The Ten Courts of Hell

I have briefly mentioned the Ten Courts of Hell on page 36 of the Celestial Empire. This is the place in the netherworld where evil whitesouls stay awaiting their judgement, and where they undergo the judgement itself after having spent some time in this purgatory.

There is a fundamental text of Chinese Folk Religion from the 18th century AD, the Yùlì Bǎochāo 玉歷寶鈔 (the Jade Guidebook), that describes the ten infernal tribunals in detail; you may read it here.

In a nutshell, the whitesoul of the deceased arrives at the gate of Fēngdū (see illustration) where their name is registered, then proceeds to the first court of Hell. This is the most lenient place in Purgatory, for those who committed suicide and who must stay there until the equivalent of what the duration of their life would have been had they not committed suicide has elapsed. Everybody else is ushered into the second court of Hell.

The whitesouls of those who kidnapped or robbed people during their lifetime remain in the second court of Hell to undergo several series of terrible torments. Everybody else is ushered into the third court of Hell.

The whitesouls of those who accepted bribes during their lifetime remain in the third court of Hell to undergo even worse terrible torments.

Etc. etc. with ever more atrocious depictions of torments until the ninth court for arsonists, assassins, rapists, and the like.

The tenth court is not a place of punishment but the place where those whose time of suffering has expired go in order to await the details of their rebirth through the wheel of karma.

Encyclopaedia of Historiography

The Encyclopaedia of Historiography by French academic publisher INALCO is freely available on-line (but not off-line) here.

It features many articles about East Asia of interest to referees and players of The Celestial Empire, inter alia:

• East Asian Monetary History
• Biographies of Buddhist Monks and Nuns
• Sources for the History of Taoism
• Chinese Imperial Capitals (The)
• Codes and Legal Works in China
• Historical and Institutional Encyclopaedias (zhengshu)
• Travel Books (The) (China)
• Chinese Cartography
• Matteo Ricci’s World Map (The) (1602)
• “Accounts of the Eastern Barbarians” in Chinese Official Dynastic Histories
• Koryŏsa 高麗史 고려사 : the Official History of the Koryŏ Kingdom
• Yongjae Ch’onghwa 慵齋叢話 (Yongjae Narratives)
• Chronicle of the Voyage of Nosongdang to Japan
• Instructions of the Keian Era (The)
• Japanese Documents from the Edo Period relating to the Imjin War
• Cao Bằng: Sources for the History of a Borderland in Vietnam before the 20th Century

The Purple Maiden

the Purple Maiden

The Purple Maiden (Zǐgū 紫姑) is a minor deity of Chinese Folk Religion mostly worshipped by women via a very peculiar possession cult: instead of possessing a medium, the Purple Maiden takes possession of her effigy during the night of her festival (the 15th day of the 1st month).

The effigy is thus swayed in various directions by the weight of the possessing deity; the movements of the effigy are then interpreted by the Ritual Master / Shaman / Spirit-Medium to divine about the prospects of the coming year in terms of silk output, or any other women-related produce.

As with most Chinese Folk Religion deities, the Purple Maiden is an apotheosised mortal. She was a concubine killed by the jealous wife of her master, close to the pigsty or to the latrine of the household. This is why her cult takes place next to the pigsty or latrine. An alternate (and possibly truer) hypothesis is that the stinking parts of the household were deemed inhabited by malevolent spirits, and a tale was fabricated to create a benevolent spirit guarding said parts of the household.

Whatever the truth, the cult of the Purple Maiden has been popular since the Táng dynasty. Under the Sòng, Zǐgū can be called upon even outside of her festival night via a small doll made of chopsticks and wicker, and animated by children. The doll traces lines on the ground, which are then interpreted for divination. This is probably the first instance of fújī (spirit-writing, see p94 of The Celestial Empire), the divination technique that became so popular from the Sòng dynasty on.

Walled Villages

During the Míng and Qīng dynasties, the shores of the southern Chinese provinces suffered from pirate attacks (the notorious Wōkòu — see an older post). As a result, some coastal villages built walls against them.

Here are two interesting articles about these walled villages (1) and (2).

The Seven Causes For Repudiation

In Imperial China, according to the Táng Code, married men had seven criteria whereby they could repudiate their wife, called the Seven Outs (qīchū 七出):
1- barrenness (not giving birth to children)
2- lasciviousness
3- disobedience to her husband's parents
4- indulgence in gossip
5- thievish propensities
6- jealousy
7- a disfiguring illness

The Míng code added that a woman who hadn't any living relatives, however, could not be repudiated [that would have made her free of any male dominance, which is contrary to Confucian orthodox thought]. Neither could be repudiated a wife who had mourned three years for her husband's parents. Husbandly repudiation was also forbidden in the case of a husband who had become rich having been poor previous to and at the time of the marriage.

Needless to say, repudiation only worked one way: a woman could never require the marital relation be dissolved, no matter how miserable her life. Miserable women would routinely commit suicide instead, thereby shaming their husband who would lose face.

