I posted this link over at the Cartographers' Guild, it goes to a site containing hundreds of Old Japanese postcards of photos taken between 1860 to 1930, when photography first showed up in Japan, as Japan was first opened to the world. Rare scenes of people and places that nolonger exist in modern Japan are captured in these striking photos. Even if you have only passing interest in Old Japan, its really worth checking out!
Old Photos Japan (http://oldphotosjapan.com/en)
Here's a photo that has inspired an idea...
(http://www.gamer-printshop.com/kaidan/broom-basket-peddler.jpg)
Imagine if each broom this guy sells can sweep dreams, failed magical residues and curses into one of his baskets, for storage and/or disposal. Once the items are used for arcane purposes, they become mundane items. Cool ideas, they seem to inspire. I call him the "dream sweeper"!
GP
Interesting. So are you going to build on this or did you just feel like sharing...
Both really.
Its for my Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting, which the first publication (adventure module) is being published (for sure this time) by Monday, next week. I am always looking for inspiration, and yesterday, I had two epiphanies - one is the photo above and its associated idea. The other a bizzare dream I had the previous night (I got the flu and when I am sick I have the most bizzare dreams) I wrote down what I remembered of that dream and expanded it into a full blown adventure idea - which I'll post here, once I develop it some.
However, I thought it might be useful to others looking for inspiration to find old photo sites, like the one above. Granted the site is of old Japanese photos so unless somebody is working on their own oriental setting, the "Dream Sweeper" (as I call him) probably won't be so useful. Still one might look at the site linked above to give them their own inspiration, even for non-oriental settings - thus I posted it.
I like to share inspiration.
GP
Beautiful picture. The wagon's so huge it looks almost cartoonish!