Inspiration

My top sources of inspiration for magical-medieval fantasy worlds:

1. Mythology

• • • Mesopotamian/Central Asian
      1. Sumerian
      2. Akkadian
      3. Assyrian
      4. Babylonian
      5. Persian
    • Abrahamic
      1. Jewish
      2. Christian
      3. Islamic
    •  African
      1. Egyptian
      2. Dahomean
      3. Vodou
      4. Yoruba
    • Greco-Roman
      1. Hesiod’s Theogony
      2. Leto, mother of Artemis and Apollo
      3. Niobe, the Weeping Rock
      4. Τhe Three Sisters of Fate
      5. Pandora’s Box
      6. Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound
      7. Sisyphus and his Eternal Punishment
      8. The Abduction of Persephone by Hades
      9. Triptolemus
      10. The Name Giving of Athens
      11. Athena and Arachne
      12. Narcissus and Echo
      13. Apollo and Daphne
      14. Eros and Psyche
      15. Pan and Syrinx
      16. Pygmalion and Galatea
      17. King Midas and his Golden Touch
      18. Centauromachy – Lapiths battle with Centaurs
      19. Otrera – First Queen of the Amazons
      20. Cadmus and the Dragon
      21. Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex – and the Sphinx
      22. Sophocles’s Antigone – daughter of Oedipus
      23. Bellerophon and Pegasus
      24. Perseus and the Gorgon Medusa
      25. Andromeda and Perseus
      26. Orpheus and Eurydice
      27. The Twelve Labors of Hercules
      28. Meleager the Argonaut – host of the Calydonian boar hunt
      29. Apollonius Rhodius’s Argonautica – Jason and the Argonauts
      30. Euripedes’s Medea – wife of Jason
      31. Daedalus and Icarus
      32. Theseus and the Minotaur
      33. King Aegeus
      34. Leda and the Swan
      35. The Apple of Discord
      36. Homer’s Iliad
      37. Homer’s Odyssey
      38. Sophocles’s The Persians
      39. Virgil’s Aeneid
      40. Romulus and Remus
    • North Eurasian
      1. Norse
      2. Germanic
      3. Celtic
      4. English
      5. Frankish
      6. Slavic
    • South Asian
      1. Romani
      2. Hindu
      3. Vedic
      4. Buddhist
    • East/Southeast Asian
      1. Chinese
      2. Japanese
      3. Cambodian
      4. Indonesian
    • Oceanian
      1. Australian Aboriginal
      2. Melanesian
      3. Micronesian
      4. Polynesian
    • North American
      1. Ancestral Puebloan
      2. Mound Builder
      3. Inuit
      4. Haida
      5. Blackfoot
      6. Iroquois
    • Central/South American
      1. Maya
      2. Aztec
      3. Muisca
      4. Inca

2. Legendary heroic epics

• • • Epic of Gilgamesh
    • Iliad
    • Odyssey
    • Aeneid
    • Beowulf
    • Nibelungenlied
    • Prose Edda and Poetic Edda
    • Völsunga Saga
    • Le Morte d’Arthur and other Arthurian legends
    • One Thousand and One Nights – Shahrazad and Shahryar
      1. Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
      2. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
      3. The City of Brass
      4. The Ebony Horse
      5. The Fisherman and the Jinni
      6. The Tale of the Hunchback
      7. The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor
      8. The Three Apples
      9. The Three Princes and the Princess Nouronnihar
      10. The Vizier and the Sage Duban

3. Fairy Tales

• • • English Fairy Tales
      1. Saint George and the Dragon
      2. “Jack and the Beanstalk”
      3. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”
      4. “The Three Little Pigs”
      5. Peter Pan
      6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
    • French Fairy Tales
      1. “Sleeping Beauty”
      2. “Cinderella”
      3. “Little Red Riding Hood”
      4. “Hop-o’-My-Thumb”
      5. “Puss in Boots”
      6. Beauty and the Beast
    • German Fairy Tales
      1. “Godfather Death”
      2. “Hansel and Gretel”
      3. “Pied Piper of Hamelin”
      4. “Rapunzel”
      5. “Rumpelstiltskin”
      6. “Snow White”
      7. “The Elves and the Shoemaker”
      8. “The Frog Prince”
      9. “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”
      10. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
      11. “Town Musicians of Bremen”
      12. “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”
    • Danish Fairy Tales
      1. “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
      2. “The Little Mermaid”
      3. “The Princess and the Pea”
      4. “The Snow Queen”
      5. “Thumbelina”
      6. “The Ugly Duckling”
    • Other Fairy Tales
      1. Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
      2. Ballad of Mulan
      3. Peter and the Wolf
      4. Swan Lake
      5. “Three Billy Goats Gruff”
      6. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
    • Aesop’s Fables
      1. The Ant and the Grasshopper
      2. The Boy Who Cried Wolf
      3. The Crow and the Pitcher
      4. The Dog and the Shadow
      5. The Fox and the Grapes
      6. The Gnat and the Bull
      7. The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs
      8. The Hart and the Hunter
      9. The Lion and the Mouse
      10. The Lion, the Ass, and the Fox
      11. The Tortoise and the Hare
      12. Town Mouse and Country Mouse
    • Nursery rhymes
      1. “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”
      2. “Hickory Dickory Dock”
      3. “Humpty Dumpty”
      4. “Itsy Bitsy Spider”
      5. “Jack and Jill”
      6. “Little Bo-Peep”
      7. “Little Miss Muffet”
      8. “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
      9. “Ring a Ring o’ Roses”
      10. “Sing a Song of Sixpence”
      11. “There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe”
      12. “Three Blind Mice”

4. Fantasy novel classic series…

• • • J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
    • C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia
    • Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian

5. Magic: The Gathering

6. Dungeons & Dragons

7. Fantasy films

8. Monster movies and the NES and SNES Castlevania video game series (up through Super Castlevania IV, plus Castlevania: Bloodlines on Saga Genesis)

9. Top NES, SNES, and other video games set in magical-medieval fantasy worlds (especially:)

• • • The Legend of Zelda video game series (up through Wind Waker)
    • Ghost ‘n Goblins
    • Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
    • Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
    • Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

10. He-man & She-Ra

• • • He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983)
    • She-Ra: Princess of Power (1985)
    • Masters of the Universe (1987)
    • He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002)
    • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)