Reading and Sources

 The Wyrd Lands is trying to partly capture some part of migration period northern europe. It is strictly not "historical" where historical is used to excuse today's prejudices with some appeal to the past. Where it is historical is the inspiration from the poetry, history and archaeology that gives us clues about the time and place. 

This page captures my sources for this world, with a brief comment about their value to this project and links to any posts that explicit use of them.

Beowulf and Basilisks, Tim Flight

Published by Reaktion (2021). 

A brilliant discussion of the relationship of the people to their environment and the social judgements that turn people into monsters. Succinctly captures the dichotomy of Hall and Wild in The Wyrd Lands. 

Thus we walk the mearc [boundary] between man and civilization on the one hand, monster and wilderness on the other... certain acts can turn us into a monster if we do not use our rationality to avoid them. 

• Mentioned in: Building Wyrd Beasts - Design Principles; Building Wyrd Beasts - Trolls

Text-world Theory, Joanna Gavins

Published by Edinburgh University Press (2007). 

A guide to the theory that I think is most relevant to describing what is actually happening in RPGS. It is about how we generate the textual/imaginative worlds that we then play in. 

Our experiences of these worlds can be as real to us as our experience of the everyday world in which we live.

• Mentioned in: Make-believe is the game: text-world theory; Do we know what RPGs are: narrators

Trolls, John Lindow

Published by Reaktion (2014). 

A full history of trolls in literature and sagas, tracing their changes from the earliest legends through folk tales and more contemporary usage.  

Yet I experienced, ever more strongly, the fact that we cannot truly know trolls. If we could, they would not be trolls. ...Trolls are what we are not, or what we think we are not. 

• Mentioned in: Building Wyrd Beasts - Trolls