The Scheming Landlord of Magomero
W.J. Livingstone operated a plantation in Malawi in the early 20th century. He was ruthless, capricious, exploitative, and cruel. He worked within the system, leaning on the letter of the law when he could and enforcing the spirit of the law when he couldn’t. His schemes make him a fantastic villain, and he can be […]
Teddy Roosevelt’s Crime-Fighting Guinea Pigs
The family of America’s 26th president, Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt, had a lot of pets: four dogs, two birds, a snake, a lizard, a badger, a rat, a pig, and more besides. The most delightful were those named for real people: the guinea pigs Dr. Johnson, Bishop Doane, Admiral Dewey, Father O’Grady, and Fighting Bob Evans […]
Baiae
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 Hoard of Sigurd Fafnir’s-Bane
The Völsunga saga from late 13th-century Iceland is an amazing story of love, heartbreak, adventure, violence, and betrayal. It tells the story of a Germanic warrior named Sigurd, the treasure he wins, the politics he gets caught up in, and the bloody aftermath of it all. It’s incredibly gameable! Let’s look at the relevant parts […]
The Agate House
In the remote desert of Arizona, in Petrified Forest National Park, there sits an odd structure. It looks like a Native American pueblo. But instead of being made of adobe or stone, its walls are made from chunks of quartz the size of your head. This is the Agate House. It’s an archaeological marvel, and […]
The Wokou Raiders
In the 16th century, Ming China was beset by coastal raiders from Japan. The Chinese army, defanged by two centuries of systematic degradation, was powerless to stop these ‘pirates’. It’s a perfect place for PCs to step in! These coastal raiders, called ‘wokou’, were more than just brigands. Their core members were Japanese soldiers, veterans […]
Caddo Lake
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 Wonders of Sir John Mandeville (Asia)
Last month we started our trip through The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, and this week we’re going to finish! As before, Sir John Mandeville was an English knight who claimed to have traveled broadly in the mid-14th century. He reports soldiering in the service of the Fatimid Caliph in Cairo and for the Emperor […]
Folkloric Villains
Folklore is full of villains and antagonists. By a striking coincidence, so are RPG campaigns! Here are four villains drawn from folklore: a Russian singer-sorcerer, a Roma witch-queen, a Persian hero-villain, and an Irish kidnapper-princess. This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Arthur Brown. Thanks for helping keep the lights on! If […]
The Turu Lion-Men
The mbojo lion-men of the Turu people of Tanzania are an interesting take on lycanthropes that have some cool baked-in plot hooks! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Justin Moor. Thanks for helping keep the lights on! If you want to help keep this blog going alongside Justin, head over to […]
Bob Bartlett
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 Wonders of Sir John Mandeville (the Mediterranean)
Sir John Mandeville was an English knight who claimed to have traveled broadly in the mid-14th century. Among other things, he reports soldiering in the service of the Fatimid Caliph in Cairo and for the Emperor of the Yuan dynasty in China. The actual extent of his travels is unknown, but along the way he […]
Legal Dramas and the Black Hills
Legal dramas are an enormously popular genre, but they effectively don’t exist in the RPG space. Who has five friends with enough knowledge of the law to improvise a good episode of The Practice? Who can ad lib a twenty-minute opening argument that doesn’t make the other players claw their eyes out? The key is […]
PCs on the Battlefield: Caesar’s Wars (Part 4)
This is the final installment in a 4-part series about the wars of Julius Caesar. We ended the last post with Caesar’s political rival Pompey dead, and Caesar gearing up to pursue the last of Pompey’s loyalists across the Mediterranean. This week, we conclude the story! As before, my focus is on moments when individual […]
1936 Olympics in Berlin
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 […]