Lore is inspired by dungeons and dragons as well as the usual tolkien and such. of course fantasy RPGs are inspired by tolkien, howard and such but more directly Lore is inspired by campaigns my friends and I have played. Not too directly mind, I learned that the hard way with equivocate. What makes a good role playing adventure doesn't translate so well to story form.
Anyway, dungeons and dragons was probably the first roleplaying game I played, certainly the first fantasy based one. I used to love it in the days of the 2nd edition, and the 3rd as well, but eventually realised the game itself was too focused on levelling up.
how is that bad? well the higher the level, the more hit points etc and it breaks suspension of disbelief. My friends and i have always been more interested in the story telling aspect and character development rather than levelling up and stats.
We ended up creating our own game mechanics which led to a much more skill based and less rule intensive game.

Lore has elements taken from various role playing campaigns, I've created various fantasy worlds but a few things have carried over. some concepts, character names and so on. These will largely feature in Lore at some point. The Elonii and Xatorians for example are from a campaign I ran near ten years ago, they aren't solely my creation… well to be honest they are largely from an old friend, or is it former friend. Anyway I digress. The names are from him, the basic concept of the Xatorians too. The rest is from discussions and where I took his base concepts. I won't claim they are all very original ideas though.