Female Soldiers in Disguise
Women were not permitted to be soldiers in the American Civil War. Nonetheless, women on both sides adopted male disguises and signed up. In their exhaustively researched book They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War, historians DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook claim to have uncovered evidence of about 250 such soldiers. […]
Stealing Tea From China
The British theft of tea from China in 1848-1851 ranks as one of the greatest acts of industrial espionage in history. It also makes a fresh, original RPG adventure. It’s not likely your players will have ever before stolen live plants from a foreign land! In the mid-19th century, England made enormous sums of money […]
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, […]
Dispersing an Angry Mob
Mobs are a force of nature. Individual thought is dissolved within the broad and shallow consciousness of the mob. They can be fun obstacles in RPGs, but short of hiding from them, how can you defeat one? The 1846 attempted lynching of Ned Buntline offers a case where a mob in the act of murdering […]
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 […]
Cargo Cult Rebellion
In 1944, villagers in Bagasin, Madang district, New Guinea (then under Australian occupation) revolted against their colonial masters. They were driven by a charismatic leader and a new variation on a popular religion. The rebellion was brief and deeply weird. It’s great material for the gaming table! New Guinea, like much of Melanesia, has seen […]
The Poisoner Mollie Greer
The alleged 1884-1885 poisoning spree of Mollie Greer in Nashville, Tennessee presents some excellent complications you can use in a murder mystery at your table! Our story begins with Mollie’s common-law husband, Prince Greer. Prince was born enslaved in 1840. When his master rode to war in the Confederate army, Greer accompanied him. After his […]
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 […]
Checkpoints on the Road
Checkpoints are points along roads where military or paramilitary forces screen travelers. Some are allowed to pass through. Some are sent back. Checkpoints are omnipresent in modern conflicts, because they give the occupying force some amount of control over the movement of people and weapons in the area. (Here’s a great New York Times article […]
Yarsagumba
This is the fourth in a four-part series of vignettes from the rural Nepalese village of Tarang. You can find the previous three entries here, here, and here. Even if you’ve read them, it’s worth revisiting the pages, as I’ve updated them with great photos of Tarang taken in 1968 by anthropologist James Fisher! This […]
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 […]
Slavers of the West African Coast
The 17th through early 19th centuries saw a huge demand for forced labor on the plantations of the New World. Enslaved people were dragged from West Africa by the millions, and many men grew rich trading in lives and suffering. These men are natural villains, perfect for the gaming table. Let’s look at three. The […]
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 […]
Hunting the PCs Like Buffalo
The Native American nations of the Great Plains have many remarkable cultural practices. One historical practice, the collective hunt, is relevant to the gaming table. The same tactics Native hunters used against herds of bison can be used in combat encounters to hunt your PCs. Let’s look at four. When we think about hunting large […]