Japanese (Oriental) Historical Campaign Resources?

[djharr]

I am running an historically based Japanese/Chinese campaign set in the 10th century or so. One of my goals with this campaign is to adhere as closely as I can to the "native" forms, which disallows most of the magic used in your standard RPGs, since these are heavily "Europeanized", as it were. I try to populate the world with appropriate monsters and treasure, but frankly, it is difficult to find much to work with.

Does anyone have any thoughts on good resources for monsters, settings, magical spells, items et al for use in a campaign like this?

I have GURPS:Japan, and Oriental Adventures. I also have several good books on Japanese and Chinese history. I am looking more for something like Oriental fairy stories or mythical tales, that give a more "visceral" look at the beliefs, superstitions, and folklore of the various regions.

Thanks for the help.

David

 

[wheeljack]

"Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts" is an asian inspired monster compendium by Green Ronin that you may find useful

 

[Desdichado]

Well, which is it then, Chinese or Japanese, or "generic Oriental"? Because there's a fair amount of difference between those.

 

[Andor]

Could be both. It's not as though there wasn't contact between china and japan historically. Granted this was mostly in the form of japanese pirates raiding the chinese coast, but plenty of other stuff happened. If I recall correctly chinese was even a court language in japan for a while.

The japanese have all sorts of cool monsters you can steal. Oni, Tengu, Kappa, gaki, ghosts, fey goblin things, tanuki, kitsune, etc.

And the chinese have that cool celestial/infernal bureacracy thing going on. Remember if it's a big red demon with horns and fangs and glowy eyes, it's probably a mid-level bureaucrat.

Good books for ideas: The Bridge of Birds, Story of the Stone, Eight Skilled Gentlemen series by Barry Hughart. Also if you can find 'em the Judge Dee novels are a series of actuall ancient chinese mystery novels translated by Robert van Gulik.

 

[Krieg]

I highly recomend Sengoku by Gold Rush Games. It is written for Fuzion but has conversion notes for several other systems (including AD&D, GURPS, HERO and Chivalry & Sorcery).
http://www.sengoku.com/about.html

If you can get past the furries Usagi Yojimbo (also by Gold Rush Games) is a solid Japanese themed game, and is in many ways a stripped down version of Sengoku.
http://www.goldrushgames.com/uy.html


FGU's old Bushido game had some nice details. The mechanics are strictly 80's old school, but there is plenty to steal. DriveThruRPG is selling a .pdf copy of the game for $10. If you aren't a fan of DTRPG's business practices you can always look for a copy on eBay.
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=70_98&products_id=582


Rolemaster & Runequest both had asian supplements, The Oriental Companion & Land of Ninja respectively. Both were decent products with useful bits and turn up on eBay frequently.

Oriental Companion
http://www.icewebring.com/ICE_Products/RM2/RM2_1540_Oriental.shtml

Land of Ninja
http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showbook&bookid=1843


RPGObjects is coming out with a D20 supplement titled Legends of the Samurai. Most of their products thus far have been high quality, so I fully expect this one to be excellent as well.
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=109572
http://www.rpgobjects.com/index.php?page=los


From a system natural stand point, pick up a copy of Sengoku...you will not be disapointed.

 

[Aaron2]

FGU's old Bushido game had some nice details. The mechanics are strictly 80's old school, but there is plenty to steal.

Bushido is a great game desperately in need of a editor. I'd also recommend GURPS Japan. It has a fairly decent historical overview.


Aaron

 

[Wolf72]

The Tale of Heike is a real life source that might be kinda neat to use.

 

[trilobite]

Just got Sengoku and I looking it over now. It looks like it has tons of information on a feudal Japanese setting. I am trying to work up a Japanese PBP game at the moment so it should help allot.