exchange of cruelties between alternating tormentors and victims."
-Judith Nisse Shkla

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Illustrations depicting the Eddas: http://dustycandy.deviantart.com/gallery/

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Tony DiTerlizzi's WondLa Series: http://io9.com/5915348/wondla-probably-your-kids-new-favorite-science-fi...

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"I'd heard it said that fairies have no souls."
"Then I do ache, and bleed, and smart elsewhere; still, call it a soul for it is solely mine."
-Gaiman, World's End

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"The written word is all that stands between memory and oblivion. Without books as our anchors, we are cast adrift, neither teaching nor learning. They are windows on the past, mirrors on the present, and prisms reflecting all possible futures. Books are lighthouses, erected in the dark sea of time."
-Gargoyles

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

My boots left no trace whatsoever on the slick blue-white ice. A few more steps and I was finally standing at the edge, walking cautiously onto the wide shelf formed by an angular chaos block jutting a few meters out over the pit. The constant steam had long since worn the edges of the block smooth. Eventually, this block would melt free, undercut by ages of heat and water vapor, and pitch into the churning abyss far below. I took a deep breath of the dry, stale air inside my helmet and peered into the throat of Sakpata.

“Tell me, what the hell did we expect to find out there, Deet?” Ronnie asked me.

“What did we think it would be? Little grey men with answers to all the mysteries of the universe, free for the asking? A few benign extremophiles clinging stubbornly to the bottom of an otherwise lifeless sea? I can’t remember anymore. I try, but I can’t. I lie awake at night trying to remember.”

“I don’t think it much matters,” I told her, and she started crying again.

“It was waiting for us, Deet,” she sobbed. “It was waiting for us all along, a hundred million [freaking] years alone out there in the dark. It knew we’d come, sooner or later.”

Kiernan, Caitlin R. Two Worlds and In Between

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightening and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.”

The Upanishads

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

The raw red thing crouched somewhere at the other side of the cellar makes a soft, wet sound and strikes a match to light the hurricane lamp gripped in the long fingers of its left hand. Dancy closes her eyes, because the angel has warned her never to look at its face until after it puts on one of the skins hanging from the rusted steel hooks set into the ceiling of the cellar.

All those blind and shriveled hides like deflated people, deflated animals, and it has promised Dancy that some day very soon she’ll hang there, too, one more hollow face, one more mask for it to wear.

Kiernan, Caitlin R. (2011-10-23). Two Worlds and In Between

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

“Oh, Jesus, you gotta be pullin’ my leg,” the blackbird said and frowned at her.

“What’s your problem, bird?” Dancy asked, gripping the knife a little tighter than before.

“I mean, we wasn’t expecting no goddamn St. George on his big white horse or nothin’, but for crying out loud.”

“You knew I was coming here tonight?” she asked the bird and glanced anxiously at the trees, the sky, wondering who else might know. 

“Look, girly, do you have any idea what’s waitin’ for you at the end of this here road? Do you even have the foggiest notion?”

“This is where he sent me. I go where my angel sends me.” The blackbird cocked its head to one side and blinked at her.

“Oh, Lord and butter,” the bird said.

“I go where my angel tells me. He shows me what I need to know.”

Kiernan, Caitlin R. (2011-10-23). Two Worlds and In Between

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"We kept our god under the sink, in an old aquarium, so it wouldn't spill its web all over the house. We didn't tell you because you were so curious. Our daughter: you are like an otter, or a hummingbird. How would you stand against such a monster as our god?

We took you to the shore, and watched you play in the surf. You don't notice how special you are, but everything else in the whole world does. The salty ocean spray always falls toward you. When the sun is out, its beams always find you, the heavy center, the pollen-coated middle; you are always so much brighter than everything around you.

We put you to bed and opened the cabinet under the sink, careful not to wake you or upset our god. Did you know spiders can hiss? Well, not all of them, but this one did. You turned in your bed, dreaming of the blue and red crabs that hide in the piles of rock at the beach. You call them "jellies," and only you know why.

We lit candles around the spider's glass. It reared up against the flame, and in the candlelight it truly looked like a monster.

