Roleplaying games from historical research
Another monster for this month of monsters. An odd dryad that creates forests by transforming her lovers, however involuntarily. Thanks to Havilah Mara for the reading and the Librivox team for the production. *** Gathered into greenish poolsDaylight lies among the trees.Here the warm blood quickly cools,Here the swift limbs quickly freeze.Pierce my veins, what…
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A quick ghost from John Donne. Thanks to Aaron Sprule for the recoding, and to his production team from Librivox. This is part of my post a day for November project. When by thy scorn, O murd’ress, I am dead And that thou think’st thee free From all solicitation from me, Then shall my ghost…
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A regio that is arguably in the Magic Realm, where dreams lie, rather than in Arcadia. Thanks for the reading by Newgatenovelist and her Librivox production team. *** There is a silver silent land Where white moonflowers grow; Where long-leaved silver shadows lie Across still waters; and the flowOf shadow rivers, endlesslyGoes on and on;…
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A folktale from Japan this week. Statistics eventually. I think this is a faerie because it is using a traditional story structure, but you might also claim a demon, because there’s a holy man tempted to do a forbidden thing, and then punished. Thanks to Scott Robbins and his production team for his Librivox reading.…
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Kipling is an odd author: a fervent imperialist who, at the same time, felt pity for the soldiers who died to create his country’s global dominance. Here are some of his poems of use in Ars Magica games. The first poem is a hymn written to Mithras. It’s not genuine to the game period, but…
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The following ballad has a bit of a faerie tale feel about it, in that a young man faces a challenge and wins a rich bride. The odd thing is that Bell, who collected this in Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, insists it’s based on a true story and gives…
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This, rather long, episode is a retelling of the story by a Victorian Era translator from Yale. I’m including it because it has some ideas we can rework for Ars Magica. Thanks to Jerome Lewis, whose reading I’ll be interrupting occasionally, although I won’t repeat clarifications from previous episodes. This version does move away from…
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There’s a plot hook for us in this little piece of Dartmoor folklore. Peasants and monks play capture the flag with Luke Skywalker’s corpse. As a note a “partisan” here is a polearm from after the game period. Thanks to Phil Schemp and his Librivox production team for this reading. *** Fox Tor has always…
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This traditional ballad could serve as a background for a player character or a pair of covenfolk. I’d make one little note: the word “daughter” and “after” are rhymed here. There are dialects of English in which the word was pronounced “dafter”. Slaughter, similarly, was said “slafter”. It was collected in Ancient Poems, Ballads, and…
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I remember having a discussion at a writers workshop about 30 years ago, when I suggested that if all you did was respond with aphorisms you were less a person than the sewn together bits of other people. I was insufferable back then. Anyway, I thought of that because in this poem there’s a bibliophile…
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