Wikipedia rabbit holes

Earlier this year I published two strange fantasy zines, Wiki Articles Are Wizards [citation needed] and its companion volume, 30 Wicked Wizards.

 

In researching and playtesting for these zines, I ended up going down dozens of Wikipedia rabbit holes. I've selected more than fifty articles that are great in their own right and/or lead to all sorts of interesting information if you start poking around.

Some of them would translate into very interesting fantasy ideas. (Giant virus! Unstoppable metal-eating plague! Artefacts powered by magic smoke!) They might make useful jumping-off points for your next game.

For your perusal, a big list of links:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_horses_are_the_same_color
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_death_triangle
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_bark_manuscript
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_curse
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Imaginary_Beings
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ingenious_Devices
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_disease
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_pearl
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobog_and_Belobog
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_on_a_really_big_board
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damned_yellow_composite
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-sea_gigantism
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_underground_city
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_trees
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_latrine_disaster
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execration_texts
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_door
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fierce-fire_Oil_Cabinet
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellant_confraternities
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_aquarium
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_virus
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffito_of_Esmet-Akhom
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houmuwu_ding
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteron_Proteron_Club
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaymakli_underground_city
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linsey-woolsey
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_discredited_substances
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_non-water_floods
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_obsolete_occupations
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_gemstones
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_smoke
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead_of_poetry
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merseburg_charms
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_people
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelisk_ship
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-armed_versus_one-legged_cricket
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outburst_flood
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pace_count_beads
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascaline
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_of_inaccessibility
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_plant
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloth_bear_of_Mysore
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_silkworm_eggs_into_the_Roman_Empire
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_king
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toadstone
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_of_Bologna
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_cat
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunamis_in_lakes
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_louse
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Game
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worshipful_Company_of_Tax_Advisers

Enjoy!

Wiki Articles Are Wizards!

Wizards are bizarre uniquities who carve their own paths through reality like rogue stars.

Wiki Articles Are Wizards [citation needed] is my new zine for crafting these characters out of wiki articles, then pitting them against each other in a wizard-off!

To get a thematically consistent weird wizard with spooky powers and an appropriately unpleasant set of personality traits, you'll want to use procedural generation rather than strictly random generation. This small book gives you a comprehensive method for doing that, using wiki articles as the inspirational material, and has all sorts of bonus wizard-lore to boot.

🧙 Available today!

 

And I'm publishing a companion piece: a collection of troublesome characters, 30 Wicked Wizards!

From Miarthetrolut the Regulator (who meddles with fish kinematics) to Sthogar the Ambitious (and his reanimated giant spiders)!

The thirty wizards and archwizards in this zine-style book are all made using the Wiki Articles Are Wizards rules, all laid out in a splattery OSR style, and all very weird and wicked.

🧙 Also available today!

 

As well as print copies, you can get a digital edition of either zine!

Are you interested in both? Hey! You can grab the PDF bundle!

 

Craft wizards out of Wiki articles

The Kickstarter campaign for my weird 2025 Zine Quest contribution is wrapping up, and I'm blown away with the level of support.

Wiki Articles Are Wizards [citation needed] is mostly about making bizarre wizards from wiki articles and showing them off in duels. In this note which I'm cross-posting from a Kickstarter update, I'll show you how it works.

Step one: Find an article.

Any decently long article with descriptive bits will do. Let’s choose the Wikipedia article on ‘puzzles’.

Step two: Generate some wizard aspects.

Amongst the zine's many tables, some (pages 10–17) give you templates which turn wiki article content into wizard features. Choose a template, then fill in its blanks by picking something out of the article.

For example, sometimes you'll be asked to use a little bit of description from the article, turning it into an activity, descriptor, or thingummy. Other times you'll compress and mangle names from the article’s references into a fantastic name. (See page 8 for more info!)

