One of my core complaints about D&D's efforts at Oriental Adventures is simple: they've never embraced the fantasy aspects of an Oriental campaign, always focusing on the "Medieval Eastern" options.
The only traditional "Oriental" races D&D has done are Korobokuru (Oriental Dwarves), Spiritfolk (Oriental Elves), and their rather clunky Hengeyokai (a clumsy collection of shapeshifting beasts stapled into one racial statblock) with the D20 version also incorporating the Indian-inspired Vanara, and the Nezumi from the Rokugan setting. Boring! Japanese and Chinese mythology are filled with all manner of fantastic beings, and some are iconic enough that you'd think D&D could at least try to pull them off.
Since Veeky Forums believes in getting shit done, I wanted to ask: what are various non-human races that you could see existing in an Oriental High Fantasy setting? Especially ones that AREN'T just "samurai dwarves" and "ninja elves" and the like.
You see, regarding generally western folklore is about sentient men with... some differences, but still recognizably men. Even animal hybrids are mostly humans.
At least in Japan if you exclude the obvious (tengus, kappas) the distance between humans, animals and spirits is tenous. Not ontologically definte, if I may use big words.
And most of all, it's difficult to find separate lineage of them. A bakeneko is an older cat.
So what I WOULD propose are templates. Like, for example, the possessing animals (kitsune, but snakes as well); tsukumogumo; perhaps generic kaiju (as Mizuki defined them); henge as well.
They would have generic abilites the like of which would have most probably something to choose form.
And yes, you should mis-match them and have quite possibly more than one "template".
Jackson Torres
Honestly, I think Kitsune are a no-brainer. I really think we could probably pull off Kitsune, Tanuki, Kappa, Oni and Jorogumo, at the very least.
Samuel Bell
The races were kind of glossed over in the Oriental Adventures because they wanted to try to focus on the Rokugan Clans. You can actually find plenty of Oriental races in other books.
Kitsune basically fall into the Hengeyokai template.
Landon Robinson
And also because playing a non-human in that setting is really not appropriate, other than Kenku (Tengu) and in very specific circumstances, Nezumi, who are actually mortal races that aren't immediately villified, driven away, or killed on sight (Although the Nezumi are outside of Crab lands, excepting the one very short era where they were considered an ally to the nation)
Benjamin Jackson
I'm actually with this guy. Most Japanese mythological peoples fall into very vague, encompassing, groups of many different peoples lumped together into one classification or what have you. Like, you'd have "Yokai" and then Yokai would be organized into maybe three different clans or something: Animal People, Monsters, and Ghosts.
All of the beings this user over here listed are basically just 'Yokai' but of varying or different archetypes, by that I mean: Kitsune & Tanuki are animal-people, Kappa are an actual monster, and the Jorogumo I wouldn't even consider a PC race as they're a race of spider-women who control and spawn large fire-breathing spiders. Oni I'd be willing to admit, though, would fit into our conventional ideals of "race" since they've always been spoken with distinction from other Yokai- they're called yokai, sure, but ONI seem to express more culture, don't have any flagrant paranormal weaknesses, and are just Ogres.
I dunno, Yokai are really weird and extensive.
Robert Smith
Well, least if was a "Heavly Spiritual Dense" setting, we could have something akin to that.
Jace Young
I wouldn't even divide them, no one really divided yokai, henge and whatever clearly.
Something like a point-buy? Or, I dunno, you get (say) 3 powers. For a kitsune, it might be a) transforming into a human b) posseing people c) being hot as fuck (actually I'm not totally sure that is really folklore and not more modern tales, but whatever). A tanuki might have still transforming, but b) transforming into... antyhing c) the drumming to call on his friends. Tsukumogami might be trickier of course.
Colton Anderson
>Something like a point-buy?
Maybe? I think it might be more intuitive to just give people their abilities or have them be able to acquire more as they level- have racial-class-levels if you will or something if you're going to go that route. The problem, though, with that is that not all Yokai are created equally: Rokurokubi can stretch their necks out to basically three times the length of their own body and some of them can also just flat out remove their head and have it fly around, but then the only interesting ability the Futakuchi-onna has is a large mouth on the back of her head.
>Tsukumogami might be trickier of course.
I don't think Tsukumogami would be playable, I wouldn't consider them even sapient- they're, like, animals. They're basically just inanimate objects that have been given sentience and now mill about doing whatever they want, they're like paranormal vermin.
Christopher Harris
> The only traditional "Oriental" races D&D has done are Korobokuru (Oriental Dwarves), Spiritfolk (Oriental Elves), and their rather clunky Hengeyokai (a clumsy collection of shapeshifting beasts stapled into one racial statblock)
Factually incorrect. There are dozens of Asian monsters in AD&D splatbooks.
Christian Garcia
Dunno about the tsukomogami. As a player the idea of playing one would pretty rad, honestly. Crazy enough to like it more than a "usual" henge.
>btw you probably have already, but check out Golden sky stories for a "reinterpretation" of henge
Hudson Bell
And how many of them are playable, hmm? Aside from the Ogre Mage in Complete Book of Humanoids, that is.
Juan Ortiz
Huli Jing Kumiho
William Robinson
Journey to the West featured lots of beastmen like Horse Face, Bull Demon King, and a rhino humanoid I forgot the name of.
