Chinese Fantasy and Mythological Tips

 

Advice offered by the owner of this website.


I tend to classify the typical "Chinese setting" into several "Worlds" or you can say "Layers" (I am sure there's a better word for it, but I can't think of one right now), which can be used as a framework to expand into a detailed setting. Note that I will mostly use D&D-influenced terms, as that is the system I am most familiar with. These "layers" aren't mutually exclusive, and can be thought of as the kind of adventures one has as he ups his class.

The first layer is what I called:

1) "Base world" or "Overworld"

This is the layer/setting that is closest to its "standard medieval fantasy" equivalent, and the setting where you can throw in most non-magic Chinese cultural element(s) without worrying too much. If there's a conflict happening somewhere, it is mostly because of a war with foreign powers, or a civil war etc. This is the stage where a "Fighter Class" can shine most brightly. If there is a "East meet West" setting, this is also the easiest setting to use.

Stuffs like rockets, repeating crossbows, heavy armours, shields, bows & arrows, fancy Chinese firearms/bombs/cannons, mundane emperor, imperial civil servants and mandarins etc belong in this layer.

Classes like fighter, warlord (and/or strategist) also belong here. Base world tend to be no/low magic. Spellcasters, if they exist at all, are mostly limited to divination/advisor role.

You will also notice that I do not mention "Kung fu" and "martial arts" in this layer, because they don't (normally) belong here. Fighters in this layer act like...well, fighters, i.e. they whack at each others with the weapons they are good at, without shouting "iron heart surge" or whatnot.

2) "Jianghu (江湖)" or what I called "Low Wuxia" or "Underworld"

This is the entry gate to the world of Wuxia, where you will start to find all sorts of martial arts stuffs. However at this layer it is still very much grounded in reality. Most factions that operate at this layer are the ancient Chinese equivalent of gangsters and mafias and triads. Wealth and vengeance, as well as the underworld's code of honour, is the prime motivation of conflict at this layer. Gang fights happen about as often as personal duels.

Stuffs that belong to this layer: Wealthy river merchants (essentially "river mafia"), mountain bandits, rebels, salt peddlers, horse merchant alliance (again, essentially "horse trading mafia" of sort), caravan bodyguards (鏢局), martial arts throwing weapons, taverns. etc. Due to the prevalence of river merchants, underwater combat happens quite a lot.

Classes that belong to this layer: Rogue. As long as you step into the territory of Wuxia, you will be dealing with rogues, rogue variants, and more rogues.

Stuffs that do NOT belong to this layer: Heavy armours and shields, bows, crossbows and arrows, fighter class, firearms*. Low Wuxia also tend not to have legendary swords and some such.

*As this layer is more grounded in reality, many stories set in early 20th century (Republican/Japanese occupation period) utilise this layer, and thus firearm are (sometimes) quite prevalent.

3) "Wulin (武林)" or what I called "High Wuxia"

De facto Wuxia world. Borderline supernatural martial arts such as jumping really high, short range ki blasts, internal energies and punch through metal doors etc are quite common here. Various martial art sects and religious organizations (instead of lowly criminal gangs like the Low Wuxia) pop up at this layer. Fame, romance and sex, legendary weapons, martial pursuits and secret manuals become the prime motivator of conflict. Otherwise some evil ominous cult wanted to dominate the Wulin world, causing all sort of mayhem.

Personal duels, assassinations, and martial arts tournaments are much more common at this layer, although war between sects or against aforementioned evil cult are also common.

Stuffs that belong to this layer: High powered martial arts, secret manuals, lost treasures, legendary (but usually not supernatural) weapons, tournaments, "Wulin alliance", code of honour, religious organizations, evil cults, impossible but non-magical gadgets and traps ("Rapid fire thousand needle launcher" or "automaton wooden dummy", or something like that), weird poison and medicine ("it will kill you during the first day of next Chinese new year!" kind of poison), weird animals ("the toad that blood can cure all poison").

Classes that belong to this layer: Rogue, assassin, and possibly swashbuckler, some sort of martial art-herbalist class. Some of the more exotic Wuxia archetypes, such as the crazy zitherist that cause you to go insane or mind control you with her music, or cult leader that control swarms of poisonous snakes, might fit into bard and druid class, albeit imperfectly. Also monk.

Stuffs that do NOT belong to this layer: Most stuffs that do no fit in Low Wuxia also do not belong here. Which means no heavy armour and shield whatsoever, barring rare exceptions. No firearms and generally no magic (which mostly limited to Base World at the moment).

