I'm making a list of inspirational material for the Isle of Dread segment of the ap, I'd like to share it with all of you and possibly get some of yours as well.
Movies:
- The Bounty (1984; depicts the famous mutiny but also a sea voyage and Maori/Polynesian type islanders)
- The Mission (the film with de Niro and Irons; depicting Jesuit missionaries but also natives of a tropical jungle and difficulties of travel in such a region)
- Apocalypto (I particularly want this to influence the Skinwalkers and their minions)
- King Kong (the newest version, mostly for the visuals of the island's interior, also the bugs stuff for Golgismorga. I also like the scenes showing ancient ruins almost swallowed up by earth and jungle)
- The Descent (for the Golgismorga parts mostly, inspiration for caving which I know little about)
- 1492 (shows Amerindian culture of the Caribbean islands as well as travel by caravel.)
I'm also making some use of the old Maztica set (downloaded for free from WOTC) which has some unique styles of magic and classes that can be modified for characters in the Olman remnants.
I've also recorded from Discovery some episodes of "Walking with Dinosaurs".
One that I'm going to look up before getting to the Isle of Dread is Aguirre: Wrath of God - apparently a bit of a cult movie about Spanish conquistadors trekking deep into the Latin American jungles in search of gold...
hmm, as for inspiration, I see or have felt inspired by
movies
"Master and Commander - the Far Side of the World" - besides being an all-time favourite, wonderful for the sailing sequences in SWW and I find the environment of the Galapagos deeply inspiring for the Abyss
Jurassic park I-III - for obvious reasons. Of course I introduced pteradodactyls to the Isle's high plateau..
King Kong - (Peter Jackson version) the wall, seacliffs, interior of the Isle - especially the "Insect Canyon" if you want to scare your players
The Sound of Thunder - for the Baboon Mutants ( I kid you not - these are eerily "demogorgic" ), and the feeling of an overgrown town in the grips of the jungle/wilderness is nice for the central plateau
Kongo, based on the book by Micheal Crichton - well below average movie, but the mutant apes an the jungle city are worth it. That's what a "fast-forward" button is for =)
The Blair Witch Project - I hate this movie, but the "stick figures" in the tree are priceless for the Olangru sequence. Especially since they have become self-referential over the years
Pirates of the Carribean - for the"Tortuga" and "Singapore" look - pretty good, if slightly too harmless (Disney) for Scuttlecove.
Fitzcarraldo, German, by Werner Herzog - nice for the tropical rainforest athmosphere and the hubris of man vs. the jungle... although set in the early 20th century. Same team that did "Aguire"
Sinbad - the animated feature, has some very nice visuals for fights etc. Pirates too....
Pitch Black - the use of darkness to conceal the enemy, the tunnels and the overexposed look. Did it for me with regard to Golismorga.
28 Days - for the Savage Creatures in BWG. I guess some game designer must have seen that movie !
Books
"Red Sea under a Red Sky", Scott Lynch - for his look at pirates in fantasy, especially their port and the "Parlour Passage".
On Stranger Tide, Tim Powers - the book from which the script quthors of PotC I-III obviously took a big clue and copied rather shamelessly. Piracy meets voodoo....
Skinner + The Voyage of Sable Keech, Neal Asher - very deadly Sci-Fi environment which at the same time has sailing in tropical waters, captains, sea monsters etc etc etc. and of course, the "Skinner" himself. Wonderful characters. ... oh did I mention the "Prador" ? Chuuls on speed (for which there is - sadly enough - no room for in this AP)... YUMMY !
The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad - the oft-quoted classic
Decipher, by Stev Pavlou - high speed apocalypse romp in the near furture with some weird and eerie sequences in abandoned cities in the deep jungle. Not to mention Atlantis and some of the most wicked golems ever...
The Khmer Empire - wonderful coffee-table book depicting the temples and tropical cities (ruins) of the Cambodian Khmer empire.... Angkor Wat etc. are momentous, awe-inspiring and I imagine, in the proper light, very very eerie....
I'm looking to Predator for inspiration for Here There Be Monsters. I am looking forward to the cunning hunter picking off travelers one by one. I anticipate my party saving at least a few extra NPCs, so that will hopefully add to the "red shirt" fun.
Wow, really good stuff from you guys...why didn't I think of Predator for HBM? It's almost perfect for that. Right down to the camouflage and hanging bodies.
I sorta knew about the King Kong book but didn't know if it was any good. I'll have to take a peek next time I'm in Chapters.
28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead 2004 are also good for inspiration for Savage People.
And yeah, I like Master and Commander just as a film--has anyone shown their players clips of any of these for a bit of visual atmosphere? Other than that I am going to try to think how to describe the scenes on the ship as best I can.
I actually found "Predator" (and references to it ingame) as a bit counterproductive with regard to mood.
Maybe its just me, but there never is a feeling of terror in that particular movie because in the end, it is up against Arnold, and one does not really care about the other chumps in the outfit, so no horror from that angle either. YMMV
And if my players think "Arnold" they automatically assume that something can most certainly be beaten up through brute force and tenacity. Reflex, sure, but one I find hard to counter
Not really appropriate for a "stalking horror" type of scene to my mind.