We asked for good health, for good fortune. We opened the top and tossed in mealworms and cold crickets. The bugs rained down on the spider's fat body, and it turned on them in a rage. While it ate, while its mouth made dark, wet sounds, we broke down:

Be kind to our daughter, we pled. Be easy on her. We love her so much. We loved our children before her, but your poison stopped their hearts, and we did not watch while you wrapped them in your sticky web that smelled like honey, filled our house with the scent of flowers for months while you feasted, hiding the rotting stench. Each child was sicker and sadder than the last, hearing you eat while in the womb, knowing what was in store for them...."

-Sean Markey, The Spider in You: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2009/20090323/spider-f.shtml

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"One day I raised my eyes and saw the birds. I will never forget that moment, and I've kept it alive throughout the ages, in scattered paintings and writings, down to recent times. With the gaze of the reptiles, I stared at the birds as if they were lost poems. I could not believe that it was I who had made them, and I didn't understand why I had not noticed them until that moment. If the birds had looked down and seen those huge animals slithering and lumbering over the earth, they would have had the same thought I had: Who are they, and who created them? But entering a bird's head was not easy. Birds never stood still, and I knew that it would be a long time before I grasped their thoughts, if they had any."

-An excerpt from
The Life of God
(as Told by Himself)
Franco Ferrucci: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/244954.html

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

A random question that seems appropriate to this thread:

Have any RPGs ever produced adventures or sourcebooks in collaboration with established SF/F authors? Obviously literature has been turned into games after the fact (Wolfgang statting up a bunch of stuff from Perdido Street Station in Dragon 352 got me started thinking about this) and I certainly don't mean any disrespect to the many fine game designers out there (who would of course have to be closely involved in such a project as this), but I for one would be mighty curious to see what a Valente or a Carey or a Grossman might come up with after chewing on some setting or another for a while.

[I'd originally included "a Gaiman" on that list, though that struck me as too financially prohibitive up front even for this daydream - bet they'd sell a boatload of product, though…]

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Mieville did design one of the River Kingdoms in Golarion, that's only one I know. For PS I think R Scott Bakker or Steven Erikson.

Jem
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Some fictional properties have been turned in to RPG supplements; Amber Diceless off the top of my head. SJGames' GURPS system has sourcebooks out for Discworld, Conan, Humanx (Alan Dean Foster), Prime Directive (Star Trek), Vorkosigan, Riverworld, Planet Krishna, Hellboy, and, uh, Casey & Andy, I'm not sure where that came from. I'm not sure how much input the original authors had on all of those (I hear Howard was contacted from beyond the grave for Conan, it took three warriors to put him back in), but I know Terry is credited as an author on Discworld.

I own the Conan supplement. Just reading it made me want to pick up an axe and behead something. :^)

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Planet Krishna! I remember seeing that in a store and being totally taken with the cover. This is a nice reminder to check out the source material.

Looking at their site now - I had no idea GURPS had put out this many things. But still no Calvin & Hobbes sourcebook! How long must I wait, Steve Jackson?

The Pathfinder book that Quale mentions above does appear to be what I had in mind, albeit lots of smaller bits by many writers rather one larger vision. I'll look forward to checking that one out.

(It occurs to me that the best model for what I'm imagining might be Neil Gaiman's excellent Dr. Who episode, in terms of doing something personal and great in someone else's canon.)

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"Noir… It is the name of an ancient fate. Two maidens who govern death. The peace of the newly born, their black hands protect."
-Noir

Also, music is goodies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpXpbrJTo2E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O3-ohtxxsw&feature=related

2nd one's title and lyrics:

Noir Original SoundTrack
Canta per me

canta per me ne addio
quel dolce suono
de' passati giorni
mi sempre rammenta

la vita dell'amore
dilette del cor mio
o felice, tu anima mia
canta addagio...

tempra la cetra e canta
il inno di morte
a noi si schiude il ciel
volano al raggio

la vita dell'amore
dilette del cor mio
o felice, tu anima mia
canta addio...

TRANSALATION

Sing for me farewell
that sweet sound
of the past days
it always remember me

the life of the love
beloveds of my heart
oh happy, you my soul
sing slowly...

strenghten your lyre and sing
the hymn of death
the sky opens to us
they fly to the ray

the life of the love
beloveds of my heart
oh happy, you my soul
sing farewell...

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"Indeed in blithe,
Uncaring bliss
The Fool steps o'er a precipice
As if he trusts the winds so chill,
To bear him where-soe'er they will.

