Well, me, I...
I started to read Records of the Historian Chapters from the Shih Chi of Ssu-ma Ch'ien translated by Burton Watson to get some more accurate Chinese names for use in the Halfling Khanate region of Terra. Right now, the last three names I came up with were Yoshi (which is a legit Japanese name, it occurs in the story of the 47 Ronin, for instance, but yeah I know of it because of a video game dinosaur), Roshi (after Master Roshi from the Dragonball saga), and Nori (which is the dried seaweed used in sushi).
For pure recreation purposes, I started reading The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley and it has inspired me in the direction I'm taking the Emerald Hills region of the Terran Empire.
I'm also reading a couple of children's level textbooks on ancient Rome that I actually intend to use to inform some aspects of the Terran Empire. Augustus and Imperial Rome by Miriam Greenblatt and Famous Men of Rome, which I'm starting to be a little dubious about now that I've noticed that it's published by a company specializing in textbooks for Christian homeschoolers. I picked them both up for cheap on a trip to the thrift store.
How about you?
I am researching Imperial Chinese Armies of the Han period, while also reading into some of the Hundred Schools of Thought.
M.
I am always researching with whatever new things I find. Cad Goleor is primarily Celtic, but anything interesting I find out about Celts, Picts, Vikings, Saxons, Teutons, Arthurian legend, and so forth is all interesting and relevant. And even bits and pieces about completely different groups from completely different eras sometimes inspires me.
I am researching faerie lore, and giants and so forth as well.
Random books I've read/am reading for my novel:
Life in a Medieval Castle (http://www.amazon.com/Life-Medieval-Castle-Joseph-Gies/dp/006090674X), which discusses English castles of the Norman era onward. It's not especially long and is full of interesting tidbits. Accessible but overpriced.
The Death of Kings: Royal Deaths in Medieval England (http://www.amazon.com/Death-Kings-Deaths-Medieval-England/dp/1852855851/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365131886&sr=1-17&keywords=death+of+kings). It summarizes several different aspects of royal deaths from the Norman Conquest to the ascendancy of the Tudors. Since it covers such a wide period, the various deaths and the rituals surrounding them are sometimes described in brief, but the number of different aspects surrounding a royal death and the sheer breadth of the book made it a good source for inspiration.
Agincourt (http://www.amazon.com/Agincourt-Juliet-Barker/dp/0316726486/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365132038&sr=1-8&keywords=agincourt). The book describes the political situation leading up to Agincourt, as well as the battle itself. I haven't actually gotten to the battle but the buildup has provided numerous points of inspiration for my story. Especially good if you want inspiration for how to handle specific medieval technologies and their impact--the author has so far made mention of the impact that the English longbow and the Norman preoccupation with jousting had on warfare.
The Crusades: A History (http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-History-Jonathan-Riley-Smith/dp/0300101287/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365132282&sr=1-1&keywords=riley-smith+crusades) Accessible to general readers (like me!), this provides in-depth overviews of the causes, undertaking, and aftermath of the various Crusading movements. Definitely had me reconsidering the role of religion in my setting.
I've got a ton of other books I reference, these are just the ones I'm reading off and on at the moment.
Constantly rereading Gaiman's Study in Emerald for details I may have missed, a thorough perusal of lesser known Victorian Gothic literature (George W. M. Reynolds is particularly interesting), idle reading of Lovecraft and contemporaries for mood and tone and I'm trying to get my hands on a copy of Chambers' King in Yellow to flesh out the antagonist of the first Lovecraft Holmes module.
Yeah, if you want specifics, I am reading Morgan Llewelyn's Finn Mac Cool, which gives me several fun ideas.
I'm rereading Thuvia, Maid of Mars and Chessmen of Mars and revisiting various warhammer codeces. I've also been doing some internet wandering on general military stuff from WWI and WWII.
