![]() The Realmslore on Shou Lung suggests that the empire suffered a major civil war following the Hoard and the Spellplague brought down the entire length of the Dragonwall as well as unleashing massive tidal waves along its coast (likely due to continents being switched around between planets). One of the reasons I’m suggesting Kozakura, in addition to having the most source material available for it, it is likely the realm least changed by the events of the Spellplague. I’d also recommend FGU’s Bushido game for some useful fluff as well as some crunch in the form of adventure threads and encounter tables like the OA books, a PDF is available for sale on DriveThruRPG. The 2nd ed Monsterous Compendium for Kara-tur is okay to have but not essential if you already picked up MotO, then you don’t need it. Useful but not essential is OA4: Blood of the Yakuza and the Japanese deity section of the old Deities & Demigods/Legends & Lore 1st ed Handbook. The latter gives a detailed map of a province with adventure springboards as well as a general guide to the country and its politics while the former gives all the beginning details for each of the realms of Kara-tur as well as color maps of the kingdoms-maps are life for a setting as any DM will tell you. What you will want is a copy of the Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms box set, available in the WotC PDF store on DriveThruRPG and a copy of OA1: Swords of the Daimyo. I’m thinking Martial Arts might be done some sort of Feat, but for now we’ll largely skip it or leave it for the Monk class for the moment. One game rule that hasn’t been covered is the Psychic Duel (which I’ll cover in a later journel) and Martial Arts systems. A lot of the stuff on Oriental weapon conversions and Honor point systems has already been done in the 5th edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. Starting off the bat for essential RPG sourcebooks for a Kozakura campaign, you can skip both the first and third edition D&D Oriental Adventure manuals. Some of the stuff I suggest here is mined directly from the Kara-Tur boxed set and OA modules, Forgotten Realms Wiki while other thoughts I’ve data mined from a mixed bag of research into Japanese myth and history as well as several other Japanese-themed RPGs including Bushido, GURPS Japan, Land of Ninjas, and Greg Older’s unpublished Kingdom of Mists expansion for the Mhar Fantasy RPG. ![]() Some of the spell conversions in the book are still handy to have and can make it a useful resource. Heroes deals mostly with character creation for a L5R-style setting and a couple of OA classes have already showed up in Xanathar’s Guide or I’ve covered in previous journals. Monsters I’d even recommend as an essential to the DM looking to run Kozakura for getting stats on many of the uniquely Japanese monsters. It isn’t to say that HotO and MotO books are bad nor that they aren’t useful in designing your own Oriental Adventures setting. The various clans have special powers (which was a thing back in the 90’s and early 2000s in RPGs-just look at any WhiteWolf product) whereas clans on Kozakura were just…people. L5R is built around combating the foul magic of a hellish place known as the Shadowlands which has no place in FR:KT. ![]() Likewise there is not a whole lot in the 3rd party venue for Oriental Adventures apart from Heroes of the Orient and Monsters of the Orient in the DMsGuild website, both books are loosely based off of 3rd edition Oriental Adventures the 3rd ed book was done during a brief period during which WotC had acquired the rights to the Legend of the Five Rings RPG, which being a fine Japanese Fantasy world, is *not* Kara-Tur. Despite mentions in the various Forgotten Realms material in the core books, Kara-Tur is ambiguous rule-wise. ![]() At the moment there is no official material for a 5th edition Oriental Adventures setting and rules for Kara-Tur. ![]()
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