I’ll Sell You Sicily, but You’ll Still Have to Conquer It (Part 2: The Conquest)
From 1250 to 1266, four successive popes worked to sell the Kingdom of Sicily to any capable European warrior-aristocrat who could afford their steep asking price. The trouble was, the papacy didn’t own Sicily. The kingdom already had a king. Anyone who bought what the popes were selling would still have to conquer Sicily themselves. […]
I’ll Sell You Sicily, but You’ll Still Have to Conquer It (Part 1: The Hook)
From 1250 to 1266, four successive popes worked to sell the Kingdom of Sicily to any capable European warrior-aristocrat who could afford the steep asking price. The trouble was, the papacy didn’t own Sicily. In fact, Sicily already had a king who was none too pleased with the whole affair. These popes weren’t selling control […]
An Investigative Dungeon Crawl in the Royal Art Mine
Herculaneum was a Roman town buried in 79 A.D. by the eruption of the volcano Mt. Vesuvius. These days, it’s a bit of an afterthought to the neighboring buried ruin of Pompeii. But from 1738 to 1748, before excavation began at Pompeii, the excavation at Herculaneum was the big exciting hotness of Europe. Except it […]
Lucilla
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 Secret Peasant Book Club
In the countryside near 1500s Venice, most people were illiterate – but not all. A small number of literate peasants swapped books amongst themselves. Some of the books were forbidden. One miller was hauled before the Inquisition, not for reading banned books, but for developing his own theology from them that existed outside the bounds of Christianity. […]
Professional NPCs from the Medieval Joke Book
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Lower-Class NPCs from the Medieval Joke Book
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Apostolic Succession, Donatism, and the Hidden Pope
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The Florentine Architecture Feud
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The Bizarre Court-Martial of Francesco Caracciolo
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The Rose-Realm of Laurin, King of Dwarves and Giants
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More NPC Foibles from Suetonius
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NPC Foibles from Suetonius
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Baiae
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Extraordinary Folkloric NPCs
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