--/--

As you can see, the worlds of Chinese fiction are generally distinct - a military general (fighter class), armoured to the teeth and wield a heavy war axe, will not generally show up and compete in a Wuxia tournament (remember Wuxia is mostly rogue class), and you won't generally see river merchant gangfights in a novel about massive civil war.

Yet these layers also superimpose over each other. They can and do exist in the same setting/universe, as well as interact with each other. A military general might also be good at martial arts and influential in the Wulin world, Imperial government maintain a secret service agency that specifically deal with martial art sects, martial artist request the aid of river merchants (or more likely, just kick their arse and force them) to acquire a legendary sword sunken in a lake, strategist employing martial artist to assassinate political enemy, etc.

These instances are actually quite common, although character without background in multiple layers (multiclass?) usually end up in a fish-out-of-water situation.

--/--

3.5) Xiuzhen (修真) or "Cultivator" stories

This is not a "layer" per se (and I don't like the name "cultivator", which I think is a faulty English translation), but rather a modern sub-genre of Xianxia novel, most commonly found in web-novels, light novels, and comics.

To put it simply, it is basically a "level grinding story". The main character is more often than not a Base World layer nobody. By training, study, killing stuffs, sexing real hard, eating exotic stuffs, unearthing artifacts, and inheriting wisdoms and inner energies and life essence or whatever, the main character gradually move up the ladder/layer, eventually becoming an true immortal, god, or some sort of multiversal Supreme being.

Cultivating, or forcibly extending one's lifespan, is obviously against natural law, so every cultivator must at some point face his own "Heaven's calamity" (basically a single target rock-fall-everyone-die event. In some cases, this is the result of Layer 5 gods actively trying to f**k with every single poor guy at layer 4). This can come in the forms of divine retribution, divine labours, training-gone-wrong, accidents, bad lucks, enemies, own inner demon emerging etc. If one managed to survive, he or she "level up", ascending into next level of power, otherwise he will perish. Depending on the writer, one might have to survive five to twenty calamities (or more!) to achieve full immortality.

I think it is too influenced by modern MMORPGs and most of these works are trashes. However it does present an interesting and somewhat creative merge of modern RPG elements and classical Chinese fantasy fiction. Plus it gives a good excuse for the DMs to throw progressively powerful stuffs at the players.

Due to the nature of this type of novels, the MC will spend a long time as an Immortal-in-training. Extremely powerful, but not quite there yet. Which is perfect if you don't want something too overpowered.

4) Xianxia (仙俠), or "Immortal Heroes"

This is the layer where immortal swordsages flying around, aero-skateboarding with sword (yes, this is really, really common), fighting with remote-controlled swords, swinging swords that turn into dragons or frikkin' laser beams, etc.

You will notice that I mention sword repeatedly (specially, Chinese double-edged straight sword, the Jian). Well because Taoist religion, which most of these fictions are based on, is really really fond of Jian, and thus most if not all characters in this layer will wield a Jian or two...or thousands.

This is the high fantasy version of Chinese fiction, and most of the characters in this layer are immortals, immortals-in-training, or at the very least, larger-than-life magical heroes. Sects still exist in this layer, although they generally become full-on religious (typically Buddhist and Taoist, plus the evil cult). Prime motivators for conflict are usually due to the awakening of some ancient, Morgoth-level evil beings, disruption of the balance of light and darkness/Ying and Yang, etc.

Magical beasts and plants, while they started to pop up in this layer, tend to be rare, and usually are simply magic version of real-life animals. These beasts do sometimes shapeshift into a more human form after enough training.

Sometimes a particularly talented young lad is chosen to become the protege of a immortal wiseman, or evil cult sacrificed entire village/city/kingdom/continent for their evil rituals, etc. However, once a character from previous three layers stepped into Xianxia layer, there's usually no turning back.

Stuffs that belong to this layer: Immortals, magic swords, more magic swords, intelligent weapon (usually sword), magical evil cults, curse and cursed weapons (again, usually sword), supernatural poisons, magic, magical beast (such as giant magic snake etc), Chinese alchemy.

Classes that belong to this layer: Swordsage, wizards, highly enlightened monks.

--/--

5) Chinese mythology

At this layer, we deal with stuff like "Journey to the West", gods, buddhas, demons and monsters. Celestial emperors, heavenly court, divine champions, mythical beasts, and so on.

This layer is to the Base World what Xianxia is to Wuxia. In a sense you can say the immortals and swordsages from the previous layer are civilians/underworld, while this layer is the government and the boss.

The power level gap between this layer and the other layers is so vast that the death of one minor god can be the equivalent to edition change from D&D 3.5 to D&D 4. An escaped pet dog from heaven can be the very same prime evil that require the effort of entire Xianxia world (layer 4) to put down. Due to this power level gap, this layer tend to sit around doing very little, only occasionally sending divine aid to some mortals and stuffs.

