Interesting! This is a very distinct yet enjoyable topic. Both entities can bring a lot of richness to a setting. Enjoying these videos a lot. Have a blessed day everyone! Thanks for the vid.
This is perfect for my recently started Kingmaker game where 2 of the 4 PCs hail from Minkai and one of them is a warpriest of Shizuru and will probably aim for position of King or Shogun of their kingdom and another one is a Witch with a Forest Dragon as a Patron who may will be working behind the scenes to spread its domain over the vast woodlands of the Stolen Lands!
My first introduction to Kami and Oni was the Magic the Gathering’s original Kamigawa block. While I couldn’t pronounce a thing, I was fascinated by the concept of everything having its own mini to major god spirit. Great work and thx for bringing back fond memories!
Thanks for the video. I've always been a fan of Asian themed RPGs, especially samurai, but I feel most games like Pathfinder and D&D missed the point. I think PF missed an opportunity to have the region fleshed out more during 1e early days. Oh well. Again, ty for the wonderful video. Love Golarion lore!
I almost did this as two separate videos, and I do think there's plenty of whitespace around Kami in particular, but there's some good amount of content in here as well hopefully.
No, its a seed I think for them to develop something in the future. Could be revealed in a future adventure, or it could be left to the players tastes.
Another great video, thank you! The Jinushigami are such a fantastic story telling tools and beings to encounter for players. Wish we would know more of them specifically.
I really like the fact that Oni Daimyos are often associated with an artform, such as tea, origami, or tatoos. It show that they are capable of deriving great pleasure from the proces of art and the persuit of perfection. (And it's hard to call those two things evil) the fact that some Onis dont have an connection to some form of art seelms like an oversight. I am not sure who has given this advice, but its to give your vilins trat(s) that can be understood and empathised with. It makes the vilins more impactfull as their goals and philosophy become understndable. Its best to avoid Dr. Evil kind of vilins as they are perseived as caricature rather than threthening.
Here are my suggestions: Murona: poetry ("a world with no sun" sounds too elegant and is almost a metaphor for letting go of ones moral compas) Ushitora: mechanisms (locks are intricate mechanisms) Uzumae: signing (in empty ice deserts and the mountains a song would carry really far) Yabu: calligraphy (fine ash would be a good ingredient for ink, also a good way to seal a promise in writing. i imagine his shrine would be filled with scrolls of promissory notes that were broken, desperate souls coming to the shrine to ask for power to be freed from a contract/promise they can no longer bare) i missed Chimon: riddles and jokes (fits with his theme of ambushes and traps. a trap can be seen as a cruel joke, it can also be seen as a riddle, if one is smart enough, they will be able to avoid it, just like finding an answer to a riddle)
@@TheMythKeeper not to brag, but I think so too. consider Onmyuza. Sake can be perceived as art and craft, but it is more about drinking and revelry. However, drinking alone is a sad proposition, you cant have a party if you're the only one present. Even more so with orgies. Tattoos, similarly, involve other participants, as there are only so many places you can tattoo yourself. But even more interesting is that all three activities involve trust and consent. Sure, you can force people into dirking but it will not be a party, you can force people to have sex, but it will be rape rather than an orgy, you can force someone to tattoo your back, but... would you want to? So not only Onmyuza's domains always involve others, but even more so it involves willing participants. Drinking, orgys and tattoos are also about giving and sharing (what good is being a great tattoo artist if you can even tattoo others who would then show off your skill?). What i'm getting at is the fact that Onmyuza seeks friendship and maybe even love. The reason he is an oni, however, is because his version of friendship is revelry rather than true companionship, his version of love is a hedonistic orgy; he is an oni, an evil spirit, because his version of pure and good concepts is twisted, he misguides those that seek them. Hes faith is also quite sad, if you pause to think about it. It's almost as if at one point in time Onmyuza was extremely lonely, and that lead him to some dark places when he started to overcompensate, and now he is stuck in a cycle of vice. (and we've all seen this kinds of people in our real lives). I think this is some great character building on the side of the authors who wrote Onmyuza.
Murrona and Ushitora are entities in my dnd world and I cannot wait for my players to make the connections that their NPC allies secretly follow and are agents for the oni Daimyo
I’m so sad to see this series end, but there’s the promise of new things to come. And that makes me happy. At least now there’s no more new demigods to keep track of (yet).
