What Tundale Saw in Hell
The Vision of Tundale is a 12th-century vision of Hell and purgatory reported by the Irish knight Tundale. Unlike in other visions of Hell, Tundale actually experiences many of Hell’s torments rather than simply witnessing them. Because Tundale isn’t just a spectator, his vision is better fodder for RPGs than, say, Dante’s Inferno. Much of […]
The Three Fates
In Greek mythology, the Three Fates are a triad of goddesses who dictate human destiny. Weirdly, they make great recurring villains in RPGs! Classically, the three fates are depicted as three women of three different ages: maiden, mother, and crone (a common motif). Together, they weave the thread of each mortal’s destiny. The first, Clotho, […]
Deception Island
The high black walls of Deception island rise above the storm-tossed waters off the Antarctic peninsula. It’s a volcano, its rim broken in a single spot, permitting ships to sail into the flooded caldera. Its history, remote location, and strange features make Deception Island a great adventure site for RPGs! The horseshoe-shaped island is 9 […]
The Bloody Vendetta
From 1868 to 1876, Williamson County, Illinois played host to a feud called ‘The Bloody Vendetta’. It started as a pretty standard blood feud between two families, but it quickly drew in multiple families on each side, and its impacts spilled over into the broader community. It’s a great plot hook and setting feature that […]
Monsters of the Devonian Sea
Everyone loves sea monsters. Let’s take a look at two real-life sea monsters from the Devonian period (419-359 million years ago), and then talk about how to use them at the table: the hideous spider/crab/scorpion hybrid Sytlonurids and Dunkleosteus, an armored, beaked predatory fish larger than a great white shark. The Stylonurids were a kind […]
The Dunhuang Manuscripts and the Mogao Caves
In the early 20th century, an itinerant Daoist priest in the deserts of western China discovered a treasure trove of medieval documents, hidden for a thousand years behind a false door in an abandoned Buddhist temple. The discovery would give historians a corpus of documents they still use to this day – and the discovery and […]
A Too-Convenient Ship
It’s enduring trope in RPGs that the PCs often need to escape the consequences of their actions. This encounter – which assumes only that the party must flee somewhere they might find a boat – takes the trope and turns it into a trap. What a stroke of luck that the fleeing party stumbles upon a cutter, […]
Frontier Dueling
The ‘gentlemen’ of antebellum America practiced many perverse social customs. One of the more appalling ones was dueling. Let’s have a look at how to use dueling as a plot hook at the table by examining a particularly nasty spate of bloodshed featuring America’s most infamous duelist: future president Andrew Jackson! In 1805, Nashville, Tennessee […]
Beehive Tombs
Beehive tombs were a distinctive burial structure used by the Mycenaean Greeks, and they’re a cool setting for a combat encounter. The tomb itself is underground. It may be built into the side of a hill, excavated into the flat earth, or even have an artificial hill built up over it. To enter the tomb, […]
Local Elections as Adventures
Back in February of 2018, I wrote about Tarang, a remote village of farmers and traders in the Nepalese Himalayas that serves as a ‘hinge’ between its Nepali Hindu neighbors to the south and its Tibetan Buddhist neighbors to the north. Back in 1968, Tarang was undergoing many changes, one of which was the recent […]
Hidden Places From Native American Legends
Every good quest needs a destination. The best destinations are often hidden or secret. Here, then, are four secret places from four Native American myths. (Taken from American Indian Myths and Legends, collected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz.) Our first secret place comes from a Slavey story about a terrible winter. Once, […]
The Cannibal Conspiracy to Destroy Sparta
Around 399 B.C., the Spartan government discovered a conspiracy to overthrow the state and – according to one source – eat the ruling class. The plot is very colorful, and can easily be dropped into any setting with an unjust government. First, some background. Sparta, a warrior city-state in ancient Greece, had a deeply bizarre social […]
Holmes’ Bonfire
Holmes’ Bonfire was a 1666 British naval raid on a Dutch merchant fleet and small town. The British burned the town and sank 150 Dutch merchant ships, but lost only a half-dozen men and killed about as many. Thus, using a sack based on Holmes’ Bonfire at the gaming table lets you play for high […]
What Aeneas Saw in Hell (pt. 2)
Last month, we looked at four memorable things the Trojan hero Aeneas saw in the Underworld, and we turned them into encounters fit for dungeons and extraplanar adventures. Let’s look at four more! After Aeneas enters the cave to the Underworld, he encounters a cluster of minor Roman deities. Most fall into the standard Roman […]
The Legend of Tam Lin
Tam Lin is a faerie knight from an old Scottish border ballad. You can see full text of several variants collected by Francis James Child here. He was once human, but was captured by the Queen of Faeries. While a faerie, he impregnates his human lover, Janet, and she rescues him from his fey condition. […]