Almanac of the Archaic

Our newest publication, Almanac of the Archaic by Mara Leatonne and Ben Meadows, is now available for sale at DriveThruRPG! Affiliate link here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422278/Almanac-of-the-Archaic?affiliate_id=3594489

It's a miscellany of strange and fascinating pseudo-historical esoterica.

Do you know the difference between an amphisboena and an iaculus? Does your list of "ways to occupy time when becalmed at sea" extend beyond "bemoan ever setting out on the voyage"? Have you heard of unlikely cures for poor health that involve milk baths, suffumigations of herbs, mithridatium, ground mummy, and frying dog hairs?

Almanac of the Archaic takes the bygone beliefs, droll remarks, fanciful factoids, and fragmentary descriptions of selected Late-Medieval and Renaissance European sources, expands them, twists them in strange new ways, and mixes in some complete fabrications. We've then sorted all that content and compiled it into thematic lists which the GM can use as random dice tables, the writer can wander through for inspiration, or the casual reader can pick through with fascination.

Learn insulting names and defamatory epithets, from "gibbet-foot lurker" to "scoffing breechsmear".

Explore town games and pastimes, from "knockpate" to "tip-and-hurl"!

See more rogues than you can shake a stick at - "cursitors", "gallows birds", "glimmerers", "moon cursers", "resurrection men", "priggers of cacklers", and more.

Discover 100 condescending nicknames to give to a familiar cook, including "Cram-gut", "Goodman goosecap", "Loblolly", "Old grizzle", "Slabber-chops", and "Snapgulch".

Up your malison game with imprecations and curses like "March on, ye cannibals, ye blood-thirsty lions!" or "Thou art the devil's own housekeeper!"

Read about feast dishes, from "fresh herrings, full roed" to "soused hogs' feet" and "whole roast flamingos".

Consider some titles of imagined texts...

• The Carnivorous Ape's Paternoster
• The Prophecies of Sophisters, by One Who Looks Far
• Upon the Luminescent Sphere of the Moon: Reflections Upon its Likely Aqueous Nature
• Temple Politics, by a Learned Friar
• The Gallimaufry of the Theologues: A Disdainful Poem in Sixteen Parts

Untangle the hidden meanings of a hundred prophecies...

• "Horned cattle shall protect the flame from death"
• "Plants will be seen left without leaves, and the rivers standing still in their channels"
• "The high walls of great cities will be seen inverted in their ditches"

Get inspired by the contents of abandoned mines, abysses, and deep caverns: black-watered Stygian lakes! Bones of great fishes spilling from the rock walls! Immense heaps of slag glittering with grains of gold! Black dogs which roam incessantly along the cavern ceilings!

And including our personal favourite, twenty unusual kingly deaths, ranging from "bitten by monkey" and "incidental beheading" to "laughed to death" and "trampled by rhinoceros".

Almanac of the Archaic is divided into six sections:

1. Respectable Trades and True Rogues
2. Food, Physick, and Witchcraft
3. Learning and Sagacity
4. All Things Strange and Fantastical
5. Battle, Expedition, and Lordship
6. Farming and the Lives of Peasants

And it's filled with 83 esoteric tables (and a staggering 2500 table entries) in the vein of:

• Contents of a Rogue's Coat Lining and Fob-pockets
• Methods to Reveal Invisible Writings
• Enchanted Items and Objects of Legend
• Serpents and Their Nemeses
• Outlays for Nobly Bedecking a Giant, Per the Exchequer
• Less-Iconic Knights of the Round Table
• Dire Battlefield Injuries

You can get Almanac of the Archaic now at DriveThruRPG by following our affiliate link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422278/Almanac-of-the-Archaic?affiliate_id=3594489