Empire Builder Kit - History Generator is a rich, system-neutral resource for creating a realm's history or for creating random realm events as your campaign progresses. You make two or more dice rolls per event to find the overall event type and then to drill down into the particulars.

In general, the events are newsworthy items, the main highlights of any given year. These would be front-page items if your setting had newspapers. They're often not on a grand, epic scale, but they're nationwide events more than personal events.

What you don't get is a system for managing factions, economies, politics, or diplomacy, or for creating an integrated chain of events. If you want something akin to Microscope, Dawn of Worlds, or the old CountryCraft system from Dragon Magazine, this isn't it. That's no problem if you're happy with isolated events and if you're willing to handle continuity yourself. For example, suppose the History Generator tells you construction started a few months ago on a new border wall. It's up to you to remember that, decide the impact, and do something with it. If the realm opened a new spice route and you want to know how the new riches affect the realm, that's all on you. All you'll get from the History Generator (in that example) is the knowledge that a new spice route opened up. There's no calculation of how much it's worth, or what sort of spices they are, or what the market conditions are like.

In addition to creating a realm's history, you could use the tool as an adventure seed generator. The PCs try to stop the event from happening, or they try to make sure it does happen despite opposition. Or the event just happened and the PCs deal with the aftermath. Or the PCs get hired by someone who wants to exploit the evolving situation. And so on. An event could also be the colorful backdrop for an otherwise unrelated adventure, or it could stir player interest if you're in a sandbox campaign.

You could use the History Generator for the backstory of a PC, NPC, or special item. You might generate an event and tell a player, "You were there when it happened. Tell us about your special role in that event, and how the effects are still with you today."

Several table results, but not all of them, assume a fantasy setting. You could apply this tool to other genres, with a few tweaks. You could "choose the next entry" or reroll, as needed. You could redo a few tables to skip over the non-applicable elements. You could reinterpret items for your setting, such as having magic become technology instead.

You might want to doctor some tables anyway, especially the main table (Type of Event), to suit the flavor of your campaign or your realm. For example, suppose the realm engages in annual military campaigns. The chance of starting a full-scale war randomly is only 1 in 400 (0.25%). That's 1 in 20 to get the Combat & Military category, then 1 in 20 to get the "War - Start" result from Combat & Military. With 1d4 events per year, you could easily go a century without seeing that "War - Start" result. (Yep, did the probability calculation.)

You might also want to doctor some tables if certain types of events are over the line in your group. Certain outcomes reference sexual assault and child death, for instance.

Obviously, an alternative to doctoring any tables is to just choose the result you want instead of being ruled by dice. Nothing wrong with that. The tables still give you a rich set of menus to pick from.

The text could use a round of editing. There are spelling mistakes (paryilcyar, assainsnations, alchaholic, alcaholohic), convoluted wording, chopped-off sentences, and so on. But it's not enough to make anything unusable.

pretty great resource, and can't beat the price. i enjoyed the detail and didn't notice anything i thought should be accounted for but wasn't. too much detail for most players, but if it's what you're looking for, this is a great choice.