Before diving into some City in Darkness minutia, I thought I should talk a little bit about my influences. This is a broad list, but I know I have forgotten a lot. I have a blogroll over to the right hand side, and these have been my direct inspiration for starting this blog. (Incidentally, I am always looking for more blogs along these lines so please, pass them along).

• The history of London, especially Dickensian and Victorian London.
• Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and Ankh-Morpork.
• Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser - Brilliant sword and sorcery fiction.
• The Warhammer universe.
• GURPS: Goblins – A truly classic rpg book.
• Vornheim - Another great RPG city book.
• Kingdoms of Kalamar – I love the ‘realistic’ approach to world building and Kalamar’s cultures are just brilliant.
• Ghormenghast by Mervyn Peake – A grotesque fantasy of manners. Can’t recommend enough.
• The Sword and Sorcery genre in general – Although I don’t care to pick out anyone other than Fritz Leiber, I do love the genre.
• Lamentations of the Flame Princess - A recent discovery, I can’t get enough books from them. I love the mature and dark themes although not the tendency to save or die from random unforeseen events.
• The Thief computer games

I think after that list it should be pretty obvious where I am going with this blog. I want to create an atmosphere of Victorian London pea soup fogs, with massive inequality and brutality. I want to create an absurdist society that is nevertheless, fundamentally human. Grounded, gritty fantasy with “real” people. If I am lucky, something original will emerge and I can add something to the genre instead of just aping it.

So, some lofty goals. Next time I will present some more gazetteer style entries, but soon I also want to go back over the original document I presented last week to explain what I feel needs changjng.