A Podcast About Outlaws of the Water Margin

Outlaws of the Water Margin is the roleplaying game that initially made me want to write my own frp game set in Imperial China. It is also an early example of a ‘culture rpg’, a kind of role-playing game that is really different from our usual escapist games.

I have recently discovered that the podcast “Ludonarrative Dissidents” had covered the game, in particular the cultural environment in which it had been created.

Enjoy the episode!

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

Trade Routes Under the Sòng

Thanks to reddit user martinjanmansson, we have access – here – to a fantastically detailed map of the trade routes of Eurasia in the 11th/12th centuries AD, i.e., under the Sòng dynasty of China.


I have added below the maps of interest for an East Asian campaign:

Map centred on China

the North-East

the North-West

the South-East

the South-West

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.

Quick 'n Easy Tibet-Flavoured Setting

I have serendipitously found, on the Santicore blog, a small gem of a rather Old School-ish Tibetan-flavoured setting for fantasy role-playing games. It's called The Roof of the World and it's here; enjoy!

Fantasy Tibet

Given the overall D&D-ish flavour, this setting would probably work best with my upcoming Oriental Monsters & Magic rules rather than with The Celestial Empire, but I think that with little work from the GM it should also work with the latter.

Outlaws of the Water Margin

This post is about Outlaws of the Water Margin— no, not the book: the role-playing game. Set under the Sòng in the milieu of the derring-do outlaws of the Rivers and Lakes, this is in my opinion the best 'Oriental' role-playing game ever. It was actually a combination of Outlaws of the Water Margin, for the immersive cultural context, and of Rome: Life and Death of the Republic, for the system engine and the layout, that spurred my working seriously on The Celestial Empire, whose manuscript had been sleeping in draft format for such a long time, in the first place.

The only problem is that Outlaws of the Water Margin has never been published. Paul Mason started to work on it years ago (before widespread use of the internet, when there still were paper rpg fanzines) and, Paul being the procrastinating perfectionist that he is, the fully-fledged game never saw the light.

Some draft versions of it did circulate as PDFs generously handed out by the author, but alas there isn't much left online.

Draft versions of the main chapter are available here. I don't know if these are the latest PDFs that have circulated, but it is a good start. Paul would also often discuss progress in the game in the pages of imazine, the fanzine that he edited and published until 2002.
The gaming system was extremely simple, efficient, and elegant. Success of an action would depend on an ability plus a modifier and the roll of 2D6 against a given difficulty; in case of success, the highest of the 2D6 would also give the degree of success. Today this is the bread-and-butter of a lot of games, but at the time (the mid-90s, when elegant design and a single mechanism to cover all game-related actions were almost unheard-of) this was quite a revolution.The game also stressed the importance of a PC's family and guānxi, again at the time when this was not exactly what game designers had in mind. Wealth was an abstract measure, not the exact computation of how many coppers and silvers the PC had amassed; again, something really, really revolutionary at the time.

Paul also made available the write-ups of a series of gaming sessions, which have also been extremely inspiring when I was writing TCE. The write-ups are available here.

Viktor Haag is known to have GM'ed an Outlaws of the Water Margin campaign, whose sole [as far as I know] campaign log-cum-fanzine is available here.

If you find more information about Outlaws of the Water Margin, please let me know!

the Khitans

The Khitans (in Chinese: Qìdān 契丹; in Korean: Georan) were a nomadic para-Mongolic people, originally from Mongolia and Manchuria, appearing in historical records well before the Táng. The original ethnic centre of the Khitans seems to have been Inner Mongolia. The Khitans were one of the foremost steppe peoples, and exerted enormous influence on northern and Inner Asia until the 13th century, yet they are very little known outside of the restricted circle of people interested in East Asian history. The current name of China in several languages stems from the name of the Khitans (e.g., Bulgarian and Russian: Китай; Kazakh: Қытай; Mongolian: Хятад), as well as the ancient name of 'Cathay' formerly used in most European languages (see my earlier post about Bento de Góis). This is testament to their importance at the time.