I read various (http://swordandsanity.blogspot.co.uk/) kinda (http://middenmurk.blogspot.co.uk/)-OSR (http://lotfp.blogspot.co.uk/) blogs (http://www.dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/) and listen to death (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFHFvrbIAow) metal. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XLtOsJvD6A)
I've been looking up articles regarding Tibetan and Korean mountain worship, various wind patterns and tectonic convection, and scouring the web for the lifestyle of victorian era folks.
Actually, I've been doing some studies on the history of education in various cultures, and especially on the creation od educvational groups and societies and university. Most recently looking at Erasmus. The history of Univeristies and state- chartered educational guilds has been helpful.
This is all for the upcoming Collegium Arcana online game, or, as Jomalley calls it, 'Hogwarts Goes to Hell."
ElDo: I've read Life in a Medieval Village and Life in a Medieval Town. Both are a bit less dry than Life in a Medieval Castle.
Weave: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/
M.
Well, since I started work on Blood of Tyrants (http://www.thecbg.org/index.php/topic,209916.0.html), I suppose some of my comics/superhero reading now counts as setting research, like:
I just finished rereading V For Vendetta. It's a long way from a traditional supers story, yet it is still a tale of a person of unusual ability using violence to make the world a better place.
Quote from: Elven Doritos
Random books I've read/am reading for my novel:
Life in a Medieval Castle (http://www.amazon.com/Life-Medieval-Castle-Joseph-Gies/dp/006090674X), which discusses English castles of the Norman era onward. It's not especially long and is full of interesting tidbits. Accessible but overpriced.
The Death of Kings: Royal Deaths in Medieval England (http://www.amazon.com/Death-Kings-Deaths-Medieval-England/dp/1852855851/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365131886&sr=1-17&keywords=death+of+kings). It summarizes several different aspects of royal deaths from the Norman Conquest to the ascendancy of the Tudors. Since it covers such a wide period, the various deaths and the rituals surrounding them are sometimes described in brief, but the number of different aspects surrounding a royal death and the sheer breadth of the book made it a good source for inspiration.
Agincourt (http://www.amazon.com/Agincourt-Juliet-Barker/dp/0316726486/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365132038&sr=1-8&keywords=agincourt). The book describes the political situation leading up to Agincourt, as well as the battle itself. I haven't actually gotten to the battle but the buildup has provided numerous points of inspiration for my story. Especially good if you want inspiration for how to handle specific medieval technologies and their impact--the author has so far made mention of the impact that the English longbow and the Norman preoccupation with jousting had on warfare.
The Crusades: A History (http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-History-Jonathan-Riley-Smith/dp/0300101287/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365132282&sr=1-1&keywords=riley-smith+crusades) Accessible to general readers (like me!), this provides in-depth overviews of the causes, undertaking, and aftermath of the various Crusading movements. Definitely had me reconsidering the role of religion in my setting.
I've got a ton of other books I reference, these are just the ones I'm reading off and on at the moment.
Hm. I imagine Polycarp's Rome game provides reams of inspiration as well :o.
I haven't had a proper setting in a while, but I've been doing a lot of reading just the same-- some for the express purpose of having a gaming application for the information, and some for other reasons but which will probably end up being useful in games anyway.
I've been reading a good bit of apologetics and counterapologetics-- stuff like the Ontological, Teleological, and Cosmological arguments, their classic counterarguments, and the general logic and illogic people use when approaching this issue from either side. I have some rough ideas for gaming applications involving the nature of reality and/or divinity, any they may allow me to one day drop some terminology bombs, I guess.
Somewhat relatedly (???), I've been doing some reading on gnosticism, theosophy, and other occultist movements. This shit is crazy, folks. No for real it is. It's awesome if you want bizarre cosmological ideas from charismatic people who may or may not be a.) con artists, b.) serious racists trying to justify their serious racism via Atlantis, or c.) seriously unstable.
Been reading up on homesteading, which is great fuel for any kind of low-tech or post-apocalyptic-rebuilding game.
And of course, all the mythology. Which is great if you want to tell stories involving the mythological gods (your Zeuses, your Horuses, your Huitzilopochtlis, etc.), or cut-from-whole-cloth gods in a similar vein, or if you just want to get more familiar with some of the archetypical stories that define the human let's-tell-stories-and-try-to-make-sense-of-the-world experience.