As it is quite similar to base world, only more magic (Celestial court can be as corrupt as its mundane counterpart, as this is the case in real Chinese mythology), it tend to interact with the base world layer more so than other layers.

--/--

The analogue to level progression is at least partly intentional, although I have more of a "3.5e class tier list" in mind when I wrote that, although swordsage obviously isn't tier 1 or 2 in D&D setting (I forget to make it clear that the swordsage I was talking about isn't the same as3.5e swordsage in D&D).

Making it a "low level beginner > mid level adventurer > high level heroes" progression can in fact work quite nicely. Despite what my previous email might indicates, there's actually no significant power gap between the "Base world" and the "Wuxia world". Only when you move up to magic stuffs does the power gap emerge. Good thing that "training really hard" and "killing enemy really hard" is indeed some of the many ways for a mundane to move into Xianxia layer or higher.

While it might be shocking to some that a battle-hardened military general (i.e. fighter class) might be taken out by a Wuxia kungfu guy (i.e. a rogue class) in a head-on, 1v1 duel (in fictional world anyway), in reality they are merely good at different things. Throw a bunch of Kungfu guys to the battlefield, and they will be shot to pieces in no time (due to having no armour) or trampled by massive cavalry charge.

(Note that High Wuxia is significantly more powerful than Low Wuxia. Many Wuxia novels do not make clear distinction between the two, although the difference is there)

--/--

???) Chinese ghost(busting) stories

Again not a layer, and not even a solid genre on its own. I just feel this is too good a material to pass up. At lower layer (Base World), we have the wandering Taoist exorcists trying to stop the Jiangshi (hopping corpse) menace, or a monk exposing a magic snake that shapeshift into a lady and try to seduce young man (Legend of the White Snake). At high layer, we have a minor god (Zhong Kui 鍾馗, look it up) catching demons that escaped hell.

A good place to look for low-level mythical beasts to throw at the players in China-themed rpgs. Chinese ghost stories share many similarities with the gothic horror genre (vampire, werewolf, headless horsemen etc). Sometimes the monster/ghost is portrayed in a sympathetic light, while the hunter become bad guy, but otherwise (in RPG sense) they are not that different. Oh, the Taoist monster hunter tend to suck the monster into a container (usually a magic pouch, or gourd bottle) and then seal it inside, rather than (or in addition of) straight out impale its heart or cut off its head.

Larger/High power version of these sealing container is the Zhen Yao Ta (鎮妖塔), or monster-sealing pagoda, basically the magic version of Arkham Asylum. Another function of Xianxia sects is to guard the pagoda...and yes, sometimes prison break does happen...

--/--

Wuxia code of conduct

The concept of Wuxia code of conduct generally only apply to High Wuxia, as characters from Low Wuxia tend to be more pragmatic/down to earth. This code of conduct may vary from writer to writer, so I can only put up a general guideline:

If A and B entered a duel, and there's no personal feud involved (yet), the older/more experienced party, or party with higher Wulin social standing (let's say A) will generally offer to let the other side (let's say B) attack him for 3~10 "moves" without retaliation. An offer in reverse/counter offer will be seen as great humiliation. An offer in absurd number ("I will let you attack me 10000s time") is also intentionally humiliating.

In the above situation, A is supposed to let B attack him for 3~10 attacks (depending on his offer). He can evade and/or parry (depending on the writer, sometimes he cannot even parry) as long as he stand his ground.

If A is forced to retaliate, getting hit by B, or forced to dodge/tumble away from the place he was originally standing before the quota runs up, he is considered humiliated or "losing face".

Hidden weapon and poison are considered dishonourable/underhanded in a duel. Same goes for throwing sands in someone’s eye etc. In some settings, magic get the same treatment.

Not that anyone will believe you, but “opps I slipped” is still a good excuse if you want to kill someone during a duel that’s supposedly not to the death. Doing this for too many times will cause someone to use the same excuse on you though.

After a duel, the WINNING side is supposed to find excuse for the losing side to explain away his lose, in order to "save his face". Even if both parties and all bystanders know the real reason why someone is losing. Bragging around or humiliating the losing side is seen as stepping over the line.

On the other hand, the losing side is supposed to praise the martial prowess of the winner, EVEN if he used underhanded tactics to win (and every bystander know that). Finding excuses for yourself or angrily accusing the winner of cheating is a good way to "lose face".