Under the Táng, the Khitans were vassals to either the Táng or the Türks, depending on the balance of power between the two, or to the Uyghurs when the latter replaced the Türks as the main steppe power.

After the Ān Lùshān Rebellion (755-763), the Khitans did not take advantage of the weakening of the Táng but remained peaceful vassals of the Uyghurs. In 916, in the interregnum between the Táng and Sòng dynasties, the Khitan khan Ābǎojī (阿保機) declared himself emperor; for the very first time in their history, the Khitans became a united nation. In 926, the Khitans conquered much of the northernmost part of Ancient Korea, and absorbed it into their empire. In 935, the Khitans conquered the so-called 'Sixteen Prefectures' (which correspond to the province named 'Liáo' on the map on p28 of The Celestial Empire). In 947, the Khitan Empire adopted Buddhism as its state religion and a Chinese-like strong central government, and was re-named the Liáo Dynasty (Liáo Cháo 遼朝). The Khitan script was modelled in imitation of the shape of Chinese characters. At its height, the Liáo Empire stretched from Manchuria in the east to the Tarim Basin in the west. To the people along the Silk Road, the Khitan Empire was "China", since all the Chinese goods they saw came from it — hence the naming patterns for 'China' mentioned in the introduction of this post.

Although they had become Sinicised and had adopted a Chinese-style government for their sedentary subjects, the Khitans did maintain part of their nomadic lifestyle: the court of the Liáo emperor moved between its various capitals; rather than build palaces, the nobles lived in luxurious tents. Contention over succession was resolved amongst brothers by violence, nomad-style.

the Sòng and Liáo Empires

From its very beginning, the Sòng Dynasty was hostile to the Liáo, and used military force in an attempt to recapture the Sixteen Prefectures. However, Sòng forces were repulsed by the Liáo forces who engaged in aggressive yearly campaigns into northern Sòng territory until 1005 when the signing of the Chányuān Treaty ended these northern border clashes. The Sòng were forced to provide a yearly tribute to the Khitans of 100,000 ounces of silver and 200,000 bolts of silk. These border clashes feature prominently in the Míng novel the Water Margin (chapters 83-89 of the 100-chapter version).

The Sinicised Khitan Empire of the Liáo remained a major player in north-east Asia until 1125, when it was defeated and destroyed by the Jurchens (see p30 of TCE). Most relics of the Khitan culture were destroyed when the Liáo Empire fell. Tombs were disinterred in acts of revenge by the Jurchens, which had been oppressed during the Khitan reign.

The remnants of the Liáo Dynasty escaped the area towards the Western Regions (Xīyù 西域), establishing the short-lived Kara-Khitan Khanate, which fell to the Mongols in 1218. That was the end of the Khitans. No later people has been established as their descendents, and their language also died out.

Evolution of Chinese Armour - Sòng to Yuán

The silver standard and Chinese currency

The following is all from Wikipedia

China had long used silver ingots as a medium of exchange, along with the cast copper-alloy cash. The use of silver ingots can be traced back as far as the Hàn dynasty. But prior to the Sòng Dynasty, those silver ingots were used mainly for hoarding wealth. During the Sòng Dynasty, though first time in history the government became the sole issuer of paper currency after 1024, cast coins and silver ingots were still used as a medium of exchange. In the Chányuān Treaty, signed with the state of Liáo in 1004, Sòng China agreed to pay an annual indemnity or tribute of 100,000 tael of silver and 200,000 bolts of silk. This was the first time bulk silver in tael (Chinese: 銀兩) was used as indemnity in a treaty with a foreign power. Silver ingots had a shape similar to a boat or a Chinese shoe during the Yuán Dynasty. This became an ordinary shape for silver ingots during the following centuries.