Demigod series is ending... but I have a few more gods coming still. I'm covering the Vudran pantheon as part of my Vudra and Jalmeray video and I will soon be doing a Tian Xia overview video which will cover the prominent gods there as well.
Coming from an Asian studies, they’ve actually changed a lot of different pieces: "gods" = kami, and kami ARE born into the world, not assigned, and because anything can develop into a kami, they are countless automatically. The heavenly bureaucracy that assigns kami in Tian Xia here is derived from Confucianism, and the oni rebellion against it reminds me of some demons in Journey to the West (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism) and of Lucifer in Christian mythology. Taking sides isn't really what kami do; Shinto cosmology isn't centered around a contention of good vs evil. The connection between oni and kami is familiar from Shinto, however! Oni used to be a catch-all term for calamitous forces along with what we now call youkai (now "oni" refers to a particular youkai, the ones pictured in the video), and the only difference is that kami are venerated youkai and youkai are unvenerated kami. Either can be destructive or beneficial. People can become vengeful ghosts or honored founders & saints; rivers can irrigate farmlands or destroy wash away people in flooding, fire can warm a home or burn it the cinders, and you want to venerate the most influential ones so that they are beneficial to you more often than detrimental. Kami and youkai summarize the strange forces and phenomena of the universe, who may change their relationship with humanity on a case-by-case basis. This confusion is something that bugs me about every high-production value Western-made setting inspired by Japan I've yet found, so I have a lot to say, but I hope it it enlightens.
Am I incorrect in recalling that Oni are also somewhat beholden to the Laws of Golden Perfection? Someone mentioned it was in 'Jade Regent, The Empty Throne' that Oni are prevented from directly controlling the mortal world? Do you know anything about that?
That is correct. Even in their abdication they are still bound by some of the rules, but the extent to which this is in effect, I think is up to you as a GM.
18.45 Tian Qiang is pronounced Tian (you got this right) Qi-Ang (search for the mandarin pronunciation of qiang, sounds like chee-arng) Tian Qiang is quite literally Sky Wall. Qiang is Mandarin for wall.
I am avoiding those Chinese/Japanese/American hodge podge settings. I am familiar enough with asian countries culture to notice the gross amalgamation. The setting is indeed awkward for both Japanese and Chinese. However it might appeal to American. Otherwise nice video.
There is no problem with the content since it doesn’t claim any historical legitimacy. However Japanese and Chinese civilization have been going for a long time. There a lot of differences between the periods. Like feudal society and vikings have different atmospheres. However, May be paizo people could try to focus on a several area giving them a flavor closed to a land at a specific time in history. That means the name somewhere need to look Chinese and in an other area Japanese or Korean. The setting would be much more relatable. But this is complicated if you haven’t been exposed to the culture.
@@keysersoze3159 Pathfinder does do exactly this. Some areas are Japanese, some Chinese, some Korean etc... This is the other video I was referring to: ua-cam.com/video/4_VEwOWqdFA/v-deo.html
Hey Mythkeeper, I've been doing a marathon of your entire channel this past week, i really really enjoy it (altough some deepdive are a bit long and hard to remember) I think your channel is essential to someone who's interested in learning tje lore of pathfinder And i wish you only good things
P.S. in your older video seeing your smiling face during intros and outros was a real treat, that really conveyed your love and passion, i would love if you bought it back ^^
I'm doing outros on each one of my PF 616 videos at the moment. The filming always takes a little more time! I also have my 2-year anniversary coming up at the end of next month, so you'll get more smiling MythKeeper there as well (plus some special guests!) But thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.
In a setting filled with undead, vengeful gods, demons, etc. the Kami are surprisingly wholesome, folkloric content. "Mom, I saw someone scary in our backyard and then they disappeared!" "Oh honey, that's just our home's Shikigami. He keeps the pests away from our garden, and in return we give him every 10th piece of produce and make sure his home is kept healthy and tidy." It's also actually quite realistic, IMO, to have an example of supernatural beings that are completely dedicated to a singular purpose but are still individuals capable of nuanced decisions, compromise, and cooperation. Being willing to work with/prove your value to other sentient creatures makes a lot of sense when you're talking about coexisting with empires, archmages, and so on. A lot of the more militant beings trying to follow very focused ideologies don't fare as well when they share borders with the primary races of Golarion.
There's something wonderfully provincial about this conception of the supernatural. You treat them nice, and they're perfectly pleasant to have around, maybe even help you out in a tight spot from time to time.
