D&D 4E Kara-Tur Supplement for 4e - Ideas?

[Manbearcat]

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] - I'm flying off this evening (Australia time) on a 6-week family holiday. So no posting from me for a while. Best wishes of the season to you and yours!

Your commentary will be missed. Thank you for the well wishes and enjoy your extended vacation and holiday!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is an interesting point and I suspect that your ruminations are likely accurate. 4e's genre elements are broad and deep (thus supporting 3 full tiers of play). Like Dark Sun, OA's band would seem a bit more narrow.

EDIT - fixed some stuff that I mangled in my haste.

I don't think TSR/WotC has ever really delved far enough into Kara-Tur to bring out the 'epic' potentialities of the system, but the source material is rife with them. All you have to do is cast your mind back to Japanese mythology with its 'grass cutting sword' and such. Journey to the West is filled with battles against demons and such. Chinese cosmology has plenty of hells and heavens and suchlike places to fill out the World Axis quite well. Much of it could easily overlap with D&D lore, demons and devils are various sorts of denizens of Traditional/Confucian/Taoist/Buddhist 'hell', etc.

So, yes, Epic 4e and Epic OA 4e probably converge to a large degree, but that's the nature of the whole epic concept, its 'out of this world'. I think you could also generate a suitably epic 'wire fu' sort of 'saving the Empire' kind of game as well. I've been exposed to a LOT of Chinese TV Drama, and there's plenty of REALLY crazy stuff on there.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] - I'm flying off this evening (Australia time) on a 6-week family holiday. So no posting from me for a while. Best wishes of the season to you and yours!

I'll second [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], we'll have to make do without you I guess.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't think TSR/WotC has ever really delved far enough into Kara-Tur to bring out the 'epic' potentialities of the system, but the source material is rife with them. All you have to do is cast your mind back to Japanese mythology with its 'grass cutting sword' and such. Journey to the West is filled with battles against demons and such. Chinese cosmology has plenty of hells and heavens and suchlike places to fill out the World Axis quite well. Much of it could easily overlap with D&D lore, demons and devils are various sorts of denizens of Traditional/Confucian/Taoist/Buddhist 'hell', etc.

So, yes, Epic 4e and Epic OA 4e probably converge to a large degree, but that's the nature of the whole epic concept, its 'out of this world'. I think you could also generate a suitably epic 'wire fu' sort of 'saving the Empire' kind of game as well. I've been exposed to a LOT of Chinese TV Drama, and there's plenty of REALLY crazy stuff on there.

In my opinion, the most fascinating parts of 4e's creation myth, and the organization of the metaphysical nature of existence, is that of the contributions of the Primordials and the Elder Spirits. The Primal power source is my personal favorite. I think the Spirit Realm as the haven for the Celestial Bureaucracy and the Elder Spirits as the various Ministers would fit thematically and serve the setting well. The Primordial powers would be the terrestrial, elemental (hence demonic) forces that govern the physical form of the earth and the underworld (Yomi) with actual geographical continuity with the prime world. These would be corrupted, fallen Ministers who have designs on either regaining their lost Ministries or outright undoing the Celestial Bureaucracy.

Setting up the yin and yang of the elemental powers (unbridled, raw, self-serving power) + Yomi (as the conception of hades, yet as a true terrestrial underworld but not the sole land of the dead) and the Elder Spirits (constrained power, humility, everything in its right place) + the Spirit Realm (as the conception of celestial harmony) as the primary governing forces of the metaphysical would provide (a) setting authenticity, (b) a relationship with the 4e creation myth, (c) inherent strife within the celestial bureaucracy and terrestrial existence that would prompt fairly obvious PC bonds/allegiances. There could be corruptible Elder Spirits on a dangerous path and Primordial Powers legitimately seeking redemption as Ministries change hands with entities ascending and descending.

