[A-Z April Blogging] [R] Ryūkyū Kingdom

The Ryūkyū Archipelago is situated half way between Formosa and Japan, and is made up of several subtropical islands, the largest of which is Okinawa 沖繩.

The Ryūkyū Islands formed an independent kingdom known in Chinese since the fourteenth century as the Liúqiú Guó (琉球國). The Ryūkyū Kingdom played a central role in, and thrived from, the maritime trade networks of East and Southeast Asia: the Míng Chinese policy of hǎijìn (海禁, "Sea Bans") did not apply to the Ryūkyū Kingdom. The official language of the kingdom, as in much of East Asia, was Classical Chinese; the vernacular language was Ryukyuan, a language related to (but different from) Japanese. Although independent, the Ryūkyū Kingdom was a 'tributary state' in the Sino-centric Chinese worldview, much like Joseon Korea. Many Ryukyuan officials were descended from Míng-era Chinese immigrants.

The Ryukyuan religion was a mix of ancestor worship and shamanism. Due to the Chinese influence, Buddhism, Daoism, and Chinese folk religion came to influence Ryukyuan religious practice. Some characteristics of Ryukyuan religion that may be of interest for a Ryukyu-based game of The Celestial Empire:
1- All shamans are female, but these shamanesses are very specialised:
a- some communicate with, make offerings to, and, at times, channel ancestors, local gods and more powerful deities. They are central to any organised community. Even though they are, in game terms, shamanesses, socially speaking their role is akin to that of a priest.
b- some others communicate with the dead when in trance. They are closer to the standard Asian shaman in aspect, from a social point of view, and also in how a shamaness discovers her powers in her youth ('shamanic illness', near-death experience, visions...)
c- some others yet are fortune-tellers, or officiate at weddings or funerals, mixing Buddhist prayers with native rituals.
2- Spirits and magical creatures such as yāoguài (p112 of TCE), dragons (p120 of TCE), guardian lions (p126 of TCE), and ghosts, are very present and of paramount importance
3- An emphasis on the fabrication and the use of amulets, talismans, etc.
4- Lóngmài (ley lines) strongly influence Ryukyuan magico-religious practices.

Japanese were prohibited from visiting the Ryūkyū Islands without shogunal permission, and the Ryukyuans were forbidden from adopting Japanese names, clothes, or customs.

Under the Míng, however, the Ashikaga Shogunate sent Buddhist priests from major temples in Kyōto, and four Japanese Buddhist temples were constructed in the second half of the fifteenth century. Later, when the Ryūkyū Islands were controlled by the Satsuma domain of Japan, all forms of Buddhism other than Zen [Chán] and Shingon [Esoteric Buddhism] were proscribed by the Satsuma lord.

The nationhood status of the Ryūkyū Kingdom was totally compromised in 1609 when the Satsuma daimyō of southern Japan invaded the islands. Although in reality controlled by the Satsuma, the Ryūkyū royal government formally ruled until 1879, and the Kingdom retained its trading, religious, and cultural ties with China. In 1879, the Ryūkyū Kingdom was formally annexed by Japan; a governor was appointed to administer the islands; Japanese was introduced as the official language.

[A-Z April Blogging] [Q] Qelong Valley

The imaginary Qelong Valley in Cambodia is the setting of the upcoming sandbox-like supplement The Valley of the Lost Shell, by Kenneth Hite, for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing game. If you are unfamiliar with LotFP, its supplements specialise in dark, even sinister, fantasy tales approximately set in 16th- or 17th-century Europe. The Valley of the Lost Shell is going to be LotFP's first foray into an Asian-flavoured setting.

click to enlarge

Here is a brief presentation of The Valley of the Lost Shell by Ken Hite himself:
"The Valley of the Lost Shell is a classic 'exploration' adventure, set in a wet, poisoned sandbox. [...]  I see the Qelong Valley as a land of steam, smoke, mist, fog – high grasses and low mangroves, like the Dead Marshes or Beowulf’s fen country. All of this grows not in a placid pastoral Olden Tyme, or even a gently corroded Dark Age, but in the path — or technically on the sidelines — of a great and incomprehensible war. Houses and farms are burned, villagers gaunt and feral. Dogs whine over the carcasses of their masters, then tear out the intestines to feed themselves. Men kill each other for a handful of rice, or for a woman who can be beaten into cooking it. All around, sorcerous echoes and explosions ripple the skies, but as a constant drumbeat of vile thunder, not as anything aimed at anyone in the same country. The Qelong Valley has been poisoned by accident and forgotten by its killers. Only the scavengers remain, and the worms that grow in the corpse.
Magical fallout, the elephant lich, the hundred-mile-long naga, the Lotus Monks, the insect-possessed myrmidons, and so much more... different than anything LotFP has done so far, that's for sure."

