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My group and I started with the premise that the setting is a medievalistic fantasy world, so assuming things like dragons existing is considered fair game.

For me, it's whatever the players choose to play and whatever monsters I roll up as random encounters. For example, in my current game, the PCs are a group of humans with an elf and a tiefling. So far, they've encountered halflings, large spiders, other humans, and orcs, so we know those species...

This post is to share the current state of some ongoing light research I've been doing into some of the more common peoples of fantasy and folklore. For some time now, I've had an ongoing project to identify and pin down some of the real-world equivalents of certain setting elements of JRR...

Mario Joseph, prominent Haitian human rights lawyer, has died in a car accident at the age of 62.

German expressionist cinema: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), dir. Robert Wiene Nosferatu (1922), dir. F. W. Murnau Metropolis (1927), dir. Fritz Lang

Yup, it's given me some great insight into LotR, D&D, and fantasy in general. I also really enjoyed hearing the voice of this rather curious individual from the sixteenth century. This wasn't published during his lifetime, so I imagine he wrote it just to put his thoughts down on the subject.

I'm reading A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits by Paracelsus.

Robert McChesney, co-founder of the advocacy group Free Press and a tireless defender of media and democracy, has died at the age of 72.

::Yes, speak with Thane Arnak,:: Bible continues, ::and let him know the Clouds have indeed abandoned the alliansk. I bear the giant-slaying sword Waythe, the Chief-killer, as a token from their Prinsk this is so.:: Bible briefly displays the sword to the giants as proof. ::And although I'd...

Seventeen-year-old Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad, the first Palestinian child to die while detained by Israel, has died in an Israeli prison.

Hossam Shabat, noted Al Jazeera journalist, was killed Monday by an Israeli strike on Beit Lahia.

Gnomes is about the Kabouter of Dutch folklore, a different creature from Paracelsus's gnome which was derived from the German Bergmännlein or Kobel. The English translation of the book translates Kabouter as gnome, but I think it might have been more accurate to use hob or brownie. As in the...

Yes, which further reinforces the value of knowing a variety of languages. I recently revised my encounter procedure for my 5E game by reexamining the relevant rules from OD&D and AD&D, and in the resulting system not having a shared language to use (ETA: or being able to communicate in some...

Common is a regional language. From Dungeons & Dragons (1974), Vol. 1, p. 12: LANGUAGES: The “common tongue” spoken throughout the “continent” is known by most humans. All other creatures and monsters which can speak have their own language, although some (20%) also know the common one. From...

I agree. @Manbearcat, you are on fire today!

Bible shoulders Waythe and looks up at the stone giant. ::I propose the giank raids cease and desisk,:: she says boldly, ::and the gianks enter into good faith negoshkiations with a represen'akive of the smalls, appointed by Lord Falldur, and find an amicable reskolution so that everyone can...

I'm not widely read in 20th century or any other era of fantasy, but, when I run D&D, I try to maintain a certain amount of fidelity to what I perceive as the spirit of the original game coupled with some of my own aesthetic preferences. So my personal Appendix N looks like a truncated version...

Savage Steve Holland: Better Off Dead (1985) One Crazy Summer (1986) How I Got into College (1989)

It says "random location", so you must randomize! At the same time, astral travel is at the speed of thought (travel anywhere takes a "day" unless a psychic wind is encountered), so any location is merely flavor/color. What matters is what might be encountered nearby. Nevertheless, for flavor's...

Ah, okay. It looks like I might have picked that up from Robert Foster.