Inspirations

[bluskreem]

Just thought I'd start a Carcosa inspiration thread:


Outlander: An upcoming film in which the survivor of a crashed ship in ancient Norway must ban together with the Barbarians to kill the only other survivor a savage prisoner.
outlander.solsector.net/

The Darkhorse Conan series- I a m a big comic nerd, and I've got to say Darkhorse's Conan series is one of my favorites. They just started a Kull line, which I'm pretty excited about.
www.darkhorse.com/Zones/Conan

I'll post a few of my inspiration later.

[crusssdaddy]

William Hope Hodgson's 'The Night Lands' was immediately brought to mind as I was reading CARCOSA. There's a short story called 'Awake in the Night' by John C. Wright written as an homage and taking place in the same world - I recommend it because it is far more accessible to modern readers than Hodgson's original. This story made a few 'Best Of' anthologies, and can be found online here:

www.thenightland.co.uk/nightawake.html

[Finarvyn]

These sound like neat inspirations, but it would also be nice to get a list of what inspired Geoffry when he put the setting together (hint, hint!).

Or maybe I missed his list somewhere...?

[geoffrey]

Some inspirations for Carcosa:

The Cthulhu Mythos in the AD&D Deities & Demigods Cyclopedia is the single biggest inspiration. In fact, Carcosa started as my attempt to make a D&D campaign world based on these pages of DDG. The Mythos stories of Lin Carter, August Derleth, and H. P. Lovecraft (amongst others) also influenced me. I have over 3' of Mythos books on my shelf.

The Elric stories (especially the early ones) inspired the sorcerer class.

The Wilderlands inspired the variously colored races of men.

Prof. M. A. R. Barker's Tekumel was a big influence for its bizarre science-fantasy.

Blackmoor and Gamma World contributed to my inclusion of high-tech items in the setting.

Gary's D trilogy of AD&D modules (particularly the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa) is a big influence on Carcosa's "feel". The Kuo-Toa influence is behind having Deep Ones on Carcosa who "live in watery and damp cave complexes deep beneath the earth" (Supplement V: CARCOSA, p. 43).

R. E. Howard also has a general influence on Carcosa (and particularly with the Snake-Men from "The Shadow Kingdom"). The REH story that feels most like Carcosa would probably be "Worms in the Earth".

The Lovecraft story with the biggest influence is "Out of the Aeons".

The Lin Carter story with the biggest influence is his "Carcosa Story about Hali" (which I am serializing right now on my blog).

There's more, but those are off the top of my head.

[bluskreem]

"Worms in the Earth" was going to be my next pick

[calithena]

Are any of the Chambers stories important or influential?

Also, it seems like David Lindsey's Voyage to Arcturus had one important influence.

[geoffrey]

Though I enjoy the fantasies of Robert W. Chambers, his stories aren't really influential on my Carcosa.

David Lindsay's Voyage to Arcturus supplied the imaginary colors of jale, ulfire, and dolm. It also inspired several of the encounters on the hex map.

[dwayanu]

As Wikipedia attests, Geoffrey has drawn the weft through yet another personal turn, as in the passing from Bierce to Chambers and so on. IIRC (which I may not), Robert Bloch once took in hand some of the yarn. Assumptions are perilous in any Carcosan tapestry!

Hodgson's Night Land is a favorite of mine, and I think spiritually kin. There's a sort of clan of the Weird, in which even the awkwardly anachronistic narrative voice and largely superfluous back-story may seem right -- from a fascination with Wrongness!

[crusssdaddy]

Geoff, can you post links for those blogs you mentioned on your blog?

[geoffrey]

Dec 17, 2008 23:11:53 GMT -6 crusssdaddy said:

Geoff, can you post links for those blogs you mentioned on your blog?

Sure, here they are:

Jeff Rients's blog:
jrients.blogspot.com/

Lamentations of the Flame Princess:
lotfp.blogspot.com/

World of Thool:
worldofthool.blogspot.com/