Roleplaying games from historical research
A couple of little stories from Linton. The creatures here are an infernal ghost and a succubus, both of which can be modelled using Realms of Power: Infernal. Thanks to the Librivox readers and production teams. Stats eventually. THE GHOST OF THE BLACK-BROWED MAID If bodies were safe after death, characters were not. Isabel Heriot…
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This is the first of a series of episodes based on ballads from Goethe. The poem given here is based on two ancient Greek stories. The story’s core is that of Machates and Philinnion from Phlegon’s “Book of Marvels”, but in that story the bride is not obviously a vampire. She’s a member of the…
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This time a story of (arguably not) dwarves from The Transylvanian Tribunal. The reading you’re about to hear is from LibriVox by J GO. Thank you for the recording. It was written by Edouard Laboulaye whose work isn’t seen a lot in English. On the off chance that some of the American listeners are going…
Read MoreThe Draft Zero version of Mythic Venice has been updated. Structurally the core parts are in place. Now what I’ll be doing is going through and making sure every bit of lore has a clear plot use. Currently it is 53 000 words long, which is about two-thirds the length of one of the standard…
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A welcome to Games From Folktales’s first guest author, Angela Black. *** In the default conception of Mythic Europe, miracles of Faith are rare. Whether this is for game balance or simply due to our modern sensibilities, it doesn’t exactly fit the medieval mindset on divine intervention. Miracles – while still wondrous – were relatively…
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A bugaboo, or bugbear, is a variant of the faeries that scare parents into seeing to their children. In Realms of Power : Faerie this would be a variant of the ogre Gello. Thanks to Ann and her production team for the recording. *** THERE was an awful Bugaboo Whose Eyes were Red and Hair was…
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Dear listener, this was the least pleasant of the many things I’ve worked through to find you historical material. This book is a summary of witch trials written by an early English antifeminist author. It’s a long litany of people killing aged and neurodivergent women. That being noted there’s material for three episodes here. This…
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For the Venice material I’ve hit a couple of additional plot hooks, based on the two most popular masks at Carnivale. The most popular male mask isn’t a character: it’s just a plain white mask, without a mouth. The chin bows forward sufficiently for the person to eat and drink in the mask. The mask’s…
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A brief one this time. This poem demonstrates what, in Ars Magica, we’d call oppression. That’s when a demon attaches itself to a victim and removes their sources of joy. It’s a paradigmatic version of clinical depression. Thanks to Anne and the Librivox production team for the recording. *** I see the broken bodies of…
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This may well be the longest episode Games From Folktales has hosted. It’s a very early vampire novella with at least one, but perhaps two, monsters of the month. It’s a 19th Century story from Germany and was recorded into the public domain by Louise J Belle. Thanks to Louise and her production team. As…
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