Appendix H

09 Sep, 2025

I come to this bandwagon mostly as an outsider for a few different reasons that those who know me already expect:

1. I was never much into fantasy as a concept. I watched fantastic cartoons as a child, I read a handful of comics, and I played videogames, but I was never particularly enamoured with the genre of fantasy, or fantasy by fantasy's sake. As of writing this I am in my mid 20's, and I only ever finished The Lord of the Rings early last year (2024).¹ I don't say this from a position of superiority, to be clear, but just to explain that this sort of fantasy was never much my jam.

2. As WW puts it, the Appendix N is a list of things people stole to put in their game, but I was never much one for that. I don't know why, but growing up I always felt like kitbashing things haphazardly like that created a schizophrenic tone that never sat right with me, even as a young chibbus. I've lately been endeavouring to silence that part of me, Prismatic Wasteland's post being one of the reasons why.

3. And lastly: I have never read the Appendix N. I broadly know what's in it, but I have no idea how it's presented, what the original intention was, and frankly I don't care either. I'm taking it as a list of things which inspired or continue to inspire me, and that's that.

As a last disclaimer, I understand this list to be both stuff which inspired me in the past, even though I don't necessarily draw consciously from them anymore, and things which I intentionally try to bring into my games. I know, for instance, that my attitudes towards certain things were shaped by certain pieces of media which I have largely outgrown, but I still think they bear mentioning, as I'm sure they're still inside me, somewhere.

Havoc, show us the actual goddamn list

1. Greek Mythology, and consequentially the Percy Jackson series

My favourite book series before I was 13², and I don't know if it introduced me to Greek Myth or if my interest in Greek Myth brought me to it, but both are interconnected in my mind. I find that myth and folklore is an endless wellspring of interesting inspiration - flying horses SHOULD spring the blood of a defeated monster, great heroes SHOULD be brought low by a tragic flaw - and the more you dig, the weirder it becomes.

As to Percy Jackson, I have obviously outgrown it, but I remember being very taken by some of the smallest parts of the series. The scene in the first book where the Minotaur attacks Percy in the rain as they're driving to Montauk was magical both because it involved The Minotaur, but also because it was in Montauk. To an American that is bumfuck nowhere, Long Island, but to me, as a child googling what it looked like, the idea of a sleepy, cold beach town with old wooden houses one could spend their time on vacation was just as fantastical a concept as the bull-headed monster.³

Honourable mention goes to the God of War videogame series (prior to the reboot, naturally). All of those games were mainstays of my childhood and they shaped a lot of how some parts of Greek Myth looked like to me, but more importantly, it solidifies an aesthetic which I largely rejected and moved past. That heavy metal, hyperviolent, juvenile view of myth is almost exactly what I reject in my games, and God of War is excellent as a shorthand for it. Besides, the games are really good.

2. Avatar, both the Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra

The cartoons I watched as a child which most stuck with me, and also the cartoons which brings to mind some of the things I most prize in RPGs: why can't this issue be solved peacefully? Yes, we can always fight the monster, but fighting is the way of videogames. In a world with tactical infinity, pacifism is not only an option, but also an option which almost no game truly offers.

Aesthetically, I was obsessed with Avatar's animals. The mixing and matching set my child brain on fire, and the way it construes magic is probably the most lasting impact it had on me.

Character-wise, Korra always stuck out in my mind. She goes through so much stuff and comes so close to giving up (it's wild that they had her considering suicide in a children's cartoon), but she always kept it real.

3. Manga, but especially Naruto, Dragon Ball, and Fullmetal Alchemist

Talking about magic, the world of both Naruto and Dragon Ball were very dear to me growing up. Nowadays I mostly remember Naruto as a bit of a poorly written mess, but growing up it was very captivating.