A man who had repudiated his wife without her falling in one of the seven criteria would have had to take her back, and he would have been punished by 80 strokes of beating with the heavy stick.

A woman who ran away from her home would be sold by the State if caught. If she had been married during her absence, she was sentenced to death by strangulation.

The laws were either identical or extremely similar in the other countries of the East Asian cultural sphere: Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.

Under the Qīng, the Code added the possibility of a mutual divorce. Here again, the asymmetry of the male and female positions in society was apparent by the fact that a divorced man could remarry, whereas a divorced woman could not. Another kind of divorce, and then under all dynasties, was the state-mandated annulment of marriage; it would be pronounced by a magistrate if either spouse had committed any of the following offences:
- murder
- adultery
- assault and battery upon an in-law

Copper vs Silver Standard in Qīng China

NOT a government official

I am currently reading an interesting French book titled Bâtisseurs d'empires, Russie, Chine et Inde à la croisée des mondes, XVe-XIXe siècle, that compares the way the three major Eurasian empires of the modern age: Mughal, Russian, Qīng, were created and run.

With regards to the way the Qīng empire managed the problems related with the (bi)metallic currency standard that had plagued the Míng, the author explains that, basically, the Qīng had privatised the management of the silver currency but kept as a public monopoly the minting and issuing of the copper currency.

Hence the influx of the various New World silver dollars (see my earlier blog entry) under the Qīng; this also explains why such a bewildering array of different coins were allowed to circulate: they were mostly used amongst merchants and traders, who were responsible to each other for the value attached to these coins.

Another interesting fact from the book is that copper strings ended up being the backbone of an integrated, centralised, should we say public, internal market, whereas the silver dollars ended up being used in various regional trading centres whose main trading partners were overseas.

Crane Frightens Kūnlún (鶴驚崑崙)

Of course you all know the 2000 wǔxiá film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by Ang Lee. The film was a huge box office success and helped spread knowledge of Chinese wǔxiá fiction to the ignorant Western barbarians (er, us). For me, it was the initial spark that would eventually lead to the publication of The Celestial Empire.

The scenario of the film was inspired by the fourth novel in a five-novel cycle written by Mainland wǔxiá novelist Wáng Dùlú (王度庐, 1909-1977). Unfortunately, as far as I know, none of the novels have been translated into English. There is a 'bootleg' translation available on this blog for those who are interested.

Luckily for us French speakers, the first two novels in the cycle have been translated into French; each of them in two halves, so that's four books in total. Sadly, it looks like the third to fifth novels will never be translated. I am currently reading the first half of the very first novel, 鶴驚崑崙 (La vengeance de Petite Grue), variously rendered into English as The Crane Startles Kūnlún or as Crane Frightens Kūnlún. It's really a fantastic telling of life in rural Qīng China, and of the relationship between the various people at the heart of Jiānghú (江湖), the parallel world of the "Rivers and Lakes" (see TCE p9), most notably between members of escort agencies (biāojú 镖局, see TCE p41). It also sheds light on gender relationship under the prudish Qīng, and explains how the men from the Rivers-and-Lakes could go about armed to the teeth even though it was theoretically forbidden.

Heartily recommended to anybody who runs or plays in a Rivers-and-Lakes or even merely in a rural TCE game.

Qīng-Dynasty American Miniatures

The following are from China in Miniature; Containing Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, Character, and Costumes of the People of that Empire (Boston, 1833)

the Chinese Legal System

Via Monsters & Manuals, I was directed towards an extremely interesting web-site about 'alien' legal systems, amongst which, of course, Chinese Law. I'll let you peruse this fascinating web-site.

A brief summary/excerpts:

 - The legal code itself is not so much an account of what is forbidden as an attempt to specify, for every possible offence, the proper punishment.

 - Detention is not a punishment: people are only imprisoned whilst waiting for their judgement. Also, both accuser and accused are imprisoned; this is done to discourage people both from interacting with the legal system and from making false accusations (see also Note 1 below).

 - Fines are not contemplated as punishment either, but only as a substitute for the actual penalty, if the family of the victim agrees.

 - Ordinary punishments (from lightest to harshest):
    - the cangue (to humiliate the culprit)
    - various numbers of blows by the light or heavy bamboo
    - penal servitude of various sorts and lengths of time
    - life exile at various distances from the convict's home province (see Note 2 below)
    - capital sentence (see Note 3 below)

 - The key person of the Chinese legal system is the magistrate. The population of his district can range from 80,000 to more than 250,000; the magistrate functions as the single representative of imperial authority, a combination mayor, chief of police, and judge. He has obtained the position by first doing well in the examination for the civil service [an examination testing not legal knowledge or administrative ability but the applicant's literary ability and knowledge], and then performing well in administrative positions at a lower level. He is assisted in his duties by a staff of lower level officials, some his own employees who move with him from place to place, some permanently located in the district. One risk of putting so much power in one pair of hands is that the magistrate may take advantage of his position to build local support and thus convert the centralised bureaucracy into a de facto feudal system. One way of keeping that from happening is to forbid a magistrate from being assigned to his own (or his wife's) home district, and to shift magistrates from district to district every three years.

