Red Moon Roleplaying

Skull-Face is a novella written by Robert E. Howard in 1929 and was published in the ”Weird Tales” magazine. The main villain of the story, the eponymous Skull-Face, is a resurrected necromancer from Atlantis determined to awaken all of the remaining Atlanteans, sleeping in their submerged sarcophagi, and creating a new world order with them as the ruling elite. The hero of the story is Steve Cost...

The Garuda is a massive eagle-like creature, described as the king of the birds, that appears in Hinduism and Buddhism. Portrayed as the god Vishnu’s mount or as a dharma protector in Buddhism it seems as though the myth about this powerful bird predates both religions. Garuda can swiftly fly anywhere, appearing where it’s services as a protector are required. It is a sworn enemy of the serpent an...

In 1911 Captain Robert Scott led an expedition of adventurers that were dead set on being the first to reach the South Pole on Antarctica. They had received funding for the expedition from the public with the support of a government grant. The admiralty provided transportation and experienced seamen for the journey. It was supposed to be a heroic success proving to the world yet again the superior...

A wormhole is a speculative structure that connects two points in space-time, either separated by vast distances or by time. Their existence is hypothesized based on a solution of Einstein’s field equations and a number of possible types of wormholes have been proposed to exist by different scientists. If we imagine space-time as a sheet of paper, and draw two separate dots on one side of the pape...

We delve in to the world of Andrzej Sapkowski’s “The Witcher”, guided by gamemaster, and game designer, Cody Pondsmith from R. Talsorian Games showing off their new tabletop RPG set in this world. The adventure is called “A Part of our World” and we get to follow two dwarves, the Mahakaman man-at-arms Golan and the bard Sigurd from Skellige, as they travel to Kerack with a very dangerous cargo. Ch...

A shortcut in accounting is to book overhead costs based on sales volume of products rather than by activity the cost was related to. Through this, when analyzing profitability, high volume, successful products end up looking less profitable than they actually are, and low volume sellers inversely look significantly better for the profit & loss than they actually are. This then tends to cause...

The Molossus is a now extinct breed of dogs that are believed to be the ancestors of today’s Mastiff-type dogs. Originally a sheep-herding dog used in ancient Epirus (today parts of Albania and Greece) these vicious and muscular dogs were described by the poet Grattius thus ”...when serious work has come, when bravery must be shown, and the impetuous War-gods calls in the utmost hazard, then you c...

The word “coach”, describing a covered horse-drawn carriage for passengers or mail, is derived from the name of the Hungarian town “Kocs” where the coach is believed to have been invented. Hungarian villages still today hold competitions for “Coachman of the Year” and the coachmen have even found their way in to Hungarian Folklore. In the stories the “Clever Coachman” appears out of the blue durin...

Under Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled from 1522 to 1566, the Ottoman Empire reached its apex, conquering Belgrade and most of Hungary until finally being stopped at the gates of Vienna. The Ottoman fleets dominated the Mediterranean and reached as far the Indian Ocean. The empire also went through a golden age of culture and literature under Suleiman's competent watch. He went against traditio...

Striking at an enemy before they can strike against you is known as ”pre-emptive self-defense” and traditionally two conditions, known as the “Caroline test” need to be fulfilled to justify such an action. The "Caroline" was an American steamboat used to supply settlers rebelling against the British Colonial government in Canada in 1837. American sympathizers provided weapons and food to...

Memories are believed to be stored in two separate parts of the brain, the hippocampus and the amygdala. While normal memories are stores in the hippocampus, the amygdala, which is an emotion center, is where memories created by traumatic events live. If you are the victim of violence and your brain and hippocampus has been damaged, this means you might not be able to clearly remember the person t...

The ”solemn sacrifice” was a sacrificial rite conducted by the Incas on the order of the Incan emperor to celebrate important events in the emperor's life or to prevent natural disasters. It was a human sacrifice done with the intention of sending humanity’s best to join their deities. To ensure that the souls given were pure, children were typically used for this purpose. Until the sacrifice woul...