I think this arrangement would put Epic Tier OA play in the neighborhood of Diablo with very focused themes for the PCs to engage with (as I find the Primal Powers book and the various Primordials' stories to be very clear, noncomplex, and naturally at tension with one another). Where the Celestial Emperor fits into all of this, I'm not sure. Perhaps he would be the only legitimate Divine (power source) entity and have formal veto power over ascension to and removal from celestial office (and attendant fall). Sort of like the distant AO in FR but slightly more involved.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In my opinion, the most fascinating parts of 4e's creation myth, and the organization of the metaphysical nature of existence, is that of the contributions of the Primordials and the Elder Spirits. The Primal power source is my personal favorite. I think the Spirit Realm as the haven for the Celestial Bureaucracy and the Elder Spirits as the various Ministers would fit thematically and serve the setting well. The Primordial powers would be the terrestrial, elemental (hence demonic) forces that govern the physical form of the earth and the underworld (Yomi) with actual geographical continuity with the prime world. These would be corrupted, fallen Ministers who have designs on either regaining their lost Ministries or outright undoing the Celestial Bureaucracy.

Setting up the yin and yang of the elemental powers (unbridled, raw, self-serving power) + Yomi (as the conception of hades, yet as a true terrestrial underworld but not the sole land of the dead) and the Elder Spirits (constrained power, humility, everything in its right place) + the Spirit Realm (as the conception of celestial harmony) as the primary governing forces of the metaphysical would provide (a) setting authenticity, (b) a relationship with the 4e creation myth, (c) inherent strife within the celestial bureaucracy and terrestrial existence that would prompt fairly obvious PC bonds/allegiances. There could be corruptible Elder Spirits on a dangerous path and Primordial Powers legitimately seeking redemption as Ministries change hands with entities ascending and descending.

I think this arrangement would put Epic Tier OA play in the neighborhood of Diablo with very focused themes for the PCs to engage with (as I find the Primal Powers book and the various Primordials' stories to be very clear, noncomplex, and naturally at tension with one another). Where the Celestial Emperor fits into all of this, I'm not sure. Perhaps he would be the only legitimate Divine (power source) entity and have formal veto power over ascension to and removal from celestial office (and attendant fall). Sort of like the distant AO in FR but slightly more involved.

I would just make the gods be the Celestial Bureaucracy, Baator is Yomi, and the spirits are simply the spirits, not tied directly to the gods, but all basically interested in the cosmic order. The Primordials/Demons represent the big ultimate chaos forces that the Celestial Emperor and cohorts banished in the beginning. There's not maybe a lot of hard distinction between 'devils' and 'demons' there, but that's a D&Dism anyway. You could abolish it, or simply make it something that isn't so clearly understood in the mortal world. I'm sure that details can be worked out.

The World Axis works pretty well for most classic mythologies at some level because frankly its built to reflect their primary universal theme, order vs chaos. Chinese traditional belief systems fit pretty well in there, with more or less details being spun variously. You can do Greek mythology pretty much the same way.

There are really always 2 choices, to either just adopt the cosmology of the source material entirely, and rework game material to conform to it (not really much work in 4e), or assume that the source material is an interpretation of the World Axis, which is the fundamental underlying 'true' cosmology. The advantage of the 1st approach is you can simply stick exactly with every detail of your source material. The problem being its actually not possible to find consistent source material! Chinese traditional mythology (in particular) is crazy inconsistent, there's a sort of basic rough agreement about some of the major points, but you're going to pretty much just choose what you want anyway. The advantage of the 2nd approach is you twofold, one you can use all the existing 4e source material pretty much as-is, and obviously you can graft existing D&D settings onto your fantasy East. It would be pretty easy for instance to place Kara-Tur within the POL world as it exists now. It would be thematically incoherent (being a large existing empire) but being far away would make it 'just a rumour' to the area of Nerath. You could always spin it as something like 3rd Century China, which was pretty chaotic too.

 

[MwaO]

You can also liberally steal from Avatar: The Last Airbender or Legend of Korra(for an Eberron/Kara-Tur mix)