As far as reading I would add the following:
The Scar by China Mieville - For the Crimson Fleet and their Headquarters
Deathworld - Harry Harrison (sci-fi; but has scads of monstrous beasties and magic er... I mean psionics)
Sailor on the Seas of Fate - Michael Moorcock (the last section of the book has Elric and co. do a HEeart of Darkness tyle trip into the jungle and a ruined city.)
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (one of my favourite authors - the wilderness is grim in this book)
Apocalypse Now - based on Heart of Darkness - could be useful in creating paranoia and alien-ness
The Jungle is Neutral - Col. Harold Spencer-Chapman (amazing true story of a British Army officer's escape from occupied Malaya)
Natural History books - a cursory read will garner fantastic images and detail about real-world animals that can enliven descriptions.
I have used the soundtracks from some of these, mostly Pirates of the Carribian, princess bride and Jurassic Park. Batman Begins and X-men have some creepy (olongru) music that I want to use, but if my players identify the track it may set them in the wrong genre, so have not yet introduced them.
Other adventures to look at:
OD&D
X1: The Isle of Dread - the original!
The Lost City (transpose it from desert to jungle)
1E
I2: Dwellers of the Forbidden City (I think that's right)
2E
The Vaka's Curse
The Savage Coast/Red Steel material (on Wizards' web site)
Maztica (again on Wizards' site)
3E
Rana Mor
There are others but the names escape me.
Other adventures to look at:
1E
I2: Dwellers of the Forbidden City (I think that's right)
I1, but otherwise yes!
Does the original Isle of Dread module have stuff in it that is useful? I seem to remember hearing that the Rakasta are actually still around for that.
To be honest the original Isle of Dread module is really something I mentioned for nostalgia value - it does have rakasta riding sabre-tooths (awesomeness!), but rakasta have never been officially updated for 3.xE. ENWorld has a conversion but I think it tries to hard to make them "teh uber roxxors", so YMMV on that. And has little maps of the phanaton village, aranea lair, and rakasta camp. It is basically a mini-setting - there's no 'adventure' per se. It does have several adventure 'hooks' though. Torrents of Dread was inspired by one of them. The original setting has none of the Demogorgon, crazy mists stuff, but the update In Dungeon does provide a nice idea as to why there're all these prehistoric beasties from all eras showing up.
More Dungeon adventures -
The Sunken Shadow - treasure hunting (diving) with a weird mystery
Operation Manta Ray - rescue a secret agent and run through a pirate assault course
I'm actually going to use the Tabaxi as the Rakasta probably.
BTW, Aguirre the Wrath of God is an odd film, but worth seeing. It's a slow strange film, and it is about a group of Conquistadors looking for the City of Gold. However it has little triumphalism, instead being moody and dark.
Also btw...what do people feel is the best inspirational material for the Olman culture? They seem to be an odd combination of Pacific Islander culture, Caribbean and South American.
For Olman culture, try the movie
"Apocalpyto" from last winter's batch. Nothing too memorable, but it has some nice impressions of the Maya culture, which one can integrate into pre-fall olmanic Society
"Anaconda" - another inspirational movie, although... oh well its a classic "monster eats people" story, but the look at the swampy jungle might do wonders for Fogmire.
"Anaconda 2" - is in the same vein, but is even worse (the common fate of sequels).
Then again, I ran my Olmani more like a cross between Maya post-fall and Reggae influenced carribeans, Voodoo etc. included.
Forgotten Realms 2E:
Jungles of Chult
Jakandor series
the "King Kong - Extended Edition" DVD also has some more inspirational scenes, mostly more stuff with dinosaurs, which works pretty well for some additional scenes in HtbM and ToD - especially if the characters consider "recruiting" some dinosaurs through "Charm Monster" etc. for the Farshore defense
Not worth buying it just for that alone, but as an inspiration....
Edgar Rice Burroughs' works are also quite inspiring for scenes with the Olmani and inland travel, if a bit chauvinistic/rascist in attitude
Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar series--prehistoric beasts and primitive humans inside the (hollow) earth.
Good suggestions, everyone. Any ideas on something to bring the colony of Farshore to life? Good movies on a recently established colony in the Carribean or something? There must be a movie about Jamestown or the Lost Colony of Roanoke out there somewhere--certainly there are history books, but something fictional might be interesting.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar series--prehistoric beasts and primitive humans inside the (hollow) earth.
Good suggestions, everyone. Any ideas on something to bring the colony of Farshore to life? Good movies on a recently established colony in the Carribean or something? There must be a movie about Jamestown or the Lost Colony of Roanoke out there somewhere--certainly there are history books, but something fictional might be interesting.
Ridley Scotts "1492" has some sequences dealing with the struggles ( of Columbus ) of establishing a colony in the carribean, on Santo Domingo, to be precise.
As for documentary movies - they usually focus on the millitary side of things (like subduing the natives an d plundering the local treasures) over the day-to-day live of the colonists.
There's the rather dreadful "New World" which has at least good imagery though I have to say I hated the movie so much that I resented the fact that I'd gotten it free with the purchase of two other DVDs I actually wanted.
