Shanty Hunters: Ports
Shanty Hunters, my upcoming RPG about collecting magical sea shanties in 1880, goes live on Kickstarter on November 2nd. (So close!) This week on the blog, I’d like to offer a sneak peek: an excerpt about three ports in 1880 (the book has twenty) and another historical shanty from the shanty songbook. Last month, we […]
The Great Whiskey Fire of 1875
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 Justin Moor. Thanks for helping keep […]
The Florentine Architecture Feud
The cathedral of Florence, Italy (Santa Maria del Fiore) is an architectural marvel. Yet its construction was marked by a three-decade-long fight between its most famous architect and his bitterest rival. This story’s got politically-motivated arrests, fine Renaissance art, a papal intercession, libel, and even a jewel theft! It makes amazing inspiration for an RPG […]
The Court of the Khan
This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Colin Wixted. Thanks for helping keep the lights on! If you want to help keep this blog going alongside Colin, head over to the Patreon page – and thank you! The emperor, Möngke Khan, lived in an orda (tent city) larger and more splendid than […]
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 […]
Baiae
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 […]
Akodessewa Fetish Market
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! Akodessewa Fetish MarketVodoun Pharmacy In Togo’s capital city of Lomé, a large open-air market attracts locals […]
Crowning Claudius
The unexpected murder of the Roman emperor Caligula in 41 A.D. is a great template for a political catastrophe the PCs can turn to their gain. In the chaos after the assassination, a small band armed with a plausible candidate, sweet tongues, and sharp swords could ram through their selection for the next emperor. It […]
The Dancing Plague of 1518
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, about the Dancing Plague of 1518, is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! The Dancing Plague of 1518A Bad Case of Hot Blood […]
Valladolid in the 1840s
Valladolid is a city on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. In the 1840s, it was a remarkable town: remote, hollow, cruel, and left behind by the passage of time. It was also a town whose days were numbered. A town based on Valladolid at its most extreme, in the years before its reckoning, is an […]
Kunstkamera
Once a month on the Molten Sulfur Blog, we have a post taken from our book Archive: Historical People, Places, and Events for RPGs. This post, about a remarkable Russian museum, is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! KunstkameraHome of the Tsar’s Curiosities The Kunstkamera is Russia’s first museum, founded […]
Spying on English Slavers
RPG adventures about social causes can be hard to pull off. How do you mesh the traditional adventure format with the mass action needed to address large-scale problems? One answer is by modeling your adventure on the efforts and obstacles of abolitionist Thomas Clarkson. Clarkson tried to go undercover to investigate the slave trade. He […]
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 […]
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 […]
Help! My roommate is a genie!
Robert Lebling, in his wonderful book Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar retells a bit of Bangladeshi creepypasta about a coed who was revealed to be a jinniya, a female jinni. If Lebling repeats the story a little credulously, well, it’s a good story. The yarn, reportedly found on […]