Chinese inspried monsters

Olive

Explorer
Hey all,

I've decided to have a D&D campaign start in a mythical China and while I'm comfortable with some plot ideas and human enemies and the like I'm struggling a little for non-human adversaries. I've got the OA book but most of the monsters are Japanese inspired.

Any good lists? Wikipedia didn't have much. I've got Fox Spirit people, hopping vampires and ghosts but very little else...
 

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smootrk

First Post
Foo-Lions, Celestial Dragons, Ghosts/Spirits, Crazy Hermits (kung-fu masters).

Lo Pan, Rain, Thunder, & Lightning.
 

Korgoth

First Post
Mu Shu Orc?

Sorry. :D

How about a character like Zhu Bajie (The Pig of the Eight Prohibitions). He's a man-pig with a mane of steel who fights with an iron rake. He was once a Field Marshal of Heaven but was banished due to his flirtations toward the moon goddess.
 


Herobizkit

Adventurer
These aren't terribly accurate, but...

IMO, Dragonball Z is more Chinese- than Japanese-inspired. Lots of weirdness abounds there.

Also, Saiyuki: Journey West is a Playstation (PSX) game that is a mostly accurate re-telling of the famous Journey, chock full of Chinese mythology. Head on over to www.gamefaqs.com and do some research into the plot, perhaps.

Oh yes. And Avatar: Last of the Airbenders is a cartoon that's all about the Chinese insipiration, especially the elements and magical powers (although the series uses the 4 western elements rather than the traditional 5 in china: Wood, Metal, Air, Water, Fire). Heck, even Shaolin Showdown has magic items all through it.
 
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Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
Korgoth said:
Mu Shu Orc?

Sorry. :D

How about a character like Zhu Bajie (The Pig of the Eight Prohibitions). He's a man-pig with a mane of steel who fights with an iron rake. He was once a Field Marshal of Heaven but was banished due to his flirtations toward the moon goddess.

I had a Fiendish Half-orc barbarian PC named (and based on) Chu Pa-Chieh (Zhu Bajie) aka Pigsy (from Monkey Magic fame)

Anyway most Japanese monsters have Chinese equivalents (slightly different but inspiration enough), Ogre Magi are also a chinese inspired monster
 

jdrakeh

Front Range Warlock
The goblin spider comes to mind. IIRC, it's a ghostly trapdoor spider that lives underground and eats unsuspecting victims by throwing its voice and casting illusions to lure them into its lair. It has been a while since I've done anythign with Chinese myth. Also, there are rolang (Tibetan zombies effectively trapped here due to bad karma). Both of these seem like good fits for such a setting.

Oh, and please make this setting available in some kind of print-friendly form (in fact, if you ever compile it as a PDF, let me know and I'll host it at my site for you).
 

Huw

First Post
Oni are appropriate. The Japanese got them from Chinese mythology anyway. The Chinese term "Gui" is a generic term for monster.

Apart from them, there're the usual suspects: dragon (Long), phoenix (Fenghuang) and unicorn (Qilin) plus a whole host of animal spirits and ghosts.
 

In regards to d20 supplements, Jade Dragons and Hungry Ghosts, a monster book by Green Ronin, contains quite a few chinese creatures. Unfortunately, it is a 3.0E book. There's also quite a few monsters in Dragon Fist that you can adapt, but the system is an AD&D variant.

For more literary sources, I would recommend reading Creation of the Gods, Journey to the West and A Chinese Bestiary. All three books portray a number of formidable foes that can be drawn upon for inspiration.

From those texts, you will find that the majority of creatures in the Chinese mythos are either dragons (virtually forces of nature, the most commonly depicted one, Ao(?), is a king who lives at the bottom of the sea with a court of aquatic creatures serving him; also, thier daughters often fall for mortals), shapechangers (often old enlightened animals such as Sun Wukong but also men like Erlang), undead (ghosts, vampires, and zombies being the most common), demons and gods (pretty much all of the outsiders could fit in this category, just adjust your descriptions; you should note that both Heaven and Hell work together AND both of thier ranks are filled with good-for-nothings), and strange species of men and animals (gigantic tortoises, men with no face, men with holes in thier chests, fishes with human heads, etc; so virtually any humanoid or animal species can be dropped in with effort). Exceptional individuals also have a tendency to possess various mutations (e.g. Nezha's numerous heads, Grand Tutor Wen's third eye, Thunderbolt's entire body, etc) and often have underwent some sort of religious training (typically either Buddhism or Daoism) to earn thier powers (Jiang Ziya, Erlang, Nezha, Sun Wukong, etc).
 
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