Worldbuilding with World Anvil
World Anvil is a worldbuilding tool for Authors,
Storytellers and worldbuilding lovers. This is a list of its features and our dreams and hopes.
Multilayered RPG maps. Less messy, more informative
How to create multilayered rpg maps for your world building and rpg campaigns that are clean and easy to use across any setting
Lands of Lords Review, the best Medieval MMO Strategy/RPG Sandbox to date
Lands of Lords – you’ll be hooked I remember a time when the best games around were Utopia, Earth 2025, Space Merchant, Archmage and Archspace. They were all browser-based games, and attracted thousands of players around the world to enjoy creating...
The Rotunda & Repurposing Buildings
Cornerstone buildings Every major city has structure or two which characterizes it. These buildings may be religious, military or civic but have one thing in common – they were built to inspire and bring awe to citizens and travellers alike. It stands to reason...
Killing and Luting: A Bard’s Life
There’s something we need to address. Type ‘bard’ into any search engine, and all the pictures will be of adventurers decked out with instruments. 90% of those (I counted, more or less) are lutes. Let me tell you something, as a musician, about...
Medieval workday and working hours
Understanding the medieval workday We are taught to believe that our current 40 hours workday is much better than the 19th century 80 hour weeks which, acco
Celebrating 50 Articles with a Worldbuilding/RPG Raffle!
We are celebrating 50 Posts, I know it might not sound like a huge number, but for us, it was a milestone! We wanted to thank you for your support and love so we are giving a away some of our favourite books and goodies we gathered in our travels! Thank you so much,...
Medieval Guilds and Craftsmen
A quick overview of the medieval guilds system, its importance to the formation of medieval society, the benefits that their members enjoyed and its fall.
Medieval Inn and Tavern
At some point in every medieval fantasy movie or game, the heroes end up to an inn or tavern to rest their bones, fill their bellies with ale, and gorge on ridiculous amounts of food. In this article, I’m going to discuss the history of the medieval inn...
Medieval Gambling Games: Dice & Street Games
Medieval gambling, the favourite pastime There’s no doubt that gambling – on all sorts of games – was in the heart of a great many medieval lives. Even if you weren’t playing yourself, most of the people you knew were. Medieval gambling games,...
Medieval Banking and Currency
Money in Medieval Europe With the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe emerged into the Dark Ages with dozens (if not hundreds) of nations, each trying to rise to power. Soon Europe was flooded with merchants travelling between cities to provide commodities from across...
Medieval water infrastructure and tools
The importance of medieval water works Water is one of the most important resources for any civilisation. Without it nothing can live, grow, or stay healthy. When looking at historical geopolitical maps we can draw a clear correlation between i) the presence of fresh...
Wednesday Writing Hook #12 Sunken Cities
Wednesday Writing HookSure Hump-Day can suck, but we’ve decided to turn it into a *Hooray-Day* by releasing a new writing hook every week! Each edition will feature an image of an artefact, a complementary writing hook, and a little about its historical provenance,...
Rocket Cats in Medieval Siege Warfare
Yes, you’ve read it right – rocket cats. Or birds, it seems. This was an idea explored in the treatise of the “Feuer Buech” (1584) manuscript as a form of siege warfare weapon. Rocket cats! As per the manuscript, the idea was to strap bags of early...
Isometric map template and mini-tutorial
A free paper template pack for isometric map making and a very quick tutorial with hints and tips on isometric map making.
Wednesday Writing Hook #11 The Antikythera Mechanism
Wednesday Writing HookSure Hump-Day can suck, but we’ve decided to turn it into a *Hooray-Day* by releasing a new writing hook every week! Each edition will feature an image of an artefact, a complementary writing hook, and a little about its historical provenance,...
Wednesday Writing Hook #10 The Tomb of the Sunken Skulls
Wednesday Writing HookSure Hump-Day can suck, but we’ve decided to turn it into a *Hooray-Day* by releasing a new writing hook every week! Each edition will feature an image of an artefact, a complementary writing hook, and a little about its historical provenance,...
Worldbuilding Guide Part 2
The second part of a cheatsheet that aims to guide anyone who wants to create their own world through the process of worldbuilding. Discussing the rise of intelligence and the creation of cultures, beliefs history and technology
Wednesday Writing Hook #9 The Summer’s Triumph Tapestry
Wednesday Writing HookSure Hump-Day can suck, but we’ve decided to turn it into a *Hooray-Day* by releasing a new writing hook every week! Each edition will feature an image of an artefact, a complementary writing hook, and a little about its historical provenance,...
Water in the middle ages and the beer controversy
Did medieval people drink beer instead of water? Ok, let’s first get this out of the way. Did they? The answer is no. Water was mostly clean, and readily available. In fact, medieval settlements, like those in antiquity, were usually built close to sources of...
Wednesday Writing Hook #8 The Baghdad Battery
Wednesday Writing HookSure Hump-Day can suck, but we’ve decided to turn it into a *Hooray-Day* by releasing a new writing hook every week! Each edition will feature an image of an artefact, a complementary writing hook, and a little about its historical provenance,...
Worldbuilding Guide Part 1
The first part of a cheatsheet that aims to guide anyone who wants to create their own world through the process of world building. Discussing the genesis of the world all the way to the emergence of life
Wednesday Writing Hook #7: The Voynich manuscript
Wednesday Writing HookSure Hump-Day can suck, but we’ve decided to turn it into a *Hooray-Day* by releasing a new writing hook every week! Each edition will feature an image of an artefact, a complementary writing hook, and a little about its historical provenance,...
