Ports of the Erythraean Sea
The Indian Ocean has been a hub of trade as far back as we have records. Merchants have long traveled its coastlines and—in ancient eras where leaving sight of land was often a death sentence—taken advantage of its predictable annual monsoon winds to cross the ocean itself in long, daring journeys. While we know ancient […]
Earnest Pleas in Early Muslim Poetry
Khalifa ibn Khayyat was an Arab historian and religious scholar active in the 800s A.D. His history of the Umayyad and early Abbasid caliphates is one of the oldest to have survived. It records a lot more poetry than you see in Western histories. Most of these poems are put in the mouths of people […]
Saving or Sacrificing the Substitute King
In and around Mesopotamia, from maybe 1900 to 300 B.C. (off and on), priests practiced a particular brand of human sacrifice meant to keep their kings safe. When omens and auguries predicted the death of the king, priests would swap the real king out for a fake – a substitute king – then kill the […]
The Book of Overthrowing Apep
The Book of Overthrowing Apep is a 4th-century B.C. Egyptian religious text intended to help the priesthood assist the sun god Ra in his nightly struggle against the chaos serpent Apep. You wouldn’t want to read it yourself, but it does contain some striking and very gameable imagery! Let’s look at the coolest stuff in […]
Imhotep
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 […]
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 […]
The Ethiopian Sepulcher Letters
When Saumel Gobat, the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, died in 1879, an odd stack of papers was discovered among his effects. These were letters from the Ethiopian Emperor Sahle Dengel addressed to various Levantine and European powers, begging them for help with a peculiar and thorny problem. Judging by their text, Gobat was supposed to […]
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 […]
Derinkuyu Underground City
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 […]
David Alroy, the Wizard-Messiah
The tale of the false Messiah David Alroy (dead circa 1160) is a wondrous one, full of magic and miracles, international politics, and abstruse scholarship. The appearance of a self-styled Chosen One is an amazing plot hook that works in most settings, and Alroy’s story is one of the better ones. Let’s dive in! This […]
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 […]
Folkloric Villains
Folklore is full of villains and antagonists. By a striking coincidence, so are RPG campaigns! Here are four villains drawn from folklore: a Russian singer-sorcerer, a Roma witch-queen, a Persian hero-villain, and an Irish kidnapper-princess. This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Arthur Brown. Thanks for helping keep the lights on! If […]
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 […]
PCs on the Battlefield: Caesar’s Wars (Part 4)
This is the final installment in a 4-part series about the wars of Julius Caesar. We ended the last post with Caesar’s political rival Pompey dead, and Caesar gearing up to pursue the last of Pompey’s loyalists across the Mediterranean. This week, we conclude the story! As before, my focus is on moments when individual […]
PCs on the Battlefield- Caesar’s Wars (Part 3)
This is part 3 of a 4-part series about the wars of Julius Caesar. Previously, we wrapped up his nine-year conquest of Gaul and began his civil war against his former ally Pompey! This week, we’ll wrap up the civil war. As before, my focus is on moments when individual people impacted the outcomes of […]