APPENDIX 𓃥

04 Jun, 2026

List of inspiratory media for my ongoing Weird Iron Age Game, BY THESE WOLVES I RULE

Music

Cro-Man: Conquerer of Iron and Curse of the Wizard - GNOLL. Pretty bangin’ dungeon synth stuff that helps add that level of mythicness to the soundtrack. Beating drums, resounding horns, etc. etc.. The ambience makes you think about the wide fields of the Kamkoz valley and its craggy, mountainous edges. Really helps that it’s based off of the Conan Movie.

Agape-Agape (Love-Love) - Popol Vuh. A lot Popul Vuh’s stuff has that hauntingly ancient vibe: Lost temples to forgotten gods, customs and daily life that still echo in our future. I really fw the Atavism, y’know. Especially on the title track. The strange, dreamlike chanting in the background with the indeterminate strings really adds to the idea of immersion in a world unlike our own.

Worship the Glitch - Coil. Weird Ambient ritual synth. Manukind especially, with the long and heavy drones, as if the humming of giants in eternal dream, bringing forth the truth of the world from deep within their hearts, just as we are to imagine our own flights of fancy.

Crystal Logic - Manilla Road. Away from that nerd shit. Roit Proppa ‘Eavy Me’al. Especially the lyrics of Necropolis:

I have seen your Cities Burning, I have felt your Daughters Yearning, For the Peace they had Before The Times of War! I have witnessed Funeral Pyres, Burning Bright with Man’s Desires,

It really does paint this picture of constant tumult and change: The world, while ancient and old, still plays on the fingertips of cunning men and women, who’ve learned to manipulate the great game of life. ’Specially important for the tone of city adventures.

Movies

Conan the Barbarian. What is best in life? The Open Steppe, a Fleet Horse, Falcons at your Wrist and the Wind in your Hair! To Crush your Enemies, See them Driven Before You, and to hear the Lamentations of Their Women! OORAHHH! Of course the premier SnS flick is a massive inspiration to me. Especially the design of Ruins and Temples: these hauntingly ancient places that still, despite their alien nature and appearance, feel human. The Riddle Steel, as well, is pretty big influence philosophically wise.

Time Bandits. Specifically the scenes in Ancient Greece, the tones of red ochre and straw, being dry yet still “humid” with life, with strange events and rituals and freakish monsters. Despite being “ancient”, the world is alive and abashed with color. Also Agamemnon’s armor fucking rules.

Mmmmmbooks¹

Hyperborea - Clark Ashton Smith. Principle Iron Age Fantasy. Alien Gods and Shit, Cunning Thieves and Mad Wizards, and of course dumb ass names. I’ve been reading it on and off the past while and I’ve been drawing in various chunks of it in and out, especially with all the weird shit I plan to put in.

Conan the Barbarian - Robert E. Howard. See Above with the Movie. I personally imagine Conan’s world a lot less “medieval” than it actually is, with mainly bronze or shitty iron weapons and armor and steel being a high commodity. I also tend to re-“historicize” parts of it, like how I try to reframe Zingara in my head as Ancient Iberia rather than Renaissance Spain, as it feels better in my head that way. The sociological and anthropological angle of the Hyborian Age, essay also sets a tone I really appreciate.

The Elric Saga - Michael Moorcock. This counts other further Eternal Champion stuff as osmosis. I really do fuck with the weird Names like Theleb K’aarna or Nadsokor, as well as a majority of the places not being 1-to-1 replications of real places (except Pan Tang that’s just Orientalismia). The religion and strange gods that people have to balance in their lives, the weirdness of sorcery and the way it blurs lines with science, that’s a big thing I like to tackle. Fuck the Glenat comics tho they suck hot fecal shit.

Earthsea and Hainish Cycles - Ursula K. LeGuin. Despite being written by a White Woman, I do like how Earthsea doesn’t assume The Crackeroid to be a basic fantasy archetype. I think it’s the first directly Non-European fantasy thing I interfaced with when I was like, 10? That really altered my brain chemistry. Hainish cycle, too, but I haven’t finished that yet. Concepts like shifgrethor and kemmer, alien but recognizably human, also factor into my design of cultures.

Miscellany

Heavy Metal and USPM. Shouldn’t this be with music, I hear you ask? No! Fuck off, it’s my post! I like how it sounds and big muscly men fighting with swords is cool and hot! Sue me! In all seriousness though bands like Cirith Ungol have helped shape my brain chemistries while writing.

Luke Gearing’s Against Incentive Theoryposts. I haven’t pushed my players to do anything other than “don’t die.” They’ve been free-range since day one. Almost all resolutions and plot threads, like the beef with Cha-Se, has been based around their actions and responses to the world as a naturalistic mechanism.

The Early Iron Age and Late Bronze Age. Shocker, who knew. But especially from the Anthropological Angle, where you’re effectively grasping at straws when first looking at artifacts and ruins. “Who lived here? What did they do?” Is a frequent question I often ask myself when at Museums and ogling at artifacts. My mind wanders not to a mythologized past, although that is fun, but to the mundane, boring lives of ancient people, because at the end of the day they were just that: people. I don’t go conspiracy theorist and try to claim “Ohhh it’s strange alien death gun oooh!” No. It’s a human artifact, made by humans for humans. The interesting part of speculation of ancient people is not taking their marvels and wonders out of their hands and into the hands of “The Annunaki” or the Greys or whatever, but to have it be in the hands of the people that cut the stones, aligned them together and brushed past them every day in their commutes to markets and temples.

Glorantha. Self explanatory, no? Nothing can top the mysticism of a fantasy setting more than a fantasy setting made by an actual mystic. The idea of the gods realm being so easy to just travel into and never look back, like Orpheus to Eurydice, is a big design element in my hex stockings. I even have “otherworld” as a generic result for my hex stocking tables!

Havoc. My so called “history guy”. In truth tho, the insight into the daily life and philosophy of ancient people we’ve talked over has been an invaluable resource. Being the first GM I played under in the Purp Server, ironically in a Glorantha game, he’s helped me get ushered into the Purp OSR server as an actual living breathing community other than just “this is the server where I solipsistically bemoan how hard my life as a theoryslop head is” _~like PilotNet was_~. It’s no coincidence I’m modeling this post off of his. He got me to actually start playing in games and participating in games. Thanks big dawg.

#by these wolves i rule #inspiration