I lump all of these three up like this because they inculcated in me that magic can be done by anyone. Growing up, the concept of "a wizard", so well defined, was archaic and strange; an artefact of the olden days of knights and dragons. In modern days, a magician like Goku is someone who can blast a guy at range with his raw vital essence, or create a ball of that same essence in his hand and drill a hole in another guy with it. Magic wasn't something hidden and special, with dangerous consequences for those who would misuse it when I was growing up; the world oozes magic. Giant toads can be found in the mountains, an alien king can blast the moon from the sky to stop his enemy from transforming into a giant ape, and by clapping his hands a boy can create a wall of ice. No books involved.

And Dragon Ball just has the perfect setup for any RPG. Here's these 7 balls, you got one already because your grandpa gave it to you, go find them!

Honourable mention goes to the Kingdom Hearts series. Those games aren't very good and were entirely out of their damn mind, but they helped me build a resistance to nonsense which has served me well. I credit them with allowing me to just roll with the stupid (endearing) "gonzo" aesthetic the OSR loves to tout.

4. Shadow of the Colossus and other Playstation 2 classics

Truth be told, while I did read quite a bit as a kid, and listened to a lot of music, what I mostly did up until I found RPGs at age 13 was play videogames. The videogame I was most obsessed with was Shadow of the Colossus, and it's such a tremendously moody game that it's always stuck with me.

A lonely man crossing the plain accompanied only by his horse, doing terrible deeds he doesn't quite understand for love, only to come to a tragic yet bittersweet end. That loneliness really grabbed me like nothing else at the time did.

One of the things I most carry from Shadow of the Colossus is how much the world feels empty, but in an interesting way. Whenever I think about exploring a hex and nothing happening, I think of Wander and Agro traversing this vast, empty land that doesn't even bother to tell them they don't belong there. An indifferent world.

5. Cien años de soledad and Realist Literature more broadly

Speaking of loneliness and magic, this book, as well as El amor en los tiempos del cólera, is the definitive treatise on loneliness to me, and its mood is deeply inspiring. I could go on a tangent on how no one uses Magic Realism correctly and how that pisses me off, AND I DID, but I deleted that bit because it has no bearing on what actually fires off my neurons in these books, which is the people.

Leo Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Machado de Assis, these were and are some of my favourite writers, and my favourite part of their work is always how deeply alive the people feel in them. Their inner worlds, their often glacial story arcs into more fully realised people, and importantly: all this done without anyone killing anyone.

Every single time I read another one of these books, I just know I'm being fed a new NPC to put in a game. I'd say this one is a lot more of a lasting influence on me than anything from my childhood.

6. Ghibli movies

Here in Brasil, we usually call a thing which everyone owns or is exceedingly common "beef" or, more literally, "cow flesh". This is slightly derisive, an acknowledgement that it is basic bordering on passé. I feel like Studio Ghibli movies are a bit like this in modern RPGs, yet I mention it because I think I come at it from a slightly different perspective.

Of course I enjoy the boundless adventure of Nausicaä, Princess Mononoke, and Porco Rosso, as well as the magical fairytales that are Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro, and Howl's Moving Castle, but I'd say the 3 Ghibli movies which most inspire me are Whisper of the Heart, Only Yesterday, and The Tale of Princess Kaguya (two of which are directed by Isao Takahata, not Miyazaki!).

I'm not sure why these speak to me so much, but I'd say it's because of the little things. Only Yesterday is entirely about the little things - pastoral scenes of dye making, collecting flowers, etc - and Kaguya-Hime even literalises this by having a massive amount of shots from flowers, butterflies, and very minute facial expressions, which can sometimes be lost in the beautiful maximalism of something like Spirited Away.

As always, it's the people. I don't think any scene in any Ghibli movie ever took my breath away as much as the last shot of Kaguya-Hime. All of these movies have elements of facing unwinnable odds - the weight of society, leaving for high school, or the Buddha himself - and gritting your teeth through it all. My best and most memorable RPG experiences have been all about this.

7. Gay ass comics & movies about either growing up, the idea of the summer, or both

I was going to make this a honorable mention, but I have so many of them that it got boring just rattling them together. These share thematic throughlines, often romantic though not necessarily, and are generally what I associate with peak hangouttitude. These are pieces of media which are broadly calm but likely wistful about some time ago.