Oni have shifted slightly between editions, so I've been using the most current art and types. There are some Oni not represented here, and this has ended up being the case for pretty much all of my religion videos featuring a specific outsider type. I wasn't able to cover all the various types of demons, of devils, etc... but I do try to cover the main ones.
Abadar is a god of trade and craft goods, but also of the exchange of ideas. I imagine that objects that have a creature inside them is a concept that Abadar would be fond of, as it means yet another perspective of point of view in that cultural exchange that occurs when two communities meet.
Interesting! This is a very distinct yet enjoyable topic. Both entities can bring a lot of richness to a setting. Enjoying these videos a lot. Have a blessed day everyone! Thanks for the vid.
Yeah this was a fun one to put together. Also my first video using the new Tian Xia world guide.
This is perfect for my recently started Kingmaker game where 2 of the 4 PCs hail from Minkai and one of them is a warpriest of Shizuru and will probably aim for position of King or Shogun of their kingdom and another one is a Witch with a Forest Dragon as a Patron who may will be working behind the scenes to spread its domain over the vast woodlands of the Stolen Lands!
Awesome, I always need more Shizuru in my life.
Happy to see exploration of Tian Xia content!
More is coming too!
A fun taste of the Tian Xia content to come, I am looking forward to it.
Can't wait to see your other Tian Xia videos now that the world guide is released ! Fantastic work as always !
Thanks a lot!
My first introduction to Kami and Oni was the Magic the Gathering’s original Kamigawa block. While I couldn’t pronounce a thing, I was fascinated by the concept of everything having its own mini to major god spirit.
Great work and thx for bringing back fond memories!
Mine too! 😅
I'm definitely looking forward to fully watching this. As a big fan of Asian culture, I'm looking forward to more videos involving Tian Xia.😊
More coming for sure ;-)
Tian Xia time boiz!
🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for the video. I've always been a fan of Asian themed RPGs, especially samurai, but I feel most games like Pathfinder and D&D missed the point. I think PF missed an opportunity to have the region fleshed out more during 1e early days. Oh well. Again, ty for the wonderful video. Love Golarion lore!
Very nice video also really wish they had given more lorr for the asura, oni, kami etc so each could've gotten a full video.
I almost did this as two separate videos, and I do think there's plenty of whitespace around Kami in particular, but there's some good amount of content in here as well hopefully.
so we are finally slowly moving towards Pathfinder Asia :)
Yeah, more Tian content coming soon!
Fascinating, very much looking forward to more Tian Xia!
Question, is it known what the Oni Gate is?
No, its a seed I think for them to develop something in the future. Could be revealed in a future adventure, or it could be left to the players tastes.
@@TheMythKeeper Thought it sounded like that, thanks!
I greatly appreciate this; running Season of Ghosts and any Tian Xia stuff I can get is good!
Well more Tian goodness headed your way in the not too distant future
@@TheMythKeeperyippie!! Out of curiosity, is the Onmyuza art official?
@@mackenziefa No that's a pinterest-sourced Gen AI image I'm afraid - but it does look great.
Another great video, thank you! The Jinushigami are such a fantastic story telling tools and beings to encounter for players. Wish we would know more of them specifically.
I really like the fact that Oni Daimyos are often associated with an artform, such as tea, origami, or tatoos. It show that they are capable of deriving great pleasure from the proces of art and the persuit of perfection. (And it's hard to call those two things evil) the fact that some Onis dont have an connection to some form of art seelms like an oversight.
I am not sure who has given this advice, but its to give your vilins trat(s) that can be understood and empathised with. It makes the vilins more impactfull as their goals and philosophy become understndable. Its best to avoid Dr. Evil kind of vilins as they are perseived as caricature rather than threthening.
Here are my suggestions:
Murona: poetry ("a world with no sun" sounds too elegant and is almost a metaphor for letting go of ones moral compas)
Ushitora: mechanisms (locks are intricate mechanisms)
Uzumae: signing (in empty ice deserts and the mountains a song would carry really far)
Yabu: calligraphy (fine ash would be a good ingredient for ink, also a good way to seal a promise in writing. i imagine his shrine would be filled with scrolls of promissory notes that were broken, desperate souls coming to the shrine to ask for power to be freed from a contract/promise they can no longer bare)
i missed Chimon: riddles and jokes (fits with his theme of ambushes and traps. a trap can be seen as a cruel joke, it can also be seen as a riddle, if one is smart enough, they will be able to avoid it, just like finding an answer to a riddle)
I love this notion and I really think you're hitting on a great idea here.
