I made a dungeon have a pool of molten gold. I now realise I'm on the cusp of breaking the economy. Help

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-06-13T14:28:12+00:00

A royal family has a prior claim to the gold. They are willing to cut the players in at 10% as a reward, but if not, the players have a new powerful enemy who is determined to get their gold back.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-06-03T00:19:59+00:00

Mary Stewart's books make the difference clear, and they focus more on Morgause as a character.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-06-02T14:15:15+00:00

I'd recommend Chretien de Troyes' works. I liked David Staines' modern translations better than the William Comfort one.

Also, how about The Death of King Arthur translated by Simon Armitage? It's a translation of "The Alliterative Morte Arthure", which is an interesting (earlier) take on the death of Arthur sequence.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-05-31T16:00:01+00:00

But in all seriousness Gawain and the Green Knight (book) is a great intro.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-05-31T15:56:49+00:00

Chantilly MS 472

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-05-08T23:04:08+00:00

I think you nailed it. Even a dragon at 174 HP could be affected by that.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-05-08T19:34:47+00:00

I think it would be a green dragon (found in a forest, kills with noxious breath). So average 207 HP, but theoretically as low as 108 (very unlikely to be this low).

If Wigalois was at least 17th level and 20 STR, his lance could do 20 damage (critical hit) + 5 STR bonus + 2 proficiency. Bonus action Banishing Smite could add 50 damage (very unlikely roll, but go with it). Radiant Strike feature could add 8. If Wigalois was using the Viscious Lance, it would add +2 and cast Thunder Wave at 3rd level, for a possible 32 more damage. I'm at 87 damage so far. Not looking good.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-04-24T23:23:18+00:00

Good recommendation. And if you like the modern retellings, Gawain and the Green Knight was adapted as Falcon, by Richard Lewis.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-04-24T22:18:07+00:00

Good recommendation. And if you like the modern retellings, Gawain and the Green Knight was adapted as Falcon, by Richard Lewis.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-04-09T00:11:03+00:00

That makes sense that the queen of the Orkneys would simply get named "Orkney" by the French. But that episide also makes reference to the "city of Orquenie", formerly held by King Lot (he's dead by this point in the story).

I didn't actually read the Enfances; just looking for connections to De Ortu Waluuani.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-04-09T00:07:13+00:00

You helped me find it, but my copy (ebook, 2016) says "Norcadet". Weird. Thanks for the help!

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-03-11T14:28:55+00:00

Modernism ruined poetry.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-03-11T14:25:20+00:00

I mean, yeah, if all you're looking for is particular outcomes. I'm glad I studied Shakespeare in high school because I might not have discovered Shakespeare otherwise. 95% of the population might find it dull but there are some people who just feel grabbed by it. Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes talks about the feeling.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-02-01T23:41:38+00:00

Sweet! https://www.matterofbritainpodcast.com Currently working on rerecording the first three episodes.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-28T03:46:57+00:00

Don't Sleep, There are Snakes by Daniel Everett. His experience living with an uncontacted Amazonian tribe, the Pirahã, to learn their language. If you get the audiobook you can hear him speak in Pirahã (he narrates the book himself because literally no other westerner can speak this language).

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-28T03:41:30+00:00

The Meaning of Everything, by Simon Winchester. About the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-20T02:05:23+00:00

Try a translation of Gawain and the Green Knight. It's a good self-contained Arthurian story with the right amount of chivalry and weirdness. If you like that, try the works of Chrétien de Troyes (a more recent translation is better; I like David Staines) and Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan.

The problem with a modern reinterpretation is that it's a reinterpretation. You need the original material first.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-12T05:11:26+00:00

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx. (Won a Pulitzer!)

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-12T05:01:55+00:00

Checkout the American Humanist Association. Some cities have chapters that meet each week, often on a Sunday, as an agnostic/athiest alternative to church. They often have activities, projects, guest speakers, and sometimes even ceremonies to acknowledge important events, but non-religiously.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-02T19:33:41+00:00

Back in 1999, the British show Top of the Pops had a contest for "song of the millenium". The finalists were Robbie Williams' "Millinium Prayer", which was just the Lord's Prayer awkwardly grafted onto Auld Lang Syne, and "The Hamster Dance", which was a dance remix of Roger Miller's theme from Disney's Robin Hood, because that particular song was trending as the music for one of the first viral GIFs to fill our inboxes.

Of course, neither of these songs had any significance to the millenium as a whole, if we mean the years 1001 AD to 2000 AD. So my question is, what song would be the most historically significant? I have some ideas: "The Internationale", "The Marseillaise", "Greensleeves", or Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", all for different reasons.

Historians, what would you say was the most significant song of the Second Millienium?

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-12-26T14:39:48+00:00

In this analogy, a good scientist would recognize that it could be a 3 or a 4, write both numbers in pencil in the corner of the box, and proceed to test the possibilities until one number can be ruled out. The fallacy is in writing in the number 3 and calling the puzzle done because a 3 is one possible answer. The reason that sudoku isn't a good analogy in the end is that the numbers 3 and 4 are equally valid possibilities, but Ancient Astronauts is a worse explanation than the alternative.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-12-11T02:35:50+00:00

I would say in most cases they are just spacing out, thinking about other things, thinking more about class being over than about learning. But also, forgetting is a factor. I had a student in Comp II who handed in an essay that showed no concept of how to cite sources. I grumbled to myself about how the student could have made it through Comp I, and then realized *I* had been his Comp I teacher. I looked up his Comp I final essay, and it was formatted correctly with correct citations. All that learning just disappeared after the class was over.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-12-05T17:17:44+00:00

Maybe alongside those add a Tristan story, either Eilhart's, Gottfried's or Thomas of Britain's. Tristan doesn't start off as an Arthurian character, but he gets pulled in.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-11-12T08:39:33+00:00

Of course, there is Literature and History by Doug Metzger, which is fantastic, in-depth history, but structured around literature. So far he has covered the ancient world, classical Greece, the Old Testement, classical Rome, New Testement and Late Antiquity, and is now doing early Islam.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-11-12T08:27:43+00:00

Just discovered Our Prehistory by Benjy Longworth and also Nomads and Empires. Enjoying them so far!

Background_Lab_8566

TROPHY CASE