The use of silver as a medium of exchange was very established at the time of the Míng Dynasty. Paper money was issued as monetary standard at the beginning of the dynasty. But due to the rapid inflation, the issues were suspended around 1450, although notes remained in circulation until 1573 (see Chinese currency). Meanwhile, silver was very much available through foreign trade with the Portuguese and the Spanish, beginning in the 16th century. The great taxation reform by Zhāng Jūzhèng (張居正) in 1581 simplified the taxation and required all the tax and corvée to be paid in silver. This can be seen as an indication of the firm position of silver in the monetary system of the Míng. But the reform would not have been a success or even feasible if the enormous amounts of silver were not available through the trade and imports from America, mainly through the Spanish.

an 1868 Mexican silver peso showing chopmarks from Chinese merchants

During the Qīng Dynasty, silver ingots were still used, but various foreign silver dollars had become popular in the southern coastal regions through foreign trade since the mid-Qīng era. It was apparent that the silver ingots became awkward and more complicated to use vis-à-vis the foreign silver dollars, which could be counted easily, given their fixed specification and fineness of silver. However, the Qīng dynasty very much resisted the idea of minting a silver coin of their own. It was not until late Qīng, in 1890, that the first circulating silver coin was introduced by Guǎngdōng province [in South China]. The coin was at par with the Mexican Peso, and soon this issue was emulated by other provinces. For these silver coins, the tael was still seen as the proper monetary unit, as the denomination of the coins were given as 0.72 tael (specifically: 7 mace and 2 candareens; see p20 of The Celestial Empire). The equivalent monetary unit yuán (圓) hadn't appeared yet. Note for the treaties signed between the Qīng dynasty and other countries the indemnities were all in taels of silver, except for the Treaty of Nanking, where the silver dollar was indicated. It was not until 1910 that the yuán was officially announced as the standard monetary unit. The yuán was subdivided into 10 jiǎo (角) or 100 fēn (分), and specified as 0.72 tael of 90 per cent fine silver.

Design Your Character

There's this nifty web-site for creating costumed dolls on-line... and one of the sub-categories is Korean Warrior! Obviously you can use it to design your Celestial Empire character.

The Korean apparel is supposedly from late Silla [Xīnluó  新羅], which almost exactly corresponds to Táng in China. But I believe this kind of clothing would fit TCE characters up until the Sòng.

I created the warrior above in two-three minutes of time. The scenery is fixed.

Tea Bricks

Tea bricks were the sole form of tea produced and used in Imperial China prior to the Míng dynasty. Each brick weighed about 100g~400g and was thus easily transported, sold or traded. Many such bricks were carried along the Silk Road, or across the Indian Ocean.

In isolated places within Imperial China, as well as in Inner Asia and in Siberia, tea bricks were used as currency.

The various steps in the preparation of tea bricks were all under the control of various guilds who had a monopoly.

Because of the toughness of the bricks, they have to be ground into fine powder before tea can be consumed. Also these bricks are often toasted over a fire to kill insects and moulds. As a result, the taste of tea before the Míng must have been completely different from what we know today.

History of the Chinese language(s) - Middle Chinese

Middle Chinese (jìndài Hànyǔ 近代漢語, also called zhōnggǔ Hànyǔ 中古漢語), refers to the form of Chinese spoken from the 3rd to the 13th century AD. It is further divided into Early Middle Chinese (for your Táng games), and Late Middle Chinese (for your Sòng games).

As written on p20 of the rule book, Middle Chinese can still be considered as a unique language throughout the Empire. But one's accent will always give their origin away as a Northerner or a Southerner.

Middle Chinese is probably when the Chinese languages got their tones, as the result of a reduction in the number of consonants and vowels. It is probably also when many compound words have appeared, to reduce homophony issues.

The Armament of the Sòng Dynasty Soldier

The following are, in BRP terms, the typical weapons and armour of Sòng dynasty soldiers. It must be noted that, on top of the types below, the Sòng made extensive use of mercenaries: Mongol defectors as irregular infantrymen, and northern and western nomads as tribal horse archers.

Cavalrymen were less numerous than under the Táng because of limited access to horse breeding countries as a result of territorial losses in the north-west.

