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Non-Japanese Elements of 1e Oriental Adventures
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<blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 8545775" data-attributes="member: 8863"><p>That's good. I though the internet had chewed up and swallowed my post on me and I was stewing about it for several hours. I didn't want to have to type it out all over again.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I checked the Bibliography in OA, and most of the books mentioned there just cover Japan or China. Again, it's probably the result of the limitations on research at the time. The Japanese focus too may reflect the political realities of the Cold War. Jon Pickens is given some credit in the book's introduction. Pickens had a fairly extensive personal library it seems. In Dragon #315, its mentioned under the development notes for Arabian Adventures that he provided Jeff Grubb with three boxes packed with books on Middle Eastern culture; I would guess that he may have provided Cook with a good amount of background material for OA.</p><p></p><p>My impression about the book's origin was that Gary felt that the game could and should branch out into non-European fantasy. He'd been talking about an Asian themed supplement since around 1980. He wanted to have Francois Marcela-Froideval write the book -- Gary had his own little clique of writers and developers that worked on his pet projects with him, which I believe was a factor in Greyhawk's decline -- but Marcela-Froidval worked fairly slowly or something so the project got passed to Zeb Cook to meet the publishing deadline.</p><p></p><p>Another thing to note given the age of the book is that Chinese names and terms follow the older Wade-Giles romanization scheme. This really shouldn't be surprising given that Pinyin didn't start getting used by Western academia until the late 70's and some of those reference works on China might have been several decades old.</p><p></p><p>I suppose given the research material it's not surprising the initial view of Kara-Tur in the book is just Japanese and Chinese. Kozakura is clearly an expy of Sengoku Japan and Wa is Tokugawa Japan. Shou Lung probably mixes elements of Han, Tang, Ming, and possibly Song China. T'u Lung would be various periods of unrest and discord under weak dynasties. Instead of Warring States, I'd start with the Three Kingdoms period instead:</p><p></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]26EivpCPHnQ[/MEDIA]</p><p></p><p></p><p>T'u Lung definitely feels like it should be the Late Han Dynasty during the rule of Emperors Huan and Ling who were well known for their corruption, Dong Zhuo's brief and brutal rule, and the successor states of Wei, Shu Han and Eastern Wu after their founders passed. Also look into how the Jin started to fall apart not long afterwards. The other periods of Chinese history where things were fragmented after one of the powerful dynasties collapsed are also worth looking at though I know less about them.</p><p></p><p> In addition to actual history, T'u Lung is very much the wuxia part of Kara-Tur. Look at the whole wuxia flavor of corrupt courts, cruel warlords and evil eunuchs with brave heroes fighting it (the PCs!) and T'u Lung seems the perfect fit. I'd run T'u Lung as the wuxia setting, and Shou Lung as a Song dynasty expy -- the Song were technologically advanced, wealthy and prosperous, diverse, and relatively open for Chinese society.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Orius, post: 8545775, member: 8863"] That's good. I though the internet had chewed up and swallowed my post on me and I was stewing about it for several hours. I didn't want to have to type it out all over again. Anyway, I checked the Bibliography in OA, and most of the books mentioned there just cover Japan or China. Again, it's probably the result of the limitations on research at the time. The Japanese focus too may reflect the political realities of the Cold War. Jon Pickens is given some credit in the book's introduction. Pickens had a fairly extensive personal library it seems. In Dragon #315, its mentioned under the development notes for Arabian Adventures that he provided Jeff Grubb with three boxes packed with books on Middle Eastern culture; I would guess that he may have provided Cook with a good amount of background material for OA. My impression about the book's origin was that Gary felt that the game could and should branch out into non-European fantasy. He'd been talking about an Asian themed supplement since around 1980. He wanted to have Francois Marcela-Froideval write the book -- Gary had his own little clique of writers and developers that worked on his pet projects with him, which I believe was a factor in Greyhawk's decline -- but Marcela-Froidval worked fairly slowly or something so the project got passed to Zeb Cook to meet the publishing deadline. Another thing to note given the age of the book is that Chinese names and terms follow the older Wade-Giles romanization scheme. This really shouldn't be surprising given that Pinyin didn't start getting used by Western academia until the late 70's and some of those reference works on China might have been several decades old. I suppose given the research material it's not surprising the initial view of Kara-Tur in the book is just Japanese and Chinese. Kozakura is clearly an expy of Sengoku Japan and Wa is Tokugawa Japan. Shou Lung probably mixes elements of Han, Tang, Ming, and possibly Song China. T'u Lung would be various periods of unrest and discord under weak dynasties. Instead of Warring States, I'd start with the Three Kingdoms period instead: [MEDIA=youtube]26EivpCPHnQ[/MEDIA] T'u Lung definitely feels like it should be the Late Han Dynasty during the rule of Emperors Huan and Ling who were well known for their corruption, Dong Zhuo's brief and brutal rule, and the successor states of Wei, Shu Han and Eastern Wu after their founders passed. Also look into how the Jin started to fall apart not long afterwards. The other periods of Chinese history where things were fragmented after one of the powerful dynasties collapsed are also worth looking at though I know less about them. In addition to actual history, T'u Lung is very much the wuxia part of Kara-Tur. Look at the whole wuxia flavor of corrupt courts, cruel warlords and evil eunuchs with brave heroes fighting it (the PCs!) and T'u Lung seems the perfect fit. I'd run T'u Lung as the wuxia setting, and Shou Lung as a Song dynasty expy -- the Song were technologically advanced, wealthy and prosperous, diverse, and relatively open for Chinese society. [/QUOTE]
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