Intentionally pickpocketing your rival during a duel, or using weapon to cut away his head/dress accessories without harming him during a duel, will be considered very offensive by the receiving party (who wouldn't?) as it means you are toying with him. Sometimes a "pickpocketing duel" might occur.

Cutting off someone's hair/beard is considered equally offensive as cutting off someone's head (hair is SERIOUS BUSINESS!). Throwing weapon is generally immune to this rule, for some reason.

The above two points can be done honourably in some cases, i.e. A has all the rights to kill B to enact vengeance or something, but choose to spare B instead, only cutting off some of B's hair as symbolism.

If there is a fight between different sexes, female chest is off-limit to empty handed attack. Period. Even in a duel-to-the-death situation. Doubly offensive if one party is using something like "Eagle claw" martial arts to target the female chest, or anything that looks like he is trying to grope her. Likewise, intentionally slash apart female dress (without harming her) is a big no-no. ACTUALLY groping her is a surefire way to turn a friendly duel into a fight to the death, and invites bigger fishes to interfere/gang up on you.

If there's no one looking, then there's no rule. If there's no one alive, then there's no one looking. (Good character will upheld rule regardless)

Mad people follow no rules, and no rules apply to you when you are dealing with such people.

Killing one's own master is one of the most serious offenses in the Wuxia world. But the master has all the right to kill his own student without reason. If one such student is your sworn brother/adventuring party member etc and his master come and try to kill him...no, you are not supposed to interfere, UNLESS you have good reason to, or at least something that pass as an excuse ("he's gone mad!" Is a good one, since no rule applies to a mad man). You must convince other onlookers with your excuse though.

Masters are not supposed to interfere a duel between students. IF they interfere, they usually just save their own student without attacking the other student.

Students CAN interfere a duel between masters in some extreme cases, even attacking enemy master, although this tend to end badly for them.

An open invite for everyone at the scene to attack oneself can mean (a) he consider everyone at the scene so beneath him that they are not worth his trouble, or (b) he is cornered to the point that he's prepared to go all out. If (b) is the case, all Wuxia rules no longer apply to him (and everyone else fighting him).

If you are adventuring, and you entered a town/city that is under the protection/care/territory of a certain sect, you are supposed to pay them a friendly visit, or at least notify them of your stay. Most sects will build some sort of reception hall (if not their HQ) in their territories. Failure to do so will be seen as an attempt to cause trouble. Religious sects and beggar sect tend not to hold any territory though, and they freely enter and leave the territories of other sects (well, because monks and beggars don't usually seek lodging in a tavern, which is THE brewing place of all sort of trouble).

If there are multiple sects (usually a Wulin/high Wuxia sect and several Jianghu/low Wuxia organizations) at the same city, pay visit to the top dog.

The above rules will not apply to you if you are still a nobody and doesn't show up on their radar, or you are not from Wuxia layer/background. It WILL apply to you if you bring twenty armed followers with you though. That's why it is kind of hard to play as a warlord class in a wuxia setting. It STILL apply to you even if you are an imperial general on active duty.

If you and your followers are too high leveled for them to touch you, you will be treated as a walking natural disaster instead (if you still refused to follow above rule). Sometimes entire city shut down as they wait for you to leave. This reaction is quite similar to what happen when a band of bandits stroll into an unguarded cowboy town.

This may sounds like common sense, but disrupting a wedding or funeral procession is a big taboo. If you really have to do it, cover your face.

Doubly so if you see a funeral procession that has the coffin covered in red. (Chinese use white colour as mourning colour, and red as the colour of celebration. A funeral in red means that the dead person suffered extreme injustice, probably murdered without knowing who is the suspect. The victim's family is symbolically trying to turn the dead into a vengeful ghost so he can avenge himself).

--/--

The Chinese concept of "face"

Tied directly to fame, and tangentially related to honour. However it has less in common with honor code concepts such as chivalry or bushido or noblise oblige, and everything to do with social position and personal connection/sphere of influence. So if you are very very wealthy, or have power (martial or otherwise), sit on a high government position, have a drop dead gorgeous wife, know someone important in the government, doing a lot of good deeds etc, you will have a lot of good "face/fame".

After you earned pass certain level of fame, you are expected to behave/treat others in certain way, and others not at the same level with you are also expected to treat you in certain way.

The primary purpose of this face/fame is...well, demanding respect from others, as well as social bargaining chip that let you break the aforementioned Wuxia code or other code (within certain acceptable limit). For example, there's one guy that every one is trying to hunt down and you, for some reason, wanted to save him. If you have enough "faces", you can use it to basically demand everyone to step down. Everyone that heeds your demand is considered "selling you face" or doing you a favour, while those that ignore you are considered offending you. So now you have an excuse to kick their arse.