Thus any venture is begun
This reckless step from nought to one
It's magic's foremost trick, I guess,
How something comes from nothingness.

Like rabbits from an empty hat,
Or thoughts from nowhere, just like that!
From whence were space and time deployed,
It not this empty quantum void?

Was matter pushed, or did it fall,
Being out of Naught-at-All?
What magic shaped the way things fell?
The Fool smiles, knows, but does not tell."
-Promethea #12

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

levels of Inception:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37614275@N00/4937227405/

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atomicb's picture
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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Rather nice of Marvel to post their Encyclopedia Mythologica online.

A bare bones version can be found here (with annotated pictures!).

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Awesome, thanks for that atomicb!

=-=-=

http://esper.tiddlyspot.com/

"Planarversity 101: So You Want to Be a Hero?

Dungeons & Dragons meets academia! Plumes & Parchments is a Dungeons & Dragons 4E campaign centering around the Planarversity, a school for heroes.

The prestigious private institution of higher learning was founded in the famed city of Sigil, and over the past century since its founding, has spread to the most distant corners of the known worlds. The Planarversity exists to uncover and unify the knowledge of the planes. As a secondary function, the Planarversity gathers the brightest exemplars from the each world to nurture, educate and polish into heroic examples of its ideals."

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

Hunting for Stories in the Philippines

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

Quote:
There is a story of a woman who gave birth to a shard of porcelain that grew into the image of the Virgin Mary and her son. This image was guarded carefully by the woman’s family and handed down from mother to daughter, from aunt to niece. The image became a source of strength for the family, and the women into whose hands it came were gifted with the ability to heal people.

This story was told to me by a fellow Filipina, and the woman who gave birth in this story was her great grandmother.

Truth or Fiction? You tell me....

.....The mountain terraces are guarded by spirits. They sit there in the form of the bulul (carved figures) to whom offerings of rice wine and the first bundle of harvested rice are made. Unlike other cultures, the Ifugao do not believe in reincarnation. The body returns to dust and the spirit occupies the ground, the trees, the stones, the earth — the spirit becomes part of the mountains.

There are spirits who work for good and there are spirits who must be appeased. The mumbaki (native priest) plays a major role in communicating with the spirits who are consulted during engagements, weddings, the harvest, and the planting of rice. There are other things, of course, and in the old days when headhunting was still rife, it was believed that taking the head of a valiant enemy and setting it to stand guard over your house was sure to keep bad spirits away.

Headhunting has long been outlawed in the mountains, but practices like canyao and baki still happen – where the spirits of the ancestors are invoked and divinations and auguries are performed....

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"Who you are is not a weakness, but rather will be the strength that you wield..the world doesn't just get better, it's the individuals of the world that make it get better..."
-Hal Duncan's It Gets Better Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpiWXBDgS9k&feature=player_embedded

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

“He hears us?” She cut across him...

“No, it’s not possible"....

“Who stands behind you, boy?” I could find nothing in the swirl of blindness enfolding me.

“Jorg?” A whisper at my ear. The girl again. The monsters’ glowing child.

“Jane?” I whispered back, or thought I did, I couldn’t feel my lips or any other part of me.

“The ether doesn’t hide us,” she said. “We are the ether.”

Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns

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Re: The PS Inspiration Thread

"In the centre of Fedora, that grey stone metropolis, stands a metal building with a crystal globe in every room. Looking into each globe, you see a blue city, the model of a different Fedora. These are the forms the city could have taken if, for one reason or another, it had not become what we see today. In every age someone, looking at Fedora as it was, imagined a way of making it the ideal city, but while he constructed his miniature model, Fedora was already no longer the same as before, and what had until yesterday a possible future became only a toy in a glass globe.

The building with the globes is now Fedora's museum: every inhabitant visits it, chooses the city that corresponds to his desires, contemplates it, imagining his reflection in the medusa pond that would have collected the waters of the canal (if it had not been dried up), the view from the high canopied box along the avenue reserved for elephants (now banished from the city), the fun of sliding down the spiral, twisting minaret (which never found a pedestal from which to rise).

On the map of your empire, O Great Khan, there must be room both for the big, stone Fedora and the little Fedoras in glass globes. Not because they are all equally real, but because all are only assumptions. The one contains what is accepted as necessary when it is not yet so; the others, what is imagined as possible and, a moment later, is possible no longer."
-Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

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