A welcome to Games From Folktales’s first guest author, Angela Black. *** In the default conception of Mythic Europe, miracles of Faith are rare. Whether this is for game balance or simply due to our modern sensibilities, it doesn’t exactly fit the medieval mindset on divine intervention. Miracles – while still wondrous – were relatively…
Read MoreThe Awful Bugaboo by Eugene Field
A bugaboo, or bugbear, is a variant of the faeries that scare parents into seeing to their children. In Realms of Power : Faerie this would be a variant of the ogre Gello. Thanks to Ann and her production team for the recording. *** THERE was an awful Bugaboo Whose Eyes were Red and Hair was…
Read MoreAnnual Report 2024: Time for Summer
You’re getting your annual report early this year. There are some changes coming because of the Anno Magica. For those not up to speed, Ars Magica is going to enter a new season later in the year, when Atlas Games crowdfunds the Definitive Edition. As part of that project, parts of the Ars Magica system…
Read More“The Sandman” by E.T.A. Hoffmann
For the Venice material I’ve hit a couple of additional plot hooks, based on the two most popular masks at Carnivale. The most popular male mask isn’t a character: it’s just a plain white mask, without a mouth. The chin bows forward sufficiently for the person to eat and drink in the mask. The mask’s…
Read MoreExtracts from “The Boy Who Was Apprenticed to an Enchanter”
Padraic Colum was an Irish author who translated the Thousand and One Nights, although his translation is not much used anymore. In his book “The Boy Apprenticed to an Enchanter” he spends some time remixing material from other stories, and making it more palatable for readers of his time. For this episode I’ve extracted three…
Read MoreWake Not The Dead by Ernst Raupach
This may well be the longest episode Games From Folktales has hosted. It’s a very early vampire novella with at least one, but perhaps two, monsters of the month. It’s a 19th Century story from Germany and was recorded into the public domain by Louise J Belle. Thanks to Louise and her production team. As…
Read MoreThis Moth Eats Words
The Exeter Book is an Anglo-Saxon collection of puzzle poems. Riddle 47, which I’d like to focus on for this episode is one of the more famous, Thanks to the Saga Thing podcast for reading it on a recent episode about the lacuna in the saga they are following. A moth ate words. I thought…
Read MoreProtected: Venice Draft Zero
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Read MoreAllingham and the Fear of Little Men
I was first taught this poem in primary school. It was in the standard English textbook, to explain what adjectives were. I thought I knew it. I only knew the first and last verses. The child abduction in the middle verses would have caused parental concern. Children getting lost in the bush is one of…
Read MoreExtinct Familiars
We’ve dealt with extinct familiars before in the fanzines, by talking about folklore and its link to fossils, but the idea here is a bit different. There are several species which are living in Mythic Europe and have gone extinct since. These add odd colour to the game without changing the power level. A few…
Read More