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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6195911" data-attributes="member: 4937">I have a slightly different issue.  Asian doesn't exist in my homebrew.  There is no 'east' or 'west', no 'old world' and 'new world', and to the extent that the people of Korrel think of those things, the portion of the continent of Sartha where all but one of my campaigns have taken place is thought of as being the 'far east' and is most analogous geographically to the far east (china/japan).  Culturally, I like to think of my world as neither European nor Asian.  Obviously, I can't invent cultures completely whole cloth and some cultures or portions of the culture are recognizably inspired by things, but if you are expected simple 1 to 1 parallels you'll be disappointed.  When trying to explain the mindset to new players, I explain that culturally it is as if the Etruscans and not the Romans conquered Europe, and that Hinduism rather than Christianity dominated European thought and the arts, and that because of differences in technical capabilities (magic) globalization rather than tribalization was the dominate pattern of early human history.  India is one of my most influential cultures in imagining what my world is like, with its castes and cosmopolitanism, clashing cultures, polytheism, and exotic wildlife.  Domesticated mastodons are found on the streets of every city.  In larger cities, there are populations of hill giants working as porters and stevedores.  It's not that unusual to have a goblin population living in some dark corner of the city, and hobgoblins are in many places much more common sights on a street or in a bar than an elf would be - and are less feared.  The gods are extremely numerous and active in peoples daily lives; so much so that I almost always try to have the first level PC's meet one.  The PC's are frequently Heroes in a very Greek conception of the idea.  There is a 5000 year continuous written history in my world, and humanity hasn't lived in separated tribes since the very early portion of it.  I feel I'm being most successful in my creation when you can't imagine the setting as being 'X' real world place.  Ideally, I'd invent everything whole cloth, in the way that say Tolkien's Middle Earth isn't recognizably any place and often has surprising motifs upon close examination (Tolkien for example imagined Gondor as being much like Egypt).  There is no 'china' in my world, no far east, no kara-tur, no analogous region of any sort.  There really isn't a Europe either.  The cultural and intellectual bright shining center of the world would be in something analogous to central Africa (although of course, several different cities would contest that claim).  Unarmed martial arts are of course known, but there is no distinction between what would be in our world wrestling, boxing, and pankration and judo, muay thai, and kung fu (of course, part of the reason for that is I don't distinguish between them and I have a wry smile for the fact that so many RPGs birthed in the late 70's and early 80's have separate skills for boxing and martial arts).   For one thing, as someone else pointed out, the presence of skills in the world have a non-natural explanation - they are spread and taught by the gods whose influence is global.    Monasteries are known, and warrior monks are common (though usually by the term Templar, to invoke the fact that their most common duty is guarding temples), but the character of these monks is as diverse in many ways as the deities that they serve.   Shaolin dress and outlook is not assumed by the term 'monk'.  The in game class I most commonly stat a Templar out as is Fanatic - which be equivalent in standard 3.X to stating out most monks (the profession) as Barbarians (the class).   So in other words, if you asked your average inhabitant of Korrel to imagine what weapon a monk had, their first thought might be great axe or two handed sword.   Beyond that, what a 'monk' means depends on the deity involved.  Most of the monks of a deity frequently worshiped by wizards are probably wizards, where as one of the PC's in my current campaign is in game a Templar in the service of the god of Death and Travelers, and prior to the current adventure served by backstory in that Templar's traditional role as protector of religious pilgrims (of all deities).   Many of that deities monks are of the Explorer character class.In other words, Dorothy, you aren't in Kansas anymore.But even if my homebrew was explicitly a fantasy version of the real world Orient (as viewed through the eyes of the West), it wouldn't have the 'Monk' class in it.</blockquote>

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