History

A collection of 28 posts

History

Your Worldbuilding Needs More Cows

Over my Spring Break, I went to Texas, and one of the places that I visited was the Fort Worth cattle Stockyards. It made me start thinking more about the cattle industry--of prime importance to the settlement of the American West, and something that I completely skipped over in my

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Worldbuilding with Government Life Cycles

Life Cycle of a Revolution, Part 3

Last week, we covered the initial victory of a revolution and subsequent dissolving of the bonds of unity. Subscribers were able to read how I applied the lessons about these phases to a revolution in my own homebrew world. As a reminder: this is not meant to be the only

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Worldbuilding with Government Life Cycles

Life Cycle of a Revolution, Part 2

Last week, we covered the first stages of the life cycle of a revolution, as the existing regime is destabilized, exposed, and ultimately, revolutionary forces are violently unleashed upon it. Subscribers were able to read how I applied the lessons about these phases to a revolution in my own homebrew

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Worldbuilding with Government Life Cycles

Life Cycle of a Revolution, Part 1

Back in March, I wrote about how several historical empires of the ancient and medieval worlds followed essentially the same arc in a two part series (you can check out part 1 and part 2). We can use that arc as a way to quickly build a history for a

Rethinking Fantasy

Rethinking Fantasy Feudalism: Land Tenure for Commoners

This is part 2 of the most esoteric post I've ever written. Last week, we went over the rules that nobles had as part of their land ownership. What were the options for what a noble owed the king as a condition of their land ownership? Be sure

Rethinking Fantasy

Rethinking Fantasy Feudalism: Land Tenure for the Nobility

Welcome to quite possibly the most esoteric post I've ever written. I recently went down a rabbit hole of research on what land ownership looked like in the late medieval period, ostensibly for worldbuilding purposes for my own game. Should this show up in most TTRPGs? Probably not,

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History

The Imperial Life Cycle, Part 2

Last week, I wrote about the life cycle of an empire as described by Robin Pierson of History of Byzantium and Patricia Crone. The fact that both the Islamic Caliphate and the Roman Empire went through very similar cycles is an interesting historical quirk. It is a quirk that we

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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.