I am always very strongly influenced by sights and sounds and music always helps me a lot at focusing on a mood and aesthetic when working on my worldbuilding. I got a big collection of fantasy and sci-fi soundtracks from movies and videogames, and these are the ones I like the most for getting into the right mindset when writing for the Old World.
- Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal: Baldur’s Gate was my introduction to Fantasy as a wider world of fiction (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings had been isolated one-off things for me) and was a huge influence on me (hence I am writing stuff like this today), and when the second game came out it was even greater. But it’s particularly the expansion Throne of Bhaal that greatly inspired my vision for the Old World and the new music thar came with it is a great match. (Somehow, as a compulsory completionist who always plays a full series in order instead of just individual games, I never actually played this one since my first playthrough after its release in 2001.)
- Berserk: Short, but nicely dark.
- Bound by Flame: This is a game that is little known and was rather poorly received, though I think it was mostly just well overpriced. But for perhaps half the price it’s a very nice little Sword & Sorcery game about a world that has been overrun by ice mages and their undead armies, with a few surviving mercenaries and sages attempting to prevent the complete extinction of humans and elves. The presentation of this fantasy postapocalypse is very nicely done and the music does a great part of it.
- Diablo III:: The world of the Diablo series has almost nothing in common with the Old World and I never even played the third game. But the music is very nice.
- Dune: The one from the 80s. Saw only pieces of it when I was 8 or so and Dune is nothing like the Old World. The music is very nice and fitting, though.
- Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2: While this series is all out sci-fi (or is it?!), the adventures of Shepard and her crew are exactly the kind of tales I care about. Possibly the single most important influence on the Old World and the reason I am interested in writing stories in the first place. Not sure if the music is that great a fit for the Old World by itself, but after having easily played 200 hours in the series it has all the right associations for me. It’s dark, mysterious, but also bold.
- The Empire Strikes Back: Of course it’s here. It’s in everything where I am talking about aesthetics and atmosphere, being the best movie of all time and apparently the blueprint for the art design of Mass Effect. The Bespin and Dagobah pieces are all perfect for the Old World. In fact, the whole aestetic of the Old World is based on the presentation of these two planets.
- WarCraft III: Another big fantasy game of my early youth and one that influenced the style of the Old World almost as much as The Empire Strikes Back and Mass Effect In particular the orc and night elf campaigns set in Kalimdor, a continent quite different from any other I’ve seen in fantasy and without any of the generic stuff from the rest of the series. The orc and night elf music is the sound of the Old World.