To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM
From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM
Subject: RuneQuest Digest Volume 8 no 6, campaign stuff + news
Comments: Revision @(#)v8n06 1.2 92/12/28
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM
(RuneQuest Digest Submission Address)
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Contents:
Oliver Jovanovic Upcoming AH products
Thom Baguley Back Issue Request [back issue service]
Ghost Dancer New Campaign
Kirsten K. Niemann New RQ Campaign startup
Steve Gilham Using Kralorela as a campaign setting
Additorial:
This issue contains three articles on starting new campaigns.
A fourth article (by Tom Zunder) is rather large, and I will
send it out as a separate issue (#7).
Seasons Greetings...
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--------------------
From: JOVANOVIC@CUCCFA.CCC.COLUMBIA.EDU
Subject: Upcoming AH products
Message-ID: <921223131622.30aa@CUCCFA.CCC.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Date: 23 Dec 92 08:16:22 GMT
Henk, River of Cradles should be in stores in the US shortly after you
read this - it is a collection of background material on the River of
Cradles region, and contains some out of print material from Pavis,
the Big Rubble, and Borderlands, as well as new material, and a series
of linked scenarios set on the River of Cradles.
Next out should be Shadows on the Borderland, a set of three scenarios
dealing with chaos hidden in the borderlands of Prax.
Oliver
--------------------
From:
Date: 22 Dec 92 13:17:29 U
Subject: Back Issue Request
Hi Henk,
I just received volume 8 Issue 3. I found it interesting, but realized
that I may not follow much, unless I read the back issues.
Can the back issues be accessed via FTP or can you send them to me?
Thanks,
Thom
[back issues can be gotten through anonymous FTP from soda.berkeley.edu,
courtesy of Shannon Appel. (Thanks Shannon)
I maintain an incomplete archive accesible through a semi-automated
mail-server]
--------------------
From: Ghost Dancer
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 15:05 BST
Subject: New Campaign
Hi!
After a long absence from RQ I am about to start a new Glorantha
campaign at my local club. I intend setting the campaign in or around
the River of Cradles, I have the supplement Sun County and have heard
about a River of Cradles pack, is this out yet?
Also if anyone can give me any scenario ideas I would appreciate it as
I am a bit out of practice.
I was thinking about getting the party to escort some priests on a
journey from Sun Dome to JohnsTown to swap temple records but this
would be a mamoth scenario which I would rather save for later as most
of the player will be inexperienced with the system to start with.
Any help greatly appreciated
Thanks
Jarec
e-mail: spb1@vms.bton.ac.uk
--------------------
From: Kirsten K. Niemann
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 18:53:01 EST
Subject: New RQ Campaign startup
This file contains an example of the kind of stuff I put
together for a new campaign. For what it is worth, I think
this may be the best example to date of my pre-game setups,
because it resulted in the best balance of characters, and
gave them a very strong sense of connectedness. I have
posted it in response to questions on the Avalon Hill RPGs
folder about how one goes about starting a new campaign
with players who may not understand gaming, or just aren't
familiar with Glorantha and RQ. My players for this session
ranged the gamut--from Martin Crim, a longtime
Gloranthophile, to a co-worker who barely knew what RPGs
were, but thought they sounded cool.
Along with this info, I copied (for personal use only, don'tcha
know) a bunch of selected pages from the old Pavis books,
some pictures on babyloniain dress, bits from the Intro to
Glorantha book, and other intro stuff. I make no bones about
it--there is a bit of reading necessary to really be ready for
my game. My opinion is that the more the players are willing
to put in, the more they are going to get out.
The following is (C) 1992 Mike Dawson, permission to use
privately only. You must include this notice in any copies.
This is a document of the House of Rass, additions to the New
Book of the Matriarch. May our ancestors and all their faces
curse those who misuse it, or the Great City of Pavis.
The New Pavis Campaign
Every city has important families, and Pavis is no exception.
The Garhounds, Eiskollis, Ingillis, Patromas and all have their
power and wealth, but none of them are as old and noble a
line as the Indagos Clan.
The Indagos Clan
The Indagos clan is the most ancient surviving noble clan in
Pavis. Its history dates back over 500 years, to the time of
Jaldon Toothmaker and his attacks on the city. Legend says
that the Champion of Pavis at that time recognized the
Indagos as great warriors, and granted the clan's leader great
power and wealth.
