Exploring Kara-Tur
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- Опубліковано 3 тра 2017
- The 2015 release of Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, a supplement, introduced Kara-Tur to the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. There is a brief description of the land along with references throughout the book to its culture and how certain classes or backgrounds might fit in there.
LINKS!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara-Tur
forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki...
A good jumping off point is to watch or read "Journey to the West". You'll find a lot of inspiration in it. The story is also known as "Monkey Magic" or " The Legend of Monkey".
Dude, I am a big fan of The Legend of Stone Monkey, I used to watch 'Monkey' on TV after school, I often think to myself "What would Monkey do?" before I go ahead and do whatever I want. My best mate says I am a Lawful Evil DM and a Chaotic Neutral guy in day to day life.
I think it's probably more accurate when your best friend tells you what alignment you are :D
I'm looking forward to it. I also recently enjoyed "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" directed by Stephen Chow and Derek Kwok, it had some really amazing scenes in it.
1960s "Alakazam the Great" tho
Good idea to mix settings and ideas, I'm DMing Curse of Strahd, reskinned with a feudal land surrounded by fog, somewhere in a forgotten Kingdom in Wa or any place like that, Tomb of Annihilation can be reskinned for this too. God I love reworking culture and styles and still keeping the concept and plot much less the same adventure/horror themes for your party
Can you do Maztica next? the Americas bro!
The Asian setting does somewhat interest me, I think that the DMG gives Asian alternatives for weapons, which have at times made me consider throwing in a katana or something with a reference being from far off land. But I think the largest on my mind is regards to Oni, that they are a standard monster in the game, but they would feel at home with being from a Japan like setting.
I also loved the idea of Rakshasa and Deva in 4th edition, being flip sides of an endless reincarnation cycle, which also fits very snugly into a chinese folklore, with classic Taoist mythology, immortals, celestials, demons, etc.
But does it have Pandarens? : P
Wait! What if they have were-pandas!
I don’t recall any panda people in Kara-Tur. I recall korobokuru, monkey hengeyokai and pig hengeyokai and spirit folk, but not panda ones.
Love your channel and this series in particular, it's really giving me inspiration for my campaign.
Thank you for posting this summary, it's helped a lot in planning my campaign- nice find on that Wikipedia Pantheon bits too. Also yep, +1 on that intro song too :) And the artwork too.
Thank you, thank you :)
Also, if you could do a series on Nyambe, that'd be cool, too! 😀🙏
hey I love your rpg videos including this one.
Great job on the song that Might have made my day already.
Also would you mind doing an explore video for each of the underdark, feydark and shadowdark, I'm pretty sure you've atleast touched on them but I think they deserve their own videos if possible.
Other neat planes to explore would be the planes of cold, wood, mirrors, dreams,dark sun(Arthas?) and the elemental chaos
They're just suggestions so no pressure but since you ask where to go next I figured I would weigh in with my wish list from the top of my head.
mmm interesting, I certainly do plan on covering the underdark.. I have a whole source book for that one.
That is great to hear and I look forward to it.
There is a Shou city in Faerun called Nathlek north of the Shining Plains.
But I would say that with a very shallow understanding of Japanese culture, there is a pretty interesting parallel between their stories and western fairytales. You have stories of monsters locking filth from bathrooms, fox spirits who can either be devious trickers or helpful friends, and local spirits. I would imagine that arcana clerics and circle of dreams druids would be more common there.
No idea how to flesh out Fantasy China or Korea. A lot of ideas about Fantasy India though.
Indian folklore is some interesting stuff, problem is, I am never sure where the line is drawn there between "This is fun mythology" and "Oop, some people really believe in this stuff currently and they are not happy I called it a myth".
Absolutely loved oriental adventures... Awesome video mate.. Ty for continually putting out great content
I may be a bit late on this, but you can look at DMSGuild and search for "Heroes of the Orient" and also "Monsters of the Orient". Nice 5e adaptation of Kara-tur/Asian mythos inspired classes and monsters. I plan to use it in my homebrew should players choose to go there.
DUDE, YOU MADE MY DAY WITH THE LEAD IN SONG! :D
I just had to use that song, there was no other choice. :D
Absolutely! no other choice! :D
Did the opposite for me.
I'm a couple years late, but does anyone know what specific version of Kung Fu Fighting this is? Shazam has no idea, and I've been listening to every remix I can find.
Can you go over T'u Lung? I'm going to be playing a kensei character from the Fengnao Province and he's very inspired by the rampant corruption of the countries nobility. Getting your insights could be very helpful.
I'd love more details and insights into Kara Tur. And if you could help make sense of The Shadowlands, that'd be awesome!
I cannot seem to determine if the Kara Tur Shadowlands are like the Underdark? Or if they're a specific topside country? 🤔
Would love to hear you delve into the Hengeyokai as a playable race. Very interested in how you might port them to 5e as your perspective is always unique!
