The Bizarre Court-Martial of Francesco Caracciolo
In 1799, a Neapolitan admiral-turned-rebel named Francesco Caracciolo was tried for treason. The trial took place aboard a British flagship and was influenced by the bizarre King Ferdinand IV of Naples, the motivated social climber Lady Emma Hamilton of England, and Admiral Horatio Nelson, the greatest naval commander in human history. The weird social and […]
Hoskinini’s Fugitives
This story does not begin happily. In 1863, U.S. troops under Kit Carson rounded up the Navajo people by force. The federals burned homes, shot resisters, and marched the 9,000 survivors three hundred miles to an internment camp at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. There, 2,000 Navajo died of starvation and disease. In 1868, the U.S. […]
Infiltrating the She-Wolf’s Bandits
The existence of police is something most developed societies take for granted. Police are as natural a part of our political order as laws, juries, and elections, right? Yet unlike those three, police (as we would recognize them) are a fairly recent development. In the next two weeks on the blog, we’re going to look […]
The Heretic and the Pilgrimage of the Dead
This week, we have a remarkable tale from rural France in 1320 about the souls of the dead going on pilgrimage. The source of the story is no less remarkable than the tale itself. Both make great adventure hooks. Let’s dive straight in! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Joel Dalenberg. […]
Cyrus the Great
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 […]
Theobald Meyrick, Urban Villain
A good RPG villain often epitomizes the worst aspects of the game’s setting. For a campaign set in a big city, those might be crushing poverty or a rigged justice system. A good villain, then, might be a powerful person willing to take advantage of both. For your urban campaigns – Blades in the Dark, Harlem […]
The Bishop-Rumors of Notker the Stammerer
Around 884 A.D., an anonymous monk (tentatively identified as Notker the Stammerer) in what is today Switzerland penned a compilation of anecdotes in an attempt to ingratiate himself with King Charles the Fat. The anecdotes were mostly excuses to praise Charles’ great-grandfather, Charlemagne. As Notker was writing 70 years after Charlemagne’s death, these stories – little […]
Shen Fu’s Complicated Family
Shen Fu and Chen Yu were a married couple who lived in China in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Their relationship was remarkable in many ways, not least because they were able to marry for love. Nonetheless, their lives were not easy. Chen Yu and her in-laws were like oil and water. The […]
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 […]
Henry Stanley’s Convenient Deaths
Of all the Western explorers in the ‘scramble for Africa’, Henry Morton Stanley was probably the most well-known and highly-regarded. Yet his expeditions had an odd habit of returning with him as the only witness. Let’s take a closer look at this peculiar figure and the bloody, glory-hunting swaths he cut across Central Africa. This […]
The Rose-Realm of Laurin, King of Dwarves and Giants
The Laurin poem is a Medieval German saga of adventure and conquest. While the story is pretty boilerplate, it has a truly remarkable setting and antagonist: the sylvan realm of gardens, glades, and underground castles ruled by Laurin, the pagan king of dwarves and giants. Let’s ignore the boring stuff and jump straight to the […]
Ching Shih
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 Colin Wixted. Thanks for helping keep […]
Carving Up Spain
This is not a post about the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). That would be long and boring and not gameable. This is a post about the political crisis that led to the war – which is long and interesting and very gameable! Stick with me, folks, because this is going to get weird! This […]
NPCs in Wooden Screens: the Duein Fubara
Duein fubara (‘foreheads of the dead’) are ritual screens used by trading houses of the Kalabari people of the Niger delta. These screens function spiritually as the bodies of important dead ancestors. Through the screens, the living can propitiate the dead to use their terrible magic powers for the benefit of the trading houses they […]
The Contemptible NPC You Can’t Say ‘No’ To
At first glance, the U.S. government’s war against the Modoc nation was a fairly typical Indian war. White settlers in California and Oregon wanted the Modocs’ land, so the federal government forcibly relocated the Natives. When the Modocs tried to move back, they were killed. But from that war emerged a figure – a treacherous, shameful […]