For 10 years British archaeologists have been trying to find the site of The Monastery of Deer in what is now known as Aberdeenshire. They’re looking for clues about the Book of Dear, a 10th Century illuminated manuscript which is believed to have a unique insight into the early church, culture and society of the […]
Why did so many medieval knights fight snails?
If you’ve ever looked at medieval art you might well have seen images of knights fighting all sorts of monsters. And snails. Actually, you might have noticed knights fought snails often. Why is that? This video from Vox looks at the observations of Michael Camille and the theory of Lilian Randall. The snails, suggests Randall, […]
The cost of light
As a GM do you go too easy or too hard on your players when it comes to light? Some games masters often have their caverns and dungeons filled with luminescent fungi or crystals so the characters can continue with an impromptu adventure without being thwarted by a lack of torch light. In other games […]
Your fantasy characters walk wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EszwYNvvCjQ This is quite a turn up for the books… and yet it makes sense. This presentation by Cornelius Berthold in the History Park Bärnau reveals why our fantasy RPG characters probably shouldn’t be walking in the way we do. It’s not widely understood how people in medieval Europe walked. It’s all down to the […]
An exclusive extract from The Jericho River
The Jericho River: A Novel About the History of Western Civilization is a novel from David W. Tollen that’s won a whole bunch of awards (London Book Festival, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, et al) and which should appeal to RPG fans. The novel sets about presenting history as an adventure story. The Jericho River […]
Competition: Win Giovanni’s Island
Giovanni’s Island is a full length anime movie that tells the story of the Russian occupation of strategic Japanese islands after World War II. This is an important event that many people in the UK don’t even realise happened. Geek Native was lucky enough to see the movie at Scotland Loves Anime and the review […]
Competition: Saints and Soldiers – The Void
101 Films has a dramatic World War II movie out this month. Saints and Soldiers – The Void tells the story of Sergeant Jesse Owens; an African-American soldier put in charge of an all-white tank crew with one final mission. It’s the last few days of World War II but there is still a platoon […]
The A-Team set in a supernatural Western, Pariah book 2 on Kickstarter
It’s never easy to do a book two on Kickstarter. You tend to automatically exclude everyone who’ve not read book one. Andres Salazar and Decade Brothers have gotten around that problem by providing PDF copies of the first graphic novel at the lowest pledge level. [Back this Campaign] There are previews for both graphic novels available […]
Short film: Minimus
Imagine the scene – it is ancient Rome, the armour-clad gladiators are in the Colosseum and these powerful men are ready to fight and die in front of the crowds. An honourable death awaits these powerful, experienced warriors. And then there is Minimus. He is the weediest gladiator the arena has ever seen. How much […]
6 fairy tales that originally had surprisingly horrible endings
Most gamers know that the Brother Grimm’s fairy tales, and the others, were much darker than the popular variants known today. The Disney cartoons based on fairy tails are especially prone to fluff – rightly so, imagine the reaction of 7 year-olds and their parents to the collection above? Via Imgur.