Love it! Cant wait for al quadim! Tell more lore about the kingdom of wa (japan)
I'd also like more on a single kingdom
I would definately be interested in a video on the Oni, and how they fit into the cosmology. I remember the 3.5 Oriental Adventures book as having a Shadowlands. I think it was a demiplane? I can't find my copy, lost somewhere due to moving around a lot. Thanks for the videos.
Oni are coming up this weekend.
Awesome
I would love to see more about Kara-Tur, especially with the relations to the rest of Faerûn...the Horde, the Golden Road and what the typical Faerûnian knows about Kara Tur (they think they are all Shou) and what a typical Kara Turian knows about Faerûn. I would also like maybe something of "If you had Faerûnian travel to Kara Tur they would do it X, Y, or Z way most likely. Once they get there they have A, B, and C kinds of issues.
Yeah it is an interesting problem, since Kara-Tur can be included or not, so there is very little official lore on relations with Kara-Tur and other nations/locations in Faerun. However, we can certainly look at the geography and populations/cultures and draw some conclusions such as the trade routes and all that sort of thing. People who want to run a campaign of discovery (Marco Polo D&D style) have Kara-Tur perfectly set up for that.Also people who want to start their campaign there and then explore into Faerun as Kara-Tur natives seeing Faerun culture from their perspective, equally cool.
My Kensei Monk is from Kozakura. Could you do a piece on there? Nice video!
OMG nostalgia. I bought the Oriental Adventures handbook in the US, just cuz I wanted to see how would wypipo depict East Asian fantasy. It's pretty good & I convinced my American DM to let me play a Wu Jen for a while. But nobody in Hong Kong cared about Kara-Tur. Playing as an European elf fighting western dragons was much more exotic LOL.
Thumbs up for the intro music. Everything else was gravy.
Did you ever go into more detail with any of these areas? I notice sometimes some of your videos get a bit lost in the shuffle - you have a LOT. Maybe can you add some links in the descriptions to other closely related videos?
If you still are not very versed in Kara-Tur lore (and it's far more obscure or just lifted from real world sources), then actually I would much rather see a video on how Kara-Tur influences Faerûn, if that is something which grabs your fancy. As editions have moved on there has been a steady introduction of these eastern elements, from the Tuigan invasion, to the apperance of the monk class, to cities such as Nathlek (randomly?) becoming a Shou refuge.
Well, Tuigan seems to be underwhelming. Like...they have Shar and other interesting nomadic cultures yet Tuigan is played as a major threat (even the book stated more copy-paste history of Mongol Army rather than say magic, conscripted monster races, or even artifacts they brought) but seems to be easily beaten (there were novels but this was more of political intrigue than actual situational analysis).
That or being exposed to Warhammer Fantasy didn't help (Which had fantasy mongols but "diverged" enough to make it less obvious through chaos sorcery, adopting non-human tribes into army, and a rare instance where Nomads isn't just solely mongol but included Turkic and Slavic tribes, even Ungols are Crimean Tartars or steppe tribes in Russia).
I would love to hear more
I'd love to hear more on Tabot.
The best moment in gaming for me. My Warlock/Philosopher 14th level and physically 64 years old was in Kara Tur with Oriental characters and was insulted by the DMs Samurai who called him weak so i challenged him to hand to hand combat which he prompty accepted (first strike wins).....we stripped down all of our gear and magic and dispelled all enchantments we had that protected us. All we wore was cod pieces,lol he was a martial artist and i had no physical combat specialties. We then stepped into a field and intiative was rolled i won initiative by 2 and said "called shot to the testicals with a kick,rolled to hit and got a natural 20 on the die and rolled 2points for dmg. Doubled by the 20 roll.(4 pts total) His character seeing as a senior citizen evil old wizard embarrassed him attempted to commit ritual suicide for losing honor......that was NOT what i wanted him to do so thinking fast i began to taunt his character for losing the fight causing him to lash out and hit me and knock me down and i was overly dramatic about the dmg it did,which was very little by the way. He saved face and didnt commit suicide and our characters became best buddies afterward much to the amusement of the other players 😎 fun times AJ,fun times
Will you do an overview of the Celestial court in the future?
Maybe... to be honest, I am more interested in Kara-Tur's version of the Feywild.
Yo dude what is the song at the beginning? I know it’s everybody was Kung fu fighting but what is that remix?
Hey AJ, sorry its been so long since I left a comment. You have the best timing. I was watching your M.E. series, I was thinking well how do I ask AJ to do a vid on my favorite D&D book Oriental Adventures. I turn on youtube the next day and you have a video out about it. Thanks AJ for your M.E. series I really do enjoy it. Have a great day AJ.
