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By coincidence I was looking at the notes I took on Howard's Kull story The Shadow Kingdom just a couple of hours ago. I'd come to the same conclusion as you. I wrote "King Kull is 80% Conan, 20% Philip K Dick character. He has strange moments of existential doubt and identity confusion." One of...

I really enjoyed Temple of Elemental Evil (2003) which was set in Greyhawk. You had to download a patch to get it to work tho, unfortunately.

Quotations about hobbits from Tolkien's private letters. Letter #17 I cannot think of anything more to say about hobbits. Mr Baggins seems to have exhibited so fully both the Took and the Baggins side of their nature. Letter #131 footnote The Hobbits are, of course, really meant to be a...

Quotations about hobbits from Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. The Hobbit There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise...

The nomadic halflings aspect from 3e is in there too. 3.5 PHB: "Halfling clans are nomadic, wandering wherever circumstance and curiosity take them." 3e halflings are also kender-ish in a way that 5e halflings are not: "Halflings prefer trouble to boredom. They are notoriously curious. Relying...

Isn't the adventurousness of some D&D halflings consistent with the traits of the Took family in Tolkien? The Hobbit It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something...

Are you asking what we'd do as GMs -- suggested by "if you run" -- or what we'd expect to encounter as players in a game run by someone else -- suggested by "expect to find"?

One or more villagers to be evil and secretly allied with the monsters.

Alan Williams offers an explanation for this in The Knight and the Blast Furnace (2003) -- As armies increased in size in the early modern period, less fit and able troops had to be employed, and they didn't have the stamina to wear the cheap-but-heavy armour necessary to provide protection from...

Ah, it's German! That never occurred to me before. EDIT: I mean that "kender" derives from "kinder", German for children.

Halflings, as hobbits, are as old as D&D. They first appear in D&D (1974) Book I Men & Magic. Gnomes, as monsters, are also in 1974 D&D. As PCs, they go back to the 1e AD&D PHB (1978). Gnomes and hobbits also appear as troop types in the fantasy supplement for Chainmail (1971), which was written...

It's interesting that genasi are so popular (7th place). They're the only race in the top ten that have never appeared in a PHB.

I'm sure you're right about that. Origins of the Drow in Dungeons & Dragons gives a very thorough account and it puts a lot of emphasis on Moorcock's Melnibonéans (who were, ofc, a metaphor for the British Empire). The article also mentions Thomas Keightley's Fairy Mythology, Poul Anderson's...

Players controlling monsters as their 'playing pieces' is older than D&D. The fantasy supplement for the wargame Chainmail (1971), an important influence on D&D, presents a battle between good (Law) and evil (Chaos) with each side controlled by a player. The forces of Chaos include balrogs...

Your view is supported by this excerpt from The personal cost of war: injuries from firearms and their treatment during the Civil Wars: A key consideration when removing the bullet was to also remove any fragments of clothing that were carried in when the bullet struck. As a musket ball was...

The following excerpt is from 'Manie dangerous woundes and shotts': The physical impact of gunshot wounds in the British Civil Wars: It was therefore much less likely for a bullet to exit the body from a Civil-War firearm than a modern weapon. It was common for the ball to remain within the...

I agree and I'd add that in at least one respect Conan is superhuman -- his ability to find his way in complete darkness. Red Nails: The darkness was absolute... Again Valeria felt Conan’s hand bearing her up and sweeping her along as they raced after their guide. Conan could see in the dark no...

I agree with everything you say in this post. B2 is probably closer to Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions than Moorcock's Eternal Champion series. In both B2 and 3H&3L the Law/Chaos divide is racial and geographic. In both, Chaos surrounds the realm of Law and constantly threatens it...

Williams has this chart detailing the energy needed to defeat armour of a particular thickness: Which can be supplemented with this chart about armour quality: The most powerful handheld musket in the tests conducted in Graz, Austria delivered under 3800 J at close range so, extrapolating, it...