 - By the mid-19th century, the Qīng are ruling a population of about 400 million and doing it primarily with a small bureaucracy of élite scholar-officials. One way of doing so is to sub-contract as much as possible of the job of controlling behaviour to other authority structures: the extended family, the lineage head, the village elders, the trade guilds, etc. (see Note 1 below).

Notes:

1. “Shouted at and reviled by the magistrate, growled at and beaten by the constables, the position of the accused was a most unfavourable one indeed. Small wonder that having to appear in court was considered by the people at large as a terrible misfortune, an experience to be avoided if at all possible . … In general people tried to settle their differences as much as possible out of court, by effecting a compromise or by referring the case to one of the age-old organs of private justice, for example the council of the family- or clan-elders, or the leaders of a guild.” RH Van Gulik, Crime and Punishment in Ancient China, pp. 57-8

2. In Chinese beliefs, not being interred, after death, in one's home province is considered very bad because the dead might become a wandering ghost who tries to regain their home province.
Life exile may hence not seem a harsh punishment to us but it's actually harsh in the eyes of the Chinese of the time.

3. Capital punishment can only be carried out if confirmed by the Emperor. In all other cases, the sentence is commuted to another punishment.
There are many degrees in capital punishment: strangulation, decapitation, and the death of a thousand cuts. Again because of the Chinese belief that a mutilated body leads to becoming a guǐ in the afterlife, strangulation is deemed a lighter sentence than decapitation, which in turn is deemed less harsh than the death of a thousand cuts.
Capital punishment can also only be carried out at certain times of the year.
Hence, all in all, it seems that only about 10% of all capital sentences are actually carried out.

Fantastic Interactive Map of China

I have serendipitously found an amazing interactive map of China that lets you superimpose a variety of indicators over a 'Google Maps' kind of map of China. The map is consistent with the boundaries of China as of the end of the 20th century (i.e., PRC + ROC) meaning that, except for some borderland areas, it covers pretty much any region that the GM may use as the setting of his or her Celestial Empire campaign game.

Just click here, remove the already-superimposed grid, and experiment with:
 - religious sites
 - minority place-names
 - mountain peaks and passes
 - historical places: Míng garrisons, Qīng courier stops and routes, Míng/Qīng postal stations, exam seats, sections of the Grand Canal, Táng prefectural & county capitals,
 - vegetation

Postal routes and courier stops in Qīng China

Edit 24/02/2016: the interactive map has moved here.

the Big Swords Society (Dàdāohuì 大刀會)

Period of Time
late Qīng

Description
The Big Swords Society (a.k.a. Big Knives Society in English) is a network of traditional peasant self-defence militias, widespread in North China during the Qīng Dynasty, and noted for their reckless courage. Their members are drawn from small-holders and tenant farmers, who organise to defend villages against roaming bandits, warlords, and tax collectors. In spite of its apparent secular aims, the Big Swords Society has a religious foundation in Chinese folk religion; its Grand Masters claimed to make the members invulnerable to bullets by magic.

Much like the Elders' Society, the Big Swords Society becomes active against the foreigners' encroachment at the end of the Qīng. On 1 November 1897, members of the Big Swords Society attacked German Catholic missionaries in Shāndōng. In retaliation, the German East Asia Squadron caused mass destruction (burnt villages, etc.). This swayed the local members of the Big Swords Society even more into an anti-foreign mood, paving the way for the Boxer Uprising a few years later.

Members
As described above, wealthy peasants with a penchant for sword-fighting and vigilantism.

Requisites
- Must be sponsored by someone who is already a member of the Big Swords Society.
- Wealth level must be at least Affluent.
- A fighting skill in cold weapons of at least 65%.

Benefits
- Allegiance in Chinese folk religion +10
- New skill: Knowledge (Group: Big Swords Society) at a starting value of 25+3D6% - Can be used to find shelter, recognise fellow members, etc., but it only works in the region where the character underwent his initiation, as the various branches of the Big Swords Society are quite independent of each other.

Obligations
- Must take part in the defence of one's village

the Elders' Society (Gēlǎohuì 哥老會)

Period of Time
late Qīng

Description
The Elders' Society is a loose network of mutual-support groups that draw their members from the notables of a given region. Geographically, the Elders' Society originated in Sìchuān and Dàlǐ, in reaction to the Tàipíng Rebellion (second half of the 19th century), then expended into the rest of China at the end of the 19th century. The aim of the Elders' Society groups is to maintain the traditional structure of rural society, and to fight off foreign influence, especially Manchu and Christian influence. The Elders' Society of a given area will 'protect' the local peasants by controlling the local Folk religion temples and the local village militia forces.
At the end of the Qīng, the Elders' Society engages in several uprisings across China, most notably in South China in 1870-1; in the 1890s, the Elders' Society fosters anti-Qīng and anti-foreign sentiment in the lower Yángzi region. The Gēlǎohuì organises abortive revolts in central China in 1900, 1904, and 1906.

