2010-06-18 History of Egypt
I was looking for images of Set and Nergal to add to our campaign wiki. After hours of surfing I ended up on the Project Gutenberg site. This site is awesome. I still remember downloading a simple ASCII copy of Milton’s Paradise years ago and realizing that there was a source of free texts available online. But what I was interested in was the History of Egypt – you should do a search for it right now. I found some good quotes in the History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria by Gaston Maspero.
- “Nergal united a crafty fierceness to his bravery: not content with being lord of battles, he became the pestilence which breaks out unexpectedly in a country, the death which comes like a thief, and carries off his prey before there is time to take up arms against him.” – Volume III, Part B
Notice the subtitle: “containing over twelve hundred colored plates and illustrations”. Check out the instructions for downloading all the volumes. Once you have all the images in a single directory, picking them for your blog, campaign wiki, or PDF project is so much simpler.
Some finds in Volume III:
- One of the eagle-headed genii – notice the wrist-watch and the handbag!

- The South-West Wind – who doesn’t love to shout “Pazuzu! Pazuzu! Pazuzu!” when the going gets tought? Ah, the joy of uttering the name Pazuzu three consecutive times… Also note the following sentence on the same page: “Imps haunted the houses, goblins wandered about the water’s edge, ghouls lay in wait for travellers in unfrequented places, and the dead quitting their tombs in the night stole stealthily among the living to satiate themselves with their blood.” Straight from the history books!
- Plan of the existing buildings of Telloh – it looks like an old school dungeon map down to the symbol used for the stairs!
- Egyptian slave merchant
2010-01-05 Arms and Armor Source Books
Looking around for some books on medieval arms and armor – including details about polearms, and not necessarily with gaming application – I found the following books via Amazon. What do you think? Other books you want to suggest? Warnings? Is this series from St. Martin’s Press good?
- Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World (3000 B.C. to 500 A.D.): Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics by James R. Ross
- Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World 500 - 1500 AD by Matthew Bennett
- Fighting Techniques of the Early Modern World: Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics by Christer Jorgensen (1500 to 1763)
- Fighting Techniques of the Napoleonic Age 1792-1815: Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics by Robert B. Bruce
- Fighting Techniques of the Oriental World: Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics by Michael E. Haskew
- Weapon: A Visual History of Arms and Armour (Military) by Richard Holmes
Or start with some books from other lists? [1]
I got recommendations for Gary Gygax’s World Builder and The Palladium Book of Weapon and Armour via Twitter. What do you think of these?
2009-09-25 Norman Centuries by Lars Brownworth
Remember the 12 Byzantine Emperors podcast? The same guy is now putting out a similar podcast called Norman Centuries. I’m looking forward to it!
Via his brother [1].
2008-10-03 Ancient Warfare
Following an ad on Kobold Quarterly I ended up on the site for Ancient Warfare. Ohhhhh… Shiny magazine on greek and roman times!?
Should I give it a try? They are based in the Netherlands so maybe shipping will be reasonable, haha.
I also found a website for the Medieval European Martial Arts Guild. Interesting. Found that one via an EN World thread on real world ancient heroes, via Jonathan Drain’s post.
I haven’t read any EN World in ages.
Tags: History RPG publishing
2006-08-28 Swiss Oral History
Archimob ist ein Verein, der Zeugnisse über die Zeit des zweiten Weltkrieges sammelt und archiviert. Auf der Webseite gibt es 555 Interviews, jedes davon ca. 2h lang. Wahrhaftig ein “Oral History” Projekt.
Siehe auch: DeutscheWikipedia:Oral History.
Tags: Switzerland History


Hello Alex,
the “Fighting Techniques” books are mis-named, imho. Their main focus is on mass warfare; i.e. types of military formations, their positioning and use on the battlefield and similar tactics. Arms, armour and the use of either (actual “fighting techniques”) are mentioned only in passing in this context and are sometimes overly generalised. If you are looking for how individual fighters of the period were equipped and how they used their weapons, you will find a lot of books on swordsmanship (i.e. here: http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Sword-Shield-Combat-Armouries/dp/1891448439) but little on other weapons.
I also own The Palladium Book of Weapon and Armour.
– Jorunkun 2010-01-06 01:05 UTC
Hm, interesting. I have Talhoffers Fechtbuch here, but without annotations or commentary. It’d be cool to have some interpretation from people with experience. Then again, I’m no European martial arts geek; my Aikido is hard enough to master, haha.
When I walked back from work today I thought that something I’d like to see is a discussion of the arms race through the centuries. Why flails, halberds, maces, rapiers, shield shapes, and so on. I have some amateur ideas. I’d like to read a historian’s perpective, I guess.
– AlexSchroeder 2010-01-06 01:16 UTC
(oops … hit save prematurely - continuing)
It features a very detailed list of weapons and armour, each of them with a little picture and detailed statistics such as weight, length and ratings for speed damage etc. History buffs will surely find much at fault with these numbers, but as a guideline for statting up weapons for an RPG, they aren’t all that bad. Also shown are fully quipped “typical fighters” from certain periods and cultures; but there isn’t much descriptive or context given - the book is one big collection of lists, essentially.
Personally, I really like the Osprey books “Men at Arms” series, which features detailed description of warriors, weapons and armour plus a very readable summary of the historical and cultural context, complete with pictures, maps and often great artwork (i.e. by Angus MacBride). http://www.ospreypublishing.com/men_at_arms/
Lastly, TSR put out a 2nd edition AD&D Weapons and Armour Guide (forget the exact title) that did a pretty good job presenting all the weapons usually seen in FRPGs, complete with pictures so you can tell your Bec-de-Corbin from your Glaive Guisarme.
Hope this helps.
– Jorunkun 2010-01-06 01:17 UTC
Thanks! I keep hearing about the Osprey books but have never seen any here in Switzerland. I’ll have to try and get a book or two!
– AlexSchroeder 2010-01-06 01:23 UTC
Matthew Bennett is an excellent military historian, so I would have no qualms recommending a book on that subject by him. The Palladium book of arms and armour is pretty interesting, but really a gamer’s primer to arms and armour. Gygax’s World Builder I probably would not recommend over any other. The Osprey series is pretty reliable and well illustrated. I was recently given a review copy of Codex Martialis, which is a pretty thorough and well researched guide to historical arms and armour written for D20/3e: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=65250
– Matthew James Stanham 2010-01-06 01:24 UTC
Thanks. That sounds like a start. I’ll take a look at the Matthew Bennett book.
– AlexSchroeder 2010-01-06 01:27 UTC
Hehe, parallel post. Looks like someone is up late in Switzerland …
I don’t know of any book focused specifically on the arms race, probably because there isn’t one clear historically accurate narrative about it. Metal availability and quality, manufacturing skill or access to quality weapons and their use varied greatly by region and period so the historical record is patchy. History buffs frequently get into shouting matches over which side used what weapon to which effect (i.e. see here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=487764) so proceed with caution.
– Jorunkun 2010-01-06 01:28 UTC
Haha, I guess I wanted a book that would allow me to join conversations such as these!
I ordered the following books:
– AlexSchroeder 2010-01-10 10:50 UTC
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