Quote from: Luminous Crayon
I haven't had a proper setting in a while, but I've been doing a lot of reading just the same-- some for the express purpose of having a gaming application for the information, and some for other reasons but which will probably end up being useful in games anyway.
I've been reading a good bit of apologetics and counterapologetics-- stuff like the Ontological, Teleological, and Cosmological arguments, their classic counterarguments, and the general logic and illogic people use when approaching this issue from either side. I have some rough ideas for gaming applications involving the nature of reality and/or divinity, any they may allow me to one day drop some terminology bombs, I guess.
Somewhat relatedly (???), I've been doing some reading on gnosticism, theosophy, and other occultist movements. This shit is crazy, folks. No for real it is. It's awesome if you want bizarre cosmological ideas from charismatic people who may or may not be a.) con artists, b.) serious racists trying to justify their serious racism via Atlantis, or c.) seriously unstable.
Been reading up on homesteading, which is great fuel for any kind of low-tech or post-apocalyptic-rebuilding game.
And of course, all the mythology. Which is great if you want to tell stories involving the mythological gods (your Zeuses, your Horuses, your Huitzilopochtlis, etc.), or cut-from-whole-cloth gods in a similar vein, or if you just want to get more familiar with some of the archetypical stories that define the human let's-tell-stories-and-try-to-make-sense-of-the-world experience.
Gnostic stuff is batshit, I seem to remember when reading just keeping up with what was being said. I love having different sects, cults and belief systems within a religion, some legal, some hidden. I look forward to your next setting thoughts.
Currently I study some Chinese history, especially the last 250 years with the Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750 (http://restlessempire.com/) by Odd Arne Westad. It's a historico-political book and covers alot of ground; religion, chinese migrants, their relation with foreigners and vice-versa, as well as power plays such as the one between the Guomindang and the CCP, or between the last Imperial power (Qing Dynasty) and those who wanted a quicker modernization of the country and a prime place for their people in this new international world.
Winner Take All: China's Race For Resources And What It Means For The Rest Of The World (http://www.dambisamoyo.com/books-and-publications/book/winner-take-all) by Dambisa Mayo is also pretty good, and it's all about the current rise of China as a world superpower, why it's happening and why it's bound to continue, but she also explains their way of doing things right now may prove to be a double edged blade that will cut them deeper than they cut others!
However while I am more focused on modern China at this time, I must admit a preference for Ancient China, which is really exciting.
Other examples I would really like to share are two books about Rome or things/people that were very close to Rome. Cleopatra: A Life (http://www.stacyschiff.com/) by Stacy Schiff is, in my opinion, very good. As well as The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/anthony-everitt/rise-rome/) by Anthony Everitt. (By the way those two were suggested to me by Polycarp)
Historico-Politico books like these give very interesting perspective into the why's of the actions of the time. So many questions are answered in so many different ways, it definitely gives inspiration and helps you transform your creations into something which will be more immersive and intriguing. Plus, on the side you learn a bunch of mundane things that also help you put further detail into your work.
I've been doing a lot of research on the political scenes (both good and bad) of the roaring 20's, to try to better paint how having entire sentient species inhabiting America would effect Dynama Earth. Needless to say, I've been reading about some really ugly stuff.....
Also I've been reading a lot about cars from that era.
Quote from: LordVreegGnostic stuff is batshit, I seem to remember when reading just keeping up with what was being said. I love having different sects, cults and belief systems within a religion, some legal, some hidden. I look forward to your next setting thoughts.
Gnosticism (and what I've more recently been reading about: Catharism) is great because it's a lovely example of pulling back the facade of the establishment and unveiling a whole new depth of tripped-out complexity that forces you to see established ideas in a completely flipped context. (This is excellent fuel for games, in my opinion.)
