Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp
Before the American Revolutionary War, slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies. There were no slave states and free states, no Mason-Dixon line that people fleeing slavery could cross and find freedom. Still, there were places you could go: English Florida to live among the Seminoles, a big city to lose yourself in the crowd, […]
Hoh Rainforest
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 […]
Dartmoor
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 […]
Adventuring in Neverland
Back in April, I tried out a post about something literary, rather than my usual history and folklore content. Beloved Patreon backer Bryan Gustafson asked me to do another one and suggested J.M. Barrie’s stage play (and later novel) Peter Pan. Who am I to say no to Bryan? In reading Peter Pan, I was […]
Taboos as Plot: Dá Derga’s Feast Hall
Almost all human cultures have general taboos, and many also have personal taboos. For example, if your personal taboo is the bird, killing birds is likely forbidden to you, but not to your neighbor. We can use this to make awesome adventures! To explore the idea, let’s look at an early medieval Irish epic about […]
Wild Beliefs About Megaliths
Over the centuries, people have believed a lot of things about European megalithic sites: those monuments or temples of huge stones, intentionally placed by Stone Age people. Some of these beliefs are grounded in good scholarship and archaeology. Some are delightful tidbits of folklore. And some are the wild conjectures of ‘researchers’ with more passion […]
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 […]
Iktomi: The Selfish Sioux Trickster
Iktomi is a trickster spirit and culture hero in Sioux legend. He’s no villain, but he’s a terrific antagonist for RPGs. He’s easy to insert where you need some complications for your adventure. His natural selfishness is sure to disrupt your PCs’ plans! This is specifically the version of Iktomi presented in the 1901 collection […]
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. […]