Roleplaying games from historical research
A couple of quick comments, beyond the usual reminder to look at how many times Cellini tells you that he is better than other people, including you, We have some characters who, for context, need a little bit more description. The angel of death he meets is not the Jewish angel of death covered in…
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This week a little sliver of Venice. This is from my recording of the biography of the dogaressas of Venice for Librivox. It’s the story of the daughter of a doge who was married into a rival family. When the rival family rebelled anyway she, and all of her children, and anyone who was married…
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This is our monster for the month. He’s clearly a faerie who sells Arcane Connections. Stats eventually. This recording was released through Librivox by Dale Grothmann. Thanks to Dale and his production team. *** The Vendor of TearsBy William M . ConselmanThe little old man closed my library door and stepped nimbly forward. He bowed…
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If we were doing a proper product here, I would not be the guy to write this: I know at least two of the old Ars Magica gang who would be better choices. That being said, there are plot hooks here we can use, and I’d like to flag them for your table. So, in…
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Lets talk Elizabethan guns. Pistols aren’t great in the start of the reign. The problem isn’t range or accuracy, both of which are bad, but they still trump swords and daggers in close combat, so that gives them a use case, the problem is the trigger mechanism. Early pistols are matchlocks. Time for some engineering.…
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A huge chunk from the Autobiography of Benevenuto Cellini in this episode. There’s some period magic here which is what originally drew me to this author. In this section I initially didn’t include the bit at the end about the assassin, but I want to be able to call back to it when, later. In…
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I’m disappointed. I thought I’d found a fantasy author who used the areas around Devon as his canvas, and I had. This would have let me push the free material for Ars Magica further east, to join up with the Cornwall and Bristol channel material already available. The problem is that now I’ve discovered that…
Read MoreLike to have all 236 pages of 2021 GFF in one place? Follow the link! Sorry there’s no art this year. It’s been…well, you know.
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We return to the biography of goldsmith and adventurer Benevenuto Cellini, for him to, once again, randomly murder some guy and get away with it. Then again, knowing Cellini if he’d actually wanted to shoot the guy he would have told us that it was a great shot, using his rifle which is better than…
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Jonas Lie was a Norwegian folklorist who collected stories, somewhat in the tradition of the Grimm brothers. His work was translated into English early in the Twentieth Century. Eating the Huldrefish seems to give access to a regio, and it has many creatures from Faerie in it. The one I find most interesting is the…
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Games From Folktales 