@@TheMythKeeper not to brag, but I think so too.
consider Onmyuza. Sake can be perceived as art and craft, but it is more about drinking and revelry. However, drinking alone is a sad proposition, you cant have a party if you're the only one present. Even more so with orgies. Tattoos, similarly, involve other participants, as there are only so many places you can tattoo yourself. But even more interesting is that all three activities involve trust and consent. Sure, you can force people into dirking but it will not be a party, you can force people to have sex, but it will be rape rather than an orgy, you can force someone to tattoo your back, but... would you want to? So not only Onmyuza's domains always involve others, but even more so it involves willing participants. Drinking, orgys and tattoos are also about giving and sharing (what good is being a great tattoo artist if you can even tattoo others who would then show off your skill?).
What i'm getting at is the fact that Onmyuza seeks friendship and maybe even love. The reason he is an oni, however, is because his version of friendship is revelry rather than true companionship, his version of love is a hedonistic orgy; he is an oni, an evil spirit, because his version of pure and good concepts is twisted, he misguides those that seek them.
Hes faith is also quite sad, if you pause to think about it. It's almost as if at one point in time Onmyuza was extremely lonely, and that lead him to some dark places when he started to overcompensate, and now he is stuck in a cycle of vice. (and we've all seen this kinds of people in our real lives).
I think this is some great character building on the side of the authors who wrote Onmyuza.
I like the asian side in these kinds of games dont get them much since everything is mostly fantasy Europe great job with the video.
Thank you kindly
YESSS PERFECT FOR MY TIAN XIA GAME IM RUNNING
Thank you!
👏👏👏
well this made me want to run season of the ghosts so well done
Haha! Nice, that is the intent I suppose
This was great looking to whatever you have coming next.
Cheers!
Murrona and Ushitora are entities in my dnd world and I cannot wait for my players to make the connections that their NPC allies secretly follow and are agents for the oni Daimyo
Awesome, this sounds super cool
Another awesome video!
Thanks again!
Always been a fan of the Oni
They make for excellent villains.
I feel we should also mention Chimon's brother Hei Hei and his cousin Ani Aru Okei.
😅😅😅
I’m so sad to see this series end, but there’s the promise of new things to come. And that makes me happy.
At least now there’s no more new demigods to keep track of (yet).
Demigod series is ending... but I have a few more gods coming still. I'm covering the Vudran pantheon as part of my Vudra and Jalmeray video and I will soon be doing a Tian Xia overview video which will cover the prominent gods there as well.
@@TheMythKeeper That sounds awesome!
This is a good primer on Shinto in Japan. I don’t see any glaring examples of things that are obviously changed from the real-world religion.
Coming from an Asian studies, they’ve actually changed a lot of different pieces: "gods" = kami, and kami ARE born into the world, not assigned, and because anything can develop into a kami, they are countless automatically. The heavenly bureaucracy that assigns kami in Tian Xia here is derived from Confucianism, and the oni rebellion against it reminds me of some demons in Journey to the West (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism) and of Lucifer in Christian mythology. Taking sides isn't really what kami do; Shinto cosmology isn't centered around a contention of good vs evil.
The connection between oni and kami is familiar from Shinto, however! Oni used to be a catch-all term for calamitous forces along with what we now call youkai (now "oni" refers to a particular youkai, the ones pictured in the video), and the only difference is that kami are venerated youkai and youkai are unvenerated kami. Either can be destructive or beneficial. People can become vengeful ghosts or honored founders & saints; rivers can irrigate farmlands or destroy wash away people in flooding, fire can warm a home or burn it the cinders, and you want to venerate the most influential ones so that they are beneficial to you more often than detrimental. Kami and youkai summarize the strange forces and phenomena of the universe, who may change their relationship with humanity on a case-by-case basis.
This confusion is something that bugs me about every high-production value Western-made setting inspired by Japan I've yet found, so I have a lot to say, but I hope it it enlightens.
For Japanese oni and kami, this playlist is a fun primer: ua-cam.com/play/PLVvq7ZsdyPnpkY0HeXx1dI7UsJr--aRz3.html&si=F2bKwvNl-A3OXB6v
I'm guessing MythKeeper is hungrily reading the latest Tian Xia book. :P
You guess right!
