Chand Baori
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 Mos Teutonicus and the Excarnates
If a Medieval European aristocrat died far from home, what was to be done with the body? His family usually wanted it returned to be buried with his relatives, but that could entail a weeks-long Faulknerian trip with an ever-riper corpse. Embalming was one solution, but it was frightfully expensive. Enter the mos teutonicus, a […]
The Contemptible NPC You Can’t Say ‘No’ To
At first glance, the U.S. government’s war against the Modoc nation was a fairly typical Indian war. White settlers in California and Oregon wanted the Modocs’ land, so the federal government forcibly relocated the Natives. When the Modocs tried to move back, they were killed. But from that war emerged a figure – a treacherous, shameful […]
Taboos as Plot: Dá Derga’s Feast Hall
Almost all human cultures have general taboos, and many also have personal taboos. For example, if your personal taboo is the bird, killing birds is likely forbidden to you, but not to your neighbor. We can use this to make awesome adventures! To explore the idea, let’s look at an early medieval Irish epic about […]
Cay Islands
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 […]
Spells of Ecological Succession
Nature is never static. Land that was one ecosystem this century may be another next century – or even next year. Every acre is, ecologically speaking, always coming from somewhere and going to somewhere. So let’s use this principle of ecological succession to devise some cool spells! Flesh to Stone and Earth to Mud are […]
David Alroy, the Wizard-Messiah
The tale of the false Messiah David Alroy (dead circa 1160) is a wondrous one, full of magic and miracles, international politics, and abstruse scholarship. The appearance of a self-styled Chosen One is an amazing plot hook that works in most settings, and Alroy’s story is one of the better ones. Let’s dive in! This […]
More NPC Foibles from Suetonius
Let’s pick right back up where we left off last week! The ancient Roman historian Suetonius provides an amazing source for the foibles and eccentricities that can bring NPCs to life. His book The Twelve Caesars contains biographies of the first eleven Roman emperors and the proto-emperor Julius Caesar. Because the work is biography, not […]
NPC Foibles from Suetonius
Foibles and eccentricities make good NPCs. Quirky characters are memorable, and they give the players something to riff on when interacting with them. The ancient Roman historian Suetonius provides an amazing source for these quirks. His book The Twelve Caesars contains biographies of the first eleven Roman emperors and the proto-emperor Julius Caesar. The book […]
Wild Beliefs About Megaliths
Over the centuries, people have believed a lot of things about European megalithic sites: those monuments or temples of huge stones, intentionally placed by Stone Age people. Some of these beliefs are grounded in good scholarship and archaeology. Some are delightful tidbits of folklore. And some are the wild conjectures of ‘researchers’ with more passion […]
The Bryce Blood Bowl
Bryce Canyon is one of the gems of the U.S. national parks system. Its strange geologic formations, breathtaking vistas, and twisting mazes make it an experience visitors don’t soon forget. Those same features, though, make one spot in the park an amazing template for a gladiatorial arena. The bowl between Liberty Castle and Wall Street […]
Palace Intrigue in the Mansa’s Mali
The palace intrigue between Suleyman, the King of Mali, and his senior wife Kassi is a brilliant little historical anecdote. Involving the PCs in a life-or-death game of power and legitimacy between two NPCs based on Suleyman and Kassi would be an amazing adventure. As a bonus, the story is bound up in some major […]
The Alecton Encounter
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 Justin Moor. Thanks for helping keep […]
The Flatland Multiverse
This blog mostly talks history and folklore (and sometimes science), but this week we digress into geometry and literature: Edwin A. Abbott’s 1884 novella Flatland. The book’s first half is a combination of social satire and speculative fiction, describing a society of talking shapes that inhabit a purely two-dimensional world. The second half recounts a […]
Ritual as Adventure in 1800s Bali
Grand, ornate rituals are a wonder to experience in real life and thrilling to read about in fiction, but usually boring in RPGs. There are no interesting decisions for the players to make: you just sit there listening to the GM narrate the spectacle. But it doesn’t have to be that way! To show how […]