The Wolfman is kinda obvious too - the wolf is the animal form of the most evil spirit of the forest. The Three are basically Trzygłów - a deity created by merging three deities from other tribes, one of whom was Weles, god of merchants and wealth.Īs you said, the Chicken Lady could be a reference to Baba Jaga. Almost every single NPCs meaning can be explained using Slavic Paganism. Almost all story-related items are authentic (mostly from PRL afaik). Yeah, pretty sure they only named them Banshees in the English version because they scream lolįrom my (limited but native) knowledge, Darkwood's theme is a mix of historical and mythological influences. Overall, this is all just speculation and coincidences, I have no idea how much of these actually influenced the creators, however, they did say they were influenced by Slavic folklore.
There are some creatures in Slavic folklore that deal with birds, but none from my research are close enough to resemble the banshee. It should be noted that banshees are actually Irish, and don't really look like they do in the game, Vodyanoy bears some resemblance to a swamper but not much Mushrooms may have a minor connection, being sort of sentient in the folklore,
She is also related to dreams, so take that as you will.īaba Yaga is a witch who lives in a house with chicken legs, so take that as you will regarding the chicken lady (I couldn't really find any more connections besides the fact that she kidnaps people. Leshy seems very similar to the savages in appearance, but not quite in purpose image Ģ3 seconds into the live action trailer for this game shows an image of striking resemblance to what is know as marzanna, She was burned in effigy (as seen in the video), and was a representation of death and rebirth of nature (huge ties to the story). Importance of trees in folklore (kinda a stretch) Ī little more significant impact of tree (the world tree) which shares some themes of the game Here are some things I have found relating to polish folklore From my understanding, a lot of the polish folklore influence is mainly visual (one quick google search and the art style is dead on), but there are some bigger connections that may be able to be made.ġ9th century polish/Slavic artwork (quite similar in aesthetic) Now, I am not Slavic, nor am I even eastern European, so if I get something wrong or there are any potential inspirations I may have missed, please correct/discuss below. So one of the Wizard's inspirations was Slavic folklore, and I did some research and this is what I have found. Below is a revised version without the (quite obvious) stupid mistake I don't know why I wrote that, but it was in the morning before breakfast, so I blame that. NOTE: I had originally posted this thread erroneously with the word Scandinavian.