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Old 07-03-2011, 02:17 PM   #11
Johnny Angel
 
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

Koopa - The turtle creatures from the Mario games. I know that sounds silly, but I think they would make an interesting fantasy race. I also think they would fit into an Asian niche quite easily; they appear to have some sort of clan structure. There's also enough variety among them to have a few racial lenses -- for example, some have wings; there are various colors, and some are born gifted with magic.

http://www.mariowiki.com/Koopa_Troopa

If you wanted to keep Bowser (aka King Koopa,) I could see him easily being used as a Dong Zhou type figure; seizing control of a kingdom (of Koopas) and ruling as a tyrant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dong_Zhuo
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Old 07-03-2011, 02:22 PM   #12
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

Here's some more vamp out of the malays
http://www.spi.com.sg/spi_files/pontianak/main.htm
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Old 07-03-2011, 02:30 PM   #13
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

The Japanese obakemono and the Korean Dokkaebi appear to be types of goblins. The Malaysian Orang Bunian is described as being similar to elves, and the Filipino Nuno sa Punso is a sort of dwarf; the Duwende is described as being like a goblin, dwarf, or elf.

And in D&D3e's Oriental Adventures, there were netsumi (rat-folk), korobukoro (dwarves), and hengeyokai (you probably know what those are) as well.
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Old 07-03-2011, 02:35 PM   #14
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

Quote:
Originally Posted by quarkstomper View Post
Are you looking for potential PC races, or just plain monster-type races?

Dragons -- I know you didn't want Western fantasy races in asian costumes, but in the case of Dragons it really is appropriate; because Chinese dragons are more like powerful spirits of nature than the antisocial reptiles of Western Europe. And many Eastern Dragons are also shape-shifters and so can imitate human society.
GURPS Dragons covers eastern dragons with some details on Chinese, Japanese, Korean dragons. GURPS Dragons is for 3e, but has 4e conversions for stats in the book as well.

You might want to visit e23 and give GURPS Japan PDF and GURPS China PDF to see if there's anything in either of these dealing with fantasy races that could be used.
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Old 07-03-2011, 02:59 PM   #15
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

And Wiki has a ghost page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_ghost_myths
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Old 07-03-2011, 03:00 PM   #16
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

The new GURPS Horror has about 70% of the monsters in this thread, BTW.
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Old 07-03-2011, 03:03 PM   #17
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenarthral View Post
Any particular part of Asia? It's a big place.
Is this to add to an already established West or worldbuilding starting from scratch?
How mythologically correct is the West?

Then again, there is something to be said for arguments like "if there are
humans, horses and dogs both in the east and west, why shouldn't there
be dwarves, rust monsters and beholders in the east as well, no more or less
different from those in the west than the humans, horses and dogs of the
.
I am just using the rule of cool and not going too deep into specifics. I just want to keep an Asian flavor that is exotic.

As far as why the dwarves, elves, trolls etc. are not in the Forbidden East well it is because in my game world they are extra planer creatures created by the Norse gods and tend to stay in the areas where they hold power. The same is true for the minotaurs, nymphs, fauns who are the creations of the Olympic deities and the ogres, goblin-kin that were created by the Fomor deities. But pretty much all of the gods of the Eurpean-ish lands hold sway so there all of the races can be found throughout the Western lands. It is in the Forbidden East where the European gods are less active and the Asian ones more active that the Asian races and monsters are numerous and the European ones few.
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Old 07-03-2011, 11:44 PM   #18
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

Nymphs or fairy maidens of some kind attached to certain natural places often turn up in Asian folktales.

Shapechanging animals are also very fitting for Asian fantasy, especially if you give them glamour magic. The first to come to mind are Kitsune, however the word kitsune really only means fox in Japanese. Other animals are entirely appropriate (such as badgers, wolves, dogs, cats and spiders). Drawing on the culture of other countries than Japan is entirely appropriate as well (Korea, China).

Korean legend states that Korean people are the descendants of a bear who proved herself in a test to become human and then married the god who gave her that test. They consider themselves the descendants of a bear. There was also a tiger who tried but failed at that test. I'm not entirely sure how the actual legend goes, but I know that at least in TV shows the tiger turned woman and bear turned woman went to war with one another. It wouldn't be far fetched to have several different groups of people in an Asian fantasy setting claiming different animals as ancestors and carrying on ancient feuds.
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Old 07-04-2011, 02:06 AM   #19
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

Quote:
Originally Posted by b-dog View Post
I am just using the rule of cool and not going too deep into specifics. I just want to keep an Asian flavor that is exotic.
But there are still many different flavours and they're not all equally exotic.
Japanese, for example, is about as unexotic as generic West European-
medieval by now.

(I was going to make a hipster joke, but a quick skim of the Asian Bestiaries
turned up no proper underground-dwellers.)

GURPS Fantasy Bestiary had several Indian monsters.
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Old 07-04-2011, 11:42 AM   #20
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Default Re: DF: I need some Asian non-human races please

The samebito (shark-men) of Japanese culture. They're described in Banestorm under another name, but I don't recall it right off.
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