Weirder Xenomorphs: Strepsipteran Insects
You know the alien from the movie Alien? The creepy, scary one with the shiny black carapace and the chest-bursting larval form and the well-regarded RPG by Free League? If you’re like me, you want to put that monster (the ‘xenomorph’) in your ongoing campaign, but you don’t want to use exactly that same monster; […]
Terrible Mountain Travels in 16th-Century Afghanistan
This week we return to another intriguing moment in the life of Babur (1483-1530). He would go on to found the Mughal Empire in India, but at this point in his story he was fleeing from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. He would soon claim a new kingdom, then have to make a perilous mountain crossing in […]
PCs on the Battlefield: Babur Waits in the Dark
This week we return to another intriguing moment in the life of Babur (1483-1530). He would go on to found the Mughal Empire in India, but at this point in his story he was in what’s today Uzbekistan. He was nineteen years old and a king without a country. He was about to get involved […]
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 […]
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 […]
PCs on the Battlefield: the Rock Island Keelboats
In 1814, a band of the Sauk Indian nation led an attack on three U.S. Army keelboats on the Mississippi River. The resulting Battle of Rock Island Rapids is an excellent template for a combat encounter at your table. It’s got an interesting geopolitical context (the three-way tug-of-war between America, Britain, and the Sauk), interesting […]
Patrocles’ Caspian Exploration Fraud
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Lord Thomas of Marle, the Wickedest Man of His Generation
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Wild Adventures Mapping the Khorasan Border
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Xuanzang and the Five Border Towers
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Hiroo Onoda
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The Trans Conquistador, Lieutenant Erauso
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The Great Whiskey Fire of 1875
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The South Sea Scam Colony
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Emissary to the Mongols
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