Hoskinini’s Fugitives
This story does not begin happily. In 1863, U.S. troops under Kit Carson rounded up the Navajo people by force. The federals burned homes, shot resisters, and marched the 9,000 survivors three hundred miles to an internment camp at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. There, 2,000 Navajo died of starvation and disease. In 1868, the U.S. […]
The Great Onion Scheme
Once a month here on the Molten Sulfur Blog, I run content taken from our book Archive: Historical People, Places, and Events for RPGs. This post is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Colin Wixted. Thanks for helping keep […]
The Capitalist Cannibal Butthole Bird
In northern Cameroon, there exists a belief in a particular kind of cannibal witch. Each such witch has a bird living in their butt that crawls out to eat other people through their butts. It’s weird, wild, creepy, deeply intertwined with local values systems, and super gameable. Also, I’m going to alternate between clinical language […]
The Lyon Mail Stagecoach Robbery
The case of the Lyon mail robbery of 1796 used to be a huge pop culture phenomenon. You know how everyone knows who D. B. Cooper or Charles Manson are, even without the endless TV episodes and books and spin-offs? In the 19th century, the Lyon mail robbery had that level of cultural penetration. It’s […]
Infiltrating the She-Wolf’s Bandits
The existence of police is something most developed societies take for granted. Police are as natural a part of our political order as laws, juries, and elections, right? Yet unlike those three, police (as we would recognize them) are a fairly recent development. In the next two weeks on the blog, we’re going to look […]
Djenné
Once a month here on the Molten Sulfur Blog, I run content taken from our book Archive: Historical People, Places, and Events for RPGs. This post is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Colin Wixted. Thanks for helping keep […]
Weird Japanese Monsters
Monsters aren’t just for fighting! They’re also for roleplaying with, puzzling out, and adding color to your campaign. Back in 2019, I wrote a post about four weird historical monsters from medieval Europe. This is a long-delayed sequel, with four monsters (yokai) from four different periods of Japanese history: one beneficial, one villainous, one morally […]
The Point Lake Diamond Rush: Spy vs. Spy
When diamonds were discovered in the tundra of the Barren Grounds in far northern Canada, it set off a chain of secrets, deceptions, covert actions, and industrial espionage that make an amazing template for an RPG adventure. Even if you’re not running an actual espionage campaign, PCs could be easily hired on as deniable assets […]
The Heretic and the Pilgrimage of the Dead
This week, we have a remarkable tale from rural France in 1320 about the souls of the dead going on pilgrimage. The source of the story is no less remarkable than the tale itself. Both make great adventure hooks. Let’s dive straight in! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Joel Dalenberg. […]
Zheng He’s Alien Invasion
Zheng He was a diplomat/explorer/admiral for the Ming dynasty of China. In 1410, he felt compelled to invade the far-off island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) and overthrow the king of Kotte. At the time, few Ceylonese people had even heard of distant China. Nonetheless, a fleet of enormous Chinese warships came from out of […]
Darvaza Crater
Once a month here on the Molten Sulfur Blog, I run content taken from our book Archive: Historical People, Places, and Events for RPGs. This post is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Arthur Brown. Thanks for helping keep […]
The Ethiopian Sepulcher Letters
When Saumel Gobat, the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, died in 1879, an odd stack of papers was discovered among his effects. These were letters from the Ethiopian Emperor Sahle Dengel addressed to various Levantine and European powers, begging them for help with a peculiar and thorny problem. Judging by their text, Gobat was supposed to […]
The Axeman’s Letter
The Axeman of New Orleans was an attention-grabbing serial killer who operated in and around New Orleans in 1918-1919 and possibly in 1910-1911. He was never caught. In an incident reminiscent of the later Zodiac killer, someone claiming to be the Axeman wrote a letter to the newspaper, which dutifully published it. This letter is […]
The Hungarian Crown Heist
Back in December, I wrote about the Holy Crown of Hungary, a fabulous relic that conveys kingship to whoever wears it – and without which one cannot be king of Hungary. I also mentioned the crown has been repeatedly stolen. If there’s a succession dispute, you can’t win until you’ve defeated your rivals and obtained the […]
Cyrus the Great
Once a month here on the Molten Sulfur Blog, I run content taken from our book Archive: Historical People, Places, and Events for RPGs. This post is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Arthur Brown. Thanks for helping keep […]