So i've been working on my Small Talking Animal Fantasy (STAF) setting Panorah, essentially the ill-thought-out love child of Brian Jacques and J.R.R. Tolkien who was then kidnapped by crazy uncle G.R.R Martin but was thankfully recovered before any severe damage was done.
I have my "European" part of the world pretty well fleshed out, but I still haven't done much work on the "Asian" part of the world. I don't just want to rip off Feudal Japan and call it a day, so I'm working on finding cool stuff from Indian, Korean, and Ancient Chinese history as well.
Some ideas I had were as follows:
Races
Kitsune: Foxes do exist in this world, but there are two categories of animals; Creeps (PC races who evolved to be bipedal and sentient like humans) and Beasts (Lions, and tigers, and Bears, Oh My!), and foxes firmly fall in the beast category. But there is a race of relatively small gray foxes called Kitsune. Essentially there just changelings from Eberron adapted to Pathfinder, but I felt like they fit in just fine.
Tanuki: Still working on this one, but I need to do more research.
And I thought it would be cool to have turtles be a PC race. However I don't see a race of humanoid turtles having a bony shell like they're often depicted. I could see them lose shells for a more bony armory hide similar to Ankylosaurs or something though. But then I remembered what thread I was on and wondering if tampering with the glorious turtle was heresy.
Monkeys: ... Would that work?
Red Pandas: Speaking of Kung Fu turtles, why not remember Shifu?
And then there's classes...
I like the idea of Ninjas in their original context: Super sneaky intrigue and assasination people, not Super reflexive Kung Fu people. So maybe different kind of ninja clans? Underground clans who do anything they want and are funded by crime, or politically protected clans who serve their lords and masters in exchange for protection and steady income? Just thoughts.
I don't know if I like the idea of having Samurai. I'm going to do some more exploration on knights from india and china, so hold your britches.
If you are converting kitsune into fox-folk, perhaps consider converting kappa into your turtle-folk. Either way, I'd keep their shells.
Quote from: Rose-of-Vellum
If you are converting kitsune into fox-folk, perhaps consider converting kappa into your turtle-folk. Either way, I'd keep their shells.
This makes a whole lot of sense. Will be working on it.
For some reason I can't picture them as anything other than pizza-loving ninjas :P
Quote from: Ghostman
For some reason I can't picture them as anything other than pizza-loving ninjas :P
Funny, I keep imagining Oogway from Kung Fu Panda