On the other hand "Blackrobe" while taking place in 17th Cent. Quebec is a very good film--while it doesn't have the right environment it has the right 'look'.
Also "the Mission" which is another excellent film has scenes of two different missions, one large and well established, the other a small one that is little more than a Guarani village with a church added on.
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I just read Red Sails under Red Skies based on the recommendation here and really enjoyed it. There are some memorable scenes of ship-to-ship action using D&D-era weapons plus a few alchemical devices: the game-usefulness of this novel is no coincidence, as its author Scott Locke has written some RPG books as well.
Julius Caesar's account of his campaigns in Gauls has some low-tech ship combat as well, plus lots of details about fortifications (esp. if you get an annotated edition) and sieges that could be useful for Farshore.
And the Patrick O'Brian novels beginning with "Master and Commander" are great books, with many scenes of storms that will help with SWW.
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I saw that China Mieville's The Scar was mentioned above but I thought I'd make specific reference to the Anophelli in the novel. Basically, ravenous mosquito-people that go berserk when sensing blood. The descriptions and the pacing of the scene in the novel is quite terrifying.
So when I picked up the Mieville Dragon issue and saw them statted out I filed that away in my head. I ended up replacing the gargoyles in HTBM with a few Anophelli. Much more exotic (gargoyles are a little plain for the Isle of Dread) and after the party had come across a few frightening blood-drained carcasses they were on guard.
In addition, there's lots of the other material that could be pulled from the novel.
.... as its author Scott Locke has written some RPG books as well.
...
And the Patrick O'Brian novels beginning with "Master and Commander" are great books, with many scenes of storms that will help with SWW.
Scott Locke.. now that is Freudian Typo if ever I saw one, hehe
Scott Lynch (author) and Locke Lamora (protagonist) nicely intermingled.Fully agree on the PO'B books for setting moods aboard - and for stealing some botanist's antics for Urol ( Maturin is priceless for that )....
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Scott Locke.. now that is Freudian Typo if ever I saw one, hehe
Scott Lynch (author) and Locke Lamora (protagonist) nicely intermingled.
It's not just a typo - days after making that post, I was thinking to myself that it took some kind of chutzpah for Mr. Locke to name his character Locke; kind of like Philip Jose Farmer writing Peter Jairus Frigate into Riverworld and Paul Janus Finnegan into the World of Tiers; perhaps this related to Mr. Locke's roleplaying background, as per E. Gary Gygax's tendency to work his own name into his creations; could Locke Lamora have been Scott Locke's PC?... An interesting train of thought, but I remain obliged to you for derailing it with the facts, vikingson.
I just read Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon and recommend it to all. It's not quite as useful for Savage Tide campaigns in which your PCs are crew members on board a ship that's simply called the Sea Wyvern and not manning various positions on an actual wyvern, strapping themselves on via carabiners and making desperate attempts to repair the beast's harness-straps during battle before they split and send everyone tumbling to the ocean below. Still, the descriptions of using aerial-beast patrols against the threat of invasion by sea might come in handy for Farshore, esp. if your PCs charm a bunch of pteranodons or the like.
Yes, it's quite derivative of Patrick O'Brian, which I think is a recommendation in itself. And if O'Brian's secret recipe for dramatic tension is Austen + Hornblower, one must applaud the further infusion of conflict between military duty and tender feelings between men and their mounts that comes from the pairing of O'Brian + McCaffrey.
Scott Locke.. now that is Freudian Typo if ever I saw one, hehe
Scott Lynch (author) and Locke Lamora (protagonist) nicely intermingled.
It's not just a typo - days after making that post, I was thinking to myself that it took some kind of chutzpah for Mr. Locke to name his character Locke; kind of like Philip Jose Farmer writing Peter Jairus Frigate into Riverworld and Paul Janus Finnegan into the World of Tiers; perhaps this related to Mr. Locke's roleplaying background, as per E. Gary Gygax's tendency to work his own name into his creations; could Locke Lamora have been Scott Locke's PC?... An interesting train of thought, but I remain obliged to you for derailing it with the facts, vikingson.
I live to derail - because I love the sound of crashing thoughts !
.. and I finally got my hands on a copy of "Worlds of Kong"... what a treasure -trove of material ! It almost tempts me to restart the entire STAP and use it to boost the "Isle of Dread" to epic levels !
Really...my mouth is watering. I still have a nice juicey Chapter's/Indigo gift card from Christmas. How much are we talking about?
Really...my mouth is watering. I still have a nice juicey Chapter's/Indigo gift card from Christmas. How much are we talking about?
what are you refering to precisely ?
How much does the book cost?
How much does the book cost?
cost me 15 pounds sterling (ordering via amazon UK), plus inter-european postage, so basically about 25 Euro, or 33 Dollars US.
More than I usually would spend on a "coffee-table" art book which I hadn't even glanced into beforehand. Took a risk but it was worth it (to me) .
checking Amazon UK, it is currently (mid-january) available for 11 pound sterling "used= or 17 pounds "new" . US prices vary between 10 dollars and 23 dollars.
Good Luck