This is a response to a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding community. Rather than telling an actual story, or giving a gazetteer-style outline of a piece of worldbuilding, I'm going to outline some of the sources I use and thought processes I go through when building worlds and scenarios.
Image by Ajay kumar Singh from Pixabay
Lobachevsky
If you know the song "Lobachevsky" by the great singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer, you'll know exactly what I mean by this ! If you don't know the song, I strongly recommend you go and hunt it down on YouTube or somewhere. The guy is a comic genius !
What this means, quite simply is; plagiarise ! I am totally unashamed to use ideas from all over the place. There are far more imaginative people than me out there, in terms of both designing settings and coming up with storylines.
But the key thing is not just to plagiarise, but also to synthesise. Take the plot from an old Western movie and drop it into a scifi setting (which is exactly what Joss Whedon did with Firefly, and it worked a treat). Or build a desert world like Arrakis and explore the idea of "what if someone like Alexander the Great found himself here ?" Blending ideas from different sources can create some exquisitely unique settings and stories. I find it works best if you let the combination develop and grow over a period of time, letting your imagination run riot and just see where that starting point takes you.
Sources of Inspiration
History
The source of inspiration I use most frequently is history. Not the boring stuff they teach in schools; I'm an avid reader of the obscure bits of history, from all over the world, not just here in the UK.
But what I often look for is the little details, as well as the grand sweep of history. Most people know the story of Anthony and Cleopatra. But who has bothered to read up on what Anthony did working under Caesar in the Gallic Wars, or what happened to Cleopatra's son Caesarion, or the earlier history of the Ptolemaic dynasty ? There are so many stories there which can be woven in to give depth to a world you build, with just a few name changes as required.
Literature
Books are a great source of worldbuilding ideas. But you have to be careful with them. Mine them for individual ideas, personalities for characters, and to learn how to write better material. Don't follow them too closely; it is very easy to ruin the immersion of a game if the players feel they are just bit-parts in a story they already know.
Film
I have to be honest, I am even more wary of using film than I am of using literature. You can learn a lot about how to convey the feeling of a setting, of developing an image in your mind's eye and describing it to players or in a story. But many films are derivatives of books, so if you copy them closely, you risk delivering the derivative of a derivative.
Music
This is a strange one. Most of what I write is for tabletop RPG's (mainly Dungeons & Dragons). I'd say that more than half of the adventures I write, and certainly the best ones, have each been inspired by a piece of music, and often it'll be something quite obscure.
A song can tell a story and touches emotions in ways that few other media can, but is sparse on detail compared to a book or film. You have to interpret a few lines of lyrics to draw out the hidden story, and I find that wonderful and inspiring.
Mythology
Mythology is definitely inspiring ! It touches on some of the deepest parts of humanity, and often has it's roots in stories going right back to the Neolithic era. Personally, I like to look for the most ancient myths - for example, Classical Greek mythology is fascinating in it's own right, but it's origins date back to the pre-classical Minoan and Helladic periods, if not before. It is darker, bloodier, more mysterious, and less familiar to most modern audiences - perfect for worldbuilding purposes !
Random Stuff
I believe that part of being able to build a convincing world is to be open to everything. A single minor thing can be the spark for an idea which can give depth to a setting and help make it unique. Let your imagination blend totally different things together and see what falls out ! Ask yourself questions about the world you are creating, look for inconsistencies, and then come up with answers.
For example, dwarves in fantasy settings are traditionally great brewers. But I asked myself how that would work if they live under mountains, where wheat and sunlight aren't common. The answer I came up with was that they would use mushrooms, and from that I developed the idea of "Chrumensaft", a fermented mushroom juice liqueur that's a rare and sought after luxury in the surface world.
Conclusion
When it comes down to it, anything can be an inspiration when you're worldbuilding. It might be something which becomes the foundation for a whole setting, or an idea which becomes the tiniest immersive detail. It's not where the idea that comes from which matters; it is how you blend and modify ideas to make them your own.