PCs on the Battlefield: Xenophon on the March
In 401 B.C., Cyrus the Younger, the brother of the Persian emperor, decided to seize the throne for himself. He hired a bunch of mercenaries and marched on Babylon, hoping to catch his brother before the emperor could summon his vast armies from the far-flung corners of the empire. Among those mercenaries was a young […]
The Battlemap Entrance of Maiden Castle
The east entrance to the Iron Age hillfort at Maiden Castle, Dorset, England, makes a really great battlemap for RPG combats. Lucky for us, it also has some really interesting history and archaeology behind it! As a battlemap, it’s got strongpoints a single PC can hold, branching paths, and restrictions on movement that are interesting […]
The Pettiest County Seat War in Frontier Indiana
Between 1811 and 1873, Wayne County, Indiana had three different capitals and six different courthouses. Each time the county seat moved, it was incredibly contentious, involved lots of guns, and one time a cannon. The stakes were high – these events led to one town’s irrelevance and another’s outright dissolution. Yet the stakes were also trivial. […]
The Siege of Lal Masjid
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Post-Pirate Politics in a Mughal Port
It was 1695 in Surat, a large seaport city in what is today northwest India and was at the time the Mughal Empire. Every year, ships from Surat sailed west across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. They carried goods to trade in Yemen and Muslim pilgrims on the hajj: the pilgrimage to Mecca […]
PCs on the Battlefield: the Siege of Cartagena
The 1741 siege of Cartagena, in what is today Colombia, featured a really interesting variation on the normal siege framework. The British attackers knew going into it that they would likely suffer a devastating outbreak of yellow fever, and that the Spanish defenders would likely be unaffected. Thus, they were racing the clock: they had […]
The Fall of Caliph Uthman
Uthman was the third caliph: the third religious and political successor to the Prophet Muhammad. Uthman’s rule was contentious, his downfall ugly. It’s a fascinating case study and a terrible tragedy. The last months of his reign saw at least three factions battling for control of his empire, but all the politics was done on […]
PCs on the Battlefield- Caesar’s Wars (Part 2)
This is part 2 of a 4-part series about the wars of Julius Caesar. We started with his nine-year conquest of Gaul. This week, we’ll finish up the Gallic War, then move move into the civil war against his former ally Pompey! Future entries will cover his involvement in an Egyptian civil war that placed […]
The Alesia Gauntlet
The Battle of Alesia (52 B.C.) was a pivotal moment in Roman and French history. But the ruins of that battle set the stage for an amazing fantasy adventure! The physical remains of the Roman siegeworks present a wonderful obstacle and puzzle, and the history of what happened there sets up some excellent roleplay and […]
PCs on the Battlefield: The Crusades
Many RPG campaigns involve wars. But wars are enormous affairs, with tens or hundreds of thousands of combatants on each side. How do you make a single party of PCs stand out? The received wisdom is not to put them in the center of the battle, where gameplay is repetitive and the PCs can’t contribute […]
Zany PC Schemes from Xenophon
Normally I write material for GMs, but players, this one’s for you. Any player worth her salt is always coming up with clever schemes to bypass the GM’s obstacles. That’s part of the fun of the game! It often happens, though, that these schemes are a little… unconventional. “You’re crazy!” the GM cries. “That would […]
The Zeigler Strike
The 1904-1909 worker’s strike at a coal mine outside Zeigler, Illinois was the closest thing to open warfare you’re likely to see in a country at peace. American strikes around the turn of the century were notoriously violent, but Zeigler was noteworthy for the military-style tactics both sides used. On one side, you had a […]
House-to-House Combat Encounter from 1756
Lieutenant Thomas Blagg’s defense of a British mansion in the 1756 siege of Calcutta was a footnote in the overall battle. Though valorous, it had no real impact on the siege’s outcome. Still, it makes a great template for a setpiece combat encounter in your own campaign. The siege was a relatively brief affair marked […]