The clan is made up of many families, and the bloodlines
between the families are tangled and obscure. Everyone in
the Indagos Clan traces their ancestry back to Waerdos Panis
Indagos, the founder of the clan. Beyond that, the lines of
relationship are vague enough that intra-clan marriage is the
norm, rather than the exception.
Throughout the centuries, the clan's wealth and power has
waxed and waned with the fortunes of Pavis. With the
arrival of the Lunar Empire, the entire clan is under
tremendous pressure. At the start of the Occupation, many
members of the Clan were exiled or executed by Sor-Eel, the
military governor.
The House of Rass
This is your particular family. The household symbol appears
below. One of the many households in the Clan, and not one
of the more important ones these days. Your father has told
you of generations past, when Rass was one of the richest,
most powerful families in Pavis. Hundreds of years of
warfare and the fortunes of time have changed that.
Now Rass is a small family, whose wealth comes from rents
charged on a few buildings owned in the Downtown section
of New Pavis, and your father's investments. Before the
Lunars exiled the Pavis Survivors Zebra cavalry, a good
business selling zebras also aided the family fortunes.
The Noble Life
Several paths are normally open to the children of the rich in
Pavis. The important thing to keep in mind is that there is a
strong prejudice against working with your hands. To uphold
the status of your house, you may not engage in a trade, or
marry someone who does. Owning a herd of zebras is
different from working as a herder.
Children of the privileged often become involved in one or
more of the following:
Wanton Debauchery
Great fun as long as the money lasts. There are better places
for it than Pavis, but some residents give it their best.
Duelling
Many children, mostly male, devote themselves to personal
feats at arms. They see themselves as holding up the honor
of their households, but their actions rarely serve any wider
political purpose, and often work directly against the wishes
of their families.
Military Service
You may study military arts at the personal, unit, or army
level. It depends on whether you want to be a warrior, an
officer, or a general. Pavic nobles prefer mounted combat
and the use of the bow.
Religious Service
A life in the priesthood of an acceptable religion is suitable
for a noble. Nor does priesthood prevent having a family of
your own in most cases. Acceptable cults include:
Orlanth, king of the Storm Gods (currently politically
unpopular)
Pavis, Founder of the City
Yelmalio, Son of the Light, a soldier's god, exclusive and
patriarchal
Lhankor Mhy, Lord of Knowledge, god of sages
Chalana Arroy, Mother of Mercy, goddess of healing
Humakt, God of Swords, a warrior's god
The Seven Mothers, missionaries of the Lunar Empire.
(politically strong now.)
Zebra Breeding
There is big money to be made in this, but it is not very
exciting.
Scholarly Research
Topics of interest are limitless. Knowledge is power in a real
sense when magic works. "Scholarly Research" can be a
euphemism for a variety of unusual studies the average
peasant on the street might consider damnable.
Immediate Family
Folos Rass
Patriarch of the family, he is the father of all player
characters. Folos is in his late 50's, but in reasonable health.
Melin Rass
Your mother died in childbirth many years ago. Her marriage
to your father caused a great scandal, because she was of the
Ingilli Clan. Her dowry was a large merchant boat for river
trade, and it sunk many years ago.
Rass IV
Your paternal Grandfather died when the oldest of you was
only a child. Your grandmother died even earlier. All of you
have gotten the impression that relations between your
father and his were strained, probably by Folos's marriage to
Melin.
Distant Family Connections
At the clan level, there are several important people you
may claim kinship with:
Benderri Indagos, Son of Pavis
He is High Priest for the city cult, and an old friend of your
father. Very old and conservative.
Fleeter Nemm, Daughter of Pavis
Actually a man, Fleeter's family is also of Indagos. Generally
considered to be next in line for the High Priesthood of the
city cult.
The Resh Family
These clan relatives once controlled the Pavis Survivors, a
prestigious band of Zebra cavalry with excellent training and
exclusive requirements. The Lunar Governor exiled the
members, and the family has declined since then. The
Survivors are still out there somewhere, even so.
--------------------
From: Steve Gilham
Date: 02 Dec 1992 10:35:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Using Kralorela as a campaign setting
Using Kralorela
Being a discussion of the Eastern lands of Genertela, and how one might
begin to make use of them, in the light of the miniscule amount of
official data, submitted by Steve Gilham (steveg@arc.mdcbbs.com)
Introduction
============
The intent of this article is to start to build on the fragmentary
information about Kralorela provided by official publications,
discarding or amending where necessary, to try and meet half-way with
the actual China. I don't pretend to be an expert on China and its
history, but I know enough to see that the official word on Kralorela
means that it is less Chinese than the Willow Pattern plate. (The
Willow Pattern is a European design, intended to cash in on the
popularity of Chinoiserie during the days of the tea clippers - it
has no basis in Chinese history.)
