Indian Adventures?

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I've just come back from a fantastic week long trip to India, visiting the "Golden Triangle" of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur and feel inspired to run a campaign or long adventure set in fantasy India or an India-inspired setting. Are there any fully fledged India-style settings out there? I'm looking for something along the lines of Nyambe.

I'm aware of Mindshadows from Green Ronin but am unsure what it contains, and am wondering if it's more of a psionic setting than an Indian one. The only other stuff I can think of is a web enhancement for Oriental Adventures (Mahasarpa?) and a few articles in Dragon about arms & armour, as well as the Indian mythos in the original Deities & Demigods. What else is out there, old or new?

Cheers


Richard

 

[Aus_Snow]

Folkloric - Sahasra looks interesting.

 

[humble minion]

I seem to recall a product being mentioned a while back - a big, hardbound d20 campaign setting called Suryamaya - that covered exactly this sort of territory. It sounded amazing, and I've been pretty keen to get my greedy mitts on it ever since. It's been delayed quite a while though - I think that the original plan was to stick with standard D&D rules, but the company couldn't make that work with the setting, so they're working on a modified ruleset, which has obviously delayed the whole business significantly.

Mind you, it was over a year ago I first heard of this book. I have no idea of its current development status. It may be still slated for release or it may equally likely have gone vapourware on us.

 

[Mark Hope]

The Mahasarpa web enhancement for the Oriental Adventures supplement that you mentioned is pretty cool, and is free as well .

 

[RichGreen]

I seem to recall a product being mentioned a while back - a big, hardbound d20 campaign setting called Suryamaya - that covered exactly this sort of territory. It sounded amazing, and I've been pretty keen to get my greedy mitts on it ever since. It's been delayed quite a while though - I think that the original plan was to stick with standard D&D rules, but the company couldn't make that work with the setting, so they're working on a modified ruleset, which has obviously delayed the whole business significantly.

Mind you, it was over a year ago I first heard of this book. I have no idea of its current development status. It may be still slated for release or it may equally likely have gone vapourware on us.

I've just googled it. I was meant to have come out from 3am Games at Origins 2006, but there is only a brief description of the world on their website and no concrete product info. It does sound like exactly what I'm looking for.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Psion]

I've just come back from a fantastic week long trip to India, visiting the "Golden Triangle" of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur and feel inspired to run a campaign or long adventure set in fantasy India or an India-inspired setting. Are there any fully fledged India-style settings out there? I'm looking for something along the lines of Nyambe.

I'll second Sahasra, with the possible warning that it does not go to any pains to adapt character materials to the setting... which I don't think its as big a deal as some critics make it out to be. For good or ill, other than the likes of the bard, the core classes seem pretty light on setting-specific flavor to me. (And the Bard & co could have been rewritten to be as setting neutral as the rest, but if you are interested in an India-flavored bard-equivalent, might I recommend the yogi from Goodman's Complete Guide to Rakshasas, also replicated in Monte Cook's Year's Best d20)

But I think if you mix it in with character guideance in the OA web supplement for Mahasarpa, it takes character emulation a step further.

I'm aware of Mindshadows from Green Ronin but am unsure what it contains, and am wondering if it's more of a psionic setting than an Indian one.

Where do you draw the line? As I have long equated psionics with eastern mysticism, I see that line as a little hazy.

It's what I would call an India-inspired fantasy setting, with aspects of its culture, history, and religion emulated with parallels drawn to rules. There are many things you won't recognize from India (like steam-golems and non-humans), but if Nyambe's take on races don't bug you, this shouldn't either.

It is 3.0-based, and some of the setting material for it does need some work to convert to 3.5, but some existing 3.5 psionics prcs can be ported over in the place of some of these classes.

In my version of the Naranjan setting, I replace elves with Maenads as suggested by the author, to make the Tolkienesque "feel pollution" less of an issue.

 

[Emirikol]

The D&D web enhancement looks like a nice basic starting point. You don't have to go out and purchase a bunch of new rules for the one player that may or may not actually play an Indian character.

In our Conan D&D game, this is an excellent supplement for us. We've added a few special touches to make some of the races feel a little more indian. There's also so much online stuff on pantheonic stuff that it's hard to go wrong here. I'll see if I get the time to post some of this stuff.

jh

 

[deClench]

I would definitely recommend Mindshadows. It is pure awesome, but I am a freak for the culture and muths of India and psionics. I think the psionics are well-done and actually enhance the Indian flavor. However as has been said, this is more a new fantasy setting inspired and flavored by Indian history and mythology rather than a historical setting. There was also a creature book for it--Monsters of the Mind I think. I think they are worth it if only for an interesting read. If memory serves, it's 3.0e.

Unfortunately, I can't think of anything else that hasn't already been posted in this thread. I will keep looking though (because I'm interested too)!

As an aside, Virgin Comics is currently publishing comic books for Indian audiences, and they delve liberally into the cultural and mythical richness of that nation and its peoples. Ramayan 3392 A.D. is a retelling of the Ramayama myths set in the far-future and offers much inspiration for a D20 fantasy game with the flavors of India. Other Virgin comics of note are Devi, The Sadhu, and Snake Woman.

Good luck!

 

[Psion]

I would definitely recommend Mindshadows. It is pure awesome, but I am a freak for the culture and muths of India and psionics. I think the psionics are well-done and actually enhance the Indian flavor. However as has been said, this is more a new fantasy setting inspired and flavored by Indian history and mythology rather than a historical setting. There was also a creature book for it--Monsters of the Mind I think. I think they are worth it if only for an interesting read. If memory serves, it's 3.0e.

The book was 3.5, just pre-XPH, so it uses 3.0 psionics.

There is a conversion doc on the Green Ronin website updating it to 3.5/XPH. It's a great monster book IMO.

 

[Stormborn]

It should be pointed out that Dog Souls Folkloric line, of which Sahashra is a part, was never intended to be "full fledged" campaign settings in and of themselves, at least not as such. Rather they are intended to be areas that could be found in any DnD campaign world. Places that your PCs might wander into while adventuring. Thus no effort was made on any of them to create setting specific classes nor even adapt standard DnD classes to them. There are, however, setting specific races and some creatrues; I hapend to know that a forthcoming book will deal with religion in more detail, including a few Prestige Classes, as well. There is also an adventure that serves as a good introduction to the setting.

However, if you want a complete setting I would still recommend Sahashra and then pick and choose some appropriate classes and PrC for your game. Psionic classes, the Battle Dancer from UA, maybe some of the material from Book of Nine Swords, and a few others from the core books and you should have all the basic roles filled and ready to start your game.