I’ve been reading the North Water and have to thoroughly recommend it for Blades in the Dark atmosphere & inspiration.
For example:
“There is no sin left now, there is only the blood and the water and the ice; there is only life and death and the grey-green spaces in between. He will not die he tells himself, not now, not ever. When he is thirsty, he will drink his own blood; when he is hungry, he will eat his own flesh. He will grow enormous from the feasting, he will expand to fill the empty sky.”
It also led to me reading about rag-and-bone men, which would be great to drop whole-cloth into Doskvol. “Bone-grubbers”!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Water
Agreed. Another great quote:
“He finds the lying comes easy enough, of course. Words are just noises in a certain order, and he can use them any way he wishes. Pigs grunt, ducks quack, and men tell lies: that is how it generally goes.”
― Ian McGuire, The North Water