Wednesday Writing Hook #6: The Werewolf of Bedburg
Wednesday Writing HookSure Hump-Day can suck, but we’ve decided to turn it into a *Hooray-Day* by releasing a new writing hook every week! Each edition will feature an image of an artefact, a complementary writing hook, and a little about its historical provenance,...
Wednesday Writing Hook #5: The Unicorn Defends Itself
Lost Kingdom’s new series offers a Writing Hook each week, based on an historical artefact, aimed at RPG Storytellers and story writers. This week we look to the secrets of a tapestry and a mythical beast
Wednesday Writing Hook #4: The Goblin Priest
Lost Kingdom’s new series offers a Writing Hook each week, based on an historical artefact, aimed at RPG Storytellers and story writers. This week we look at the importance of souvenirs
Wednesday Writing Hook #3: The Lady’s Mirror
Lost Kingdom’s new series offers a Writing Hook each week, based on an historical artefact, aimed at RPG Storytellers and story writers. This week we look to the mysteries of
Let’s Design a Medieval Village: The Fishing Village of Fulepet
The Medieval Fishing Village of Fulapet Fulepet is a (fictional) medieval fishing village, designed to provide a historically-informed reference. We hope to give writers, and role-playing games storytellers and players, a better understanding of how a medieval fishing...
Wednesday Writing Hook #2: The Poisoned Book
Lost Kingdom’s new series offers a Writing Hook each week, based on an historical artefact, aimed at RPG Storytellers and story writers. This week we look to the secrets a book can hold
Unusual Medieval Professions
An article about unusual medieval professions, with some hooks and tips for using them in your own stories and writing. Part 1 of a Lost Kingdom Series, great for writers, storytellers, RPG or DnD players.
Wednesday Writing Hook #1: The Mysterious Box
Lost Kingdom’s new series offers a Writing Hook each week, based on an historical artefact, aimed at RPG Storytellers and story writers
Which arm is my Polearm?!
A comprehensive list of the most common polearms used throughout the ancient, medieval and renaissance eras with details of their usage and specifications.
Derp lions and Malta!
Hi all! Here’s our first attempt at a Vlog post, and we even managed an on-site shooting in…MALTA! We’re now back and revitalised, and already working out how to make the next one even better. Leave any improvement suggestions in the comments below, and...
Status symbols through the ages and their importance in culture
Throughout history, status symbols – often bizarre ones – have cropped up in art, texts, and archaeological finds, and have puzzled people from later cultures. As in nature, humans are driven by biological imperative (as well as personal desire) to show themselves as the best, and to advance their authority and power. Humans have found a wide variety of ways to display their “superiority” within a community, ranging from fancy dressing, to the erection of wondrous structures, to the acquisition of rare commodities. Enter the status symbol.
Fantasy world economics 101: Labour and wages
Fantasy kingdom economics: A study on the wages of craftsmen and laborers in a fantasy world economy and the way they can be estimated.
Fantasy world economics 101: Introduction
An introduction to fantasy world economics and an examination of the exchange of coinage and the bread standard
Surface area of an irregular shape in Photoshop
A simple trick to help you calculate the surface area of a location using Photoshop. Really handy for map makers and worldbuilders.
Medieval village buildings: Cottager’s cottage
The first building of the “Let’s design a village” is here. We are starting with the most humble of buildings. The cottage of a cottager, the lowest of the lows, right at the bottom of the feudal pyramid.
Medieval Education in Europe: A force of freedom and submission
Medieval Education could be a force for freedom or submission. In this article we discuss the educational institutions of grammar school, university and private tuition. We also examine the differing education of men of women, and of serfs and noblemen, and explore the link between the church and education.
Farming year in medieval times or, farmer’s odyssey during the Middle ages
The farming year in medieval times, the tasks that the serfs had to undertake and the tools they had to use for farming.
Medieval tools in agriculture
A review of medieval tools like the axe, flail, harrow, scythe, plough (ard), heavy plough and all others medieval villagers used.
Goodbye to the Elephants
Our goodbye to a man who has been a mentor, a friend, a guide and a source of many tears and laughter
Was king Arthur from Glasgow, Scotland?
A new claim that King Arthur might be from Glasgow Scotland has be raised by Dr Andrew Breeze of the University of Pabloma
Let’s design a medieval village: Mapping Scales and Size Ratios
This article aims to establish the rules that will govern the creation of assets for the “Let’s design a medieval fantasy village’ series. We are discussing the sizes and scales as well as printing of all assets.
Magic: The fifth fundamental force
A pseudo-scientific take on the existence and nature of magic in a medieval fantasy world.
The Porcelain Argument: How would the existence of magic affect technological advancement?
Magic versus Technology and how the existence of magic would affect technological progress in a world that magic exists
Let’s design a medieval village: Introduction
Let’s design a Medieval village is a project which aims to create a comprehensive guide about everything you need to know about creating a medieval village and the artwork that you can use to build your own villages.
The life of a villager during the Middle Ages
A quick look at the everyday lives of medieval peasants, their homes and the conditions in which they lived and worked.
Medieval land measuring units
Measuring units during the medieval times were a mess, lack of standardisation, distance and languages barriers was just the start. This article is trying to give you a rough understanding of how land was separated and measured for production and taxation purposes during the medieval times in England (as per Doomsday book)
Social stratification of a Feudal kingdom (Part 4): The Family Royal
Closing our four part series in medieval social stratification we talk about the top of the echelon, the royal family and those around them.
Currently Reading
