Inspirations

I have taken inspirations from many sources to form this world, and I see no reason to keep them secret, though I may not remember them all and certainly some influences are subconscious, but to the best of my recollection:

• The Lord of the Rings, of course, deserves to be the first one to name. My elves, dwarves and orcs are closely guided by J.R.R. Tolkien's vision, and many smaller inspirations are from his classic and other books.
• Game of Thrones has inspired a number of details and construction of the background, especially noble houses and relations.
• The NPCs series by Drew Hayes as well as The Wandering Inn by Pirate Aba have adventurers' guilds and "adventurer" as a common profession
• N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy is not only an incredible piece of fantasy, it also inspired the Koryo culture and anyone who knows the books will immediately spot the similarity between Stone Law and Storm Law.

Of course, countless tabletop and computer RPGs, many more books and movies and a ton of other sources contributed their share, but I can't split out anymore what exactly came from where.

Finally, I have taken a few things out of my own works, such as the Gods Wars and the Nameless One, which are based loosely upon a similar storyline in my novel Sorien (not yet published at this time).