We'll pick out some descriptive phrases from our chosen article on puzzles: ‘riddle of the Sphinx’, ‘hangman’, ‘missing square’, ‘used the resulting pieces as an aid for teaching’, ‘16th century’. We turn them into wizard traits:

• Kangdell the Sphinx’s Hangman was cast down into this world from the Great Dreaming sixteen centuries ago. From head to toe, his body is missing squares; he uses the pieces as an aid for teaching.

Note that 'Kangdell' is a mangled name from the article's reference section.

Then we can pick out some more content from the wiki article and use it to construct more traits: ‘the Maze of Games’, ‘the World’s Biggest Puzzle’, ‘put pieces together (or take them apart)’

• They call his lair the Maze of Games. His minions are automata which put pieces together (and take things apart) without cease. The work currently open on his lectern is titled: The World’s Biggest Puzzle.

Pages 18–21 are full of even more tables, to give our wizard some personality descriptors. We use these by choosing the first and last letter of the article title, which in our example are the P and S from ‘puzzles’. Add some random rolls for the relevant tables and we find that Kangdell is 'particularly proud', and 'somewhat spiteful'.

We round it out with a few more traits, in particular merging a few categories from the article into his research interests: ‘requiring strict adherence to a particular kind of order’, ‘Category: List of impossible puzzles’, ‘Category: List of puzzle types’, ‘Category: Mechanical disentanglement’

• People find Kangdell the Sphinx’s Hangman to be particularly proud and somewhat spiteful. He requires strict adherence to his particular kind of order. He amuses himself by disentangling types of impossible puzzles.

Step three: Create spells, defences, and artefacts.

Now that we know what Kangdell is like and have a sense of his 'theme', we create his magical arsenal from article content, using some simple guidelines for spell names (pages 22–23). We'll create three spells, three defences, and three artefacts.

Picking some descriptive content out from the wiki article and turning them into spell names: ‘becoming’, ‘hidden object’, ‘the size of a sand grain’, ‘sawed around’, ‘many riddles’.

Three powerful spells Kangdell knows:

• Swilsnor’s Hidden Saw
• Spoerork’s Many Riddles
• Become The Size Of A Sand Grain

Then picking out some article content that sounds more defensive or obscuring: ‘World Cube’, ‘three cups’, ‘unite the elements’, ‘enigmatology’, ‘disentanglement puzzles’, ‘the outline’.

Three of Kangdell's magical defences:

• Eymaugladoun’s Three Cups of Disentanglement
• Pftpievandal’s Enigmatic Outline
• Uniting of the World Cube’s Elements

Our wizard should also have some magical treasures and objects of power! This article has lots of great possibilities, and I ended up choosing: ‘nine linked-rings’, ‘temple tablets’, ‘cartographer’, ‘a perplexing problem’, ‘folding problem’, ‘advanced device’.

Three artefacts secretly in Kangdell's possession:

• Botesmackar the Cartographer’s Advanced Device
• The Nine Linked Rings of Folding
• The Perplexingly Problematic Temple Tablets

Step four: Pick extra lore and traits.

We can add detail to Kangdell the Sphinx’s Hangman by sprinkling in lore and special powers from the extra tables of Ancillary Wizard Information (Part 6 of the zine). Here are some possibilities:

• Should his staff ever be broken, Kangdell breaks into the same number of pieces (and is mildly inconvenienced as a result).
• He has fragmented memories of four centuries in the jar, bored out of his brain (which was all he was at the time).
• Kangdell wears socks and sandals and carries a little grimoire in his deep-pocketed robe.
• His tower is cuboid, and moves when nobody is watching. Its stones are lined with symbol-inscribed tiles.

There's lots to do with Kangdell!

Our wizard is prone to petty grudges, magical disputes, and ego clashes, and as a result, his cabal will be duelling in the Great Wizard-Off. For information on this and so much more, check out the zine! Available now!

This post was updated in June 2025.