[spoiler=boring(??) stuff about Cathars]The interesting thing to me is that the Cathars
won, in the end. They were a heretical sect of Christians that peaked in power in the 13th century, and their specific heresy was dualism: the idea that God and Satan are good and evil opposites, beings on mostly equal footing, locked in eternal war. (The centuries-prevailing theology was from St. Augustine, who pegged God as the supreme wielder of power and the only one who could suspend the laws of nature. In that view, Satan can't do shit without God's permission. Consequently, we don't have to worry about things like witchcraft, even though they're in the Bible, because God's got all that paranormal chicanery on lockdown.)
Long story short, there's some Albegensian Crusades and shit, and the Cathars are wiped out, but not before their dualist ideas caught on in the wider medieval population to some degree (for example, to the point of popularizing the belief that there really are people who wield demonic powers, and that perhaps to defend society we should seek out witches and burn them, etc.)
So the interesting thing to me is that even though it's been several hundred years since we've had Cathars, their heresy is still thriving in modern Christian theology, to the point where Satan's typical characterization has shifted from "God's prosecuting attorney" to "God's nemesis" and concepts like spiritual warfare are a thing. [/spoiler]
Quote from: Luminous CrayonGnosticism (and what I've more recently been reading about: Catharism)
Do you have any good sources on
early Cathar history, particularly in the 12th century? It's a peripheral interest of mine (in part because of my forum game), but the sources seem to be few.
Power & Purity: Cathar Heresy in Medieval Italy by Carol Lansing is an interesting read, focused primarily on one community (Orvieto), but it's mostly 13th century and doesn't tell me much about how the doctrine spread.
It's possible that this is simply a lacuna in the historical record and that there's not much to be done about it, but I find it interesting that there's mention of the Cathars (sometimes under other names) as early as the first half of the 12th century, but they don't really make much of a further appearance until the end of that century.
I don't have any really good sources, honestly! Especially not about the early period. Catharism just crossed my radar a few days ago; I'm still in the "read around on the internet" stage of things, and not the "go to an actual library" stage.
Reading fun frost person accounts of private schools way back....kind of fun
It's totally setting-dependent, but I do a ton of research. When I'm writing notes for my Sixguns & Cyclopean Horrors game I read a lot of Mythos stories and comb through Delta Green stuff and Call of Cthulhu material, play horror games, etc. When I was running Fimbulvinter I was looking at sites on the furniture and floorplans of Norse farmhouses, sacred spaces, barrows, shrines, and mythology. For my Planescape game I read and reread the old AD&D books and draw/borrow/steal ideas and imagery from games like Planescape: Torment, Zeno Clash, Realms of the Haunting, and Myst. Various aspects of my CE game were inspired from sources as diverse as the Bas-Lag novels, Hellblazer comics, Fallout, Clark Ashton Smith stories, Half-Life 2, Thief, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Recently for a one-shot I'm running with some friends who've never played D&D before I put together a classic dungeon crawl that was heavily inspired by Stephen Biesty's Castle cross-section book, a book I stared at obsessively as a kid (here's one layer (http://www.stephenbiesty.co.uk/jpegs/bigCastle.jpg) for anyone who's never seen the book).
For more general research, I read a lot of old Dungeon magazines and AD&D modules and try to structure my games around things like mood, atmosphere, imagery, and tone rather than plot/story. Details, soundtracks, precise descriptions, language, and making the world seem real and verisimilar are where my focus lies, so research can be quite important to establishing a sense of place and space. Even with my more episodic games I strive to create a non-linear and open-feeling space to explore (with varying degress of success).
Right now I'm trying to find accurate and usable numbers for the population density of preagricultural people.
Quote from: Xeviat
Right now I'm trying to find accurate and usable numbers for the population density of preagricultural people.
Ooh, yeah, on that note, does anyone know what kind of figures would exist for Iron age celtic societies? They were agricultral, but there were only a few locations that came anywhere close to our idea of cities, and I've never been able to find good information about numbers.
