Roleplaying games from historical research
This week a little bit of folklore from the Rhineland. The rats that you’re about to encounter may, initially, seem like demons (particularly those who claim to mete out punishment for God) or angels. The interpretation I prefer is that they’re ghosts and that this is tiny version of the ghostly processions that we dealt…
Read More
This is an Armenian folktale, from a collection called “The Golden Maiden” by A G Seklemian. This story, and the one which will follow next week, are both possible starting points for a Spring covenant. This one is also of interest to us, because it suggests there is a political structure in the least-powerful tribe…
Read More
This week another of our episodes from Lord Dunsany’s Don Rodrigo: The Chronicles of Shadow Valley. In thisepisode Don Rodriguez and his servant Morano have been accepted as guests (and kind of captured) by a wizard who holds the Chair of Magic at the University of Sagossa, and he is almost forcing them through an…
Read More
This week I am cheating by having another look at a creature already covered on the blog that accompanies the podcast. A very long time ago. we created some introductory material for Ars Magica called the Covenant of Sabrina’s Rest. Sabrina’s Rest is named after the goddess of the River Severn. As source material I…
Read More
Have you heard the story of the rotting princess? She usually gets a paragraph in the histories of Venice. Just a small one, near the beginning. She’s a useful starting point. She’s where you can say things started to careen off course. She’s to blame for all of the vanities of Venice. She was an…
Read More
Here Dunsany has a little side story, a phantastical episode, but for us it’s a useful snippet. The hero meets a magician who keeps forcing him to undergo mystogogic initiations. The recording was released into the public domain by Ed Humpel, through Librivox. *** The sound of their knocking boomed huge and slow through the…
Read More
I recorded a Christmas episode earlier this year, but because of the vagaries of podcast production, it drifted to early December. Here’s a replacement, about the Abbey of Saint Nicholas at Tresco. Nicholas, in local lore, is a fearsome chap : he’s far more similar to the weapon smuggler who turns up in the Narnia…
Read More
This week another one of our folktales from Man by Sophia Morrison. This is The Old Christmas, which was read into the public domain through LibriVox by Larry Wilson. Thanks to him and his production team at LibriVox. I just like to stress that this folktale comes from at least the Sixteenth Century because the…
Read More
There’s an impish faerie that is only seen in Mythic Europe during the twelve days of Christmas, the kallikantzaros, which has never been used in any of the supplements. As the Yule is approaching, I’d like to bring them out, but give them a fresh coat of paint by combining them with “The Goblins Who…
Read More
Apologies: I hadn’t noticed this transcript wasn’t live. The episode says its the final Morrison folktale from the Isle of Man, but it isn’t. After recording them I swapped the order to put the Christmas traditions into December. “The City Under The Sea” is a folk tale from a later time, where a person is…
Read More
Games From Folktales 