Need info on FR's kara-tur and the "chinese empire"
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fnork de sporg
First Post
Question said:
They're call the Shou Lung
There's pretty much nothing in 3e about them, and I can't remember which 2e books are the best.
They're very powerful, well organized, and pretty much non-evil.
I found this rather nice piece of them from spelljammer.org, though of course it is rather spelljammer oriented. http://www.spelljammer.org/worlds/Realmspace/Toril.html#h_KaraTur
wingsandsword
Legend
The Kara Tur boxed set in 2e had a lot of information, and the Kara Tur Trail Maps were the big printed maps on the subject.
The old 1e Oriental Adventures hardback had a small but very information intense writeup of Kara Tur in the back. You can get OA for 5 or 10 bucks on eBay.
In terms of 3e material, it's very sparse.
Crunchwise, there is the "Shou Disciple" PrC in Unapproachable East for fighters taught in Shou combat styles (essentially a fighter PrC that gets some monkish abilities), and a "Shou Expatriate" region for regional feats/benefits of a Kara Tur native living in Faerun. Dragon #315 had more elaborate rules for Regional feats/benefits for Kara Tur characters.
The continent of Kara Tur has several major empires, generally based strongly on historic asian nations:
Shou Lung - China at a peak of imperial might, development, bureaucracy, and civil service. The "main" empire of the continent.
T'u Lung - China at an era of increased era of corruption, nobles have much power of a figurehead emperor and nepotism and graft are widespread. Broke away from Shou Lung several centuries ago over a dispute on succession to the throne.
Malatra - Based on Southeast Asia and India. Lots of wild jungles, reminsicent of Malasia, India, Thailand, Vietnam ect.
Koryo - D&D version of Korea
Kozukura -Sengoku-era Japan (warring states, daimyo strugging for dominance)
Wa - Kamakura-era Japan (powerful central Shogunate)
Edit: Upon checking, Wizards.com has some of the original OA modules set in Kara Tur up for free download (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads), in their "Previous Edition Downloads" section, you might want to check those out too.
The old 1e Oriental Adventures hardback had a small but very information intense writeup of Kara Tur in the back. You can get OA for 5 or 10 bucks on eBay.
In terms of 3e material, it's very sparse.
Crunchwise, there is the "Shou Disciple" PrC in Unapproachable East for fighters taught in Shou combat styles (essentially a fighter PrC that gets some monkish abilities), and a "Shou Expatriate" region for regional feats/benefits of a Kara Tur native living in Faerun. Dragon #315 had more elaborate rules for Regional feats/benefits for Kara Tur characters.
The continent of Kara Tur has several major empires, generally based strongly on historic asian nations:
Shou Lung - China at a peak of imperial might, development, bureaucracy, and civil service. The "main" empire of the continent.
T'u Lung - China at an era of increased era of corruption, nobles have much power of a figurehead emperor and nepotism and graft are widespread. Broke away from Shou Lung several centuries ago over a dispute on succession to the throne.
Malatra - Based on Southeast Asia and India. Lots of wild jungles, reminsicent of Malasia, India, Thailand, Vietnam ect.
Koryo - D&D version of Korea
Kozukura -Sengoku-era Japan (warring states, daimyo strugging for dominance)
Wa - Kamakura-era Japan (powerful central Shogunate)
Edit: Upon checking, Wizards.com has some of the original OA modules set in Kara Tur up for free download (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads), in their "Previous Edition Downloads" section, you might want to check those out too.
Patrick Jarrell
First Post
The Kara-Tur boxed set and all but the last of the modules were actually 1st edition, not 2nd, I believe.
Evil Monkey
First Post
Question said:
Other than the prestige class and region mentioned above, I believe there's two or three paragraphs regarding the area in the FR campaign setting, but that's about it.
The Unapproachable East supplement also has some info on Faerûnian nations that were settled by/heavily influenced by Kara-Tur, I believe. I want to say the nations of Semphar and Murghom, but I don't have my books in front of me and I could be wrong.
bento
Explorer
For Kara-Tur, the most you'll find is the Box Set, which you can purchase as a PDF from RPGNow or Paizo.com for about $5. The pdf includes two 96 page books and another 50 pages of maps, many you'll have to tape together.
The page counts for each section are:
Shou Lung (north and central China) 30 pgs.
T'u Lung (southern China) 26 pgs.
Tabot (Tibet) 10 pgs.
Plain of Horses (Mongolia) 10 pgs.
Northern Wastes (far East Siberia) 5 pgs.
Jungle Lands (SE Asia) 9 pgs.
Island Kingdoms (SW Pacific) 8 pgs.
Koryo (Korean Peninsula) 10 pgs.
Kozakura (Japan) 29 pgs.
Wa (Japan) 30 pgs.
Each section includes descriptions of geography, cities, places of interest, government, law, races & classes, social customs, architecture, religion, money & commerce, NPCs and suggested adventures. I find this set of materials to be great sources of ideas and are much better at getting me enthused to play the setting than the FR box set.
-bento
The page counts for each section are:
Shou Lung (north and central China) 30 pgs.
T'u Lung (southern China) 26 pgs.
Tabot (Tibet) 10 pgs.
Plain of Horses (Mongolia) 10 pgs.
Northern Wastes (far East Siberia) 5 pgs.
Jungle Lands (SE Asia) 9 pgs.
Island Kingdoms (SW Pacific) 8 pgs.
Koryo (Korean Peninsula) 10 pgs.
Kozakura (Japan) 29 pgs.
Wa (Japan) 30 pgs.
Each section includes descriptions of geography, cities, places of interest, government, law, races & classes, social customs, architecture, religion, money & commerce, NPCs and suggested adventures. I find this set of materials to be great sources of ideas and are much better at getting me enthused to play the setting than the FR box set.
-bento
Silver Moon
Adventurer
This might help - I did a year-long module back in 2001 set in Wa (Japan) Shou Lung (north and central China) and T'u Lung (southern China). For the Japanese section I used the real name for Ancient Japan (Heian Empire) and historical reference sources rather than the Forgotten Realms material. I stuck closer to the gaming sources for China but supplimented it with historical sources as well. I also used source information from the 1E Oriental Adventures book, especially the Hengeyokai race which was a key subplot of the module.
The Story Hour for that module is as follows:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=28642
Chapters 2 to 7 are set in Wa (Heian Empire)
Chapters 8 to 21 and 31 are set in the large interior city of Shosun
Chapters 22 to 31 are set in the coastal city of Chunming
Chapters 32 to 42 are set in the largest interior city of Y’Cho Kang
Chapters 42 onward are set in the wilderness area that is home to the Hengeyokai
The Story Hour for that module is as follows:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=28642
Chapters 2 to 7 are set in Wa (Heian Empire)
Chapters 8 to 21 and 31 are set in the large interior city of Shosun
Chapters 22 to 31 are set in the coastal city of Chunming
Chapters 32 to 42 are set in the largest interior city of Y’Cho Kang
Chapters 42 onward are set in the wilderness area that is home to the Hengeyokai
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