How do you justify inserting random Japanese trappings into a Western fantasy setting as though they were an everyday thing? Kimonos, katanas, magatamas, mikos, Shinto shrines, kitsune, tanuki, tengu, yuki-onna, etc.
Chinese trappings are okay too. Those cheongsams have to come from somewhere.
You do not. Kill yourself, fucking weeb!
You make them less explicitly Japanese.
A shape shifting fox spirit is something that can be fit into not!Europe just fine so long as you don't call it a kitsune. Same with most other Japanese religion and folklore.
You can do the same thing with material culture, or you can take the lazy route and say it comes from the mysterious and distant islands of not!Japan.
Not sure, but thanks for the pic!
International trade and trends among nobles.
Although i prefer the reverse - westaboo jap things are interesting.
Not!Japan was destroyed by a natural disaster and their god emperor sacrificed himself to teleport a chunk of the country to the mainland. Since them the culture and monster have spread.
>How do you justify inserting random Japanese trappings into a Western fantasy setting as though they were an everyday thing?
Just do it. It's a fantasy setting, not a direct copy of Western Europe. There's no reason why a nobleman wouldn't want to wear a comfy kimono, or why the katana wouldn't be the "fuck peasants" weapon of choice for knights. Given that these settings tend to be polytheistic, shinto shrines actually make more sense than cathedrals.
Wizards and bored nobles looking to set fashion trends.
On Shinto, would this work for an unusual sort of D&D pantheon?
>rather than a traditional D&D pantheon, the setting's pantheon is the very planes themselves (the cosmology is a mix of 2e, 3.X, and 4e, so somewhat like the 5e hybrid Great Wheel/World Axis)
>people are generally aware of the cosmology and what each plane represents
>they worship the Astral as a deity of thought, emotion, and memories
>they worship Bytopia as a deity of diligence and passion
>they worship Arcadia as a deity of community and solidarity
>they worship/appease Gehenna as a deity of callous ambition and avarice
>they worship the Plane of Fire as a deity of, well, fire
>they worship the Positive Energy Plane as the source of all life, light, and vitality
>etc.
>outsiders, elementals, and other planar creatures are held in extremely high regard as "avatars" or "divine vessels" for these god-planes
>planar lords like Primus, Asmodeus, the archomentals, etc. are seen as the "avatars" or "divine vessels" closest to their god-planes
>while most people pray directly to the god-planes, it is also common for people to have "local gods" in the form of specific outsiders, elementals, etc., and these "local gods" are often given well-tended, Shinto-style shrine-manses from which they can better interact with mortals
>people believe that the gods are inscrutable and impossible to faithfully depict, so people never anthropomorphize them in art and literature, but the "avatars" and "divine vessels" frequently appear in religious materials
>there are definitely no "traditional" gods in the Pelor, Lathander, Raven Queen, etc. sense
A peasant in a farming town might offer prayers to the Positive for fertility and Bytopia for diligence and industriousness. Before actually getting down to work, they might visit a small shrine and leave offerings for a positive energy elemental and a Bytopian celestial (both minor creatures) who live there, to encourage them to fortify the crops and people's diligence.
For Japan, just throw the island off of the mainland Europe analogue, just further away then any other adjacent landmass that is more culturally similar, but close enough to be within a days boat ride. Maybe say the nation is, or was isolationist to explain the cultural differences.
As for a China or some other culture, I would just through a big sea or ocean between them.
You already have a thread for this, you fucking mongoloid And before that, you were spamming threads for adventurer's guilds.
This is interesting. One potential problem is that typical D&D rules are heavily slanted towards a very specific form of religious magic and religion.
In mythical fantasy, a warrior would pray for help in battle and really get some kind of boon. But in D&D unless you are a cleric you don't get any benefit at all. This makes religion kind of stale and boring and doesn't get players to interact with it at all.
I feel if there were actual mechanical differences to a wizard worshipping Azuth or Mystra or such then players would care much more about such choices. There is also no difference between a Hinduish wizard, a Platonist wizard, a Hermetic wizard or a Taoist wizard in D&D which IMO is a shame.
What I'm getting at is that there is sadly no point coming up with interesting new religious traditions in D&D because no players will care.
Oh boy, can't wait to see how the mods overreact and redirect "anime threads" to /a/ in response to some bored troll's spamming spree.
God I hate this place, there's like 4-6 dedicated trolls whose only purpose is to make this place progressively shittier.
>Pathfinder general ends up as perma-/a/ thread
I'm ok with this.
But other than that, this shit is really fucking annoying. And Christmas break is over for two weeks already, so what the fuck?!
i mean if you look at the way they were depicted in Japanese Art, youkai could actually fit in European mythology, with a little work.
Not WeebYoukais though. Things like your picture are mostly out.
Also, this . if not!Japan is a thing, just make it so they're invasive species who were brought back in not!Europe by explorers.
>Catgirls as an invasive species
>Implying they are anything else than that
It's your setting, you can do what you want. Just don't use any historical names, but try to blend homogeneously.
I don't need to justify anything. It's my setting. I do whatever the fuck I want with it. Fight me.
That seems to me an idea that both weebs and weeb haters could get on board with.
>sea or Ocean
>not Russia
funnily enough, this kinda happened in >muh setting. Only instead of explorers, they weigned pros and cons of not living adjacent to a sapient and very murderous forest and massive wave of immigration followed.
Justify?
>How do you justify
I don't really need to. I just throw them in every once in a while and the players don't bat an eye because they're just as weebish as I am. No kimonos or katanas, but weeb fantasy races definitely.
I don't.
If dragons and minotaurs exist in my setting, then why the fuck can't I introduce elements of Japanese culture?
