Category: Cities
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Manhattan Redlined, 1930
There are already some NYC entries in the “Thrilling Cities” series. However, I recently came across an academic website that provides all the historic maps drawn up by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) between 1935 and 1940. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/ The HOLC was a New Deal federal agency created to maintain home ownership in the Great…
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Another Road to Monsterberg
In The Road to Monsterberg the characters enter Silesia from the south-east as they return from the defence of Belgrade in AD 1456. In this variant the characters enter Silesia from the west. The scenario outline does, however, direct the characters to the same places, uses the same factions, etc., thus tying it firmly into…
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Silesian Tales
I’ve been putting together some “muse” tables for The Road to Monsterberg. Since someone mentioned that it could do with some random tables I thought I’d post them as WIP. The 1561 map in Monsterberg has some snazzy icons, identifying four types of location: towns, castles, monasteries and villages. Accordingly I’ve used them as a…
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Genoa
UB have taken a trip to the historic but grotty city of Genoa. FROM: +++++ CENTRE ++++ TO: +++++ FIELD +++ LOCATION: + GENOA +++ Genoa has a population of 590,000 but that population is rapidly sinking due to economic failure. Modern buildings have a tendency to collapse without warning in Genoa due to shoddy…
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NYC, or Getting the Weird Pulp Look
One of the joys of basing RPGs in an historical period is the research required to get the correct atmosphere and look. There are some wonderful photographs of NYC c. 1930. Other images are a bit harder to find. However, I think these two contemporary artists do a fantastic job for our purposes. The Australian-American…
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Otto & Berengar
One by product of Heroes was an interest in finding out something about Italy in AD 950. The Empire on whose borders Triente lay was supposedly ruled by an effete, distant, French Emperor more interested in chivalry than rulership. That just didn’t ring true: no-one had heard of chivalry in 950 and it’s doubtful if…
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Triente, AD 950
We’re back in medieval northern Italy for one of my favourite RPGs of all time. Heroes was published by Table Top Games of Nottingham in May 1979. It was written by David Millward, well known in the 1970s British wargaming scene as the creator of some popular rules sets. Millward was a school teacher and…
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Satan’s Minister
Stupor Mundi: Roleplaying in the World of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, written by Paolo Guccione in 2007 for Mongoose RuneQuest, is one of my favourite RPG supplements. It includes an adventure called ‘The Lord of the Golden Eagle’ which has the PCs trying to secure the rightful inheritance of the hapless student, and would be Count…
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Tarantia Province
R. E. Howard certainly had a vision of the countryside around Tarantia, the capital of Aquilonia, including its social organisation. “On a dawn when he lay hidden on a river bank where willows and oaks grew thickly, he glimpsed, afar, across the rolling plains dotted with rich groves, the blue and golden towers of Tarantia.”…