THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 48

Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization.

- L. Frank Baum

One of my biggest influences is L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz book series. They are a fantastic delving into an American fantasy conjured straight out of the Belle Époque, complete with that sort of romantic view of civilization & perfumed flourish. I read all of these books when I was a kid & started to mix Oz stuff with the grit & grime of Warhammer when I was an early teen, dragged these books around with me im my military surplus sling bag & this has undoubtedly been an inspiration on the DUNGEON DEGENERATES world building. I love the illustrators too: W. W. Denslow & John R. Neill have been profound influences on me. The organization of the map into four distinctly colored zones, the use of dwarfs, the pumpkin head were directly inspired by Oz, as has been the cavalcade of DD adventurers although I think that Baum was more open to a crazy variety of characters. Oz is just more open, the Würstreich is more historical though I’m trying to break free from that with the following works. I’m surprised there aren’t winged monkeys! One of the key things that has added to my appreciation of Baum over time has been my discovery that he was a member of the Theosophical Society & there a lot of theosophical allegories in the Oz series. I like Theosophy because it tries to look at all religious belief scientifically. Also “The Secret Doctrine” is an amazing book & Madame Blavatsky is an amazing character. Another cool thing about Baum is that he was friends with Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan & the Martian series), this pleases me similarly to my discovery that HP Lovecraft & Robert E. Howard were friends & exchanged letters. All this goes to creating a new mythology for the moderns.