Members
As described above, despite its focus on the protection of peasants, the Elders' Society attracts wealthy landlords and prominent members of the local élite.

Requisites
- Must be sponsored by someone who is already a member of the Elders' Society.
- The new member must qualify as a 'well-to-do person', either through his wealth, or through his profession, or through his status.
- A single Knowledge skill related with the region must be at least 60%.

Benefits
- Help from fellow members: after his initiation, the new member is considered as kin to the other members.
- Connections in society, since most members of the Elders' Society are well-connected notables
- New skill: Knowledge (Group: Elders' Society) at a starting value of 25+3D6% - Can be used to find shelter, recognise fellow members, etc., but it only works in the region where the character underwent his initiation, as the various branches of the Elders' Society are quite independent of each other.

Obligations
- Must help fellow members
- Must defer to the judgement of 'resident elders' (dāngjiā)
- Risk of death penalty if caught by government agents

[A-Z April Blogging] [Z] Zájù 雜劇

Zájù ("mixed entertainment" or "variety play") was a form of theatre extremely popular under the Yuán. Under the Mongol dynasty, Chinese culture, and especially written production of books, etc. was kept under heavy surveillance by the foreign overlords. As a result, much of Chinese culture (not only entertainment) went oral. The Yuán is the dynasty that saw the development of religious theatrical plays, which became an essential part of Chinese folk religion (see p39 of The Celestial Empire).

Zájù is one of these forms of art. It combines narrated and sung parts, with the addition of acrobatics, dance, singing, and mime. The roles are usually clearly recognisable, with recurring characters (the villain, the clown) recognisable by their flamboyant make-up.

Since the establishment of the Mongol dynasty has resulted in the abolition of the Civil Service Examination, scholars, physicians, and astrologers can be found in a zájù troupe. Unemployed scholars would write zájù librettos, known for the intricacy of their verse forms, not only to vent their frustration, but also for mere commercial reasons, as a class of nouveaux riches produced a constant demand for plays. Some literati would become fully-fledged playwrights.

Zájù declined and went out of fashion under the dynasties that followed the Yuán; it became especially stultified under the Míng, when all zájù librettos had to pass government censorship. By the time the Míng dynasy fell in 1644, zájù was no longer performed at all and it survived only as a genre of literature, i.e., zájù plays ended up being only read, not played on stage!

A travelling zájù troupe can be the ideal adventurers' party for a TCE campaign game, giving a rationale for travelling from one town to the next and experiencing new encounters. Training for the acrobatics parts of a zájù play is a good cover for martial arts training. The sung arias of a zájù play can be used to convey secret messages to members of the crowd.

[A-Z April Blogging] [Y] Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia

The Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia (Yǒnglè Dàdiǎn 永樂大典) from the early Míng is the largest non-electronic encyclopaedic work of all times.
The writers of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia incorporated 7,000 to 8,000 earlier works, cutting them down into single-themed excerpts, and re-arranging them under single word entries, like a modern encyclopaedia. This was in complete contradiction with earlier standard Chinese practice, which was based on classifying encyclopaedia entries by broad subjects such as language, government, music, etc.
The Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia is named so because it was compiled under the express orders of the Míng Emperor Yǒnglè (永樂). His requirements were that the work should encompass all pre-existing knowledge, that its compilers should not "be afraid" of length, and that no expenses should be spared to purchase the rare Sòng and Yuán manuscripts deemed necessary for the compilation work.
Work itself started in 1403 at Nánjīng University (Nánjīng Guózǐjiàn 南京國子監), and was mostly carried out by unknown scholars with a reputation for vast knowledge, rather than by court scholars. Research work was carried out by over 2,000 literati until 1407, and the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia was finished in 1408. It consisted of 11,095 books, occupying roughly 40 cubic metres. Many of the scholars involved were eventually rewarded with high-profile offices, although some others fell into disgrace.

Because of the sheer size of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia, it wasn't block-printed but hand-copied, with very few copies available. These hand-written copies were lost or displaced by the end of the 16th century. However, many fragments remained available throughout China, as well as many of the earlier works that had been used to compile the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia, and which had been archived in various imperial libraries. It is assumed that the equivalent of 90% of the Encyclopaedia was still extant under the Qīng, who started collecting the fragments in the Hànlín Academy in Běijīng for their own purpose of writing a Qīng-era encyclopaedia. Alas, the Hànlín Academy was destroyed by fire during the looting of Běijīng by Western troops at the end of the Boxer Uprising, and the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia was definitely lost.