We had the honor of welcoming the Swedish RPG legend Anders Blixt on the show. Anders has 42 years of experience in the RPG business and is the man behind Drakar och Demoner Expert and a whole heap of fantastic Swedish games. In this interview we talk about the module “The Kin-strife” that came out in 1995 for Middle-earth Roleplaying (MERP). Mattiaz was joined by Andreas Lundström from Tärningen...

We have something special for you today. We have played the short adventure “The distressed husband” from the classic MERP module “The Kin-strife” using the rules from The One Ring by Cubicle 7. "The Kin-strife" is a module about the civil war in Gondor between traditionalists and loyalists that took place about 1600 years before the events in “Lord of the Rings”. “But Valacar far exceed...

Orcus is a god of the underworld in Etruscan mythology. He is often portrayed as a blind, bestial, gigantic, tusk-faced monster who eats human flesh; similar to the Cyclops, and is said to be the punisher of broken oaths. Primarily worshiped in the remote countryside people continued worshiping him well in to the Middle Ages. His connection with the underworld has led to his name being connected w...

At the tyrant Dionysius II of Syracuse’s court there was a courtier named Damocles. According to the story Damocles was flattering the king and telling him how great and fortunate a man he was to have so much authority and magnificence. The king seemed pleased and offered to switch places with Damocles for a day so that he could get a taste of that fortune himself. Damocles accepted and was sat do...

The Order of the Dragon was an order of nobles founded by the king of Hungary, Sigismund von Luxembourg, in 1408. Modeled on the orders from the Crusades, its purpose was to fight the enemies of Christianity in general and the Ottoman Empire in particular. Its members pledged to: “In company with the prelates, barons, and magnates of our kingdom, whom we invite to participate with us in this party...

In Greek mythology the woman Arachne was a very talented weaver, credited with inventing linen cloth and nets and whose son was said to have introduced the use of the spindle in wool manufacturing. These were incredible discoveries and according to the stories, such as the one by the Roman poet Ovid, Arachne was filled with hubris, boasting that her prowess as a weaver exceeded even that of the go...

Here comes the conclusion to our first journey in Fria Ligan's Coriolis and the Third Horizon, as well as the end of this prologue to the campaign "Emissary Lost". Will the crew be able to repair the installations and get the data they need from each of the quadrants? Or will the violent storms in the atmosphere of Xene claim their shuttle and all aboard? "The hull groans from the s...

Join us on a journey to the world of Free League’s Coriolis and space station FS-7, orbiting the gas giant Xene in the Kua system. Hjalmar plays the pilot Leila Hatami and Craig the technician Alam Dania, who are part of a team of researchers contracted to install and oversee an experiment known as the “Jarouma pattern”. They are still blissfully unaware of the roles they will play in events that...

Werewolves are widespread in European folklore, with stories of men turning in to wolves going back to late antiquity. In Western Europe werewolves were often connected with shape-shifting sorcerers and witches who abducted children. During the European witch hunts large numbers of people, especially in France, were accused of being werewolves and burned at the stake for it. In Eastern Europe howe...

In Ezekiel, the throne of God is said to be moved around on wheels: “The four wheels had rims and they had spokes, and their rims were full of eyes round about.” These wheels are called the “Orphanim”. Other texts, such as the first book of Enoch portray these Orphanim as a class of celestial beings, angels, listed alongside the Seraphim and the Cherubim. They are said to never sleep and guard the...

The story of Prometheus, the champion who stole fire from the gods to give to humanity, is a story about us as a species. It's about our efforts to improve our existence and not accepting things as they are. It's also a tragic story about overreach and unintended consequences for that ambition. The immortal Prometheus is ultimately punished by the gods and bound to a rock. Every day an eagle would...

Zug Island is a man-made island in the river Rouge in the southern part of Detroit. It’s home to a large ironmaking industry with massive blast furnaces. Ore and coal is brought to the island via train and pig iron and coke shipped out. At its peak thousands of people worked there, today only a few hundred, mainly due to automatization and the decline in manufacturing throughout the rust belt. The...

Traducianism is a Christian doctrine about the origins of the soul originally championed by scholars such as Tertullian. It holds that God created Adam’s soul but that all the souls created thereafter are actually generated naturally along with the body and derived from the individual’s parents. This is in opposition to the creationist view on souls which states that God creates each new individua...