Kralorela, we are told, is to Glorantha, what far Cathay is to Earth -
or at least to our modern perceptions of the fantastic lands of old.
And from what fragments we have seen of it, it is inded a land with
customs, inventions, food and clothing all unlike that of the lands
around Prax and Dragon Pass. We don't have any equivalent of Samarkand
and the Silk Road - the scant trade carried out along the Red Hair
Tribes' route through Pent passes through no cities; and there is no
trade through the Wastes.
One of the key features of Glorantha is the emphasis on myth and
religion in the cultures; Kralorela, we read in Cults of Terror, is a
land where the interpretation of the universe is mystical, rather than
deist, humanist or animist. China on the other hand has a sprawling
mass of folk-tales, which hardly constitute a mythology; and has in
Confucianism what is almost agnosticism raised to the status of State
religion. In addition, Buddhism and Taoism had their own adherents,
sets of gods and philosophies. Clearly, reconciling the two threads
will require a little bending of the source materials, as we look at
their religion.
The Celestial Empire
====================
A GodLearner might say that the major Kralori religon was Solar in
nature, but with local variations, and in doing so miss the
subtleties of the fundamental structure of their religious thought. In
the Kralori view, the gods are organised into a social order, just as
the Kralori folk themselves are. Their Emperor is Yelm, usually
styled more respectfully as the August Personage in Gold, or the
Golden Celestial Emperor. The nature of the Imperial Succession is
such that the cult of Yelm is actually an extremely stylised form of
Ancestor worship, with the predecessors of the reigning Emperor, all
the way back to Yelm, in the lineage. In its intricate ceremony, this
manner of ancestor worship is entirely different from that of
primitive tribes.
As befits an emperor, the August Personage in Gold has many wives and
concubines, sons and subjects. Many of these are minor beings, mainly
regional or more local spirits, not recognised outside Kralorela, and
with little cult of their own. The most important of the wives is
Dendara, who in Kralorela is regarded as the ideal for womanhood; and
indeed is more highly regarded here than in Dara Happa. (In Vormain,
Glorantha's Nippon, of course, Dendara is the natural Gloranthan
equivalent of Amaterasu.) Yelmalio, Son of the Sun, is the War god,
and his martial aspects are emphasised over the aspects as god of last
light. Massed spearmen, without shields are the usual formation on
the field of battle. A drum tower, which serves as a watchpoint,
dedicated to him as a shrine, will be found in most towns.
Though not a wife of the August Golden One, Uleria is known in
Kralorela. Here styled Lady Willow, she is patron of the willow
world of entertainers, courtesans and prostitutes. Candidates may
offer Calligraphy, Play [pipes, harp], Sing or Dance, instead of the
skill Orate (which is more common in Orlanthi areas) in any test of
cult skills.
The subjects of the August Personage in Gold include a vast array of
more minor spirits - even some storm gods, the various Counts of the
Winds, and Dukes of Thunder and Lightning. The purpose of such
spirits is to maintain the order of the natural world. In a similar
fashion, the various city gods are mirrors of human life amongst the
divine. In this scheme of things, even the dragons have their
places, as kings swearing fealty to the Emperor. To the Kralori, it
is the subjects of Thruhunin Da, the Sea Dragon King who wields the
powers of the Ancient Waters Dragon, who are responsible for the
typhoons that rage during the months of Thought and Spirit.
Godunya and the Exarchs
=======================
The cult of Godunya and the worship of the Exarchs who are his
representatives is, a large scale version of the worship of a city or
tribal cult during the late stages of the founder's life, as, for
example, it would have been in the city of Pavis during Pavis' mortal
life, and the land of Sartar during Sartar's. For the Kralori folk, a
good initiate is one who is an industrious citizen.
Worship is a civic matter, and a festival, such as the Dragon Boat
races on the Fireday of Godunya's Holy Week. The end of that week is
marked by public displays of fireworks (the fire drug used in these
displays does not seem to attract the attention of Mostali Gunpowder
Gobblers). The skills required of a priest of Godunya are those of a
civic official - literacy, ceremony and a knowledge of his fellow
men. Those people who take part in the competitive examinations
required to enter the Imperial Bureaucracy will have acquired these.