Scenario seeds:
- (Míng) The PCs are paid by a scholar involved in the compilation of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia to recover the only version left of a rare Sòng book. They must travel to a remote mansion where the eccentric owner of the manuscript lives, convince him to sell it, and then bring it to Nánjīng. On their way to Nánjīng, a band of outlaws paid by a rival scholar try to steal, or even destroy, the book.
- (Míng) Two ancient texts used to write the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia entry on a rare medicinal plant are contradictory. The PCs must travel to a forlorn place and bring back to Nánjīng, under pain of death, an old Daoist hermit believed to know the definitive answer on the subject. The problem is that the hermit is long dead...
- (Qīng) Emperor Qiánlóng wants his own encyclopaedia! The PCs must travel throughout China to find the missing fragments of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia. This could be the MacGuffin of a larger capaign game with several unrelated episodes set in different cities.
- (Qīng) The Foreign Devils are burning the city! The PCs are a group of devout Confucians who try to save the remaining books of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia from the inferno of the Hànlín Academy.

[A-Z April Blogging] [T] Túnbǎo 屯堡

Busy day today, so mostly excerpts from Wikipedia here.

Túnbǎo village

The Míng conquest of Yúnnán was the final phase in the Chinese Míng dynasty expulsion of Mongol Yuán dynasty rule from China in the 1380s. A huge force of 300,000 Hàn Chinese and Huí Muslim troops were dispatched to crush the Yuán remnants in Yúnnán in 1381. After the defeat of the Yuán loyalists (who were also mostly Huí), the Míng Huí remained in Yúnnán as hereditary military colonists. Thousands of te Hàn soldiers also decided to stay in the area. They married local women of Miáo and Yáo descent, and over time began to call themselves Túnbǎo 屯堡, "fortress Chinese", in contrast to newer Hàn Chinese colonists who moved to Yúnnán in later centuries (16th-18th).
Túnbǎo work as farmers and practise their own religion, which is an amalgam of Buddhism, Daoism, and Miáo and Yáo religion (see p30 and 32 of The Celestial Empire). They have their own temples.

[A-Z April Blogging] [O] Orang-Tionghoa

Orang-Tionghoa is the name given to ethnic Chinese in the Malay Archipelago. Tionghoa is the Malay pronunciation of Zhōnghuá (中華: 'Chinese').

Trade and military expeditions have put China and the Malay Archipelago in contact since under the Yuán. However, the first mass emigration of Chinese to the Malay Archipelago takes place under the Míng. The settlers emigrate from South China and mostly speak Cantonese, Hakka, Mǐn, and Wú (p22 of The Celestial Empire). This emigration is not sanctioned by the Míng who, on the contrary, try to restrict maritime trade as much as possible. As a result, although some of these overseas Chinese are traders and merchants, most of them actually practise agriculture or mining.


The life of the Orang-Tionghoa is based upon the importance of Clan Associations and gōngsuǒ (p101-2 of TCE), and also upon the existence of secret societies (p102 of TCE). As a result, they do not really intermingle, which explains that, many centuries after having left their homeland, they are still divided along regional lines and have kept their original dialect as their vernacular language. One exception is the overseas Chinese who settled in the area of the Strait of Malacca; some of them did intermingle with Malay women, and they speak a Mǐn-Malay creole dialect. In terms of religion, overseas Chinese have the same religious beliefs as their continental brethren, with some local peculiarities, especially in terms of folk religion, with different local deities and apotheosised heroes than on the Mainland.

The regional divisions amongst overseas Chinese lead to a complete lack of ethnic solidarity. On the contrary, there is much evidence of inter-clanic clashes, culminating in the Larut War of 1861-1874 in the centre of the Malay Peninsula. The Larut War (actually a series of four wars) is fought between two secret societies, a Hakka one and a Cantonese/Mǐn one, over the control of mining areas. The wars are only stopped by the intervention of the British.

[A-Z April Blogging] [J] Joseon Korea

NB— All Korean names below are followed by their Chinese transcription

Ancient Korea corresponds to the provinces of Inner Manchuria and Korea on the map on p28 of The Celestial Empire. However, Ancient Korea can hardly be considered as a single entity in the time period corresponding to scope of TCE. Under the Táng, Ancient Korea is divided into several warring kingdoms whose people do not even always share a common culture and a common language. This period ends with the unification of the Korean Peninsula (i.e., Korea proper) by the Goryeo/Gāolí (高麗) dynasty, whilst the northernmost part of Ancient Korea (i.e., present-day Inner Manchuria) falls to the Georan/Qìdān empire (契丹, p30-1 of TCE), forever lost to the Koreans.

The Goryeo/Gāolí dynasty, which is more or less contemporary with the Sòng, introduces a Chinese-style administrative system and Chinese customs; place-names and peoples' names are Sinicised. Hanmun/Hànwén (漢文, Classical Chinese) is the medium of choice for formal writing among members of the élite. Eonmun/Yànwén (諺文, vernacular script) is the least prestigious and the least consistent, and is the province of women. The middle classes use a mixed script consisting in Chinese phrases with Korean conjunctions linked by Eonmun/Yànwén particles [Chinese and Korean have completely different word order and grammar]. Under the Goryeo/Gāolí dynasty, Buddhism flourishes.

