Vibes and Inspirations

The world of The Drowned Isles is one where history layers over itself until the point of collapse.

A flyer screams through the air over a flotilla of Greek triremes. A rusted war machine bursts forth from a forgotten crypt to stalk the land, stopped only by a robed wizard’s apprentice. Strange, fungal monsters stalk the forests and swim in the deep.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Nausicaä (both the manga and film) feature a far-future Earth with a wrecked environment, mysterious ancient artifacts, psychic powers, and an eclectic mix of technology. This is probably the primary inspiration for the setting.

The art of Mœbius

Mœbius (Jean Giraud) and Miyazaki were mutual influences on each other; Giraud’s science fiction art features bright colors, anachronistic technology, and fantastical ruins.

The Art of Akira Toriyama

While the narrative of Dragonball doesn’t really inspire the Drowned Isles, Akira Toriyama’s art and playful design sensibilities do (see Toybox Creativity: The Genius of Dragonball or The Joyful Mechanical Design of Akira Toriyama). I especially like the designs he did for Chrono Trigger.

Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin

A fantasy series set in an archipelago, where some of the inspirations for the wizards is drawn

The Book of the New Sun

This one is hard to sum up and even harder to give a visual. It’s a fantasy series that takes place in a medieval world far in our future, with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it references to the past. For example…

The picture he was cleaning showed an armored figure standing in a desolate landscape. It had no weapon, but held a staff bearing a strange, stiff banner. The visor of this figure’s helmet was entirely of gold, without eye slits or ventilation; in its polished surface the deathly desert could be seen in reflection, and nothing more.

…is definitely a photo of an astronaut on the moon, described by someone who has no context for either.

Breath of the Wild

(and also, to some extent, Tears of the Kingdom but I never finished that one)

Huge, open world to explore; themes of nature corrupted and twisted; ancient machines with long-forgotten purposes.

The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein

A 90’s fantasy novel series about a group of women adventurers, the titular Steerswomen. They must tell the truth in response to any question, and in exchange others must answer their questions truthfully (or be placed under Ban, and be refused answers from all Steerswomen). The truth-seeking Wardens set against the scheming Wizards both come from this novel series.

Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage

Friends at the Table is an actual-play RPG podcast series. Twilight Mirage is a science-fantasy season of the show, set in a “false nebula” designed to hide a utopian culture in an age of galactic conflict. The titular Mirage messes with space and time, and allows for some reality-warping abilities. It gives some inspiration for Aether.

Hunter × Hunter

The Wardens are partially based on the Hunters, and Aether is substantially based on Nen. Watching Hunter × Hunter substantially warped the game’s magical abilities away from D&D and towards shonen battle anime.

Hunters also helped me dial in Wardens: out for themselves, incredibly powerful, and insatiably curious. Often they may protect people or solve problems, but only at their own whim.

Caves of Qud

A science-fantasy roguelike / roleplaying game that gives the Drowned Isles its animalfolk, some of its science-fantasy elements, and the name of the Wardens. Qud features in-depth procedurally generated stories, combined with great writing and a rich (and sometimes wacky) simulated game world.

The Arles Amphitheater

An old Roman theater that became a town after the fall of the Empire. Residents began to migrate inside the theater’s walls as a defensive structure, and eventually it took on a whole new purpose.

More generally, I would trace the core inspiration for the whole game to a walk I took around my neighborhood. I saw new buildings towering over the ruins of a few houses scheduled for demolition, and wondered to myself “if the Middle Ages in Europe are about living in the ruins of Rome, what would living in our ruins be like?” The game has evolved from that point, but “living in the ruins of the past” remains a core element.

Lightning round

• Annihilation and Ambergris by Jeff VanderMeer: Both great series about strange, distorted places and cities. Ambergris especially deserves more love.
• Always Coming Home, by Ursula K LeGuin: Fictional anthropology of a far-future culture that is post-industrial in a true sense of the world
• Debt by David Graeber and The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow: I’m not entirely bought into Graeber’s political project but his anthropological ideas around debt and the essential freedoms he illustrates with Wengrow were in my mind during worldbuilding
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.: A touchstone post-apocalypse novel about a monastery, taking place across the millenium after a nuclear war
• Dark Souls 2 by From Software: The dreamy, misty nature of Dark Souls 2 gives it the best vibes of any Fromsoft game. Here the cycle of building on the ashes and forgetting the old world is all the more poignant than in its successors, where it ironically becomes a tired theme in and of itself.
• Unjust Depths by Madiha Santana: This is a communist lesbian furry underwater mecha war web novel. Yes, it’s exactly as self-indulgent as that sounds, which is why it’s peerless.