For the last two months or so, I have been busy with a new, fast-growing wiki project - the Arcana Wiki. Now I'm going to tell you what this wiki is - and why you might find it useful for your own games.

The premise of the Arcana Wiki is simple: The real world is a never-ending source of inspiration for role-playing games, as any experienced GM knows. The Wikipedia alone has plenty of information - about other countries, cultures, technologies, religions, and much, much more - to feed a multitude of campaigns and adventures. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia has a drawback, from a gaming perspective: Its editors don't permit users to attach gaming ideas and adventure seeds to its entries.

But the Arcana Wiki does.

Each entry has two main parts: A Basic Information section that lists factual information about the topic - similar to the Wikipedia, but with a stronger focus on the parts interesting to gaming instead of dry statistics and the like which you will often find at the Wikipedia. And a Game and Story Use section where the contributors can add any relevant campaign and adventure ideas they can think of.

Browse the Arcana Wiki a bit - you will soon understand the basic concept. The wiki can be easily edited by anyone (without having to register at the site) by clicking the "edit" button at the bottom of the pages. While the formatting code is slightly different than at the Wikipedia, it shouldn't be difficult to get used to it.

Now that we have established the basics, let's look at some of the highlights:

- Mythological Creatures: From the German Aufhocker and Rat King to the American Cardiff Giant and Snoligoster, this rapidly-expanding section features a wide range of strange critters from around the world.

- Mythological Places: From Area 51 to Ys, this section lists a number of places with myths and legends associated with them. There is also a contest going on for this section - write an entry for it, and win a $25 gift certificate for RPGNow! But move fast - the last day for submissions for the current contest is August 31st (though there will be a new contest in September)!

- Tropes: Closely mirroring the TV Tropes Wiki (a brilliant resource for gamers in its own right), this section lists all sorts of common elements of a multitude of forms of fiction. These can be used to more efficiently convey adventure ideas, or to dissect common elements of various RPG Settings (as I have started to do for Delta Green

- Technology: Ranging from the useful to the bizarre, this section is about technology and inventions throughout the ages. Read about Pykrete (and the related attempts in World War II to build an aircraft carrier out of ice!), Anthropodermic Bibliopegy (the practice of binding books with human skin), or the WASP Injector Knife (a knife that blows up sharks upon impact - what's not to love?).

- Terrain: As anyone who has run any combat encounters knows, the local terrain has a huge impact on the tactical situation. This section is intended to give in-depth information about all sorts of terrain, both natural and artificial.

- Countries: Each countries has interesting adventure locales. Browse through the list of countries to find some of them - and if you know of any towns and cities that might make a great place for adventures (even if it's only for an interesting fight scene), add them to this section!

- And last but not least, the Timeline! This section doesn't just cover great historical events, but all sorts of minor but still fascinating news items. The entry for 2008 alone, for example, lists such interesting items as the Palisades Rathouse or the Southern California Hot Spot. This will make it easy for those running modern-day campaigns to have a steady supply of news and twists for their adventures.

I hope I've been able to show you how useful this project can be for gamers - and I hope I will see some of you over there as contributors in the future!