Emissary to the Mongols
The Catholic powers of Medieval Europe didn’t understand the sudden intrusion of the Mongol Empire into their sphere of influence. Nonetheless, nations must communicate with one another, even those they don’t understand. So it came to pass that in 1253 King Louis IX of France dispatched an envoy to the Mongol Empire. Ostensibly, this was […]
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 […]
The Wonders of Sir John Mandeville (the Mediterranean)
Sir John Mandeville was an English knight who claimed to have traveled broadly in the mid-14th century. Among other things, he reports soldiering in the service of the Fatimid Caliph in Cairo and for the Emperor of the Yuan dynasty in China. The actual extent of his travels is unknown, but along the way he […]
Tall Tales of the West African Gold Trade
From the 8th century to the late Middle Ages, the West African savanna was a gold-producing region for the distant Mediterranean. Vast sums of metal flowed along sinuous trade routes into the Islamic world and Europe. As the gold traveled, the merchants carrying it knew less and less about the source of this wealth. By […]
The Wreck of the Ma’adin Ijafen
Caravans are the ships of the desert, and they can wreck just as surely as an ocean liner. Not every camel train that went into the Sahara came back out. The discovery of a caravan wreck is a great jumping-off point for an adventure! Let’s piece together some cool bits of history to flesh out […]
A Play During Travel and Blog News
1607 saw the world’s first amateur performance of Shakespeare – and not where you might expect. It occurred aboard the British merchant ship Red Dragon off the coast of West Africa. The cast and crew were all sailors. And it’s a wonderful example of how you can run a play at your table. Let’s take […]
The Grail Castle
A remote castle that appears and disappears at will. A bedridden lord who lives like an emperor. And an unknown inhabitant with possibly supernatural attendants – the grail castle in the 12th-century Arthurian tale Perceval is a great way to inject a bit of adventure on the road in your fantasy campaign. On the way […]
Checkpoints on the Road
Checkpoints are points along roads where military or paramilitary forces screen travelers. Some are allowed to pass through. Some are sent back. Checkpoints are omnipresent in modern conflicts, because they give the occupying force some amount of control over the movement of people and weapons in the area. (Here’s a great New York Times article […]
White Squalls
Now it’s a thing that us old-timers know, in the sultry summer calmThere comes a blow from nowhere, and it goes off like a bombAnd a fifteen-thousand-tonner can be be thrown upon her beamWhile the gale takes all before it with a scream. – Stan Rogers, White Squall It’s been a hot minute since we […]
A Logic Puzzle on the Ebro Delta
This week, we have a cool logic puzzle that can be easily inserted into any ocean journey! Failing to solve it has memorable (but not catastrophic) consequences. And at the end, we have a way to turn the logic puzzle into the start of an easy-to-improvise adventure! Noted sailor, writer, and delightful liar Tristan Jones […]
Traveling Through a Central American Rainforest
Rainforests are breathtaking, beautiful, wondrous – and actively hostile to human life. The conquistadors called it the ‘green hell’. Here, then, is a table to roll on to better evoke the experience of traveling through one. This was designed with a Central American lowland rainforest in mind, but it’s not too much work to adapt it […]
Encounters with Ghost Ships
A ‘ghost ship’ is a ship at sea with no living crew aboard. Some are found adrift. Others are still under sail or steaming along under power, but with no sailors to tend to the sails or engine. Many different kinds of incidents can kill off a crew but leave the ship intact or force […]
A River Crossing With a Tiger
This encounter can be dropped into any overland travel through the wilderness. It features a colorful one-off villain who can easily become a recurring miniboss if you so desire. A lot of people know the villainous tiger Shere Khan from the 1967 animated Disney adaptation of the Jungle Book or from the 2016 live-action Disney […]
Elephants vs. Dragons
I stumbled upon this wonderful bit of Pliny the other day, and there was no way I wasn’t sharing it. Pliny the Elder was a first-century A.D. Roman author, natural philosopher, military officer, and senior Imperial official. His Naturalis Historia was an encyclopedia covering much of what Romans knew about the natural world. It also […]