The Council of Elrond, Lego style J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy has been a major influence for many, many, fantasy writers, myself included. (Or course, many fantasy writers detest it also.) And also like me, probably, at some point, budding young fantasy writers made up people, places, and things that sounded very much …
What’s a writer to do when they want to set a story, series of stories, novel, or game in a large American city, but can’t for one reason or another? The answer: Make up their own. H.P. Lovecraft did this well with his Cthulhu Mythos stories, basing the made-up New England city of Arkham …
Astranci, by Caelicorn It’s pretty easy to name a new species of bird. Their beaks and tails adhere to certain shapes, and body parts such as eyes, breasts, and wings share certain features also. Their habitats name them, as well as their food, calls, and mating behavior. So if you want some fictional avian or …
Guinevere’s getting ideas Sometimes, when writing fantasy SF, or some mixture of both skewed sideways and viewed through a mirror, a writer likes to be clever and insert some obviously intentional fictional replacement for a real-world person, place, or thing. For example, Poppy Z. Brite’s novella Plastic Jesus was about a 1960s rock band called …
Elizabeth the I: Powerful and regal. Elizabeth remains one of the more popular girls’ name in the USA. The name originated from the Hebrew Elisheva or Elisheba, translated into Greek as Elisabet. In its classic English form, Elizabeth, is classic, stately, and elegant. Derivations include the popular Isabel, Elise, and Bella; there are also many …
A climate-controlled ski resort for global warming. From Central Europe we move to winter sports, specifically, ski resorts. (Of course, snowboarding, ice skating, and cross-country skiiing are offered as well.) These, in Canada and the U.S. at least, tend towards a certain blandness when not named after local mountains or Native American tribes. By mixing …
(Artwork by Dchan) There are those magic items that are very helpful to a character, and those that aren’t. Here are some that did not make the grade into regular adventuring use. Useless Magic Items Ashestes’s Garrulous Ass: Renders an ass or donkey capable of speech. Unfortunately, the animal doesn’t stop talking for the …
Returning to Ruritania, Germanic names, and fictional European countries again… There are really a lot of them, evidenced by this list on Wikipedia. I was blown away, actually. Some highlights: Animation has its share, evidenced by the fictional country of Cagliostro, in which Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, Hayao Miyazaki’s debut anime movie is …
Wouldn’t you like to live here? (Art by John Stevenson) Fantasies set in Germanic cultures, like those based on Italian ones, have not been published much in recent years, yet in past decades there were enough of them to have their own subgenre: Ruritanian Romance. These novels were set in imaginary Central or Eastern …
Kirin-Sleipnir-Dragon-Butterfly thing Mythical animals include the unicorn, jackalope, sea serpent, hydra, sasquatch, and many others… such as these. All randomly generated by me for inspiration and to get your creative furnaces going. Mythic Animals Yauzink: An aquatic lion with webbed paws, fins, a fish’s tail, and a mottled green and brown coloration. It is …