Magic Items from the Jack Tales
Appalachia was fertile ground for the Jack tales from England (Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack the Giant-Killer). In the mountains of the eastern United States, these folktales developed into their own genre. Jack, an even-tempered teenager from the far backwoods, is confronted by supernatural adversaries, but triumphs thanks to his own cleverness or (for Jack […]
Ports of the Erythraean Sea
The Indian Ocean has been a hub of trade as far back as we have records. Merchants have long traveled its coastlines and—in ancient eras where leaving sight of land was often a death sentence—taken advantage of its predictable annual monsoon winds to cross the ocean itself in long, daring journeys. While we know ancient […]
Seeing the Enemy with Shang Oracle Bones
China’s Shang dynasty ruled a Bronze Age proto-state that used a lot of divination to inform the king’s decisions. The pyromancy that Shang officials wielded to understand their world left a rich trove of documentary evidence: oracle bones covered in burns and writing. They’re a great fit for RPG campaigns, even ones that don’t have […]
The Villainous Sorcerer-King Against Imperial Mali
Last week, we dug into the West African griot-song The Epic of Sundiata, about the eponymous founder of the Mali Empire who lived circa 1217-1255. Sundiata’s mother dominates the first half of the epic, and she makes a fabulous NPC! This week we’re going to look at the second half of the epic through a […]
The Buffalo-Ghost Queen of Imperial Mali
Sundiata (circa 1217-1255), the founder of the Mali Empire, is famed in song and story in part because of his eponymous griot-song The Epic of Sundiata. And it’s deservedly famous – it’s a great story! But the coolest character in the epic isn’t Sundiata. It’s his mom, Sogolon Kondé. She’s a sorcerer with a buffalo ghost, […]
Family Strife and Secret Language in the Fall of Gao
The Epic of Askia Muhammad recounts many important events in the history of the Songhai people of Niger and Mali. It’s a long song – it takes hours to sing – and it has sections in multiple languages. Among other stories, it tells the tale of a terrible turmoil in a Songhai noble family and how this […]
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 […]
Saving or Sacrificing the Substitute King
In and around Mesopotamia, from maybe 1900 to 300 B.C. (off and on), priests practiced a particular brand of human sacrifice meant to keep their kings safe. When omens and auguries predicted the death of the king, priests would swap the real king out for a fake – a substitute king – then kill the […]
The Book of Overthrowing Apep
The Book of Overthrowing Apep is a 4th-century B.C. Egyptian religious text intended to help the priesthood assist the sun god Ra in his nightly struggle against the chaos serpent Apep. You wouldn’t want to read it yourself, but it does contain some striking and very gameable imagery! Let’s look at the coolest stuff in […]
Occult NPCs from Aubrey’s Lives
Back in November, we looked at a weird ghost story from an even weirder source: Aubrey’s Brief Lives. This week we return to the Lives to look at his biographies of nine bizarre occult NPCs from 1600s Britain. Some were (according to Aubrey anyway) literally haunted by the ghosts of their sins; others were outright […]
Talking the Tsembaga out of War
The Tsembaga were a tight-knit cluster of clans that lived on the fringes of highland New Guinea. Around 1930, they almost went to war with their neighbors, the Dimbagai-Yimyagai. The reasons why the war never materialized are complicated, and they make a great template for a diplomatic or social adventure rooted firmly at the level […]
The Capitalist Cannibal Butthole Bird
In northern Cameroon, there exists a belief in a particular kind of cannibal witch. Each such witch has a bird living in their butt that crawls out to eat other people through their butts. It’s weird, wild, creepy, deeply intertwined with local values systems, and super gameable. Also, I’m going to alternate between clinical language […]
The Holy Crown of Hungary
Surprisingly little of the Medieval royal regalia of Europe has survived. One exception is the Holy Crown of Hungary. This lovely piece has seen almost a thousand years of history, and was itself history at a few points. It’s a marvelous bit of treasure, and it has a remarkable number of plot hooks baked right […]
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 […]