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 […]
The Hinterkaifeck Murders
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 an unsolved German murder, is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! The Hinterkaifeck MurdersParanormal Cold Case Located about 70 miles north of Munich, […]
Encounters With the Medieval Dead
This post is exactly what it says on the tin: three encounters suitable for an undead-themed dungeon or any fantasy campaign where undead are present! We’ve got three stories from 1100-1200 A.D. – one from Denmark, one from Britain, and one from Italy. To start with, we have a tale from The Deeds of the Danes, […]
Trial By Combat
Everyone who watches Game of Thrones is familiar with trial by combat: settling legal affairs by judicially-sanctioned duels. But what did these events look like in the real world? Why did people sometimes prefer the dueling field to the courtroom? And how can we use these events at the gaming table? First, some definitions. The […]
Charles Domery
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 the Polish medical wonder Charles Domery, is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! Charles DomeryMan of Unending Appetite Charles Domery was a man […]
The Death of Alexander VI
I wrote earlier about Pope Alexander VI, by way of the rogue’s gallery arrayed against him and his treacherous bastard son Cesare Borgia. While Alexander was a fascinating (and awful) figure, the most gameable part of his life is probably his death and the immediate fallout from it. It’s a sort of foreseeable anarchy that […]
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 […]
Shake Up Your Campaign with Persian Perfidy!
Shaking up a campaign setting that’s grown stale can be a tricky task. You can’t change too much or you’ll lose what your players love about the game, and they’ll lose the detailed setting knowledge they’ve gained. But if you don’t make things different enough, the exercise is pointless. For a great example of how […]
The Cruel, Prophetic Witch of Northern Greece
Ancient Greece was full of legends about witches in Thessaly, a wild region in the north. The Roman poet Lucan (39-65 A.D.) channeled the most horrid of these in his Pharsalia. This epic poem about the Roman civil war between Caesar and Pompey includes an aside where Pompey’s son consults a monstrous fortune-teller: the cannibal […]
The Murder of Monsieur Dorbain
This 1579 murder of a minor lord in rural France is great inspiration for a murder mystery. The case looks cut-and-dried at first, but the deeper the you look, the more complicated it becomes. An adventure based on the case may culminate in an ethical quandary and a readymade hook leading to your next adventure! April was […]
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 […]
The Counter-Borgia Rogue’s Gallery
In 1502, almost a dozen Italian nobles agreed to work together against the ambitions of the Borgia family. This uneasy alliance is a remarkable rogue’s gallery. Some are the worst of the worst: murderers, traitors, and simoniacs. Others are uncompromising politicians, or even decent men spurred to vengeance. It’s the perfect place to draw inspiration […]
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 Three Fates
In Greek mythology, the Three Fates are a triad of goddesses who dictate human destiny. Weirdly, they make great recurring villains in RPGs! Classically, the three fates are depicted as three women of three different ages: maiden, mother, and crone (a common motif). Together, they weave the thread of each mortal’s destiny. The first, Clotho, […]
Beehive Tombs
Beehive tombs were a distinctive burial structure used by the Mycenaean Greeks, and they’re a cool setting for a combat encounter. The tomb itself is underground. It may be built into the side of a hill, excavated into the flat earth, or even have an artificial hill built up over it. To enter the tomb, […]