"Oriental" with chaos setting.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Back in the day Oriental meant everything east of Istanbul.  And in a sense I could describe the ancient influences I like coming from that direction: Egyptian, Mesopotamian, "Arabian", Indian, central steppe nomads, Chinese, Japanese, South-east Asian, and you can even include East African in the deal.  I think it would be nice to create a setting that uses all of these not just as individual regional cultures but combine all of their influences to create new things.

But what does "with chaos" mean?
It means that as interesting as the heavy social structure of some Asian cultures (indeed, I believe almost everywhere in the historic world) are I do enjoy the contemporary Western bias that people aren't so beholden to "social station" and rigid social rules.  They can stick out without expecting to be pounded back into line, they can be individuals and be praised for it.  Combine this with setting mythology that doesn't hold up order and control as inherently good and chaos and change as inherently good and you have something (I at least think is) new for an "Oriental" setting.

Important ideas I've had so far:
*A blasted desert that was once the home of the Great People, before they destroyed themselves trying to control nature.
*A sea corridor between two continents with islands that stretch through it and out off into the unexplored western ocean toward the legendary Land of the Setting Sun.
*Only one common sentient species, but their appearances vary much, much more than those of humans.
*Magic that is mostly about churning up the structure of the world, but is not harmful to the caster and is considered part of natural renewal.

[Superfluous Crow]

Hmm, having a sea corridor be a central part of the setting sounds like a great idea!

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

One of the possibilities I've thought of is having the blaster desert exist on one of the two continents leaving only a strip of habitable land along the coast.  That would certainly create cultures/nations that rely on the sea.  This would contrast them to the people on the other continent who have interior land and so don't place quite so much importance on the sea.

[Gamer Printshop]

In my Kaidan project, oriental is focused on Japanese only. Many other "oriental" settings utilize a primarily Japanese setting then introduce elements of Southeast Asian (naga), China or India (monkey humanoids), "monks" which are pretty much China, not Japan at all. Then call it a mixture of oriental cultures. However, in most cases that mixture is something like 95% Japanese and 5% of all other settings. So in Kaidan, my goal was to drop that 5% and focus exclusively on the Japanese, which most settings utilize anyway in their oriental world.

Although I certainly won't have time to do it myself, I see it as a better thing to create a focused China setting, India setting, Southeast Asia setting each unique and not corrupted with other oriental cultures, making eaching setting more pure and true. That's why at this time I wam working on a Japan-only setting for Kaidan.

Are you looking to create a single, amalgamated race of multiple oriental cultures, as a single culture, or are you looking to develop a region with multiple oriental peoples each unique from one another, yet distinctly "oriental" to the rest of the world? As long as each people seem distinct from the other I am all in favor of pursuing that.

GP

[Steerpike]

Hmm, I don't see the necessity to maintain "cultural purity" in a fantasy world.  All cultures influence those surrounding one another, anyway; there's no such thing as a "pure" culture in the real world, and a fantasy world is (by its very definition) different than the real one.  I could easily envision a setting with several oriental flavored cultures amalgamated from a mixture of real-world cultures, just as most medieval European settings don't necessarily have exact analogues to Germany, France, England, etc but blend and borrow from various cultures and mythologies.

That doesn't mean that an oriental setting should have only one culture - I think a setting with several different cultures would be much more interesting - just that I don't see why it'd be better to have those cultures correspond to real world ones 100%, or on a 1:1 basis.  If that was the case, why not just roleplay in a mythical version of Asia, using a real-world map, place names, and historical personages?

[Gamer Printshop]

Oh, I agree, one race cultures uninfluenced by surrounding cultures is practically impossible. What I meant was Kaidan, like Japan is a closed nation, thus elements of one culture can become more unique having less direct influence from the outside. However, Japan's culture largely consists of borrowed ideas and institutions, especially from China, so its not truly pure.

Basically, trying to make a somewhat accurate replication of Japan into Kaidan, its where my background knowledge lies. I wish I was equally read on China, India, Viet Nam and other areas of Asia, as I am with Japan (I am half Japanese, that helps explain my need for purity.)

The scope of trying to fully develop other cultures beyond Kaidan, is currently beyond my needs and knowledge. If I really need a China culture into the setting I'll do that.

Anyway, my question at Silvercat Moonpaw, is are you relying on one "oriental race" or something like the hundreds of ethnic groups beyond the mideast (in comparison of Europe to Asia.)

GP

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

What I want to do is always hard to understand, even (or especially) for me.  But what I don't want to do is create "China Mimic Culture X".  It's been done, and with people like Gamer it's been done better than anything I could ever do.

What I hope to do is mix what I know about these "east of Istanbul" cultures into one big melt.  No Europes.  Then I choose regions of the world I'm building and make their different cultures from this mixture.  The intent isn't to create homogeny it's to create cultures that can't be compared to Earthians on a 1-to-1 basis.

And I understand what you're saying about "Oriental" settings, Gamer.  I bet even when they use Japanese stuff they still get stuff wrong.  I know how that is because I know something about various creatures from myth, such as djinn, and I know some games get them quite wrong.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Okay here's an example:

[ic]A culture from an arid region that builds buildings out of mud brick and wood frames, whose religious architecture focuses on minarets and onion domes and patterns instead of images, who have a bureaucratic cosmology with one supreme god at the top with tiers of servants below to watch over the world and relay prayers, whose religion stresses devotion to this god such that some people decide to go to remote monasteries to get away from anything that could distract them from devotion and who practice "whirlwind" martial arts to loose their "selves" in order to achieve even more clarity in devotion, and whose afterlife says that if you are devoted enough in life you will be rewarded by spending eternity working for your one god as one of his servants.[/ic]

This example was made using elements of 4 oriental cultures, yet it really feels like its own thing rather than a clumsy patchwork.  This is what I want to achieve.

[Ghostman]

Good luck with your efforts, Silvercat. It's an ambitious and difficult goal that you've set for yourself.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

It's an ambitious and difficult goal that you've set for yourself.

Yeah, I'm not even sure I'm going to do it.  Just that one paragraph wore me out, I may try something simpler first.