As long as I'm consistant about it, I can do whatever the fuck I want
The idea here is that there are tangible, "divine" beings to interact with, befriend, and gain buffs from.
Just make a reverse-Dejima.
Dragons and minotaurs at least come from European mythology.
A setting isn't just not-Europe, other countries should still exist.
Unless you're doing weird conceptual shit.
In the unlikely event you play with anyone else, find a group of people as faggy as you.
The setting isn't actually Western, it's set in an entirely fictional fantasy world and specifically in an entirely fictional fantasy culture where both the featured "Western" trappings and the featured "Japanese" trappings are not out of the ordinary.
Because it's fun, duh
kill yourself pedo
DND didn't ever justify shaolin monks or rakshasas. Hell, it didn't justify druids working shoulder to shoulder with paladins.
For the sake of argument I'll take the bait and say that the only real problem would be flat out aesthetics. DND is/was "medieval", using kimonos out of nowhere would be absurdly lazy. Maybe a fusion, I can readily imagine a kimono/catholic priest mix.
>but OP was trolling about lolis
Pffft. DND had always incredibly awkward "sexy" monsters and PCs that weren't sexy since before ADND. Honestly lolis are smalltime.
>DND didn't ever justify shaolin monks or rakshasas.
Usually from far-off continents.
>Hell, it didn't justify druids working shoulder to shoulder with paladins.
From the same general continent.
As I am not pedo I abstain from killing myself
Localization
Where are that girl's arms?
I think you're missing an important detail mate she can draw better with her mouth than I can with my hands.
Not really. Pretty sure in Faerun they're common and non-exotic.
Druids were bad pagan wizards in roman's times. A carolingian knight would go full deus vult on them. In DND what is inspired byt the two can perfectly well be two friendly PCs.
Point is: while dnd fantasy MOSTLY has a relatively pure medieval-reanaissance aesthetic (confront with JRPGs' anachronisms) it didn't ever had qualms about classes and monsters of other periods and places. I don't see why ninjas would be problematic, honestly.
>ninjas
You mean assassins?
>How do you justify inserting random Japanese trappings into a Western fantasy setting as though they were an everyday thing?
Not!Asia conquered your Not!Europe for whatever reasons, so they get to dictate who wears what.
>Wizards and bored nobles looking to set fashion trends.
This made me laugh because that's 100% the reason why there was so much Japanese stuff in Dark Souls 2.
The Iron King was exceedingly rich due to the mineral wealth of his kingdom and he was also exceedingly bored as Drangleic had unified the kingdoms and brought peace to the divided lands... So what the Iron King did with his money was basically sent for any weird or exotic distraction he figured would be entertaining. The Iron King ended up becoming such a weaboo he literally imported a samurai 'from the east' to be his right hand man promising him land and having him train an order of samurai knights.
I actually really like DS2's samurai armor in retrospect because it does, actually, look as if a westerner with access to lots of metal tried to make a suit of samurai armor.
I wouldn't, then again I wouldn't play a fantasy game limited by a geotemporal standard.
>western fantasy
>jap content
You either mix it and call it just "fantasy" or get the fuck out of here.
Fantasy Asia is a different continent from Fantasy Europe.
Why does it have to be?
It's not like amerimutts can be bothered to even read about central asian and russian cultures when they have hot maymays
Japonism, is it set in the 19th-century?
Don't give them literal jap names and nobody will notice.
The not!westerners invaded not!japan
Since the invasion was carried out mainly for commercial reasons, the settlers were relatively fewer than the not!japanese and their culture was overall spared; fast forward an indefinite amount of time and the not!westerners overgrew the not!japanese stuff while this past one remains in pockets here and there.
Or don't use japanese trappings, is it so difficult to rip off cleanly like it was done since ye olden times?
>Kimonos
???
>Katanas
Curved swords?
>Magatamas
???
>mikos
Shrine maidens?
>Shinto shrines
???
>kitsune
Foxfolk.
>tanuki
Raccoon-dog-folk.
>tengu
Crowfolk.
>yuki-onna
???
Wouldn’t it be cool if someone mixed straight up 13th century Europe with Japan, make it part of the point of the game.
See: Every JRPG ever.
>But in D&D unless you are a cleric you don't get any benefit at all. This makes religion kind of stale and boring and doesn't get players to interact with it at all.
Sad but true. I realized this after crafting an autistic setting theology of my own before it was entirely overlooked by my players, even though they owed the entirety of their reputation upon only very particular interpretation of said autism. Not everyone's cup of tea, I guess.
Even "religious" classes are mostly seen as just a means to a spell list. I'm playing a cultural believer, only-church-on-easter -type noble and still get balks from the paladin player on how much attention I pay on having my character toss a few coins towards the temples when things are going bad or to put on airs of piety.
That said, D&D provides plenty of minor divinities whose visibility could be completely harmonized with the world in motivating varying degrees of motivation. Why shouldn't a unicorn or couatl be collecting offerings from local villages in exchange for minor blessings? etc, etc
Not really, I mean 13th century 13th century not a mixture of Baroque and 19th century with a false idea of the ‘middle-ages’. Imagine a feudal vassal, wearing historical accurate amour, who focuses on using the bow and arrow and has Japanese bushido sensibilities. Imagine Dante Alighieri writing Haiku, that sort of stuff.
*varying degrees of veneration
>Why shouldn't a unicorn or couatl be collecting offerings from local villages in exchange for minor blessings? etc, etc
This is precisely what I suggest in .
>How do you justify inserting random Japanese trappings into a Western fantasy setting
you dont
that's retarded
unless its a china-town like sub-district or something, having random japanese inserts screams of weeaboo fantasy