Roleplaying games from historical research
In Ars Magica, magicians have final tests for their apprentices. The fire magi drop them in a dangerous place with no gear, and wait for them to come back. The mystics have vision quests. The House most interested in mundanes has a written test, which I imagine was based on the Confucian tests in the…
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This special, 50th, episode was composed in pdf, so check the link. Thanks to all the Patreons, listeners, reviewers and players. Also, thanks to Atlas for letting me play in their sandbox. Sample images
Read MoreLink to the Games From Folktales: Episode 50 Special transcript Goblin Market
I’ve just finished the audiobook of Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. It’s excellent. I know the stories already, but his method of telling is a joy. There are three tiny elements of his telling which struck me as novel plot hooks for Ars Magica. The Chains of Fenrir When Fenrir, the great wolf who will consume…
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I continue to believe Lord Dunsany’s work contains the reminiscences of a retired redcap. Let’s test the theory again. Thanks to Steve Vito and Librivox for the sampled recording. The argument that I had with my brother in his great lonely house will scarcely interest my readers. Not those, at least, whom I hope may be…
Read MoreApologies to any new Patreons, my internet has been down for a week, so I’m just copying the list from last month’s pdf.
I’ve been listening to The London and Country Brewer, which was an anonymous book completed in the late 19th Century. It’s fascinating, in that it describes an industrial process which is still followed today by craft brewers, but to which I’d had no real exposure. Given that brewing, at least to the level of creating…
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One of the advantages that Australian authors have writing for American audiences is that we get to see many of the more popular products of their culture, but the converse is not true. This means that things which are, to us, commonplace, are, to them, surprising. I first noticed this when I wrote a brief…
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One of the great puzzles of medieval economics is why it works at all. Essentially the European economy, if you are standing at the border of China and looking westward, is an elaborate method of shipping gold and silver to China in exchange for spices. Medieval European understood this. What they did not understand was…
Read MoreEpisode 52 went live early. I have the stats for Hlo-hlo in Canva for the PDF, but not for the blog. It’ll go live when it was meant to, lo these many months from now. I’ll put an extra episode in to fill the gap. It’s about Miss Cubbage and the Dragon of Romance. You…
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