Fantasy Foretold Forum Which Worlds Inspire You

Tamriel

I love Tamriel because of the vivid, realistic history. If you spend time reading the in game books you'll notice how certain aspects of Tamriel are borrowed from real world events. For example the humans migrating to the continent and going to war with the elves resembles the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England. Also something I really applaud the TES writers for is their synthetic religions. It can be very difficult trying to create a new religion from scratch and somehow make it seem logical. The TES writers did an amazing job by pulling from various real world cultures. My final not on Tamriel is the great cultural differences between each race. They also moved away from the classical interpretation of elves and brought them back to their roots by portraying the races in a slightly more negative light. Originally elves were very dark figures found in Norse mythology. This is shown in the games by the xenophobic High Elves, the cannibalistic Wood Elves and the daedric worshiping Dark Elves. 

Middle Earth

My big love of Middle Earth comes from Tolkien's devotion to his world. He created unique languages, myths and histories for Middle Earth. The depth and time spent on creating the various languages experienced there is evident. I know Tolkien was a philologist so it might not have seemed so great a feat in his eyes but in mine the man is a legend. He even went so far as to show how his languages evolved over the course of Middle Earth's history.

Alagaesia

Alagaesia really gets me going because of that languages. Once again I fell in love with Paolini's creation of the Ancient Language. It's pretty obvious that he drew heavily from Old English but that's wonderful. The common conception of elves is that they are light and dainty so most people would think that their language would reflect that. Well Paolini's disagrees. Using a Germanic language (like Tolkien) as inspiration for a race of elves was perfect. It's almost fitting seeing as how they originated in Germanic mythology. Another thing that I loved about Alagaesia was the mechanics of magic. The rules he created for his world were very intricate and creative. They kept me thinking well after reading his books about the implications and uses of magic in his world. My last love of Alagaesia is a character. Angela was a true masterpiece. She was eccentric, mysterious and wise. She kept the main characters grounded by reminding them that they were nothing special. She seemed to be everywhere and know everything. Despite all this in the last book she was proven mortal which just made her character that much more intriguing. I wish Paolini would dedicated a series to her but at the same time I'm happy that she still holds so many secrets.

So which worlds inspire you?