Pirates of the Panama Mule Train
In the 1500s, long before the Isthmus of Panama was crossed by a canal, it was crossed by a road: an awful, terrifying road plagued by pirates and freedom fighters. Yet vast wealth from the Spanish conquests and slave mines of South America flowed along this road. Raiding, defending, or merely traversing a fictional route […]
The Inquisitorial School for Girls
The Colegio de Niñas Expósitas de Santa Cruz de Atocha was a school for foundlings in colonial Lima, Peru (“the City of Kings”). It was run by the Spanish Inquisition. Because of its unusual administrators, the school had some odd quirks, even by the standards of tyrannical charity schools. It’s a really interesting adventure site […]
Two Calendars in Augsburg
In early 1582, Pope Gregory XIII announced that the calendar date of the day following October 4th that year would not be October 5th, but October 15th. This was part of a packet of calendrical reforms we now call the Gregorian calendar, and which most of the world uses today. But this reform came at […]
The Endless Tea Troubles of the Speckled Bamboo Shrine
From about 1615 to 1620 in Shaoxing, China (just south of Shanghai), the Speckled Bamboo Shrine had a problem. A spring on the temple grounds had produced a fad among fashionable tea-drinkers in and around Shaoxing. The sudden demand for the spring’s waters impinged on the shrine’s ability to run its affairs. The situation generated […]
Akbar’s Hunt
The court hunts of the Mughal Empire in 16th-century India were remarkably gameable affairs, where the army beat the bushes to gather a forest’s worth of animals into a ring for courtiers to fight. They were also tools of geopolitics, used to quell rebellions before they arose. Money changed hands, hunters fought tigers and elephants, […]
More NPC Foibles from the Mughals
In my last post, I wrote about the character foibles of two of India’s Mughal emperors and how those foibles can make good quirks for memorable NPCs. Today I’m doing the second half of that thought with their successors, the last three of the truly great Mughals: the patron of the arts Jahangir, the mismanager […]
NPC Foibles from the Mughals
Back in 2020, I wrote two posts about character foibles of Roman emperors that made good quirks for NPCs. Now I’m going to do it again with the Mughal emperors of India, who were just as quirky and gameable! Skipping over Babur, the first Mughal emperor (who has his own five-part series), this first post […]
Weird Treasure: Letters of Introduction
In the seventeenth century, an Iraqi named Elias al-Mûsili traveled throughout Latin America, armed with a thick stack of letters of introduction from some very prestigious people. With these letters, he was welcome just about anywhere ruled by Spain – and he accumulated more letters as he went. Historically, letters of introduction were boilerplate, a […]
Andrew Battel: Pirate, Convict, Merchant, and Mercenary
Andrew Battel was a failed English pirate. Captured by his intended victims, he was forced into convict labor by Portuguese colonial officials in Angola, Africa. He then went on to a varied career as a Portuguese soldier, a weird sort of half-merchant-half-mercenary dude, a minor warchief, a soldier again, and finally a deserter. His and […]
Families Turned Detective in Edo Japan
Societies have handled the enforcement of laws a lot of different ways in different places and times; the ubiquity of police in the 21st century can make it hard to imagine what other systems might even look like. The way the authorities tracked down suspects in Edo-era Japan (1603-1867) is particularly interesting. The system was […]
An Investigative Dungeon Crawl in the Royal Art Mine
Herculaneum was a Roman town buried in 79 A.D. by the eruption of the volcano Mt. Vesuvius. These days, it’s a bit of an afterthought to the neighboring buried ruin of Pompeii. But from 1738 to 1748, before excavation began at Pompeii, the excavation at Herculaneum was the big exciting hotness of Europe. Except it […]
The Hidden Treasure of Bahadur Shah & Ultraviolet Grasslands Review
Last week, I wrapped up my five-part Babur series, but I still wanted to present a little coda to the Babur story: a tale of hidden treasure found by his son and successor, Humayun. Because this post is about half the length of what I usually shoot for, I also found the time to (finally) […]
The NPC Guest List at Babur’s Last, Greatest Party
This week we return for our final intriguing moment in the autobiography of Babur (1483-1530), the founder of the Mughal Empire in India. In 1528 he threw an enormous party with an astonishing cast of characters. Having all these people – all with their own reasons to love and hate one another – in the same place […]
Cotton Mather’s American Ghosts
The Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather (1663-1728) is one of the boogeymen of early American history. Among his many sins, he helped fuel the Salem witch trials that executed 20 people for witchcraft. In the trials he successfully argued that the contents of magical visions should be considered legally admissible evidence. Mather was a prolific writer. […]
Chasing Your Boss’ Mirror-Universe Twin Through Punjab
This week we return to another intriguing moment in the autobiography of Babur (1483-1530). He would go on to found the Mughal Empire in India, but at this point in his story he was mid-career: king of Kabul with his eyes on the stars. This post is going to be about a manhunt! It’s got […]