It's also the only Asian themed D&D setting, and no as far I'm concerned Rokagun doesn't count, WotC doesn't own it anymore and James Wyatt who did Rokagun D&D conversion for 3e admits that using Rokagun instead of Kara Tur was a mistake and a bad idea that came from the suits. It did get a tie in 3e update in Dragon Magazine 315 and even a partial 4e update in Dragon Magazine 404,where we learn things like Kara Tur Rune Priests, That Shou Lung fought a war with the Feywild, and so on.
D&D 5E Kara Tur vs Tarkir vs Kamigawa vs Plane of Mountains and Seas vs Ikoria
- Thread starter gyor
- Start date
It's also the only Asian themed D&D setting, and no as far I'm concerned Rokagun doesn't count, WotC doesn't own it anymore and James Wyatt who did Rokagun D&D conversion for 3e admits that using Rokagun instead of Kara Tur was a mistake and a bad idea that came from the suits. It did get a tie in 3e update in Dragon Magazine 315 and even a partial 4e update in Dragon Magazine 404,where we learn things like Kara Tur Rune Priests, That Shou Lung fought a war with the Feywild, and so on.
jmartkdr2
Hero
For all of this: I actually think you can still get a book out of it. It would just be closer in content-balance to SCAG than Xanathar's.
Lots of gazetteer-type stuff about the setting: people, politics, history, weird places to have adventures in, et al. The meat of the book will just be introducing and explaining the setting to people. This is also the part that needs the most sensitive editing, but there's a lively DnD community in Japan to tap to get that part right, and it shouldn't be too hard to find people for the other parts.
In the near-back you'd have 20-25 pages of new player options: some of which will be variants (ie official unarmored cleric) and refluffing advice, but you'd probably add a couple subclasses and some spells and backgrounds. maybe a weapon or two (neither nunchaku nor kusari-gama are well represented in the current rules) - not much, but some. If you want to make sure it sells, add a new base class for shugenza.
The main difference between this new book and SCAG would be monsters: SCAG added zero, this book will need quite a few. 50+ pages, most likely. But you can't do the theme with stats for kappa and White Snake Lady.
Of course, this would be just as true for any specific setting they pick: it's not an argument for Kara-Tur so much as a rough plan for an Oriental Adventures book for 5e.
Aldarc
Legend
But is it really an Asian-themed D&D setting if it's just part of the Realms setting?
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I don't even know where to start with this. Good grief. Cormyr is certainly not "Medieval France" in any way. You can make a strong case for "generic medieval chivalric fantasy Western Europe", but that's about it.
The Moonshae Isles are pretty much "Celtopia", and not based on the British Isles as much as vague 1980s notions of "Celtic Identity", but there's a lot of other random nonsense going on as well (including pirates and vikings).
Amn's basic concept definitely owes a bit to late 1400s Spain but it's all over the place, it's not sure whether it's Moorish or Christian-style Spain, for example, with nods to both but leaning distinctly Moorish in aesthetic and so on, there's no sign of an inquisition-equivalent that I'm aware of, and the political structure, names, and general way it operates have very little in common any real-world place.
I could go on. You keep saying "fantasy version" and that's just totally misleading. "Loosely inspired by some limited aspects of" is not a "fantasy version. The Empire in Warhammer Fantasy is an actual "fantasy version" of The Holy Roman Empire (equally Tilea = Italy, Bretonnia = Arthurian France and so on). These are like they stole a few cultural elements and then filled in the rest with crazy Forgotten Realms stuff. They're not "Fantasy versions" in any meaningful sense.
But is it really an Asian-themed D&D setting if it's just part of the Realms setting?
Yes, Kara Tur has also the Archetypes, plus more.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I mean, this is the big question and I think the answer is "no". As far as I'm aware, no game, video or otherwise, has benefited in Asia from bringing in a fantasy version of Asia to that game. WoW was extremely careful with it's fantasy-China with Pandaria, didn't offend the Chinese government or populace, or the like, but did it make WoW bigger in China? No it had pretty much zero impact.
If you look at Korea or Japan, the interest in fantasy seems to primarily be in Western-style fantasy. I don't think anyone in either country is not playing 5E, or would become excited to play 5E, because it had some vague mish-mashy "Asian fantasy" bit added, especially not if it was as much of a terminal mish-mash as Kara Tur.
What about in the West then, would it help here? I'm pretty skeptical. It might sell okay, but I think that depend more on the subclasses and so on that they added and how cool they were.
Even if it was worth it, I think starting over is better than attempting to use Kara Tur. Try and get it right for once.
I'll point out that over time the Kara Tur nations diverged from just being Fantasy Asian nations as well, such as gaining Spelljammer tech (show me the ancient nation state that had magical space craft!), a war with the Feywild, the Spellplague, and other weird stuff.
FR does also have a Kara Tur expats Faerun nation that is not a fantasy Asian nation, but more like a mixture of all of them (because it was created from a mixture of Kara Tur refugees, but with influences from Faerun nations and it's feline indigenous inhabitants), which is Nathlan, which has both Kara Tur and Faerunian religions for example, although the Faerunian Religions have Asian tralpings there.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Sure, but I think that raises the question again of "Why Kara Tur as it's own thing"? What would Kara Tur, specifically, add, that an original or MtG-based setting couldn't? They've barely filled out the 5E FR beyond the Sword coast (unlike in 2E), so I don't think there's a desperate thirst for more FR stuff. And if it's just a random assortment of typically bonkers and forgettable FR nations, which are basically mostly "Typical FR, only now wearing a different hat!", what's even the point? Where's the peculiarly exciting adventures that could be had there? And so on.
I think with an actual world, not a region in the FR, it becomes a lot easier to answer those questions, a lot easier to do grand-scale stuff. And I think, given the age-profile of D&D, we can probably safely assume the percentage of D&D players who both know what Kara Tur is and are excited to have a 5E version in the single digits.
Nathlekh
Nathlekh, called the City of Cats, was a city on the Dragon Coast and the capital of the Shou nation of Nathlan in the late 15th century DR.[1] Located at the western edge of the Gulthmere Forest on the shores of the Lake of the Long Arm, Nathlekh was built around a granite plug, atop which the...
forgottenrealms.fandom.com
Nathlan
Nathlan, also known as the Country of Nathlan or the Eastern nation of the West, was a small, feudal state on the Dragon Coast as of the 15th century DR. It was inhabited primarily by Shou immigrants from Kara-Tur organized into clans.[1][2] Nathlan's predominantly Shou population was suspicious...
forgottenrealms.fandom.com
A little info on Nathlan.