However, doing this repeatedly cause you to use up your "face currency". Those people that "sold face" to you may return someday and demand some reparation or reward or favour as well.

Also, while all "faces" have some base value, different people place different importance on different type of "face". Son of a wealthy merchant will get very little respect from a martial artist, because the martial artist places more value on "face" related to martial prowess, influence of someone's sect etc. OTOH, a wealthy merchant that donated most of his wealth to do good deeds will earn a lot of respect from a good/righteous martial artist, even if said merchant know zero kung fu.

Despite the convenience of having many "face currency", it is still just a social bargaining chip and not some magical Geas spell. Using the currency usually means you are giving up some long term benefit for short term, immediate gain.

Taking the previous example, when you step in to protect that guy, and put your bargaining chip on the table, you are essentially forcing every pursuer to reconsider whether the benefit of hunting down that guy outweigh the risk of getting into trouble with you. Plus if they stop now, they are "selling you face"/doing you a favour. These pursuers have everything to gain and nothing to lose, and they don't even have to do anything!

However if the pursuer has some personal feud (let's say that guy killed the pursuer's entire family) that he want to settle, and will satisfy at nothing other than the death of that guy, then all the "face currency" in the world probably (but not always) won't help.

As for you, by simply associating yourself with a guy that everyone is trying to hunt down, you are already "losing face". Asking everyone to step down is also a form of requesting for favours, so you use up your "face currency" even more. If someone refused to stop due to personal vengeance or something, and you forcibly beat him down, you are losing even more "face". So this bargaining chip is not something that can be used lightly. This is the reason why intentionally humiliating others (cause them to "lose face") is a big deal, and many Wuxia codes of conduct revolve around this.

Oh, in some cases, another person with the same level of face/fame step in, and put HIS bargaining chips on the table, demanding others to ignore your demand. In that case you and him.....well, duke it out to decide.

I always think of Chinese "face" as something like a political/diplomatic facade that no one really believe in or even care about, but decided to play along anyway. To this end it is the complete opposite of chivalric ideals and bushido. While chivalric code is the code of conduct that every knight should strive for but only really exists in an idealized/romanticized "bygone age", Chinese code is very much real and already there for ages, and the society at large is ready to force its totalitarian, twisted, ugly and uncaring rules down your throat, by peer pressure or even force if needed be. There's a Chinese idiom "As long as you are in Jianghu, your body does not belong to you".

In other word, a Chinese fantasy/Wuxia world is a world where everyone tries to force everyone else to act in a Lawful Stupid way (the "law" being Wuxia code/"face"), but thinks the law does not apply to himself. Thus powerful people or people with the right connection can get away breaking a lot of the laws.

(In high fantasy setting/layer, at times the players will have to face the f**king buddha/god/immortal/whatever standing between them and the chaotic evil dark lord, and the gods will throw their bargaining chip, asking the player to stop/look the other way.)

So even "law-abiding" players are expected/encouraged to break the code, or at least exploit some loophole once in a while.

(In a sense you can remove everything I said before, every martial arts, Wuxia guys, Chinese gods and immortals and dragons, and replace them with beholders, aliens and kobolds, but keep the "code" in place and the setting can still be recognizably Chinese.)

--/--

"Cape buster agency" is one of the many ways for a Base World government to deal with the Wuxia world. It also features heavily in many Wuxia novels, especially those set in Ming Dynasty (because Ming Dynasty had the most famous and iconic secret service agency, the Jingyiwei). Although like anything that came from the Government, they tend to be painted in extremely unfavourable light, usually outright evil. In Wuxia setting, these agencies usually act like a non-religious version of the Spanish Inquisition though.

You can also reference the Tales of the Legendary Judge Bao Zheng and his four "Arresters". (I don't know the proper English translation, but think these arresters as the ancient Chinese equivalent of Police Sheriff).

In both cases the government agents act like spies, inspectors, assassins and law-enforcement, with equipment you would expect from such professions, and the agents usually act like typical Wuxia guys. But it does allow you to bring armed followers and bust into people's house as long as you have the required paperworks/warrant.

Ming Dynasty Jinyiwei was almost the perfect match for WH40k Inquisition. Worse yet the Jingyiwei wasn't the only secret service agency around... There were also Eastern Depot, Western Depot, and the Inner Depot, each more powerful and corrupt than the next. (Jingyiwei was run by guards/military men, while the other three were run by eunuchs).

You can think of the Depots as different Ordos (Malleus, Hereticus, Xenos etc), and Jinyiwei as their chamber militant. This analogy isn't completely accurate, but close enough.