Gaming Resource: Children's Rhymes
For the D&D game I'll be running, I decided to hint at part of the plot with a fictional Nursery Rhyme I found in gaming book that fits the plot that I'm running. My slightly altered version of a poem found in a Stormbringer RPG supplement:

Ten lie sleeping in the west,
Arms are folded, hands on chest
Please Father, grant them further rest.

Amazingly, I was already setting my game on the west side of the world of Connemara. I had not set the number 10, but there were somethings sleeping. (Sorry, I have to stay vague.)

this got me thinking of how cool the use of a childrens rhyme was in the Buffy episode "Hush."

Can't even shout
Can't even cry
The gentlemen
are coming by

looking in windows
knocking on doors
They need to take seven
and they might take yours

Can't call to mom
can't say a word
You're gonna die screaming
but you won't be heard

Creepy stuff.

I did some net surfing and found this website which lists a bunch of nursery rhyme with the historical stories that they supposedly are about. Threre's a lot of good game inspirations in there, so I figure'd I'd link it for my fellow GMs out there.

One of my favorite rhymes with possible games I found was this one:
A tisket, a tasket,
a red and yellow basket,
a severed head cannot reply,
to questions that you ask it.

What if there are creatures or demons out there that collect human heads in these baskets? It could be a sorcery spell that requires wizards to place human heads in a special ceremonial basket....with red and yellow markings. Perhaps the spell allows someone to talk to the spirit the head once belonged to....or in a reverse thought- perhaps it seals the spirit in the casket so that teh sould does not go to the afterlife and cannot be contacted by any form of spirit communication. One way, the rhyme says that it is normally not possible and anyone who believes this spell will work is wrong and of course for gaming purposes, it does work. The other way, it hands at the reality of the spell.

Whatever the reality of the rhyme, using the rhyme alone should set a certain mood for the game. Children know the dark things of the world and many of these dark faerie tales and nursery rhymes could hint at the horrible truth behind it all.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
and here comes a chopper to chop of your head.

Of course if you use well-known real-life rhymes, you'd want to se them for Modern settings (or Amber, since the rhyme could be a shadow of the true world). If it's a lesser known rhyme, you can use it in any game. I was thinking of using the above one to create creatures for a fantasy world: undead creatures that lure their prey into the wilderness with will-o-the-wisp-like lights and then pounce on them with axes, knifes, etc..