The Princess and the Goblin

 "The Princess and the Goblin" by George MacDonald is often regarded as the first fantasy novel. It was an acknowledged influence on both C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien, and generally speaking, there is something about the way it takes familiar old fairy tale tropes (Princess, Fairy Godmother, Goblins, Castle, Working Class Hero) mixes them up, and tells a gripping tale with some unexpected turns and developments. Furthermore, as it was first published in 1872, it is firmly in the public domain and free to download at Project Gutenberg. 

I blithely claimed in my first post post that Talisman owes more to "Jack Vance and the Brothers Grimm than to Tolkien". This may not be strictly true. However, in addition to reflecting my own feelling for the particular atmosphere of the game's world, it might also serve as a good rule of thumb for how to look for inspiration for fantasy RPG adventure: look a little bit further than the Lord of the Rings and you may find rich pickings.

For a GM looking to write an adventure, there are lots of great ideas to steal from "The Princess and the Goblin". Let's take the setting, which is a compact, self-contained little world: we have a castle, by a mountain, a village of miners live on the mountain, and caves full of goblins live under it. The King is absent, the Goblin King resents him, and there is a plan afoot for the goblins to tunnel into the castle and kidnap the Princess . The goblin forces are bolstered by  bunch of goblin animals - ordinary above-ground animals that from life below have twisted into all sorts of ghastly shapes. The Goblin Queen has fearsome Granite Boots (to hide her deformed feet and to instill obedience).

All excellent starting points for an aspiring GM's adventure-writing. We can change things round (they plan to kidnap the Prince; the Absent King is wicked and perhaps stole something of value that the poor goblins want or need back; the miners resent the King and they plan to undermine the Caste and blame it on the Goblins...), or just steal a single element (Granite Boots of course, or maybe a spider-legged goblin pig). 

*** 

I like to go to Project Gutenberg for literary inspiration - yes, because it is all free and legitimately sourced, but also because there is some some damn good stuff there. Lord Dunsany (The King of Elfland's Daughter and Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley are there, but not alas the Charwoman's Shadow) and everything by L Frank Baum for starters (most scenarios will benefit from flying monkeys, or a glass cat perpetually seeking compliments on its pretty pink brains). 

There are also many collections of folk tales that I will have to post about separately sometime, though if I may draw attention to two contrasting favourites - the entirely over-written but charming Traditions of Lancashire collected by John Roby, (amongst much else there is an extended dialogue with His Satanic Majesty (so named) in The Dule Upo' Dun) and the elegantly concise Korean Folk Tales of Pang Im and Yuk Yi.

Granite Boots of Shin-Kicking: Enemies: On a roll of 1 on the Kismet die, a hero or Follower takes an additional 1d6 damage. The GM may spend 1 Dark Fate to increase the Threat of any adjacent Goblinoids by +2. Heroes: These boots allow the wearer to spend 1 Light Fate to inflict an additional 1d6 of damage in a melee combat.They also allow a reroll for all Intimidation checks, with +2 on Intimidation checks against Goblinoids.