In 1232, Korea becomes a province of the Mongol empire, and shares the fate of Mongol-dominated Yuán China. Korean troops and ships provide the bulk of the Mongol invasion force that unsuccessfully attempts to invade Japan, in two ill-fated attempts in 1274 and again in 1281.

Under the Míng, Korea becomes independent again under the Joseon/Cháoxiān dynasty (朝鮮, 1392-1910), a long period of unification and of stability (except for the devastating Imjin/Rénchén wars with Japan, 1592-8). Even though it is a sovereign kingdom, Joseon/Cháoxiān Korea is a tributary state of Míng and then of Qīng China, always considering herself as the 'daughter' of Greater China. The Joseon/Cháoxiān period is considered the height of classical Korean culture, trade, science, literature, and technology.

Joseon police constable

I am providing a few guidelines below to play Korean characters in Joseon/Cháoxiān Korea. As a long, stable and Sinicised country, a Korean setting under the Joseon/Cháoxiān dynasty can be satisfactorily approximated with the TCE rules, as long as said guidelines are taken into account.

Status (p79 of BRP) is paramount in Joseon/Cháoxiān Korea, which is a highly stratified society, with very strictly-enforced sumptuary laws (regulating the dress of each social class):

Status — Social Class
01‒10 — Nobi/Núbì (奴婢): slave
11‒20 — Baekjeong/Báidīng (白丁) or Cheonmin/Jiànmín (賤民): "vulgar commoner"
21‒50 — Sangmin/Chángmín (常民): commoner
51‒60 — Jungin/Zhōngrén (中人): middle class
61‒100 — Yangban/Liǎngbān (兩班): nobility


Relations between men and women are also strictly controlled because of the Neo-Confucian ideals of Joseon/Cháoxiān Korea. Female characters can only join female professions. This limitation must be even more strongly enforced by the GM than in a 'standard' game of The Celestial Empire (p9-10 and p42 of TCE).

Player Character Characteristics

Please use the following:
Male characters: SIZ 2D6+6
Female characters: SIZ 2D6+5

Religion & Allegiance

Even though most Koreans are deeply Buddhist (several Joseon/Cháoxiān kings have written very beautiful Buddhist hymns), the state itself is officially and strongly Neo-Confucian. Throughout the history of Joseon/Cháoxiān Korea, Neo-Confucianism is always strongly enforced as the only state religion, and Buddhism is often suppressed. As a result, Buddhist monks reside in large monasteries far from city life to avoid involvement in politics, and to avoid harassment by the authorities. Buddhist priests are rare. Daoism is restricted to the odd hermit or alchemist.
Korean folk religion is similar to Chinese folk religion mixed with Shamanism, which is still strong in Korea, especially in the countryside. Monotheistic religions are absent until the introduction of Catholicism at the end of the 18th century.

Religion Availability Table (replaces the one on p48 of TCE)
Buddhism (common)
Confucianism (common)
Korean folk religion (common)
Daoism (uncommon)
Christianity [post-1786] (very uncommon)
Esoteric Buddhism/Tantric Buddhism (very uncommon)

List of Professions
Male characters
Assassin-retainer – identical to TCE
Buddhist Monk – identical to TCE
Constable – identical to TCE
Fortune-teller – identical to TCE, except Status: 20%
Geomancer – identical to TCE, except Status: 20%
Gukseon/Guóxiān (國仙) – a kind of mountain ascetic; use the 'Esoteric Buddhist Monk' template from TCE, except Allegiance: Korean folk religion 20 points; replace Knowledge (Religion: Esoteric Buddhism) with Knowledge (Religion: Korean folk religion); replace Perform (Sing) with Perform (Dance); replace Language (Manchu/Mongolian) with Language (Chinese); restrict magic to Battle Magic only, add the spells Dark and Farsee.
Hwarang/Huāláng – see the relevant post.
Magistrate – identical to TCE, except Status: 65%
Merchant – identical to TCE
Outlaw – identical to TCE
Scholar – identical to TCE, except Status: 60%
Slave – use the 'Slave' profession from p20 of Dragon Lines
Soldier – identical to TCE
Yangban/Liǎngbān (兩班) – use the 'Noble' profession from p18 of Dragon Lines

Female characters
Assassin-retainer – identical to TCE
Damo/Chámǔ (茶母) – Damo are female servants working for the police: only they can enter women-only residential areas for investigation and interrogation. These are strong, intelligent, and arms-trained women. In the history of Joseon/Cháoxiān Korea police investigations, it has been demonstrated that Damo often played major roles. In spite of this, they were ill-treated by their male counterparts. Use the 'Constable' template from TCE, except Wealth: Poor, and Status: 10%.
Gisaeng/Jìshēng (妓生) – Gisaeng are female entertainers very similar in role and accoutrement to Japanese Geisha. Use the 'Entertainer' profession from p15 of Dragon Lines; add Perform (Play: Instrument) and Perform (Sing) to the list of Primary skills. Status: 15%
Outlaw – identical to TCE
Shamaness – identical to TCE, except Allegiance: Korean folk religion 20 points, Status: 20%
Yangban/Liǎngbān (兩班) – use the 'Noble' profession from p18 of Dragon Lines

Skills

Etiquette – Base chance: 20%. Etiquette is paramount in Neo-Confucian Joseon/Cháoxiān Korea.
Firearm – Base chance: 20%. No Status skill penalty for using a firearm (they are slightly more common than in China).
Knowledge (Religion) – Base chance: 10% for common religions, 5% for uncommon religions, 0% for any other religion.
Language (Chinese) – All Yangban characters speak Chinese with a Base chance equal to EDU×3.

