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When I was younger - and much fitter - I would hike with around 40-50lbs, including camping gear: on easy paths (most English footpaths), I would make around 12-15 miles per day, 18 at a push, if it included easy tracks and byways. When I hiked in the Adironacks, or the Baxter State Park, or...

Yes, it was huge. Maybe. Greek names appear in the lists of Bishops after the Bar Kokhba revolt - according to Eusebius - but he was an apologist writing two centuries later, and his agenda should be treated with suspicion. I'm not arguing that pilgrimage was uncommon in antiquity, but rather...

I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I was pointing out they were larger than badgers. Other than Jews returning to the Temple for Passover, Origen is the first example I'm aware of - he went looking for traces of Jesus in the early 3rd century. Constantine's mother, Helena, was the one who really...

To be fair, wolves were very common throughout the British Isles in the Middle Ages - Edward I gave an order for their extermination around 1300, but it took another 400 years for full extirpation There are accounts from the 10th century of literally hundreds of wolfskins being offered in...

Pilgrimages in the Middle Ages must have been a pretty wild ride: entering a liminal space where all kinds of normal societal taboos based on propriety, class and gender fell by the wayside. Secure in the knowledge that your sins - including those performed while on the pilgrimage - would be...

Not sure about "adventures" as they're a bit variable. I've always liked "a number of sessions equal to the level to which you aspire" as a good rule of thumb, so 2 to get from 1st to 2nd, 3 to get from 2nd to 3rd etc. Then again, I've allowed characters to jump 5 levels at once when things...

I agree that this kind of granularity is adequate and preferable, although I'd maybe add an extra category. Light: Gambeson; jack; leather etc. Medium: Short mail byrnie or haubergeon; scale (ancient type); "studded;" "ring;" cuirass (breastplate) only etc. Heavy: Full mail with chausses, coif...

I prefer various conflicting cosmologies and shun any kind of cosmic absolutism.

Well, yes. DC is built on top of a giant elder sign.

However it is done, I would tie it to the sacred geometry of Washington DC. I mean, why else was DC layed out that way, if not to contain powerful mythos items?

Ehh... Ehh.. Ehh.. Ehh.. Ehh... Ehhh...

Parliament is Sovereign, yes. And if the monarch were to reject any law passed by Parliament, then Parliament could simply make a new law, stipulating that the monarch's assent is no longer required. However the armed forces take an oath to the Queen or King - she or he is the...

Not a fan of anything which denies player agency (I'd rather find ways to increase player agency in D&D, which isn't always easy). Don't like deceiving players. Prefer to push events/scenarios forward through dialogue, but if the dice are invoked, let them do their job. If a roll were to...

Here's a map of Ukraine's natural gas reserves:

Ehh...according to the Costs of War Project the US war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan; 46,319 civilians, 69,095 military and police and at least 52,893 opposition fighters. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, the conflict killed 212,191 people. UN Secretary-General Antonio...

Classic Traveller, 0-3. I am even more in awe of it now than I was 40 years ago.

I think there is a danger of straying too far into the political sphere with this thread; I freely admit that some of my comments have been pointlessly whataboutist and inflammatory - for that, I apologize; I was tired and irritable. An explanation, not an excuse. My own experience of arranged...

Unfortunately, many things do; being raised Southern Baptist, having your genitals mutilated as an infant, forcibly being sent to military school. All tragic. All the product of culture. I don't disagree. But the modern Western expectation of marriage is a relatively recent phenomenon. And...