Ancient China / Ancient India - anything?

[Ashanderai]

Lands of the Jade Oath is being written as an oriental setting for Arcana Unearthed. Hopefully, it will be finished in the next several months. For information about it and to see how it began just click on the link in my sig.

 

[Aus_Snow]

You get right down to it, India and China cover a lot of territory. Which era are you looking for? Which region? In China the Three Kingdoms period is very different than the Ming Dynasty period. In India the states of the Gangeatic Plain in the 14thCE are not the Tamil states of the same time in southern India.

I googled "china" on the Google Directory RPG page. The search gave me this page

A google for "india" on the same page lead me here.

I hope this helps.

I looked through those search listings. Thanks, but there wasn't a whole lot of use to me there, particularly in the case of India. I hadn't thought of searching the Directory though - it's another resource I'd forgotten.

I know there's a huge scope within the broad specs I originally posted. I thought it’d be better to keep it that broad because there'd probably be slim pickings anyway. . . which appears to be true, so far. I guess it's just a hankering of mine, to run something based on those areas in times past. . . probably with mythic (e.g. vedic) elements woven in - for extra spice, and frankly to tempt potential players.


But to answer your questions, in order... I'm looking for RPG (hopefully d20) sources on China and India, separately or together (with a preference for separately). And regions? Well, as comprehensive a coverage as possible would be good, in each case.


In the end, I'll take nearly anything that's well written and usable. Sure, I could do this myself - with a great deal of reading first, as my history is rusty and sports holes the size of entire subcontinents - but I was hoping someone had already done the 'legwork'.


Oh, if Expeditious Retreat were to cover India or China (or even India-like or China-like), I'd readily hand over the dosh, as I quite like their books.






Ashanderai: LotJO looks promising. Count me as another who's interested in having a further look when you're finished writing it up. Arcana Unearthed (well, Evolved.. whatever) has been growing on me since picking it up earlier this year. Some of the mechanics (e.g. classes) could fit an Eastern feel very well, I think.

 

[Soel]

And to answer the OP's question, AFAIK no-one's done a game based on India (although I tried). It's just too dang big. As mentioned previously, there's Mahasarpa and Mindshadows, but those are pastiches. If you're going to do a d20 India game, I'm afraid you've got a lot of research ahead of you.

Tell me about it! I have been working on a homebrew based loosely on vedic period India for over 3 years now, and I still have yet to read the Mahabharata (a monstrous undertaking itself!)

 

[jgbrowning]

Its on hold. I imagine they will do it but they are a small company and have other things that can interfere with the schedule of writing.

Unfortunately this is true—we started reading for it while we were in India. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Suzi's working on A Silk Road which will deal with silk roads and how they form and work and I'm working on revising A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe to include a war section, more info on cities, and perhaps a bit more. I'll be hardback this time.

After that (hopefully we'll be done next spring with both books) I'm going to start working on A Magical Society: Civilization Builder and Suzi will go to A Magical Society: India. If we work hard, both will see the light of day in winter of 2006, but more likely spring of 2007.

We don't have any plans for A Magical Society: China.

joe b.

 

[Pramas]

Green Ronin appears to have dropped all support of the setting (it having failed to sell well ), but James Malizewski gave a few idea for updating it to XPH (including replacing the barbarian elves with Maenads, which I think is a very good idea.)

To be clear, the whole idea of the Mythic Vistas line is that each campaign setting gets 1 or 2 books and then we move on to the next one. It was never our intention to have continuing lines for each campaign setting. That said, we haven't forgotten about Mindshadows and we may develop the setting in other ways.

FYI, Rob Schwalb did a free XPH update of Monsters of the Mind. You cand find that here:
http://www.greenronin.com/errata/

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved is a fusion of Indian and European mythos. Just look at some of the equipment and compare them to what was used in India several centuries ago. India was definately one (of several) inspirations.

I am looking forward to Magical Society: India even though it will be quite some wait.

 

[Cherub]

Unfortunately this is true—we started reading for it while we were in India. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Suzi's working on A Silk Road which will deal with silk roads and how they form and work and I'm working on revising A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe to include a war section, more info on cities, and perhaps a bit more. I'll be hardback this time.

After that (hopefully we'll be done next spring with both books) I'm going to start working on A Magical Society: Civilization Builder and Suzi will go to A Magical Society: India. If we work hard, both will see the light of day in winter of 2006, but more likely spring of 2007.

We don't have any plans for A Magical Society: China.

joe b.

will be waiting for all 4 tomes with bated breath and a pocketful of dosh!

 

[Cherub]

You get right down to it, India and China cover a lot of territory. Which era are you looking for? Which region? In China the Three Kingdoms period is very different than the Ming Dynasty period. In India the states of the Gangeatic Plain in the 14thCE are not the Tamil states of the same time in southern India.

I googled "china" on the Google Directory RPG page. The search gave me this page

A google for "india" on the same page lead me here.

I hope this helps.

The solution to that is simple enough. If you are a developer / publisher worth your salt then doing some preliminary research on the various eras involved to ascertain which one would permit the richest and easiest opportunity to convert into a fantasy d20 setting will be the era or combination of eras that you will go for. There is nothing to stop a developer from taking the most intriguing and enticing features of each ancient era to craft something new yet uniquely Indian / Chinese as a medieval fantasy setting.