[April A-Z Blogging] [E] the Éméi Sect

As written on p103 of The Celestial Empire, fictional organisations are a staple of Chinese myth and legend. The monks of Shàolín, for instance, may have an origin in real history, but the way they've evolved in the national Chinese psyche makes them closer to superheroes than to historical figures.

Something similar has happened with the Éméi Sect (Éméi Pài 峨嵋派). Wikipedia describes it as a fictional martial arts sect from Jīn Yōng's works, whereas the web-site of the Confucius Institute describes it as a real-world sect. Given the fanciful material in the article from the latter source, I am more inclined to side with wikipedia. Anyway, this is not too important in a role-playing setting; if it's fun, it must be included.

The Éméi Sect is briefly mentioned in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: when Zhāng Zǐyí's character smashes the furniture in the inn whilst single-handedly defeating numerous opponents she says: "I am the Invincible Sword Goddess, armed with the Green Destiny that knows no equal! Be you Lǐ or Southern Crane, bow your head and ask for mercy! I am the dragon from the desert! Who comes from nowhere and leaves no trace! Today I fly over Éméi. Tomorrow... I topple Mount Wǔdāng!".

Éméi Pài 峨嵋派 ("the Éméi Sect")
The Éméi Pài is one of the leading righteous sects in the world of the Wǔlín (p9 of TCE). It is named after the place where it is based, Mount Éméi (p25 of TCE), one of the Four Great Mountains of Buddhism. Although it is a Buddhist sect, the Éméi Pài has been described as working hand in hand with Daoist righteous martial artists in Chinese fiction. Again in Chinese fiction, the Éméi Pài is said to enrol both male and female recruits. It can be used by the GM as a vessel to introduce female (N)PCs to the game, thus ignoring the usual restrictions listed on p10 of TCE.

Period of time: Yuán to Qīng
Allegiance: Buddhism
Style: external (yáng)
Powers: same as Éméiquán (p69 of TCE)
Other Powers taught: Buddhist Magic — Mantra of Bhaisajyaguru
Special: in case of dire emergency, members of the Éméi Pài in good standing within the sect, and with a Buddhism Allegiance score of 70 at the least, may request succour from the leaders of the Sect. This request needn't be carried out by a messenger: the person sending out the request may do so through a successful Meditation skill roll  — the request will then telepathically be received on Éméi Shān. The GM will have to judge whether the request is or is not justified. Should it be justified and in line with the activities of the sect, Mount Éméi will provide appropriate help in the form of a group of Éméi Pài martial artists who will travel from the nearest available location to the threat. This will require of course some wotk from the GM (size and location of the party, statting its members...)

[April A-Z Blogging] [D] the Dungan Revolts

'Dungan' is the name given in Central Asia to the Huí (see p30 of The Celestial Empire), the Chinese-speaking Muslims from Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin. They call themselves Lǎo Huíhuí: Old Muslims. Two devastating Huí revolts took place in China in the second half of the 19th century, resulting in very heavy casualties, destruction, and the mass emigration of the Huí to Sogdiana and Turkestan.

The Manchu-led Qīng empire had a very aggressive policy vis-à-vis the Dungans. However, it did not provoke any major migration of Dungans out of China before the Dungan revolts. As explained on p40 of TCE, the Qīng treated Muslims as second-class subjects. At the time of the Tàipíng Rebellion (second half of the 19th century), the Qīng allowed the Hàn to form armed militias to defend themselves. The Hàn of Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin also armed themselves, even if they were thousands of km away from the Tàipíng Rebellion. The Huí felt threatened and also started arming themselves. This escalation led to a very tense situation, which only needed a spark to become something worse. A trivial incident in 1862 gave start to the rebellion, which quickly spread as far east as Gānsù, where there were many capable Sufi leaders who joined the rebellion. In 1865, the Uyghurs joined the fray on the side of the Huí under their leader Yaqub Beg (see p40 of TCE), and soon the Qīng lost control of Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin. In 1867, the Qīng General Zuǒ Zōngtáng fought back using a carrot-and-stick strategy: on the one hand, massive amounts of money were invested in the region to promote agriculture and education; on the other hand, gun-carrying forces were sent to fight against the Muslim rebels (Chinese armed forces in the 19th century were still mostly relying on cold weapons!). After the first Qīng victories in 1871-2, skilful diplomacy brought back several Huí leaders into the loyalist camp. Despite repeated offers of amnesty in 1873, the war went on with many battles (mostly sieges), thousand of victims, and ethnic cleansing on both sides until 1877. In the end, the situation became so confused that the Uyghurs and the Huí started an internecine conflict, with the Hàn Chinese still in Dzungaria and in the Tarim Basin joining forces with the Uyghurs to exterminate the Huí, whilst the Russians to the north took advantage of the chaos to annex the territory around the city of Kulja in Dzungaria.

