Just recently, I’ve been reading books that make me want to run games based on them, and I’d like to recommend two of them to you.

Let’s take a gander at the Zombie War and monster blood tattoos.

World War Z

It all started on my honeymoon, with World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. This is one of the most fun books I’ve read in a long time — a quick read, and chock-full of good ideas.

The basic premise is that a Romero-style zombie outbreak occurs, and spreads very rapidly throughout the world. This quickly blossoms into World War Z, a global conflict between the dwindling human population and the growing zombie population. The progression is well thought-out, and you could run an entire game based on playing through the war itself.

The story is told through oral histories, eyewitness accounts from a variety of survivors of the war, and they’re fascinating. From a gaming perspective, ideas like a martial art developed to fight zombies, or (one of my personal favorites) a reality show based on celebrities trying to ride out the war in a fortified compound, are just too good to pass up.

World War Z is written by Max Brooks, the same fellow who wrote The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, and it rocks.

Monster Blood Tattoo

Monster Blood Tattoo: Foundling is the first volume in a new series by D.M. Cornish, and based on this one I can’t wait for the rest of the books. It’s young adult/teen fiction, but don’t let that scare you off — not only is it fairly grim, it’s full of cool stuff.

The story revolves around Rossamund, an orphan who strikes out from home to serve the Emperor of the Half-Continent. The basic premise — boy meets world — is nothing new; it’s the engaging writing and the world itself that really make it sing.

The Half-Continent is steampunk-y, but with a flavor all its own. It’s peopled with professional monster hunters (who bear tattoos made from the blood of their prey, hence the title), twisted kidnappers and all manner of strange creatures, all set against a backdrop of boats with living engines (their propellors driven by giant muscles), crazy alchemy and other delights.

From a GMing perspective, the coolest thing may be the appendices, which run over a hundred pages. Every time I saw a name or a made-up term while reading this book, I flipped to the appendices and learned all about it. There’s more than enough information in there to get a campaign off the ground.

I thoroughly enjoyed both of these books, and I recommend them not only as good reads, but as good sources of ideas for steampunk or zombie-based games — and as templates for entire campaigns, if you’re so inclined.