Elephant lich? Hundred-mile-long naga? Lotus Monks? Colour me interested :-)

[A-Z April Blogging] [P] Pastimes

The cultivated Chinese gentleman-scholar is expected to master four pastimes:

1 — Calligraphy (書 shū)
2 — the Game of Go (圍棋 wéiqí)
3 — Painting (畫 huà)
4 — Playing the Lute (琴 qín)

Calligraphy
Calligraphy falls under the skill of Literacy (Classical Chinese), as explained on p59 of The Celestial Empire. One's calligraphy is thought to convey one's personality. As a result, an ugly writing is a social catastrophe. There are many different calligraphy styles, corresponding to different time periods and/or to different expectations (a regular style will convey mastery of the brush strokes, a cursive style manual dexterity). The brush, ink, paper, and ink stone are the essential implements of calligraphy. They are known together as 'the Four Treasures/Jewels/Friends of the Study'. The GM may want to add exceptional implements that give a bonus to the character's Literacy (Classical Chinese) skill.

Go
The relevant skill is Gaming. The game of go predates the Táng dynasty. In Imperial China, for some reason, the game of go is considered as a refined pastime, whereas chess (象棋 xiàngqí) is the game of the masses. See also the section titled 'Entertainment' on p17-8 of TCE.

Painting
The relevant skill is Art (Chinese Painting). Chinese painting is mostly an extension of calligraphy since its highest form, brush painting, uses a single brush and black ink only. Other styles add colour and usually concentrate on a recurring theme: birds and flowers, landscapes, the four seasons...

Playing the Lute
The relevant skill is Perform (Play: Lute). Contrary to other popular Chinese instruments, rumoured to be of Central Asian origin, the Chinese lute is felt as both a native instrument, and as the province of the literati. Countless books have been written by gentlemen-scholars on the art of playing the lute, and inability to play it correctly can bring social stigma. Like-minded performers gather in qín schools. The GM may develop these in a way similar to clan associations or secret societies.

The Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar (四藝 sìyì)

Success in any of the above skills can give a bonus to an Etiquette or a Status roll, if the target is a cultivated person, of course — a bandit isn't likely to be impressed by a beautiful piece of calligraphy.
Playing the Lute can also relax one's mind, and success in this skill can give a bonus to a Mental skill roll.

Obviously, failing any of the above yields a negative modifier equal to the expected bonus.

[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] [N] Neo-Confucianism

Neo-Confucianism is a Chinese intellectual movement that becomes prominent under the Sòng. It originates with both a fresh rediscovery of ancient texts, and a will to distantiate Confucianism from Daoism and Buddhism. Although it is considered as a philosophy born under the Sòng, its origins are really with Lǐ Áo (772-836 or 841), who was a nephew and a disciple of Hán Yù (768-824). Neo-Confucianists borrowed the terms of Lǐ 理 (principle) and Qì 氣 (see p4 of The Celestial Empire) from Buddhism and Daoism but re-interpreted them in a more rationalist and secular way, using metaphysics as a mere guide for developing a rationalist ethical philosophy.

Zhū Xī

The major figures of Neo-Confucianism are Zhōu Dūnyí (1017-1073), whose comments on the Yìjīng (the Book of Changes) using Daoist terms are the seminal Neo-Confucianist work, and Zhāng Zǎi (1020-1077 or 1078), who meditates on the meaning and characteristics of Qì and builds a whole new system of metaphysics based on it. Other major figures are the brothers Chéng (Chéng Hào, 1032-1085 and Chéng Yí, 1033-1107 or 1108), who profess the study of the Dào (Dàoxué) through the Investigation of Things (géwù), essentially an academic form of observational science, based on the idea that Lǐ lies within the world, and Zhū Xī (1130-1200), whose extensive commentaries on the Classics and on the 'Four Books' of Confucianism (the Analects of Confucius, the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, and the Mèngzǐ) become the basis of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy for the following eight centuries. Lù Xiàngshān (1139 or 1140-1192 or 1193), a rival of Zhū Xī's, is another Neo-Confucian thinker of note. He founded the Neo-Confucian School of Mind, the second most influential Neo-Confucian school after the School of Principle founded by Zhū Xī.

The term 'Neo-Confucianism' is of Western origin. The Chinese use Rújiā for Confucianism, and Lǐxué for Neo-Confucianism, i.e., two completely different phrases without any common term. In The Celestial Empire, despite the many differences between Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism, they will be considered as the same 'Allegiance' in gaming terms.