Roleplaying games from historical research
A quick Librivox recording to give us our monster of the month. We have a werewolf, a witch and a Faustian bargain. I wondered why I’d not seen this one before. Eleanor Smith-Dampier was a translator of Danish sagas, so I thought I’d missed it because it’s from the area to the north of the…
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Regina Block was a London-based, Jewish, poetess who worked in the 1920s. Strangely, her work is filled with Christian allegory. She also wrote a biography of one of the first Sufi masters who became widely known in London. Her representations of what he believed are relatively accurate compared to some of the stuff that had…
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Back in the satyr episode of the Magonomia Bestiary Kickstarter I mentioned Gabrinus as the creator of beer. In this story, a less powerful Gabrinus, with a touch of faerie, is playing the an ancient game against painters, to steal the fruits of their creativity. Readers at the time would know that schiedam is a…
Read MoreHi, The transcripts for the end of 2022 are here.
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This week we round out the year with our final episode from the life of Benvenuto Cellini. This one is terribly cut about from his entire biography so I can’t thank individual readers. Thank you to everyone who read anything in either of the two volumes and their production teams. It contains each time that…
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We had some Lear last Christmas, so let’s make it a tradition. A new will-o-the-wisp. *** When awful darkness and silence reignOver the great Gromboolian plain,Through the long, long wintry nights; —When the angry breakers roarAs they beat on the rocky shore; —When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heightsOf the Hills of the Chankly Bore:…
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In this episode Cellini gives birth to his masterpiece, the bronze Perseus. It almost kills him and I’d argue that – if it’s because he is a Verditus magus – this process draws on his life energy so that he is in risk of death to get this final piece of work done. I would…
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I’ve been loking forward to reading this for you, because it’s a lovely example of an infernal regio for Ars Magica. Clearly its the work of Architectus from Realms of Power : the Infernal. It also works for Magonomia, but as a particular creature, not a thing that a Realm of Power does as a…
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This poem, which the author claimed as autobiographical, contains angels or demons of the hours, which are progressively more terrible as the night continues. They sap the man’s ability to sleep, such that he becomes like a ghost. Death in life is one of Thomson’s core artistic preoccupations. One note on the contents: “Malebolges” mentioned…
Read MoreI’ve put the transcripts for the Magonomia Bestiary episodes into a single pdf. Please be aware it hasn’t been laid out, edited or playtested by professionals, so it is far lower in quality than the finished book.
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Games From Folktales 