While game mechanics may baldly state the requirement of passing a
test of holiness, the fact of this reduced Luck roll really signifies
the outcome of the gruelling examinations which a candidate must
take. Locked in a cell, with a small supply of rice and water, the
candidate must write an extensive essay demonstrating his grasp of the
essential classical works on all subjects.
In truth, the examination has only one question - "write down
everything you know." Those who succeed may enter Imperial service,
either in one of the various Ministries of State, or as a magistrate,
assigned for a few years at a time to a town and its surrounding
district. Eventually, the diligent worker will be rewarded by
promotion either to Exarch (a role similar to that of prefect of a
province in China), or to some exalted position close to the Throne, as
a Chancellor, Minister or Censor.
The magistrates are the priests of Godunya most often seen by the
people. They are the ones who supervise the registration of births,
deaths and marriages, the collection of taxes, and the administration
of justice within their assigned areas. Each session of the
magistrate's tribunal, being a re-enactment of Godunya's rule of the
Empire (and thus of Yelm's rule of the Cosmos), is itself an act of
worship.
In this role, the magistrate has great summary powers. He may put
anyone to the question by torture - plaintiff, accused or witness
(though should anyone die in the process, the magistrate is expected
to accuse himself of murder and pass his own case on to higher
courts). When a conviction is obtained, which can only be through
confession, the magistrate can order any penalty deemed fit, though
this is usually guided by the vast literature of precedents. Capital
punishment, usually for murder or crimes against the state, must be
ratified by higher courts.
Executions, simple or prolonged, are held outside the city walls, and
even then the magistrate must officiate in his priestly role,
propitiating the city gods for the shedding of blood within their
region.
Because the role of magistrate is so demanding of time and effort,
each usually acquires a small group of trusted associates to whom he
will entrust the investigative parts of his role as detective, judge
and jury, just as he will employ a staff of scribes and clerks to
assist with his adminstrative duties, and a town watch to keep the
peace. The Kralori are just as human as any other folk, and not all
are honest citizens - some foul criminals will not even keep to the
appointed hour of the night for their ill doings. In the settled
peace of Godunya's empire, the adventuring life would most easily come
to one of the magistrate's assistants, making this a suitable role for
player characters to take.
Philosphies and Minor Religions
===============================
The Faith of Godunya is not the only source of religious feeling among
the Kralori folk. The Imperial Ancestors and other mythic figures do
receive worship. Cults of the departed emperors are found only among
the nobility, but the cults of mythic figures, such as Aptanace the
Sage are common among all classes. From Aptanace, for example, stems
the somewhat austere, other-regarding philosophy and the duty of
respect for one's place in the world, which comes closest to the
Confucian beliefs of China.
Each household has its own shrine to the ancestors of that family.
This is not the extravagant worship of primitve tribes, but more a
courteous invitation by the living for the departed to take part in,
and advise on, important family events. Betrothals will not be
concluded without the assent of the ancestors, and they are informed
of births, marriages and honours conferred upon the family. Should a
family member fall into disgrace, he must not only suffer any civic
penalty, but also confess to his ancestors, and suffer their
displeasure.
The head of the family acts as the priest or initiate leader of
worship at this shrine. He always receives Worship Ancestors as a
re-useable spell on becoming head of the family; and may receive the
spell Divination from the shrine.
In the south, the saffron robed pilgrims of sects influenced by the more
accessible Solar cults of Teshnos are commonly seen. Shaven of head, and
sworn to asceticism, these men and women are to Kralorela what the Buddhists
were to China. They preach an enlightenment reached through a cycle of
reincarnation, and revere many Solars, special cult spirits that were once
human, who, having reached enlightenment yet remain to aid others.
Some of these Sky sects add Osentalka to their pantheon, who in these lands is
regarded as a minor and esoteric god of Light. Their teachings resemble
those of the Ch'an (Zen) sect of Buddhism. Some of these sects are in turn
corrupted by the temptations of Gbaji, and occasionally their actions turn
the sentiments of the people against all these Solar cults.
Sorcerers, just as in the far West, tend to follow a more austere creed.
Their cult of the Impersonal Void is elsewhere regarded as an aberration of
Chaos; but in Kralorela, it has been elevated to the state of erudite
philosophy. The sorcerer of the Void is typically a hermit, seeking his own
enlightenment, content to be rather than to act. The Void, regarded as the
place where all arose, is sometime's referred to as Nature's Process; a
saying of these people is:-
"Men formed from Earth, Earth formed from
Heaven, Heaven formed from the Void, and
the Void just happened."