Adrian Carter
One of the problems is that there is no Japanese Tolkien. Tolkien took elves and dwarves from strange spirits dwelling in the rocks and trees and made them people with civilizations. No more house spirits that eat your cream and run away from clothes, no more crow footed isolationists. In short, he made them humans with a twist.
No-one has done this for all the Japanese folk legends. They still exist in their raw form, more like the monster in the plot. Oni and kitsune have been normalized thanks to anime and such. You can play them as basically people- strong, red skinned with a horn, or fox tailed jokers. Not so much the others.
Luke Carter
So China has the plethora of beastmen and Japan has their oni and yokai, anything for Korea?
Anthony Baker
I wouldn't be that sure. Actually, I think there are too many japanese "tolkiens" to enumerate them.
I know you'll all cringe at the comparision, but what they're doing with monstergirls being the new thing right now is... giving them a society.
>no, not exactly on par with JRRT, obviously
Yuki from Demichan is exactly that for yuki-onna, just to take the first example. I'm not sure since the phenomen got really started - Shigeru Mizuki I think didn't do it really, but I think it's going from the 80s at least.
Alexander Davis
>Demichan
Slightly unrelated, but I just wanted to voice this opinion: Interviews With Monster Girls is one of the least inspired, boring, lazy, and safe "Monster Girls in an urban/progressive society" story I've ever had the displeasure of watching. I shit you not, you could have switched every Monster Girl with some sort of mental or physical disability and the show would still play out the same.
Ryan Perry
>Tolkien took elves and dwarves from strange spirits dwelling in the rocks and trees No he didn't.
Jordan Anderson
Almost everything in Korea is edgier versions of Chinese monsters. The supernatural for Korea is meant to be scary.
Parker Wood
>Interviews With Monster Girls >using the english names for anime Ugh.
Liam Russell
Not on pat with JRRT for sure, but this is exactly how the monsters get normalized. Monstergirls are such a thing now that it's easy to visualize all the "beast-person" races Japan has now for a game. And you can make them anthropomorphized animals or more cuddly/familiar half human hybrid in looks.
Japan does have an abdunance of animal-people in the myths... jorogumo, tengu, kappa, kitsune, tanuki. They are all just spider, bird, turtle, fox, 'raccoon' people respectively.
Dominic Morales
Nothing personnel kid.
Jonathan Thomas
Come to think of it, what about India? Vanaras from 3e were based on the race that Hanuman was supposed to come from, but what else is there?
I think I heard somewhere about some kind of heroic bear-people? Otherwise... watered-down versions of nagas, garudas and asuras, I guess.
Julian Brooks
>One of the problems is that there is no Japanese Tolkien.
Other than Hiroshi Aramata and Shigeru Mizuki, yes.
Nah, what happened is that the Chinese whitewhashed their monsters for their monstergirl porn stories while the Koreans did not.
Jason Sanders
Heikegani seem like they could be pretty cool.
You can also make Japanese interpretations of western monsters, like dogbolds and pork orcs, their own race.
Justin Nelson
Personally, i'd go with "only Humans are playable", and i'm normally a person who dislikes "hurrdurr humans only" stance of some people on Veeky Forums.
In japan fantastical monsters are... well, fantastical, accepted as part of everyday life and yet, living on their own, separately. When ordinary and spiritual collide, things usually end either badly, or hilariously, which is a good starting point for a campaign.
so what you're saying is, they forgot to make the monster stat blocks.
Dominic Brooks
>tsukumogumo Hmm. Would it work similar to animate object mixed with awaken?
Connor Wright
>non-unchained pathfinder Eidolons, the race
John Harris
>being so weeb he understands japanese titles Ugh
Ian Kelly
watch Centaur no Nayami instead.
Aiden Sanchez
>using the term weeb unironically Ugh.
Jace Nelson
... Muscle bound huge titty kitties?
If it works foe Disgaea to lift from Darkstalkers, then why not?
Colton Long
bump
Cameron Brown
Devas, as in 4e? You could also base races off avatars, e.g. Narasimha into lion-men.
Ayden Moore
I feel that a lot of race templates are just human, plus or minus some traits because having a relatively universal starting template is helpful for managing expectations. The farther you deviate from human the more homebrew you're going to need. That said I do want to see how a tsukumogami-only campaign would work, with all of the players being animated common objects with thematic power.
Levi Sullivan
>Ugh. BBEG
Nathaniel Cook
>pathfinder
Ugh.
Lincoln Green
It's not the "japanese title", it's the actual real fucking title that the creators decided on.
Oliver Diaz
Not that user but do you also get upset by people not calling The Brothers Karamazov "Brat'ya Karamazovy," or is it only Japanese weebshit that elicits this reaction?
Connor Gutierrez
the difference is that modern anime and manga comes to the west in a partially translated/adapted form (anime being subbed, manga maintaining reading direction) where as literature is almost always directly translated
Kayden Jones
>he made them humans with a twist.
The Chinese did that long before, though. Their supernatural world is a central heavenly court with ministers, officers, and bureaucrats, and a lot of lesser courts of different types of spirits, like the spirit foxes, etc., and then recluse or outcast spirits. Both elves and dwarves would fit in seamlessly in the whole human with a twist-ness.
As they did in the original tales of the Norse gods where Tolkien found them.