It bears mentioning too that this part is entirely made up of nostalgia I do not have. The Brazilian school year doesn't break in the middle for summer, but rather for winter; growing up I actually never liked the summer very much, it's around the time of my birthday and of spending time with my family, which put me in a philosophical mood.

However, winter here looks a lot like late summer as depicted in these pieces, so I still consider them.

For literature, the reason I even made this category be its own thing rather than an honourable mention are the Mariko Tamaki comics: This One Summer and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me. Both are beautiful portraits of the anxieties of young teenagers. Also relevant are Giant Days, Blue Flag (INCREDIBLE manga), Shimanani Tasogare, Catcher in the Rye, and I'd even be so bold as to put El amor en los tiempos del cólera here. The videogames Boku no Natsuyasumi, Attack of the Friday Monsters, and the Mother series are also all here, and I'd say any good 2D Zelda should feel like the kind of videogame the protagonist of one of these stories is playing in the background.

Movies-wise, I'd put here Call Me By Your Name⁴, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Cléo from 5 to 7. Perhaps even the quieter moments of Mulholland Dr., when Betty and Rita are figuring themselves out.

Now, this is a tentative category. By the sheer size of it you can probably tell these all made quite a number on me, but the issue is that I never managed to leverage this aesthetic and turn it into a game. It's always in the back of my mind though, and I always try to pull things towards this direction, but I've never succeeded.

The big issue, I think, is that much like Realist literature, these are all very focused on characters and physical spaces, both things that RPGs aren't good at conveying, but I have hope that one day I'll be able to pull it off.

8. Disco Elysium, Night in the Woods, Twin Peaks, and The Name of the Rose

These are my main references regarding mystery. They don't have a whole lot to do with one another, but they all have something I love: the mystery is just a part of it. Yeah yeah, we want to know who's the killer in the abbey or who killed Laura Palmer, but that's not what brings us - what brings me - to any of these works. The mystery structure is but scaffolding to hang interesting characters going around a tiny location, talking to people and having discussions about something else than the mystery - capitalism, the conflict with the Spiritual Franciscans, or just how this is a damn fine cup of joe.

Another thing which really gets to me is how, at least in the two videogames mentioned, sometimes the characters don't obey you. You want Harry to be a better person (or I do anyway) and you want Mae to overcome her past trauma, but you just can't force them to do it. They'll disobey you and do the wrong thing, or misinterpret your command, and this is something that I also loved bringing to my RPGs, particularly Pendragon and the like.

9. The people I play with

Ultimately, I don't think there is any influence on my games stronger than the games themselves. I could tell you how I find Arthuriana interesting and captivating, but I would be lying a bit. It's not The Knight of the Cart or (God forbid) the History of the Kings of Britain which I find captivating, it's my memories of playing a 2 year long Pendragon duet, about twice or thrice a week, and that specific incarnation of Pendragon which we created together.

I could tell you I love Jidaigeki movies like Ran or Kagemusha - and I do, and they are massive influences on me - but whenever I think of cool samurais, I think back on the 3 different RPGs I ran set in the early Edo Period.

Do I think superheroes are cool? A little bit, I did grow up with Teen Titans and Superman, but it's the idea of that game I almost ran, inspired by the illustrations by Gabriel Picolo, which most stand out in my brain.

It might go without saying in other peoples' lists, or go against the spirit of the Appendix N prompt, but my impression is that my games are so recursive and self-moving that it feels like too glaring an omission not to mention that which might go unmentioned. After all, I was the one who, at 13, ran a year-long game of One Piece, playing every single day, without having watched any of One Piece, going only off of what my friends told me and what I read on the wikia.

If I want magic vibes, I can wave my hand at Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but we both know I'll be thinking of Unknown Armies, there's just no way around it. Outside media can try, but it can't compete.

I love my friends! And I love these games!! RPGs forever!!! Goodbye!!!!