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Troll: Fantasy horror movie from 1986
I loved this movie growing up and it’s still fun to watch now. If you are playing a Faerie Wood game set in modern times involving humans, then the movie Troll is a good place to look for some inspiration. It’s got everything you need, Trolls, Elves, Witches, Changelings and clueless humans who don’t stand a chance against the mischievous faerie folk.
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A Field Guide to the Little People: Nancy Arrowsmith (Macmillan, 1977)
This was one of my original sources for
researching faerie folklore when I first designed the Faerie Wood Role-playing
game in the 1990s and has proved to be invaluable. It’s a fantastic book,
written in a style that is a cross between an encyclopaedia and ‘bird
watcher’s guide that even tells you where to find these little faerie folk if
you should wish to go looking for them. It’s also packed with short folktales
and fables that help describe each faerie race and has some great black and
white illustrations too. I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to write
their own Faerie Wood adventures or if you just want a good overview of faerie
folk in general.
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Legend: Ridley Scott fantasy movie from 1985
This is another movie I loved growing up and it still looks amazing, thanks to director Ridley Scott and the incredible production team that designed the costumes and film sets. It’s a classic tale of the struggle between good and evil, but it takes place in a fantasy world inspired by folklore and includes some great characters such as ‘Darkness’ played by Tim Curry in amazing monster make-up and costume, and there are Leprechauns, an Elf and a Sprite among the many faerie folk featured in the movie. This is a great visual and narrative source for any fantasy role-playing game but will be very helpful to anyone creating a Faerie Wood adventure. There are several great trailers for Legend, but I think this is my favourite as it has a narrated voice-over by 'Darkness' himself.
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| Darkness |
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| Evil Goblins |
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| Evil Water Hag |
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| Sprite |
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Brian Froud: Artist
The work of Brian Froud has influenced many writers, film makers and illustrators over the years with an interest in folklore and faerie folklore in particular. He was production designer for movies in the 1980s such as The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and Jim Hensons ‘The Story Teller’ BBC TV series.
One of the things about Brian Froud’s work that influences Faerie Wood and my own artwork, is the idea that faerie folk are part of the natural world – they are spirits that inhabit the landscape and their appearance can resemble rocks, plant-life, animals and the elements. Another insight Brian's work has is how cruel faerie folk can be, and that they are creatures to be feared and not taken lightly.
Here’s a rare and very illuminating interview with Brian Froud where he talks about his ideas and presents some of his faerie folk illustrations:
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The Folklore Podcast
I only discovered this radio podcast quite recently and it’s a great source of information about all kinds of folklore. The podcast is produced by UK folklore researcher and author, Mark Norman and also features guest authors and folklorists from around the World. The podcast is free to listen to and can be accessed via their website or Itunes.
The Folklore podcast website link
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Mythos podcast
The Mythos Podcast is a new podcast featuring
insightful and entertaining presentations of European folk stories, produced by
Nicole Rosine Schmidt. These are free to listen to on ITunes and also
Soundcloud. One of the very first episodes is all about Faerie Worlds,
called ‘Fey Worlds’. It includes a number of excellent short folk tales from the
high moorlands of Northumberland,
Scotland’s
Orkney Islands
and a sleepy village in Suffolk.
See all the episodes on ITunes
The podcast is also available on Pocket Casts. If you enjoy listening to the podcast them please leave a review and let others know what you think.
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The Time Bandits: Terry Gilliam fantasy movie, 1981
The Time Bandits is romp of a
movie and I loved this as a kid when I first saw it and still love it now. It
tells the story of a young boy who is dragged into an adventure with
dwarves who have stolen the 'The Supreme Being's' map of the world. The map shows the
locations of magic portals that enable someone to travel to different periods
in our history and future. The dwarves use the map for sealing treasure and
making mischief.
This movie is a must see for
Faerie Wood players and it was certainly a big influence on me when I was
formulating ideas for the roleplaying game. The idea of secret portals between
time and space was exactly how I imagined Faerie Gates would enable the faerie
player characters to travel between Faerie Wood and the land of humans. Also,
the idea that this could lead to adventures in multiple time periods was great
and helped provide a framework for creating Faerie Wood games that would
have endless possibilities with different settings.
One of the first play test
scenarios I wrote for the first edition of Faerie Wood borrowed an idea from
Time Bandits – a quest for ‘The most fabulous object in the World’. In the movie, the 'Evil One' uses this as a trick to trap the boy and the dwarves in order to steal the Supreme Being's map. In my Faerie Wood game, the quest for this object would lead
the player characters all over Faerie Wood and into the land of humans. The
concept of the object was that it would change its form and appearance to suit
the person looking for it, therefore, it could be anything and all those looking
for it would think of it differently – a crock of gold, a magic sword or potion
of ever lasting life and so on.
Here's a trailer for The Time Bandits move, I highly recommend it!
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