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.

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!

Míng China Discovered America!

This is the claim made by pseudo-historian Gavin Menzies. While I do believe some of the theories he put forward in his first book, 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, I think that he's simply kept presenting more and more over-the-top theories in each of his following books.

Irrespective of their historical accuracy, though, his books are great fun to read, if only for the great ideas they provide for an ocean-going role-playing campaign using The Celestial Empire.

This article is about Gavin Menzies, his books, and his theories. As I said, I think it can be a fun source of inspiration, especially if you want to incorporate Fúsāng (扶桑) as a Chinese version of the continent of America in your TCE campaign.

New Rules, New Campaign

I am currently writing a new East Asian-flavoured role-playing game. This new book won't use the Basic Role-Playing System like The Celestial Empire does, but the Effect Engine (used in Monsters & Magic) by Sarah Newton.

Another major difference with The Celestial Empire is that the new book, whose working title is Oriental Monsters & Magic, will focus on a particular time period, namely the 16th century. Also, instead of having China as its central focus and depict the neighbouring countries from a Sinocentric point of view, Oriental Monsters & Magic will try and focus in equal mode on the four civilised countries that surround the East China Sea: Míng China, Joseon Korea, Muromachi/Azuchi-Momoyama Japan, and the Ryūkyū kingdom.

I have started a playtesting campaign for the new rules set in Míng China. You can find the campaign log here (beware, it's in French!).

The Live-Lively (shēngshēng 猩猩)

The Live-Lively (shēngshēng 猩猩 or 狌狌) are legendary creatures mentioned several times in the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shānhǎi Jīng 山海經).

The Live-Lively are good-natured simian humanoids that live close to salt water; this is supposed to be because of their connections with the Dragon Kings that rule the seas as they otherwise do not have any particular aquatic capabilities. Their most striking feature is their huge mane of reddish hair. They also have a tail of the same colour, and strikingly white ears. The rest of their fur is either greenish blue (青) or black.

The Live-Lively adore rice wine and go to great lengths to obtain it from humans. They can swallow incredible quantities of liquor without any harmful effects other than being even jollier than usual.

They have a special power which is knowing the name of any person they interact with.

Shēngshēng inhabit the coastal areas of China and Japan, and most of the islands between these two countries. They may also sometimes be found in the mountainous areas of south-west China.


Characteristics:
STR 3D6+3 (13-14)
CON 3D6 (10-11)
SIZ 3D6 (10-11)
INT 3D6 (10-11)
POW 2D6+6 (13)
DEX 3D6 (10-11)
APP 3D6 (10-11)

Move : 8
Hit Points: 11
Qì: 13
Damage Bonus: None
Armour: 1
Allegiance: Roll 1D100, 01-80: Daoism 1D6−4; 81-90: Daoism 1D6−2; 91-00: Buddhism 1D6−4
Morale: Mook

Skills:
Climb 40%, Dodge 40%, Hide 15%, Jump 30%, Knowledge (Region [Own]) 50%, Knowledge (Sea [Local]) 70%, Language ([Majority language of region]) INT×4%, Listen 35%, Sense 50%, Spot 25%, Swim 80%.

Special powers:
- Double CON when resisting effects of alcoholic beverages.
- Know name. A shēngshēng  will know the name of any person who interacts with it. Leaving an offering of rice wine to a shēngshēng counts as "interaction".

Attacks:
Brawl 40%, damage: 1D3+db (crushing)

Hit Location Table
1D20 | Hit Location | Hit Point Value
Tail | 01-02 | 1/5 total HP
R Leg | 03-05 | 1/3 total HP
L Leg | 06-08 | 1/3 total HP
Abdomen | 09-11 | 1/3 total HP
Chest | 12 | 2/5 total HP
R Arm | 13-15 | 1/4 total HP
L Arm | 16-18 | 1/4 total HP
Head | 19-20 | 1/3 total HP 

The unpublished British role-playing game Tetsubo, set in a fantasy version of Japan, made the Shōjō (Japanese pronunciation of 猩猩) available as a player character race. The Shōjō were described as smaller than humans (at an average height of 1.3m), and as having the following beginning skills: Etiquette and Consume Alcohol.