Palace Intrigue with a Teenage King
The great conquerer Babur (1483-1530) is best known as the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, but he got his start a thousand miles away. He was born in what is today Uzbekistan, and at the age of eleven was thrust into the snake pit that was Central Asian geopolitics. His time as a […]
Rudivoravan: Fallen Princess Turned Cold War Broadcaster
Mrs. Rudi Voravan of Washington, D.C. was originally Her Serene Majesty Princess Rudivoravan of Siam (later Thailand). She was the granddaughter of one of Thailand’s most famous kings, was courted by two others, and spent her first twenty-four years living in palaces. Yet she renounced her royal status to marry a commoner. During the Cold […]
Norwegian Heavy Water Sabotage
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 Feuding Goldmine Boomtown Choirs & Annual State of the Blog
The adjoining towns of Ballarat and Sebastopol in Victoria, southeast Australia, were gold rush boomtowns in the second half of the 19th century. They were home to a thriving Welsh immigrant community and a number of Welsh cultural institutions. Among these were two mens’ choruses: the Gomer Choir and the Cambrian Vocal Union. These choruses, […]
Outer Space Adventures from Ancient Rome
Lucian of Samosata was a second-century author writing in Roman Turkey. He’s best-known in modern geek circles for his novel A True History, which some hold out as the earliest known work of science fiction. Last week we looked at some fantastical islands from this very silly story, but this week we’re going to dive […]
Fantastical Islands from a Roman Novel
Lucian of Samosata was a second-century author writing in Roman Turkey. His best-known work is A True History, a satire of ancient historians who breathlessly repeated whatever half-baked tall tales they’d been told about foreign lands. Much as it pains me to see my beloved Herodotus so ill-treated, A True History is both funny and […]
A Wedding to Remember: Three Lais by Marie de France
This week we’re going to look at three lais: courtly Medieval short tales of love and adventure. Their author is a mysterious and engaging figure, and their contents are perfect for the gaming table: secret twins, secret parents, schemes, adultery, murder, and werewolves! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Robert Nichols. […]
Jakarta Slums
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 […]
Shanty Hunters nominated for two Indie Groundbreaker Awards!
Shanty Hunters, my tabletop RPG about collecting magical sea shanties in the year 1880, just got nominated for two more cool awards! The Indie Game Developer Network (IGDN) runs the annual Indie Groundbreaker Awards, and Shanty Hunters was nominated for Most Innovative and Game of the Year. Which of the nominees won will be announced […]
A Disastrous Game of Buzkashi
Buzkashi is a Central Asian sport analogous to polo, if polo were played in a wild scrum of thousands of mounted players, all shoving one another aside to grab hold of a decapitated calf carcass. It’s an intense game! Our source, G. Whitney Azoy, studied buzkashi in northern Afghanistan before the communists seized power in […]
The Wreck of the Convict Ship ‘George III’
In 1835, the British convict ship George III struck an unmapped rock off Tasmania and sank. 134 people died, most of them prisoners being transported to Tasmania to serve their sentences at hard labor. The story has some interesting wrinkles that make this a very gameable template for a sea voyage at your table, and […]
Shanty Hunters just won a 2022 ENNIE award!
Shanty Hunters, my tabletop RPG about collecting magical sea shanties in the year 1880, just won a really cool award! The ENNIE Awards are the highest-profile awards in the tabletop RPG space. The ENNIEs have five judges (who change every year), and they decide nominations for categories like ‘Best Adventure’ or ‘Best Game’. A week […]
The Pirate King of Iceland
In 1809, a British merchant ship carrying the former Danish pirate Jørgen Jørgensen arrived in Iceland, a Danish dependency. The pirate overthrew the Danish governor without bloodshed and proclaimed himself king of an independent Iceland. Two months later, a British warship arrived, arrested Jørgensen, and restored the Danish governor – even though Denmark and Britain […]
Kunming Stone Forest
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 Robert Nichols. Thanks for helping keep […]
The Politics of the First Witches’ Sabbaths
Today, a standard component of the European myth of the witch is that witches are organized. They maintain heretical Satanic sects or covens and form a vast conspiracy to undermine the Christian order. From Faust to The Witch (2015), the idea is almost taken as a given. But it’s actually a pretty new concept. The […]