Inspiration – Worth it Places

My top sources of inspiration for magical-medieval fantasy worlds:

Roger and Angelica Mounted on the Hippogriff, The Art Institute of Chicago

1. Mythology

- - Mesopotamian/Central Asian
    1. Sumerian
    2. Akkadian
    3. Assyrian
    4. Babylonian
    5. Persian
  - Abrahamic
    1. Jewish
    2. Christian
    3. Islamic
  - African
    1. Egyptian
    2. Dahomean
    3. Vodou
    4. Yoruba
  - Greco-Roman
    1. Hesiod’s Theogony
    2. Leto, mother of Artemis and Apollo
    3. Niobe, the Weeping Rock
    4. Τhe Three Sisters of Fate
    5. Pandora’s Box
    6. Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound
    7. Sisyphus and his Eternal Punishment
    8. The Abduction of Persephone by Hades
    9. Triptolemus
    10. The Name Giving of Athens
    11. Athena and Arachne
    12. Narcissus and Echo
    13. Apollo and Daphne
    14. Eros and Psyche
    15. Pan and Syrinx
    16. Pygmalion and Galatea
    17. King Midas and his Golden Touch
    18. Centauromachy – Lapiths battle with Centaurs
    19. Otrera – First Queen of the Amazons
    20. Cadmus and the Dragon
    21. Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex – and the Sphinx
    22. Sophocles’s Antigone – daughter of Oedipus
    23. Bellerophon and Pegasus
    24. Perseus and the Gorgon Medusa
    25. Andromeda and Perseus
    26. Orpheus and Eurydice
    27. The Twelve Labors of Hercules
    28. Meleager the Argonaut – host of the Calydonian boar hunt
    29. Apollonius Rhodius’s Argonautica – Jason and the Argonauts
    30. Euripedes’s Medea – wife of Jason
    31. Daedalus and Icarus
    32. Theseus and the Minotaur
    33. King Aegeus
    34. Leda and the Swan
    35. The Apple of Discord
    36. Homer’s Iliad
    37. Homer’s Odyssey
    38. Sophocles’s The Persians
    39. Virgil’s Aeneid
    40. Romulus and Remus
  - North Eurasian
    1. Norse
    2. Germanic
    3. Celtic
    4. English
    5. Frankish
    6. Slavic
  - South Asian
    1. Romani
    2. Hindu
    3. Vedic
    4. Buddhist
  - East/Southeast Asian
    1. Chinese
    2. Japanese
    3. Cambodian
    4. Indonesian
  - Oceanian
    1. Australian Aboriginal
    2. Melanesian
    3. Micronesian
    4. Polynesian
  - North American
    1. Ancestral Puebloan
    2. Mound Builder
    3. Inuit
    4. Haida
    5. Blackfoot
    6. Iroquois
  - Central/South American
    1. Maya
    2. Aztec
    3. Muisca
    4. Inca

2. Legendary heroic epics

- - Epic of Gilgamesh
  - Iliad
  - Odyssey
  - Aeneid
  - Beowulf
  - Nibelungenlied
  - Prose Edda and Poetic Edda
  - Völsunga Saga
  - Le Morte d’Arthur and other Arthurian legends
  - One Thousand and One Nights – Shahrazad and Shahryar
    1. Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
    2. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
    3. The City of Brass
    4. The Ebony Horse
    5. The Fisherman and the Jinni
    6. The Tale of the Hunchback
    7. The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor
    8. The Three Apples
    9. The Three Princes and the Princess Nouronnihar
    10. The Vizier and the Sage Duban

3. Fairy Tales

- - English Fairy Tales
    1. Saint George and the Dragon
    2. “Jack and the Beanstalk”
    3. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”
    4. “The Three Little Pigs”
    5. Peter Pan
    6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  - French Fairy Tales
    1. “Sleeping Beauty”
    2. “Cinderella”
    3. “Little Red Riding Hood”
    4. “Hop-o’-My-Thumb”
    5. “Puss in Boots”
    6. Beauty and the Beast
  - German Fairy Tales
    1. “Godfather Death”
    2. “Hansel and Gretel”
    3. “Pied Piper of Hamelin”
    4. “Rapunzel”
    5. “Rumpelstiltskin”
    6. “Snow White”
    7. “The Elves and the Shoemaker”
    8. “The Frog Prince”
    9. “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”
    10. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
    11. “Town Musicians of Bremen”
    12. “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”
  - Danish Fairy Tales
    1. “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
    2. “The Little Mermaid”
    3. “The Princess and the Pea”
    4. “The Snow Queen”
    5. “Thumbelina”
    6. “The Ugly Duckling”
  - Other Fairy Tales
    1. Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
    2. Ballad of Mulan
    3. Peter and the Wolf
    4. Swan Lake
    5. “Three Billy Goats Gruff”
    6. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
  - Aesop’s Fables
    1. The Ant and the Grasshopper
    2. The Boy Who Cried Wolf
    3. The Crow and the Pitcher
    4. The Dog and the Shadow
    5. The Fox and the Grapes
    6. The Gnat and the Bull
    7. The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs
    8. The Hart and the Hunter
    9. The Lion and the Mouse
    10. The Lion, the Ass, and the Fox
    11. The Tortoise and the Hare
    12. Town Mouse and Country Mouse
  - Nursery rhymes
    1. “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”
    2. “Hickory Dickory Dock”
    3. “Humpty Dumpty”
    4. “Itsy Bitsy Spider”
    5. “Jack and Jill”
    6. “Little Bo-Peep”
    7. “Little Miss Muffet”
    8. “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
    9. “Ring a Ring o’ Roses”
    10. “Sing a Song of Sixpence”
    11. “There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe”
    12. “Three Blind Mice”

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

4. Fantasy novel classic series…

- - J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
  - C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia
  - Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian

Magic the Gathering - Shivan Dragon — Magic the Gathering – Shivan Dragon

5. Magic: The Gathering

6. Dungeons & Dragons

7. Fantasy films

8. Monster movies and the NES and SNES Castlevania video game series (up through Super Castlevania IV, plus Castlevania: Bloodlines on Saga Genesis)

9. Top NES, SNES, and other video games set in magical-medieval fantasy worlds (especially:)

- - The Legend of Zelda video game series (up through Wind Waker)
  - Ghost ‘n Goblins
  - Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
  - Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
  - Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

10. He-man & She-Ra

- - He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983)
  - She-Ra: Princess of Power (1985)
  - Masters of the Universe (1987)
  - He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002)
  - She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)