Foundations of the Mountain
Appendix M(ountain). Up on the Appendix.
Does not include music, that's in a different post.
Dark Souls and Elden Ring - the free space on the bingo card. It's not cool to say, now that the video game industry has been awash in Dark Souls flavor for over a decade, but it feels like everything I've made since I played it is inspired by Dark Souls to an extent. Its decayed world that you kind of know from the start is already beyond saving just speaks to me. Elden Ring's more open world provides a more obvious foundation for Up on the Mountain but both worlds are dealing with a kind of metaphysical disaster that works as inspiration for The Enchantment.
Berserk - the other free space on the bingo card. Maybe the pinnacle of grimdark, whatever that is. I'm not going for grimdark with Up on the Mountain, but I am trying to land in the dark fantasy space and it's tough to do better than Berserk there.
Darkest Dungeon - a game so thoroughly my jam it's a wonder I haven't actually finished it yet. Maybe the third time's the charm. But venturing out from a home base to various locations and deal with threats wrapped in a deliciously dark fantasy setting is squarely Up on the Mountain, even if it's not clear yet how attached the players will be to that putative home base.
Blasphemous - You may be sensing a theme. I just really like the way Blasphemous presents its dusty world as suffering under a (more?) fucked-up version of Spanish folk Catholicism. Being neither Spanish nor Catholic I'm sure there's a lot of stuff going over my head, but the way that the Miracle has distorted Blasphemous' world is kind-of something I'd like to bring in with the Enchantment.
Heroes of Might and Magic 31 - the thing that's interesting to me about HOMM 3 is that you've got an overarching goal for each scenario but the map is covered in other points of interest and your heroes have little off-screen sidequests whenever you interact with one. I think that fits pretty well into the idea for Up on the Mountain, even if the PCs aren't likely to be roving around with bands of mooks backing them up (unless...?).
Warhammer - not 40k, not Age of Sigmar2, Warhammer Fantasy and specifically how it was presented in White Dwarf in the late 90s and early 2000s. Dark fantasy, grim 'n' gritty, you know the drill. But there's also a kind of vibrancy (and dare I say goofiness) that you don't really see elsewhere. Focus on Vampire Counts and Warriors of Chaos. EDIT: And Beastmen.
A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman and Hawkwood by Frances Stonor Saunders - Please believe I read books. The two big nonfiction touchstones for this campaign, two books about important 14th-century figures who met each other on a couple of occasions because the upper echelons of medieval Europe were a small world like that. The world of Up on the Mountain takes a lot from plague-ridden, war-torn 14th-century France (less so Italy) because of these two books.
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown - Shadow of the Weird Wizard includes a bare-bones reputation system, where how likely someone is to have heard of you is roughly correlated to the party's level. That's something that should affect a sandbox, especially if the PCs are going to be travelling back and forth across areas. Ace Combat - and I'm specifically highlighting Skies Unknown because it's the most recent one I've played - has your wingmates really gassing up the player character starting at around the halfway point. I think it'd be nice to bring that energy into Up on the Mountain, keying off of the reputation system (and assuming the players are trying to play somewhat 'heroically'3). There's a lot of doomed and dark media up there, and I want to provide a counterbalance to that oppressiveness by having the people in the world acknowledge the PCs' efforts to make things better. "Stick with Trigger and you'll make it" indeed.
Entries cut from this list because I don't see them having a direct impact on the vibes of Up on the Mountain but are media that I've absorbed so thoroughly that they may be influencing the campaign anyway: Majesty, The Black Company by Glen Cook4, Dino Crisis 2, Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer/Ripto's Rage.
EDIT: Ah fuck I can't believe I posted this without mentioning
The Road by Cormac McCarthy5 - its apocalyptic bleakness hits the tone maybe a little too hard for Up on the Mountain but its profusion of cannibals fits in there nicely.
I know there's a HOMM 2d20 TTRPG in the works, and if it had managed to come out by now I might be running that instead of Weird Wizard.↩
Though I respect Age of Sigmar and would run a Soulbound game if asked.↩
Primarily by inflicting violence on the 'deserving', but we don't have time to go into that now.↩
I swear I read novels. But, like, The Elfstones of Shannara doesn't have much I'm interested in bringing into this campaign. The fact that most of these inspirations are video games says something, for sure.↩
Posts are not endorsements, he's dead so we can art-from-artist, etc.↩