Wiki Articles Are Wizards [citation needed]

Wizards are disquieting, unique, and steeped in magic. This wizard leaves a trail of fungus wherever he goes, and keeps his spells under glass. [1] That one is nine feet tall and orbited by tiny comets. [2] Another has matchboxes full of slithering tongues, which do his talking for him. [1][3][disputed – discuss]

Announcing Wiki Articles Are Wizards [citation needed], a tome of instruction for crafting such twisted sages! [clarify]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/periaptgames/wiki-articles-are-wizards-citation-needed

➡️ Step one: Take any article from Wikipedia, or another wiki

➡️ Step two: Follow some simple rules to transform it into a weird, dangerous wizard

➡️ Step three: Pit your wizards against each other, using a tournament-style mini RPG

➡️ ...Or use them as inspiration for characters or villains [ambiguous] in your own games!

Enjoy a hefty tricolour [4] zine with:

➡️ Rules for creating arsenals of spells and protective amulets! [citation needed]

➡️ The truth about true-names! [5]

➡️ More wizardly lore than you can shake a staff at! [original research?]

➡️ Random tables for wizard anatomy, habitats, peculiarities, and more! [vague]

 

 

Inspired by: Wikipedia deep dives, and wizards from old pulps and comics, GLOG, Discworld, and Dying Earth! [1][2][4]

Follow the Kickstarter to get notified when the campaign begins! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/periaptgames/wiki-articles-are-wizards-citation-needed

Random vs procedural generation for game content

Random generation and procedural generation (which is a little more than 'random generation with the crusts cut off') are powerful tools. As GMs and designers we use them to spark inspiration or to populate a game or setting with interesting content. But we use them, or ought to use them, in different ways.

Here's the difference, as I see it.

Random generation

Roll a dice, get an outcome. Or variants thereof.

Random generation is

👉 Extremely quick
👉 An opportunity to use big random tables, which everyone loves
👉 Useful for inspiration by hitting possibilities you wouldn't have thought of, even if you don't use the actual prescribed results 

But it may also result in content with major dissonances and peculiarities.

I think a little incongruence is good, but generating too much randomly can create a sort of silly homogeneity where everything is dissonant, nothing quite makes sense, and no world elements are linked or correlated except by accident. You get ooh-so-zany slop.

Over-reliance on randomness thus requires work to repair, which can itself be entertaining, but takes time and effort.

For example, suppose you roll a random encounter across multiple tables, and get: [roll] hundreds of ... [roll] skeletons ... dressed as ... [roll] jesters .... and they're [roll] hauling a cartload of ... [roll] scented soap ... through [roll] a desert in bloom.

It's something you wouldn't have thought of, sure. But it's too dissonant to be usable in most settings. You hear it and maybe an inkling of a consistent narrative jumps to mind, but the designer needs to plaster over the gaps, tweaking or adding things, to actually get there.

Zany. Too zany? Image by CDD20, via Pixabay.

Procedural generation

Technically a subtype of random generation, procedural generation uses a more complex function to go from inputs to results. It uses randomness, but has deliberate human design built in to create plausible outcomes.

This takes longer, both in the up-front design work and the use of it for creation.

Procedural generation...

👉 Both uses and creates interlinked/ordered/self-consistent information
👉 Combined human decisions and design with randomness to spark novelty but to constrain it in certain ways
👉 Results (ideally) in more plausible or verisimilitudinous outcomes

Examples include:

👉 Branching tables and subtables
👉 Little bits of pseudocode for dungeon room generation
👉 Features added to a consistent core, like a themed monster which gets appropriate thematic features generated via branching dice tables or if/thens

One Application

I'm currently working on a zine. Its premise is that wizards are powerful, crazed, unique, and have strange features which align with their individual theme. For me, that means procedural generation.

I'm exploring a process of taking a wiki article from, say, Wikipedia and pulling out a bunch of descriptive phrases. From these, you get semi-structured thematically-coherent content. Then you follow some guided rules to apply them to the underlying core, which is 'a creepy and erratic wizard'.

After enough customisation, you have generated yourself a wizard. The random element of procedural generation means your character has features you wouldn't have thought of yourself. The human-guided element means the wizard should be more plausible, or at least thematically consistent, than pure randomness generally achieves.

(More news on the zine as I progress with this idea!)