CAVALRYMAN
Lance 1D12+db (impaling)
Sword 1D8+db (bleeding)
Scale armour 6 AP
Heavy helmet 3 AP

INFANTRYMAN
Sword 1D8+db (bleeding), or Spear 1D8+1+db (impaling)
Crossbow 2D6 (impaling)
Papier-mâché hauberk 2 AP (4 AP vs missiles)
Light helmet 2 AP

MILITIAMAN
Knife 1D3+db (impaling)
Bow 1D6+2+½db (impaling)
Heavy clothing 1 AP

Sòng regular soldiers (cavalrymen and infantrymen) were intensively drilled; as a result, their weapon skills should be in the 50~60% range.

Militiamen were given vacant fields close to enemy territory, tax free on whatever they could grow, and a free horse.

The practice of recruiting soldiers from among the lower orders of society (petty criminals, vagabonds, and amnestied bandits) was really started under the Sòng.

Water Margin (Shuǐhǔ Zhuàn 水滸傳)

The Water Margin is a picaresque novel written under the Míng 明 but based on material from the Yuán 元. It tells the many adventures of the famous Shāndōng 山東-based “108 outlaws” of the Sòng 宋. The outline of the story and some of the characters have vague historical bases, but most of the stories-within-the-story present in the narrative of the novel are based on early popular tales.

The Water Margin is a much beloved novel, as are its characters, in all the Chinese sphere of influence in East Asia. It is also one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. The novel is remarkable for its many protagonists and for the way in which its early chapters appear as independent narrations centred on one given character, which slowly get intertwined as the main story unfolds. It is highly recommended that any GM of The Celestial Empire read the book to get a taste for the way the Chinese envision adventurous characters. Players are also advised to read the book to capture archetypes for Chinese heroes.

In the Chinese sphere of influence, the Water Margin has been rendered as film, TV series, comic books, children's books, video games, operas, radio shows... This is testimony to its immense popularity. Just as any Western kid recognises Robin Hood or Zorro, any East Asian kid recognises Shǐ Jìn 史進, Lǐ Kuí 李逵 or Wǔ Sōng 武松.

As mentioned above, the novel begins with what may appear as independent stories in their own right; however, all these stories end up with the protagonist being framed by a greedy official or an unscrupulous merchant and having to seek refuge in the shadow world of the Rivers and Lakes (Jiānghú 江湖, see page 9 of The Celestial Empire). Once the main characters have become outlaws, the main character of the Water Margin, Sòng Jiāng 宋江, a lowly magistrate's clerk, makes his appearance in Chapter 18. The interesting thing with Sòng Jiāng is that he is not strong (he's not a martial artist), he is not particularly bright (he's but a petty official), he is not heroic (he has fled because he has killed a woman); however he embodies yìqi 義氣 (see page 9 of The Celestial Empire) so well by his many actions that he attracts all the other outlaws until they form a sworn brotherhood of 108. This is the apex of the Shāndōng heroes. After several unsuccessful military assault against their stronghold, the Emperor must eventually grant them amnesty. The second part of the novel starts with the bandits now a fully-fledged military unit of the imperial army. Unfortunately, all their old foes conspire to have the Emperor send them quell revolts or fight nomad invaders, until only a handful of the original 108 outlaws are left alive.

The best English language version is probably Sidney Shapiro's Outlaws of the Marsh. For those who read French, I strongly recommend the superior French translation Au bord de l'eau by Jacques Dars.

Bāo Gōng (包公)

In Confucianism and in Chinese Folk religion, Bāo Gōng (Lord Bāo) is the God of Justice. As is often the case with Chinese Folk religion and its many apotheosised heroes, Bāo Gōng is the deification of an historical figure: Bāo Zhěng (包拯, 999–1062), a famously incorruptible judge from the Sòng dynasty.

Chinese Folk religion is a religion without an organised clergy. As a consequence, worship to Bāo Gōng is not performed by professional priests; his temples are built and maintained by wealthy residents of the neighbourhood, and obviously by the local judge and any other officials residing in the area.

Popular worship to Bāo Gōng is conducted through representations of Chinese opera with an actor disguised as Bāo Zhěng, and through the fictionalised accounts of his deeds as told by travelling story-tellers.