Elephant Attack

It might help in your descriptive efforts when running your tabletop roleplaying setting to see an actual Elephant attack as shown on the National Geographic YouTube channel.  Warning: Some of the video is a bit disturbing.

Bannerman Castle

There is an ongoing effort to "stabilize" Bannerman Castle, New York's abandoned military fortress on Pollepel Island.  Read more here!

ICHC 2013

If you are into real world cartography, as well as your tabletop roleplaying game mapping pursuits, take a look at what's in store for attendees of ICHC 2013, The 25th International Conference on the History of Cartography in Helsinki, Finland.  Read more here!

12 Pixar Storytelling Rules Explained With Lego

A short time back, an article was circulating on 22 Pixar Storytelling Rules, and it was a useful read for tabletop roleplaying setting creators.  More recently, an article takes twelve of those ideas and explains them in Lego form.  See more here!

Mapping Realities of Scale

If you're doing some cartography for your tabletop roleplaying setting, you probably have checked out some real world maps along the way.  My attention was recently drawn to an interesting graphic showing the relative size of several real world land masses that I thought might prove interesting to others too.  See more here!

Goliath Tiger Fish

Over on cabinetoffreshwatercuriosities.com, there's a cool article on the Goliath Tiger Fish that can help you add some teeth to the freshwater creatures of your tabletop roleplaying setting.  Read more here!

World's Oldest Map?

There is an article on the telegraph.co.uk website with details about what might be the world's oldest map.  Read more here!

BuzzFeed's Fifteen Minor Characters We Fell In Love With

There might be a few lessons to learn for tabletop roleplaying settings and the characters that inhabit them in BuzzFeed's recent article titled "Fifteen Minor Characters We Fell In Love With."  Read more here!

Mexico Whale Shark Research

Over on the DeepSeaNews.com website, check out the latest report from a Mexico Whale Shark Research team.  Lots of inspiration for populating the undersea world in a tabletop roleplaying setting.  Read more here!

Hoard of gold coins found at Israel Crusades site

From Reuters, "Hoard of gold coins found at Israel Crusades site."  Read more here!

Fishing Bat vs. Catfish

Not often enough does a setting show off what happens when creatures attack one another.  This can be a great way to throw a tougher creature at an adventuring group, in that if they stumble across a battle between creature-rivals, the surviving creature can have been injured and pose less of a threat if the party then takes it on.  Over on the National Geographic YouTube channel is a cool video called "Fishing Bat vs. Catfish."  Enjoy!

Siberian Bear-Hunting Suit

A recent article on the io9.com website highlights a Siberian bear-hunting suit that any tabletop roleplaying game NPC might be apt to sport, if they were insane and hunting bears!  Read more here.

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England Author Interview

The author of The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, Ian Mortimer, has been interviewed on the spiegel.de website.  If you are unfamiliar with this book and you run a Medieval Fantasy tabletop roleplaying setting, you should give it a look.  Read the interview here and check out this book blurb-

A time machine has just transported you back to the fourteenth century. What do you see? How do you dress? How do you earn a living and how much are you paid? What sort of food will you be offered by a peasant or a monk or a lord? And more important, where will you stay?

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England is not your typical look at a historical period. This radical new approach shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. All facets of everyday life in this fascinating period are revealed, from the horrors of the plague and war to the ridiculous excesses of roasted larks and medieval haute couture.

The Acid Plains of Dallol

I recently saw a picture on Facebook of the acid pools around Dallol volcano.  Add this little bit to a tabletop roleplaying game setting and watch as the players quake.  Read more here!

Whirlpools in your Setting

If you think you might like to add a whirlpool to the waters of your tabletop roleplaying game setting, check out Old Sow!  Read more here.

Blood and Snake Bites

There is a cool video over on the frangancemad YouTube channel showing what happens when snake venom and blood come together.  Enjoy!

National Gallery of Canada Architecture

The National Gallery of Canada has some amazing architecture that is well worth exploring whether in person or through their website or elsewhere on the Internet.  Read more here!

Ottoman paintings but with SciFi

A new article on io9.com shows off some re-imaginings of Ottoman paintings but with SciFi themed elements  inserted.  Great fun if you're trying to come up with some unusual setting features for a time travel scenario.  Read more here!

Bizarre Blind Cave Creatures

A recent National Geographic YouTube channel video highlights "Bizarre Blind Cave Creatures" which are of great use to anyone running a tabletop roleplaying setting with underworld scenarios.  Enjoy!

Cornelis Drebbel's Submersible

Check out this inventive fellow, Cornelis Drebbel, and see if someone like him (and his submersible) can play a role in your next tabletop roleplaying setting,  Read more here!

Neptune Hunched

The portion of the coast of the Italian Riviera known as Cinque Terre includes a rather magnificent statue of Neptune overlooking the harbor that is sure to inspire an adventure or three.  Read more here!

Krak des Chevaliers - The Anatomy of a Castle

There is some excellent detail to be found on a castle in Syria that dates back to the crusades and is still relatively intact.  Check out more information on the Krak des Chevaliers here!

Giant Slug Shower

Over on io9.com, they've pointed toward an interesting YouTube video of how a Giant African Snail enjoys a cool shower of water from a tap.  Check out its movements as a guide toward portraying one in a tabletop roleplaying game (and make your snail fifty times larger!)  Enjoy!

Saber-Toothed Squirrel

On the National Geographic website, details are reported of an archaeological find of considerable importance, a saber-toothed squirrel skull further confirming that some early mammals walked with dinosaurs.  Read more here!

Tree on a Rock

There is an image on Facebook that cries out to be used in a tabletop roleplaying setting for an adventure location.  Check it out here!

Cold Close Call

Dealing with weather conditions in cold climes is merely one part of the danger adventurers will face.  Regular terrain gets less regular, new formations can come into being, and everything can exist in places where without ice there aren't even places.  Take a look at this photo from Alaska showing a glacial cave structure and see if it sparks an adventure idea for you.  Then watch the video that follows highlighting a near mishap while climbing in what are actually fairly calm conditions for a frigid climate.  Enjoy!

From http://onebigphoto.com/inside-glacier-cave-in-alaska/

Colugo ("Flying Lemur") POV Camera

National Geographic has a recent video with camera footage from the back of a Colugo, a sort of flying lemur, that gives a different perspective on what one might need to expect when using unusual mounts in a tabletop roleplaying game.  Enjoy!

Simple Secret Door

Ever get tired of describing a secret door as a "nice roll?"  Well, when someone does roll well perhaps you can use this bookshelf design as a way to simply describe just how that secret door happens to work.  Read more here!

Hornets vs Bees

There is an impressive video on YouTube, taken from National Geographics, showing how "Giant Japanese hornets slaughter (a) European honeybee hive."  Check it out!

House Hippos

Although this is meant to be a PSA to promote critical thinking, it's just too cool of a concept not to include in some tabletop roleplaying game (particularly a kids game).  Enjoy!

Gobi Desert Oasis

There's a beautiful image of an oasis in the Gobi Desert I discovered on Facebook that is sure to inspire a great tabletop roleplaying scenario or two.  Check it out here!