Every epigraph in the Tiny d10 books, with links to public domain editions of the works they come from.
Fantasy Core
Fantasy Core Rules
Adventures come to the adventurous, and mysterious things fall in the way of those who, with wonder and imagination, are on the watch for them.
– Algernon Blackwood, “The Insanity of Jones” (1907), in Four Weird Tales
Fantasy Monsters
The constant battle of wits and senses against the many deadly foes that lurk by day and by night along the pathway of the wary and the unwary appeals to the spirit of adventure which breathes strong in the heart of every red-blooded son of primordial Adam.
– Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Son of Tarzan (1917)
The Broken Light
There is a cavern in the deep
Beyond the sea-winds brawl;
Where the hills of the sea slope high and steep,
And dragons sleep
And serpents creep.
There is a cavern in the deep
Where strange sea-creatures crawl.– Robert E. Howard, “Deeps” (1926)
Zines
The Worldwide Adventure Generator
“Farewell, my son the Baboon,” he said, “and farewell to thee too, oh Lion. I can do no more to help you. But if ever ye come to your country, be advised, and venture no more into lands that ye know not, lest ye come back no more, but leave your white bones to mark the limit of your journeyings. Farewell once more; often shall I think of you, nor wilt thou forget me, my Baboon, for though thy face is ugly thy heart is true.”
– H. Rider Haggard, She (1887)
Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!– Rudyard Kipling, “The Explorer,” in The Five Nations (1903)
The Little Book of Primal Magics
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near.
– Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908)
Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one way or another… mountains overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another, somewhat link on intimately with human life and human experience. They stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole to exalt.
– Algernon Blackwood, The Willows (1907)
In the blood of man there is a tide, an old sea-current rather, that is somehow akin to the twilight, which brings him rumours of beauty from however far away, as driftwood is found at sea from islands not yet discovered: and this spring-tide or current that visits the blood of man comes from the fabulous quarter of his lineage, from the legendary, the old; it takes him out to the woodlands, out to the hills; he listens to ancient song.
– Lord Dunsany, “The Bride of the Man-Horse,” in The Book of Wonder (1912)
The Land of Glacia
The Fort in the Hinterlands
There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back—and I will.– Robert W. Service, “The Spell of the Yukon,” in The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses (1907)
The Hinterlands Companion
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.– Robert W. Service, “The Call of the Wild,” in The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses (1907)
From the River Travel Procedure:
The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book.
– Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883)
From the Wildlife Discovery Procedure:
There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, and the rivers all run God knows where.
– Robert W. Service, “The Spell of the Yukon,” in The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses (1907)
From the Disease Checks:
My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
– Job 30:30, The King James Version of the Bible
Reference Sheets
Cleric
Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid.
– Joshua 1:9, The King James Version of the Bible
Rogue
Audentes fortuna iuvat. (Fortune favors the bold.)
– Virgil, Aeneid, Book X
Warrior
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
– Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses,” in The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson (1842)
Wizard
Follow the Gleam.
– Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Merlin and the Gleam,” in Demeter and Other Poems (1889)