In the end, a combined force of Hàn soldiers and Huí former rebels defeated Yaqub Beg's forces and took back all lost territories. The Huí who fled to Central Asia were those who remained on the rebel side until the very end of the (first) Dungan Revolt.

A second Dungan Revolt took place in 1895-6. This time, the fighting was mostly between rival Sufi Naqshbandi orders amongst the Huí. It was put down by loyalist Muslims.

Lan Xang Goodness!

Lan Xang was a Lao kingdom that lasted from 1354 to 1707, i.e., from the Yuán until the early Qīng in Chinese terms. Lan Xang appears at the bottom of map No.1 on p28 of The Celestial Empire.

There's been a recent article by Bryan Thao Worra, a Lao-American short story writer, on the Innsmouth Free Press web-site, which provides a lot of Cthulhuesque adventure ideas in Lan Xang. Obviously, a lot of those ideas can be ripped off for a cross-over CoC/TCE game, or even for a regular high-fantasy TCE game.

I am copying the juicy parts of the article below:

Once known as the "Realm of a Million Elephants", Laos today is home to over sixty different documented cultures, each with its own languages, epics and customs. A nation the size of Great Britain, Lao geography is 70% jungles and mountains, with many ancient temples and ruins, even the mysterious Plain of Jars, filled with giant urns of unknown purpose.

There are plenty of beings from the Cthulhu Mythos created during the 20th century who’d fit right into a Lovecraftian Lao horror story. Consider the Tcho-Tcho and the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep, Yig, the Father of Serpents, elephantine Chaugnar Faugn, the serpent people, or freshwater Deep Ones plying the Mekong before swimming into the cryptic depths of the Pacific.

Plenty of figures from Lao legends more than fit the bill as Lovecraftian entities. The Lao regard the Nak, or Nāga (TCE p125), as sacred protectors, particularly of the teachings of the Buddha. These are shapeshifting, serpentine beings imbued with magic powers and a capacity for terrible vengeance on anyone who despoils their sacred streams, rivers, lakes, or hidden caverns. But I advise you to treat them respectfully within your story.

There are also the Nyak, who have their roots in the Rākshasa legends of India (TCE p125-6). They are giant, horrific anthrovores of remote wildernesses. Some swore to protect the teachings of the Buddha. Others have far, far different designs. Lao legends are filled with legends of terrifying roaming weretigers, half-bird women, hungry ghosts, flying horses, and mystic hermits. With a little digging, a writer finds amazing opportunities.

The Hmong in Laos have numerous entities who invoke dread and fear, such as the poj ntxoog, a nightmarish malignant hag hungry for human flesh. One forest spirit is known to approach mountain farmers at night, its arrival heralded by poultry exploding or pigs turning inside out. The classic Hmong legend of "The Orphan and the Zaj", an aquatic dragon-like being, was retold in the early 1980s as a comedy, but, when read correctly, should more likely be interpreted as a terrifying adventure with Lovecraftian undertones.

[...]

Most traditional Lao epic myths are poorly translated into English, seemingly inconsistent, incomplete and even contradictory. Sometimes, they’re horribly abridged; other times they’re incoherently voluminous. For the Lovecraftian writer, this should be rather familiar and almost reassuring territory to wade into.

An excellent online resource for Lao folktales can be found at Northern Illinois University, which houses a free archive of many English translations of Lao legends and myths.

I would particularly highlight the translation of Phra Lak Phra Lam, which is a Lao take on the Indian epic of the Rāmāyana. Featuring warrior monkeys known as "vanon", titanic Nāga kings, mermaid generals, shapeshifting monks, villainous giant Rākshasa on an island fortress and spells aplenty, it would be simplicity itself to set a sword and sorcery tale within this story, especially one with the classic trappings of the Mythos.

Phadaeng Nang Ai is another tale with significant potential. It’s a love triangle between the Nāga prince Phangkhi, a human princess named 'Aikham', and the human king Phadeng. The aspect of interest for Lovecraftian writers is the revenge of the Nāga king, Suttho, who leads an army of Nāga to kill everyone in King Phadeng’s realm for eating Prince Phangkhi. The Nāga king seizes Princess Aikham to live in the fabled underwater Nāga city of Badan. King Phadeng’s solution is to end his own life so he can become a ghost king who rallies a ghost army to seize his beloved back. If you can’t work with that, turn in your elder signs.