History

A collection of 21 posts

Members only

History

The Imperial Life Cycle, Part 1

When I was sitting down and trying to brainstorm more blog post ideas, I thought to myself, "Lucas, you should really write something practical and player-focused, rather than more worldbuilding stuff. You've been doing reviews and interviews recently, why not write something super player-focused?" And then,

Worldbuilding in Five Glasses

Worldbuilding Beverages: Coffee and Tea

This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. This is part four of my "Worldbuilding Beverages" series. Click here to see the whole series! This week, we'

Worldbuilding in Five Glasses

Worldbuilding Beverages: Liquor

This is part three of my "Worldbuilding Beverages" series. Click here to see the whole series! This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. This week, we'

Worldbuilding in Five Glasses

Worldbuilding Beverages: Wine

This is part two of my "Worldbuilding Beverages" series. Click here to see the whole series! This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. This week, we'

Worldbuilding in Five Glasses

Worldbuilding Beverages: Beer

This is part one of my new "Worldbuilding Beverages" series. Click here to see the whole series! This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. One of the

History

Vampires: History & Myth

October 2024 Series – check out the rest of the series! This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. Welcome to the series for October! For spooky season, this month will

History

Organized Crime: History & Myth

Two weeks ago, I talked about how we should stop using thieves' guilds in our medieval/renaissance fantasy worlds because a guild hierarchy would not really make sense for a criminal organization. So today, I want to talk about three different historical modes of organizing criminal activity, as potential

Rethinking Fantasy

Rethinking Fantasy Feudalism: What's a Guild?

This week's post is sort of a continuation from this post about the ways that we misunderstand feudalism in our fantasy worlds, and how we can have more engaging worlds by learning more of the real world's history. This week, we're focusing on a

History

Who Were the Aztecs?

This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. I just read "The Aztecs: Lost Civilizations" by Frances Berdan, and because I'm functionally incapable of absorbing new

Guide to Goblins

Guide to Goblins: The Trickster

This post is part of my Guide to Goblins series. Click the link to check out the rest. When kicking off this series, I wrote about the historical and mythological roots of the goblin. While it was not a universal trait among some of the more common modern interpretations of

Guide to Goblins

Guide to Goblins: The Explicit

This post is part of my Guide to Goblins series. Click the link to check out the rest. Today's goblin focus comes from @tiberianpun on dice.camp (you can follow me here!), who recommended me the Greco-Balkan goblin, the Kallikantzaros. While details of the Kallikantzaros vary from location

Guide to Goblins

Guide to Goblins: The Miners

This post is part of my Guide to Goblins series. Click the link to check out the rest. When kicking off this series, I wrote about the historical and mythological roots of the goblin. One of our key takeaways was that there were a lot of different varieties of goblins,

Guide to Goblins

Guide to Goblins: The Violent

This post is part of my Guide to Goblins series. Click the link to check out the rest. This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. Last week, we talked

History

Goblins: History & Myth

This is the first entry in the Guide to Goblins series. Click the link to check out the rest. What is a goblin? In D&D, it feels obvious--goblins are those weird little green guys that make up low-level cannon fodder for adventurers. They're the go-to easy-to-kill

History

Rethinking Alignment: the Great Chain of Being

One of the most ignored parts of D&D's core rules is the idea of alignment. I get it, I ignore it too! For those who aren't familiar with it, D&D gives every creature--PC, NPC, monster, beast--an alignment on two axes. One axis

History

Varying Religious Culture in TTRPGs and Worldbuilding

The focus on bone magic that has dominated the blog for the past three weeks has made me start to think more about how we treat religion in D&D and other TTRPGs. Because of the "real" nature of the gods, who go around and directly intervene

History

The Power of Bones: History & Myth

Part of the Magical Practices Project Part of the Osteomancy series This article is going to kick off a big project and a short series that will be part of that project. Let's start with the big one: exploring real-world 'magical' practices (click here for the

History

Jesters & Fools: History & Myth

Happy April Fool's Day! To celebrate this holiday, I wanted to write about the history of court jesters, a staple trope in popular imagination about the medieval European royal court, as well as share some resources for this classic image for use in your Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

History

Rethinking Fantasy Feudalism: History & Myth

Something that came up while I was writing last week's post on the Luddites is how hard it is to imagine a world that is based on any system other than capitalism. The motive of individual profit, the majority of individuals living in cities and towns, the ability

History

Captain Ludd: History & Myth

This post is all about a pretty major social movement in the early 1800s. While that is certainly a bit later than the medieval-ish historical epoch that a lot of fantasy draws from, the larger social point of the Luddites is one that can pretty easily be adapted for a

History

Worldbuilding Elements of a Western

Readers of the blog may have noticed that both of my newly published homebrew work is centered very much on the Wild West. This is because my current home game is set in a fantasy version of the American West, so it has been dominating my personal homebrewing for the