Just from wikipedia but "Population estimates vary but the number of people in Iron Age Great Britain could have been three or four million by the first century BC" and "In the 2011 census the total population of the United Kingdom was 63,181,775." give an idea of how much smaller and more isolated Iron Age communities probably were than modern ones. Also it gives Greater London a population of 9,787,426 in 2011, while Roman London, vastly bigger, one can presume, than any settlements in Britain of the pre-Roman era, they say had roughly 60,000 people living in it. I'm sure you knew all that anyway though :)
researching the history of toxins
Most recently: relativity, directed energy weapons, and old Hebrew words.
I started reading Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz because I've always intended the elves of Terra to be vaguely Egyptian, but I never really knew enough about the real world culture to do it justice in the translation.
I am currently immersing myself in a combination of wikipedia articles on the various planets and internet articles on orbital mechanics. I am attempting to update and polish my solar system spreadsheet, while learning about what the various planets have to offer as potential colonies.
This website is still the only real research I need. I am a pathological plagiarist.
Most of the research I do ties in very closely with what I am looking at doing as a career, in the realms of science and engineering. I'm doing a lot of what Humabout has mentioned he does, but am also putting time into tech trends and extrapolation as to where things might be in 1000 years (for Fractal Galaxy). I do almost no research for Haveneast, although technically my exposure to games like Dark Souls (check it out if you can) has provided new material for me to shamelessly rip.
Dark Souls is rocking my world, lately. Do enough people around here play that we merit a thread on it?
Quote from: Luminous Crayon
Dark Souls is rocking my world, lately. Do enough people around here play that we merit a thread on it?
i'm interested in your thoughts on it. go crazy.
I'd love to talk about it, especially since I can no longer play it (left 360 copy at dad's; have migrated to Linux on PC where it does not have a port :(). Forum thread or real-time chat would be awesome!
Am re reading some of the Vedas, as the older eastern cradle countries ( devil kin Orbi, Sembina, post-breakp Vicoria) are a lot more into a fate driven, karma driven, reincarnation version of the basic cosmology.
Did a whole adventure group based on the exiles of Old, Devilkin Orbi when the Arcanic Table took over, and that religious accent is still all over Orbi and parts of the Grey March as well.
I'm researching geology and the terminology used to describe various kinds of mountains and valleys because I'm writing the mountainous region of Mu for an upcoming campaign.
I am playing with mixing and matching other cultural information with my Celtic baseline for Cad Goleor so I can extrapolate the difference between regional groups.
Vedic religion, the workings of coilguns, 1980s fashion, and yakisoba recipes.
The fun of having a kitchen sink setting... :grin:
Quote from: sparkletwist
Vedic religion, the workings of coilguns, 1980s fashion, and yakisoba recipes.
The '80s: Truly the most Vedic decade.
Quote from: Luminous CrayonThe '80s: Truly the most Vedic decade.
The 60s may beg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/LordofLight%28Zelazny%29.jpg) to (http://www.twentyfourbit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ravi-shankar-rip.jpg) differ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_for_Krishna_Consciousness).
Yeah, likely. I'm just talking nonsense because I really love the four-way juxtaposition in your earlier post!
Quote from: sparkletwist
Vedic religion, the workings of coilguns, 1980s fashion, and yakisoba recipes.
The fun of having a kitchen sink setting... :grin:
Okay, I've done the first two (for Eschaton and Sins of Angels, respectively). The third, not so much. And the last just made me hungry.
I mentioned that I'm trying to learn more about the Dark Age of comic books for Blood of Tyrants.
I just read or reread the first issue of Deathblow, and boy does it check all the Dark Age boxes:
Death in the title.
Published by Image.
Morally ambiguous to outright evil protagonist.
Bonus points for being a sort of split feature/flip format thing with Cybernary, which added Cyborgs, skimpily clothed bad girls, and copious gore to the mix.
Let's see, I finished up The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley and started in on I, Claudius by Robert Graves. Both of these have given me some ideas to work with for the Terran Empire, seeing as to how the Terran Empire is a bit of an Ancient Grome (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AncientGrome) setting area and these novels have some interesting ideas.
It's a stretch but Grendel Omnibus Volume 1: Hunter Rose might be considered Dark Age research, while the Rom back issue that I'm reading could be Bronze Age research for Blood of Tyrants.