Hey Matt, great to hear from you and yeah, had to make the new series so I could get to all these great locations. Oriental adventures is such a huge, rich setting, at the very least, I thought, I have to introduce people to it, because so many have no idea it even exists, and that is just a crime! I will have to return and talk about the provinces though, and some of the unique creatures and places to be found in each one.
That is music to my ears, cant wait for your new series now. The Ogre Mage final has a home. Thanks again AJ.
Excellent
Can you do a video on the city of brass or the dismal delve?
*adds them to the explores list* thank you Blue Toad.
Lightning and timing don't rhyme in the song but I like it
Is there a faerun "middle East"? I can't remember what it's called
Technically there are a few zones which have very strong elements of that same sort of cultural vibe. Calimshan and Thay are the closest to that overall theme I think.
Part of me scratch my head around two Chinas and two Japans in Fantasy Asia, I mean maybe either I got used to singular country and singular culture (though possibility of different variations ala Earth Kingdom), or the fact that it’s trying to make multiple settings in one go and felt lazy.
And didn’t help that Tu Long and Wa didn’t get any module or coverage (in my opinion, maybe Tu Long dealing with Jungle dwelling tribals ala Nanman from Three Kingdoms but I think Purangs was supposed to be them-mostly Vietnamese but their clothes do feel like descriptions of Nanman-but with Dinosaurs instead of tigers, ox, and elephants in Kara Tur book), unlike Kozakura and Shou Long.
Kara-Tur was ham fisted into the forgotten realms setting because of the popularity of Oriental Adventures during the 2nd edition AD&D era. You can quite happily create an entirely unique culture for all the nations there that have nothing to do with any existing asian cultures existing on Earth, past or present, in fact, I encourage that is exactly what you should do unless you happen to know those cultures like the back of your hand. I've never run an adventure in Kara Tur, in fact the only time we tried running a game with an asian setting theme, it lasted approximately 5 minutes after character creation, and I have never revisited the attempt.
@@AJPickett Mostly leaving up to Homebrew.
The setting hasn't been updated and didn't help that the closest full-sources (albeit felt poorly written--like being cobbled together from bad Kung-Fu and Samurai movies by fantasy writers who used every bad fantasy worldbuilding tropes, not to mention contradictory like Shou Long's army being Kung Fu Fighters who bear no non-monk based weapons yet arts and NPCs have them wielding swords and polearms--and too much "let DM figured it out, but not likely to know about Asian Fantasy before internet, widespread proliferation of original Asian fictions ala Three Kingdoms, and Avatar").
Though also had thoughts of "Kara-Tur Silkworm heist" (ala Justinian's reign legend of monks "procuring" silk worms from China; maybe wondering if Elves or Faerun has domestic silk industries) or "Canton and Dejima of Kara Tur" (maybe Evermeet Elven embassy too).
The 'two Chinas' is actually lifted pretty much exactly from historical real world references around the 12th to 13th centuries. China was split into two dynasties, which is perhaps one of the reasons why the Mongols were able to conquor the region. There were also various break away client kingdoms which were Chinese in culture and langauage, but ruled by semi-independant kings. If you are going to lift real world cultures and rip them off whole-sale with minimum changes because 'hey, this is the 80s and no one knows about China really anyway and the internet hasn't been invented yet', then choosing a time of conflict allows for more interesting story telling.
Similarly, Japan was not always unified and indeed only actually was considered fully unified in the 17th century. Before then there were times when there were several different political entities existing at the same time. At times there have been more one emperor at the same time, and plenty of different internal wars. These times are a whole lot more interesting - and indeed, these periods of conflict are often when real world books, movies, video games, and comics are set - than the far less dynamic but far more peaceful periods such as Edo Japan, which was essentially 250 years of very little happening at all in terms of BIG events. Of course, that can be good for political games and ones where the state is very controlling as well, but it's not the general model for D&D with monsters and gods and chaos and players running amok.
@@izanaginomikoto1893 Yeah, I get the idea. But the execution seems rather underwhelming even ignoring "internet wasn't invented and no one knows about China". I get the divided state, but seems to be working on binaries (good and evil, and lawful and chaotic).
Even Shou Lung itelf is interesting and Tu Lung can work as frontier provinces with little central authority, heck maybe Shou Lung as somewhat feudal with capital region being prosperous and frontier regions being poor (even the descriptions of Tu Lung seem to be cartoonishly evil and inept, also for some reason having Shou Lung and Tu Lung with a writer each instead of a single one despite sharing history).
hey man you should make a videos on the good aligned planes that would be pretty awesome
Well you are going to like the next few vids I make then :)
great looking forward to them :D
Hey what's that map image at 2:20 from, I kind of like it a lot
As in where is it from, where can I find it (please)
sfery.wikia.com/wiki/Kara-Tur
Cheers!
