GURPS Hot Spots: The Silk Road

[PK]

Even a god-king
Must humbly wait a decade
For Chinese take-out

— Segerseni, Obscure Egyptian Pharoah

Our world has always been inescapably interconnected. A moth flaps its wings in China, so the saying goes, and a day later a storm forms in Europe. Except that the true global change happened back before the moth even emerged from its cocoon, when it spun strands of thread to be woven into silk for trading halfway across the world.

GURPS Hot Spots: The Silk Road explores the Seidenstraße, a collection of trade routes through Central Asia which connected the world to a degree that remained unsurpassed for millennia. Whether used in historical games or as inspiration for more fantastical ones, the Silk Road is brimming with exotic sights and potential adventures! Ancient underground temples lie within the sands of the Taklamakan Desert, awaiting exploration. Rogue bands of steppe archers threaten to prey upon Sogdian merchants, who enlist trained mercenaries for protection. Abbasid spies stalk Imperial couriers, attempting to ferret out where Chinese defenses are weak. And all the while, countless cultures and religions meet, intermingle, and clash.

Tour the geography of the Seidenstraße, with over six pages of detailed maps and a full gazetteer detailing everything from nations to small-but-important towns and shrines. Immerse yourself in the wide range of cultures, learning about everything from key religions and careers to local food and music. Organize a campaign, with details for everything from trading and economics to military tactics and GURPS Mass Combat. And optionally mix this all with anything from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy to GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier. The included adventure seeds and ready-to-use character traits make it easy, and everything else makes it fun.

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Store Link: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG37-0662
Preview PDF: http://www.warehouse23.com/media/SJG37-0662_preview.pdf

[b-dog]

This is great for what I am interested in. I am using a mix of Ars Magica, GURPS Arabian Nights and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy with a dose of Cthulhu Dark Ages so this will be very useful to me for adventuring outside of the Islamic world. I hope it will be up soon.

[Rigil_Kent]

Awesome! That's definitely going to be BUY NOW for me!

[Paulon]

Warehouse 23 is back up and running.

[Buzzardo]

A Matt Riggsby supplement? Insta-purchase. :)

[SolemnGolem]

:steeplefingers: Eeeexcellent!

Buying now!

Edit: This reminds me of an old thread I posted, about trade between Europe and China in medieval ages (albeit with a dash of fantasy).

[PK]

Matt's Designer's Notes for Silk Road are available now in this month's issue of Pyramid and it isn't marketing hype when I say that they're a must-read if you enjoyed the book. You also get a poster-sized map of Central Asia, in full color, which is the kind of funky "bonus content" that we like to throw into Pyramid. I talk more about both in the Pyramid announcement thread.

[b-dog]

What kinds of undead would be found on the Silk Road? Would each culture have their own different types?

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by b-dog

What kinds of undead would be found on the Silk Road? Would each culture have their own different types?

If you have not already, you'll want to get your hands on Pyramid #3/103. The designer's notes article contains some monster stats not suitable for the book, including the Tibetan ro-langs, a sort of zombie. Alas, I couldn't find anything like enough Sogdian or Uighur material on the subject.

[Bud]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

If you have not already, you'll want to get your hands on Pyramid #3/103. The designer's notes article contains some monster stats not suitable for the book, including the Tibetan ro-langs, a sort of zombie. Alas, I couldn't find anything like enough Sogdian or Uighur material on the subject.

The Uighurs are originally a Turkic people, I think, and so anything from Turkic mythology would be appropriate for the region. The Epic of Koroghlu as well as the Dede Korkut are sort of key epics for this culture, you can find them in any online library.
Depending on the campaign, I'd likely throw in vanilla skeletons and zombies and put some local garb on them, and many some advantage appropriate to the terrain and campaign.
Also I think the phoenix myth is big in that region (I'm no expert! far from it), so maybe an undead Phoenix (if that's not completely impossible). Would a Phoenix be undead between the time it died and rose from it's ashes?
Rolling vs. my philosophy skill...