Ashes of the Imagined King
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th-century chronicle The History of the Kings of Britain gives some really great and gameable details about the ashes and resting place of wise King Belinus of Britain. But King Belinus never existed. In any RPG campaign with magic—World of Darkness, Achtung: Cthulhu, Monster of the Week, D&D, Monsterhearts, etc.—you can have […]
Death’s Godson
Death’s Godson is a fairy tale found in different versions throughout much of the historically-Christian parts of the world. It’s number 332 in the Aarne-Thompson classification, and a version of it is #44 if the Brothers Grimm. At the climax of the story, the world changes so no one is able to die, and no […]
Heirs of the Ziggurat
First—super exciting! The Molten Sulfur Blog was nominated for a 2025 Ennie award for Best Online Content! This is the third time the blog’s been nominated, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Thank you, Ennie judges! In 401–400 B.C., when ten thousand Greek mercenaries had to escape the Persian empire, the land of Mesopotamia […]
Eleven Riddles from the Old English Exeter Book
The strange Old English manuscript called the Exeter Book includes a bunch of really fun riddles suitable for use at the gaming table. Riddling doors in dungeons, riddling fey encountered on the road, riddling hermits sought out in their hidey-holes: all can be stocked with a riddle or two from the Exeter Book! This post […]
Frontier Poltergeist: The Bell Witch
The Bell Witch is an old piece of creepy Tennessee folklore that presents a gameable variation on the standard haunting: a dangerous, powerful, profoundly malicious spirit with whom you can nonetheless hold a normal conversation. The story was codified in the 1894 book An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch. Much of the book […]
Magic Items from the Jack Tales
Appalachia was fertile ground for the Jack tales from England (Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack the Giant-Killer). In the mountains of the eastern United States, these folktales developed into their own genre. Jack, an even-tempered teenager from the far backwoods, is confronted by supernatural adversaries, but triumphs thanks to his own cleverness or (for Jack […]
Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp
Before the American Revolutionary War, slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies. There were no slave states and free states, no Mason-Dixon line that people fleeing slavery could cross and find freedom. Still, there were places you could go: English Florida to live among the Seminoles, a big city to lose yourself in the crowd, […]
Seeing the Enemy with Shang Oracle Bones
China’s Shang dynasty ruled a Bronze Age proto-state that used a lot of divination to inform the king’s decisions. The pyromancy that Shang officials wielded to understand their world left a rich trove of documentary evidence: oracle bones covered in burns and writing. They’re a great fit for RPG campaigns, even ones that don’t have […]
The Villainous Sorcerer-King Against Imperial Mali
Last week, we dug into the West African griot-song The Epic of Sundiata, about the eponymous founder of the Mali Empire who lived circa 1217-1255. Sundiata’s mother dominates the first half of the epic, and she makes a fabulous NPC! This week we’re going to look at the second half of the epic through a […]
The Buffalo-Ghost Queen of Imperial Mali
Sundiata (circa 1217-1255), the founder of the Mali Empire, is famed in song and story in part because of his eponymous griot-song The Epic of Sundiata. And it’s deservedly famous – it’s a great story! But the coolest character in the epic isn’t Sundiata. It’s his mom, Sogolon Kondé. She’s a sorcerer with a buffalo ghost, […]
Cotton Mather’s American Ghosts
The Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather (1663-1728) is one of the boogeymen of early American history. Among his many sins, he helped fuel the Salem witch trials that executed 20 people for witchcraft. In the trials he successfully argued that the contents of magical visions should be considered legally admissible evidence. Mather was a prolific writer. […]
The Library of Ivan the Terrible
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 Colin Wixted. Thanks for helping keep […]
Family Strife and Secret Language in the Fall of Gao
The Epic of Askia Muhammad recounts many important events in the history of the Songhai people of Niger and Mali. It’s a long song – it takes hours to sing – and it has sections in multiple languages. Among other stories, it tells the tale of a terrible turmoil in a Songhai noble family and how this […]
Kunming Stone Forest
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 Robert Nichols. Thanks for helping keep […]
Professional NPCs from the Medieval Joke Book
Last month, we looked at some jokes from the earliest known printed joke book, the 15th-century Facetiae of Poggio Bracciolini. This month we return to the Facetiae for more late Medieval/early Renaissance Italian jokes, each of which has at its heart a character who makes a great professional or tradesman NPC. It’s a fabulous window […]