Chivalry & Sorcery Returns To Feudal Japan

Land of the Rising Sun, first published in 1980 as a Chivalry & Sorcery setting, is coming back to C&S 5th Edition as a full-colour 320-page hardback on January 11th as a Kickstarter in both standard and a white leatherette special edition.

Chivalry and Sorcery was originally published in 1977 and was designed as a more historical and realistic take on fantasy roleplaying.

The setting covers the years from 850-1500 common era, and includes Samurai and Ninja character options, as long as a range of new Mage types. You can also play Shinto or Buddhist priests.

Land of the Rising Sun is written by Lee Gold (Land of the Rising Sun 1980, GURPS Japan, and more).

Brittania Game Studios sent me along a few previews to share.

Land of the Rising Sun

A Feudal Japanese expansion for Chivalry & Sorcery 5th Edition

www.kickstarter.com

 

[DemoMonkey]

Well THAT'S brave.

 

[Alzrius]

Lee Gold is a titan in the tabletop RPG industry, and is exceptionally well-versed in Japanese history and culture. I don't play C&S, but her name on the cover is enough to seriously tempt me to pledge!

 

[Sunsword]

I'm glad to see Lee Gold get the gig, I enjoyed both of the books she has worked on.

 

[Marandahir]

What Gygax said the one time he spoke with Lee Gold:

"You're a woman!"

She's been fighting upstream against sexism in the industry since the beginning. I would have preferred a work by someone of Japanese descent or actually from Japan to write this, though.

Meet the Woman Who by 1976 Was the Most Important Gamer in Roleplaying After Gary

In 1976, after Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, the most important person in roleplaying games was a Los Angeles woman named Lee Gold. She still contributes to the hobby and still runs…

dmdavid.com

 

[Sunsword]

What Gygax said the one time he spoke with Lee Gold:

"You're a woman!"

She's been fighting upstream against sexism in the industry since the beginning. I would have preferred a work by someone of Japanese descent or actually from Japan to write this, though.

Meet the Woman Who by 1976 Was the Most Important Gamer in Roleplaying After Gary

In 1976, after Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, the most important person in roleplaying games was a Los Angeles woman named Lee Gold. She still contributes to the hobby and still runs…

dmdavid.com

I agree, but I also love Lee's work.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

This is awesome.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

This is the way for a source book to work correctly. The real country with the fantasy elements added in, rather than some vague conglomeration of all of Asian history shoved into a fictional setting. This can show the real thing, while the other has to rely on stereotypes.

 

[Ace]

What Gygax said the one time he spoke with Lee Gold:

"You're a woman!"

She's been fighting upstream against sexism in the industry since the beginning. I would have preferred a work by someone of Japanese descent or actually from Japan to write this, though.

Meet the Woman Who by 1976 Was the Most Important Gamer in Roleplaying After Gary

In 1976, after Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, the most important person in roleplaying games was a Los Angeles woman named Lee Gold. She still contributes to the hobby and still runs…

dmdavid.com

I think this was more product of the era than any sexism on Gary's part. Very few women wrote games back in the day and Lee is normally in the US a man's name.

FWIW Kim Mohan got the opposite opprobrium and a some nasty innuendo as well and he's male. As often said the past was a different country.

The thing to understand is that prior to the Internet , getting information about people was actually hard, there was no simple way to determine gender or anything else about someone without a lot of work. So people just guessed and occasionally got it wrong.

These day, there is a lot less excuse and stuff like the current Twitter furor over Cyberpunk's Mike Pondsmith require deliberate ignorance.

In that world while it seems packed with sterotypes, the old Oriental Adventures was well ahead of its day well researched, written by ethnically Asian scholars with expertise.

I also think the level of research she did plus updates in Land of the Rising Sun may surprise people. Lee put a lot of work into it and its going to be quality writing

Mechanically Chivalry and Sorcery is an old school high complexity game, not my cuppa but some here may like it. It's good though.

All that said some RPG manuals set in Asia or NotAsia for the English market by authors from Asia would be pretty welcome as would other books from other nations made on the same grounds.

 

[tsc1970]

I think this was more product of the era than any sexism on Gary's part. Very few women wrote games back in the day and Lee is normally in the US a man's name.

FWIW Kim Mohan got the opposite opprobrium and a some nasty innuendo as well and he's male. As often said the past was a different country.

The thing to understand is that prior to the Internet , getting information about people was actually hard, there was no simple way to determine gender or anything else about someone without a lot of work. So people just guessed and occasionally got it wrong.

These day, there is a lot less excuse and stuff like the current Twitter furor over Cyberpunk's Mike Pondsmith require deliberate ignorance.

In that world while it seems packed with sterotypes, the old Oriental Adventures was well ahead of its day well researched, written by ethnically Asian scholars with expertise.

I also think the level of research she did plus updates in Land of the Rising Sun may surprise people. Lee put a lot of work into it and its going to be quality writing

Mechanically Chivalry and Sorcery is an old school high complexity game, not my cuppa but some here may like it. It's good though.

All that said some RPG manuals set in Asia or NotAsia for the English market by authors from Asia would be pretty welcome as would other books from other nations made on the same grounds.

If you look up the anecdote, it's less the fact that he said "You're a woman!", and more the fact that that's literally all he said to her. He just kept repeating that in astonishment as she tried to talk to him, until she finally gave up.

Being surprised someone with a stereotypically male name is female is one thing: not being able to get past that to actually talk to them is another.