Sorcerers of the cult may learn the sorcery spell of Worship Impersonal Void.
City gods receive little worship, save through the propitiary actions of the
city's magistrate, who is also their head priest during his assignment to
that town, and in civic festivities, where they are regareded almost as
subservient spirits of Godunya. Beggars, gamblers, vagabonds and other folk
on
the outskirts of society will often form a cult of a thief god ot Trickster
aspect. The leader of the cult, the King of Beggars, for the town will tend
to regulate, after a fashion, the activities of his followers through the
town, so that the higher authorities are not minded to clamp down on these
unfortunates. Wandering gamblers and rogues are expected to follow the
custom of introducing themselves to the King of Beggars in each town they
stay in. In the country, the brotherhoods of the green woods, the highwaymen
and bandits, tend to have no cult affiliations.
Dragons
=======
Though god-like, these beings are not worshipped, but are regarded as an
excellence that can be attained through the worship of Godunya. Their powers
are regarded as the most exalted within the Celestiual Bureaucracy, and are
among the gifts that Godunya may bestow. Most Kralori folk are, however,
content with their lot. Only the Path of Immanent Mastery seeks to actively
gain draconic powers through philosophical investigation.
China vs Kralorela
==================
The preceeding material was rejected by Tales of the Reaching Moon for various
reasons of non-compliance with official material, primarily on the grounds
of getting dragons wrong, by understating their importance; but partly
because one has to do violence to Kralorela as it stands to make it anything
close to what China was actually like. This section aims to cover the
assumptions I made in the conversion to Gloranthan/Kralorelan terms.
Kralorela and the Outside World
===============================
Although Glorantha:Genertela mentions the fact of trade between the Lunar
Empire and Kralorela, Elder Secrets - despite idetifying Kralorela and far
Cathay - goes out of its way to emphasise the xenophobia of the Kralori
people, following the overthrow of the GodLearners' False Dragons. China, by
contrast quietly absorbed its various conquerors, swamping their culture and
stock by weight of numbers, and remaining quite happy to trade with the
Middle East.
Where do we expect to find the equivalents in Genertela? After all,
Genertela is a continent no larger than Australia into which a spread of
cultures comparable to that of Eurasia is fitted (the far west corresponds
roughly to Scandinavia and Norman France;Ralios may be Renaissance Italy;
Pent, the steppelands of Central Asia; Teshnos, India). Into all this the
Lunar Empire, Maniria and the Wastes - the lands which are the essentially
Gloranthan ones - are fitted where one would expect to find Eastern Europe,
the Balkans, and the Middle East.
The only near match here is between the Lunar Empire and Persia; and to the
Silk Road, such scant trade through uncivilised
(in the sense of having no cities) wilderness.
Religion
========
The Chinese have a history which stretches back into legend about
2500BC, rather than into myth. By about 650BC Confucius had
propounded his philosphies, and Lao Tsu had performed the synthesis
of the dualism of Yin and Yang into an impersonal First Cause, the
Tao. Some philosphers, unhappy with the idea that the Tao "just
happened" (the saying I quoted above is based on an actual Taoist
epigram, by just substituting Void where the Tao was found in the
original) proposed a causative Void from which it sprang. Borrowing
from the mentions of the cult of the Impersonal Void in The
Gloranthan Encyclopedia, I opted to identify Tao and Void for
Kralorela.
Buddhism, although seeking the a similar detached Nirvana, included
much more reverence for personalised Buddhas, and the Boddhisatvas who
had, rather than proceed to Nirvana, remained in the reincarnating
cycle to assist others. The reincarnation cycle of the Solar cults on
the path to abstraction (Yelmalians reincarnate as Yelmites, and
Yelmites in the cult of Dayzatar) and their presence in Teshnos - the
equivalent of the India from which Buddhism sprang - makes the
identification obvious.
Most of the native Chinese deities were mortals, apotheosized after
suitably folkloric actions. Their tales are more in the style of the
Brothers Grimm than the Eddas. Dragons were primarily weather
spirits; not the powerful beings of Gloranthan lore.
For the majority of the Chinese people, there was no fervent religion
in the way that the West embraced Christianity, or the Arabs, Islam.
