Childhood Appendix N
Jenx of Gorgon Bones started a bandwagon, so here are some things I enjoyed as a youngster that still bounce around my head when I'm running &/or making stuff for games. Will likely add to this as I remember more.
- The Hobbit
- The Chronicles of Narnia -- Of these, my favorites were always The Horse & His Boy & The Silver Chair. The latter I remember being relatively dark, weird, & mysterious -- images like exploring the giant-sized letters or the glimpse of a realm even deeper under the earth remain with me even though I couldn't tell you the plot anymore.
- His Dark Materials
- The Phantom Tollbooth
- The Adventures of Tintin
- Little House on The Prairie
- The Amazing Maurice & His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
- Alice in Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass
- This one issue of Muse magazine where they printed a bunch of weird vintage sci-fi magazine covers
- The Picture Atlas of The World by Richard Kemp & Brin Delf -- I had several map books as a kid, but I remember perusing this one for hours & hours -- it made the world feel rich & full of strange things
- Gawain's Word
- Imperialism II -- turned me into a wargame nerd. The randomized maps were my first encounter with procedurally generated worlds
- The Way Things Work by David Macaulay
- The Edge Chronicles -- I never read these all the way through, but the art style & particular image of a world perched on the edge of a cliff overhanging an endless sky really captured my imagination -- I remember drawing my own versions of The Edge with various castles, waterfalls, & flying pirate ships.
- Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary -- I was big into Star Wars in general as a kid, but it's this book that most deserves a place on this list. Something about the ludicrously comprehensive labeling of every background character & prop really captured my imagination. I'm much more ambivalent toward that kind of overly comprehensive world-building these days, but I cannot deny how much fun I had perusing it.
- The Kingfisher Encyclopedia of The Future
- Morrowind -- It was all over the moment I realized you could walk from Seyda Neen to Balmora.
- The 3.5e Psionics Handbook -- My introduction to D&D was 3.5 edition, which was fine (I'm mainly just grateful that I got all my books before 4th edition took over the stores). My best friend had a copy of the Psionics Handbook & I found it uniquely fascinating. There were glimpses of a weirder, more austere fantasy setting, which in hindsight is mostly due to the incorporation of Dark Sun IP.
- This weird bit in The Matrix: Path of Neo where you have to explore an M.C. Escher-esque mansion full of giant teleporting ant-men
- The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass -- the only Zelda game I played as a kid. Including it because I ended up using the structure of the game (themed dungeons that can be completed in any order before a boss fight) for a 5e campaign & still see it as a good way to hybridize sandbox & narrative playstyles.
- Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures by Walter Moers -- recommended by a german exchange student my family hosted, a truly wonderful gonzo fantasy with a great underworld segment & fantastic illustrations