The Campaign Builder's Guild

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, 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. 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. 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 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 kinda-OSR blogs and listen to death metal.

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, 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, 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. 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. 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 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.