Most observances were propitiatory, such as the annual bribing of the
household kitchen god with sweets and honey, just before he was due to
make his annual report (thus ensuring heavenly favour for the coming
year). Even the Emperor, who alone might worship the Celestial
Emperor did so in a spirit of propitiation.
Reconciling all this with the Kralorelan draconic theocracy is rather
difficult - it leads to an emphasis more on Yelm than on the Cosmic
Dragon : while a cosmogony of the 4th century AD did invoke a
self-dismembering creator, as the Gloranthan Dragon-myths do, this
figure was not important, compared with the August Personage in Jade
(who, by consulting the Kralori "king-list", and substituting the
Solar gold, I identified with Yelm).
Lady Willow is an invention of mine - many of my sources date to the
1920s and refer little to these matters, preferring to use euphemisms
such as the French enceinte for pregnant.
Lear in Ignorance
=================
Moving our focus north to the lands of Bliss in Ignorance, we see (in
Glorantha:Genertela) that some very strange folk have found their way
into these lands. In the area called Koromodol, the creature whose
initials are Y.B.B. is to be found, and the the inhabitants are said
to harvest the wild shrimp and watercress from the coast. In Edward
Lear's poem, The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo, the YBB praises
his land to his English lady-love as follows:-
"On this coast of Coromandel
Shrimps and watercresses grow
Prawns are plentiful and cheap..."
This Coromandel is the south-eastern coastal area of India.
Later in the poem, deserted by his lady, who has sailed to England, the
Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo tries to follow, setting off on the back of a large turtle,
which carries him to "the sunset isles of Boshen" - perhaps this reference
explains the Hsunchen turtle folk of Boshan.
This is not the only raid that has been made on Lear's nonsense poems. Thee
Jumblies, in the course of sailing in their sieve visit the "hills of the
Chankley Bore", now to be found inland of Koromodol. Amongst the visitors who
came to gasp at the Quangle-Wangle's hat were the "Fimble Fowl, with a
Corkscrew leg", and the "Dong with a luminous nose". This latter dignitary
stars in a poem all his own, which begins:-
"When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian Plain
Through the long, long wintry nights;-
When the angry breakers roar
As they beat on the rocky shore;-
When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
Of the hills of the Chankley Bore:-"
In these circumstances one may see the Dong, who contrived his lumnious nose
as a symbol of his mourning for his lost love, one of the Jumblies who
" ...came in a Sieve, they did-
Landing at eve near the Zemery Fidd
Where the Oblong Oysters grow"
When she sailed away with her people, he
"gathered the bark of the Twangum Tree
On the flowery plain that grows"
to make his nose. How this chap became the ghost of the defunct third eye of
Sunstorm, I scarcely can guess.
My own conceit here is that, if we knew where the Zemery Fidd is, we might
find that there was a Lunar-influenced Blue Oyster (somewhat like the Red
Lunar influenced Crimson Bat) which might have its own small but fanatical
cult following.
Reading List
============
Using Kralorela:-
===============
Robert van Gulik was a Dutch sinologist, and so his Judge Dee novels
(some - The Chinese Gold[Lake, Bell, Maze, Nail] Murders - are
available in Sphere paperback; for others you have to seek out
specialist crime bookshops) are based on actual Chinese stories of
crime, and attributed to the historical character who is to Chinese
crime literature what the fictional Sherlock Holmes is to ours. For
US readers, many of the titles may be available in Scribner editions
(which are intermittanly imported over here).
The stories are supposedly set in the T'ang period (about 670AD),
though as was customary, the fashions and styles of the later Ming
period are used. The stories contain only occasional hints of the
supernatural. His translation of the authentic 18th century novel
"Dee Goong An: Celebrated cases of Judge Dee" is also available in a
Dover edition.
The following are more fanciful, based more on the author's whim than
anything historical, and should thus not be regarded as trustworthy
sources for information about real China, but are suitable as Kralori
material:-
Barry Hughart's The Bridge of Birds,
The Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen;
Jeanne Larsen's Silk Road
Lucie Chins's The Fairy of Ku-She
Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung books (the latter are difficult to obtain,
but well worth looking out for - and show what can be done in the way
of feel with no research or authenticity whatsoever!)
China vs Kralorela
==================
I found that Myths & Legends of China by E.T.C. Warner was a good
start. Confucius' Analects is available in Penguin Classics, and the
Texts of Taoism in Dover paperback. More discussion of Eastern
mysticism can be found in the appropriate section of any good
bookshop.
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