I am an Oni of shadow and my family are Kami of light
Am I incorrect in recalling that Oni are also somewhat beholden to the Laws of Golden Perfection? Someone mentioned it was in 'Jade Regent, The Empty Throne' that Oni are prevented from directly controlling the mortal world? Do you know anything about that?
That is correct. Even in their abdication they are still bound by some of the rules, but the extent to which this is in effect, I think is up to you as a GM.
Magkasintahan translates to “lovers.” Making the place literally called lovers’ islands.
Awesome! Thanks for this note
finally
18.45 Tian Qiang is pronounced Tian (you got this right) Qi-Ang (search for the mandarin pronunciation of qiang, sounds like chee-arng)
Tian Qiang is quite literally Sky Wall. Qiang is Mandarin for wall.
Thanks for the pronunciation tips! These will be the hardest videos for me for sure
Can you add subtitles to your videos?
What! No "hi there!" 😢
Hi there!
I am avoiding those Chinese/Japanese/American hodge podge settings.
I am familiar enough with asian countries culture to notice the gross amalgamation.
The setting is indeed awkward for both Japanese and Chinese.
However it might appeal to American.
Otherwise nice video.
Check out my Tian Xia guide. Let me know how you feel about the Pathfinder version of Asia in general ;-)
There is no problem with the content since it doesn’t claim any historical legitimacy.
However Japanese and Chinese civilization have been going for a long time.
There a lot of differences between the periods. Like feudal society and vikings have different atmospheres.
However, May be paizo people could try to focus on a several area giving them a flavor closed to a land at a specific time in history. That means the name somewhere need to look Chinese and in an other area Japanese or Korean.
The setting would be much more relatable.
But this is complicated if you haven’t been exposed to the culture.
@@keysersoze3159 Pathfinder does do exactly this. Some areas are Japanese, some Chinese, some Korean etc...
This is the other video I was referring to:
ua-cam.com/video/4_VEwOWqdFA/v-deo.html
I will have a look.
Again thanks for the videos.
Hey Mythkeeper,
I've been doing a marathon of your entire channel this past week, i really really enjoy it (altough some deepdive are a bit long and hard to remember)
I think your channel is essential to someone who's interested in learning tje lore of pathfinder
And i wish you only good things
P.S. in your older video seeing your smiling face during intros and outros was a real treat, that really conveyed your love and passion, i would love if you bought it back ^^
I'm doing outros on each one of my PF 616 videos at the moment. The filming always takes a little more time! I also have my 2-year anniversary coming up at the end of next month, so you'll get more smiling MythKeeper there as well (plus some special guests!) But thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.
Love this mister videos
Thank you :-)
In a setting filled with undead, vengeful gods, demons, etc. the Kami are surprisingly wholesome, folkloric content. "Mom, I saw someone scary in our backyard and then they disappeared!" "Oh honey, that's just our home's Shikigami. He keeps the pests away from our garden, and in return we give him every 10th piece of produce and make sure his home is kept healthy and tidy."
It's also actually quite realistic, IMO, to have an example of supernatural beings that are completely dedicated to a singular purpose but are still individuals capable of nuanced decisions, compromise, and cooperation. Being willing to work with/prove your value to other sentient creatures makes a lot of sense when you're talking about coexisting with empires, archmages, and so on. A lot of the more militant beings trying to follow very focused ideologies don't fare as well when they share borders with the primary races of Golarion.
There's something wonderfully provincial about this conception of the supernatural. You treat them nice, and they're perfectly pleasant to have around, maybe even help you out in a tight spot from time to time.
Hi, why you portrait so few oni kinds?
Are others to regional or less relevant?
Are portrait somewhere in other videos?
Still one of my favorite video
Oni have shifted slightly between editions, so I've been using the most current art and types. There are some Oni not represented here, and this has ended up being the case for pretty much all of my religion videos featuring a specific outsider type. I wasn't able to cover all the various types of demons, of devils, etc... but I do try to cover the main ones.
Nice, great video hope to see more from Tian Xia soon
If some Kami are tied to objects, I wonder what all their relationship with Abadar entails?
Abadar is a god of trade and craft goods, but also of the exchange of ideas. I imagine that objects that have a creature inside them is a concept that Abadar would be fond of, as it means yet another perspective of point of view in that cultural exchange that occurs when two communities meet.
Great video as always, this kamis remindsme kind of a the fey and the elders. Thx again!
Definitely some similarities, that is for sure.