Can you highlight Kuong, is it like Thailand?
Do more mantis men videos and the ant people too.Cyclops ant people
Oh it's coming man, it's coming.
Would love to know more about Waa! (Sp?) and the monkey king of this world!
Also is there trade between these lands and the west? A Silk Road if you will. Perhaps with the Buffalo people in the center of the world? I think I’m remembering that right haha. Can’t thank you enough for all that you do “so I don’t have to” haha keep it up!
Super convenient. I found Forgotten Realms wiki, but seeing 1000 images of themes give you a real idea. I see Wu Jen had been updated...but I can limp 81' in 5e for my players. They haven't seen anything. They will not be ready for the Horselords.
OMG I was a Wu Jen LOL. Aaaaah the nostalgia.
The way is the dnd equivalent to tow or dow isom, and the path to enlightenment is the equivalent of boudisom ( I apologize for my spelling)
Alin wats has a grate talk about the similarities and difrinses not to mention how they interacted with echother
Sorry not boudisom confutionisom
Will you be doing classes of kara tur?
I'd like to greatly expand on the Kara-tur lore, which is not well represented on UA-cam.
I am trying to do a spell jamming campaign from Toril with an eclectic group, assassin's creed style Holy Slayer, Corsair or Wako pirate, half elf Templar of Suné, Tabaxi bard, a magic user from Chult, a Barbarian Fighter, a Kensei from Wa and someone from Shao maybe a Spirit Folk /Spellscale Shadow warlock type but there is so little information on the races classes and lands away from Faerún.
AJ Pickett: *Dose a two video over the cleric’s gods*
Ka Ra Taur: “ehhh oriental religion or something”
Did you ever do that video on osse?
No, and honestly, I wish some Australian content creator beat me to it.
@@AJPickett dang, wait which one is aussie?
wish or did?
I really love the Kuong Kingdom and Purang and the Island Kingdoms, which don't the the kind of attention that T'u Lung, Shou Lung, Wa, ect... get, but they are a lot different compared to the main cultures of Kara Tur. Kuong Kingdom is rich in gems, stone, wood, fruit, precious metals, but has a hard time with rice productions and certain other food staples.
Where can we find info on this setting?!
Are there any Ainu influences?
Not that I know of
👍🏼👍🏼
Cover orders of warrior monks. There believes, religion, and what they strive to accomplish.
I’m sure they have evil gods as well🤷🏼♂️💯
Hey AJ, good on you for covering this in a factual way, instead of the negative interpretations made by the “Asians Represent” channel.
However, a correction: Kozakura is not a fantasy version of the Ryukyu Islands. While Waiting [spell correction messed up - I meant "Wa"] is a fantasy version of Japan in the Edo period, Kozakura is a fantasy version of Japan before the Edo period, mostly in the Sengoku Jidai (“age of the country at war”).
Also, isn’t the “8 million gods” (fantasy Shinto) a 3rd major religion, being popular in Wa and Kozakura?
I stand corrected and thank you for the additional information, I do love to learn :)
@@AJPickett 😀 I also corrected myself. I edited my comment to correct spell correction. 😜
Yeah, but idea wise I get it even if I am put off or baffled at that Wa and Kozakura worldbuilding. I mean I understand the intent being different genre like Wa being Edo-style wandering samurai and Kozakura being warring samurai, but I mean Legend of 5 Rings kinda have a better job at having both of these ideas (like warfare between the clans acting as Sengoku and stable-ish areas in Empire serving as Kurosawa) but without having real-world analog heavy two countries with same culture and language yet don't interact at all or hinted how they came to be (at least in the official history of the lore, it was like both of them formed into kingdoms and only interacted very late along with both of them essentially having copy-paste of early Japanese history until Tokugawa for Wa and early Kamakura and the Warring States for Kozakura) for some reason.
I might be seriously taking it, but maybe just someone who likes to dissect worldbuilding and never played DnD until now (which meant that most asian 5E homebrew is based on online research and anime, which had a more magical tone, and most only heard but not played more shambara-and-low-fantasy-based OA).
i,m not a fat panda i,m thay fat panda
How bout doing Maztica
Kung Fu fighting please make a Long video of Kara tur
I need to study it more, its a big place and I never played any games there.
@@AJPickett my uncle played it when I was a little kid always remember Kara tur
I like setting my campaigns here when I'm tired of dealing with PC mages... Eastern Mages and Magic are just so much easier to restrict, and if the players are western then they'll only be OP until they run out of components XD
If the Chosen of Mystra say that the East has laughable magic, that's good enough for me
Pc races woiuld be fun
Why does he sound so reluctant and withholding with his presentation
I don't know, maybe you could ask him.
Hordelands
That's more like the Canada of Kara-tur