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
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The Buffalo-Ghost Queen of Imperial Mali
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Family Strife and Secret Language in the Fall of Gao
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The Politics of the First Witches’ Sabbaths
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Saving or Sacrificing the Substitute King
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The Book of Overthrowing Apep
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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
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The Capitalist Cannibal Butthole Bird
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The Holy Crown of Hungary
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Adventuring in Neverland
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Taboos as Plot: Dá Derga’s Feast Hall
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