but i wonder, in the FR camp. setting they saying something about running into gang of thieves, wererats, or Shou yakuza in luskan...
- What or who are Shou yakuza?
- And could someone tell me why Neverwinter is in ruins? What happend there? They didn't rely on mages or something to survive, right? So why are they so much effect by the Spellplague?
Thanks for the replies!
'Shou' refers to the people of Shou-Lung, who are oriental and live far to the east (a bit TOO far...).
Westerners refer to everyone from kara-Tur - the Oriental Lands of Toril - as 'Shou', even though it technically should only mean the people from Shou-Lung.
Ergo, what you have their is a bunch of Oriental 'Street-gangs' running things.
If you've seen Kill Bill, think Crazy 88's. ;)
As for the story of Neverwinter - you'll probably have to play the computer game Neverwinter Nights II: Storm of Zehir to find out the whole story.
'Zehir' (while I'm on a roll) is a core god of Serpents and evil, exactly like Set, who didn't actually belong in FR at all, but someone screwed-up royally and he was shoe-horned in at the last second.
it doesnt make sense
----
Then go back to your own little world and weep.
RAS's "The Pirate King" explains the start of what happens in Luskan. Good book IMO
Will you hush?!!
Hell, I've learned more about the book from you than reading it myself!!!
What the hell are those masked ninja kinna criminals doing in luskan?:S its cold and complete the other part where they belong...i mean they belong in the east right:S completely confused about this to be honest....
it doesnt make sense
Expanding their turf.
Makes no sense.
That is expanding their "turf" way too far to the west.
Makes no sense.
-The Russian Mafia exists in Brighton Beach. The Italian Mafia in Little Italy. The Yakuza in Chinatown. Russia, Italy and China are all pretty far from the United States' Eastern Seaboard.
Yes... these things exist NOW, but ancient Rome did NOT have Yakuza gangs! back in 'the old days', most folks never even left their own village.
Someone thought Yakuza gangs were 'kewl', but Kara-Tur just hurt their heads too much, so they took the coolness and dumped it into an area they didn't have to put a lot of thought or detail behind.
Thats the simple truth, and now 4e players can play an uber-kewl Ninja Drow Pirate and not be questioned about his back-story.
Because if you ask too many questions... the WotC secret police come for you in the night....
Thank you...
...I think.
Yes, and these FR Yakuza simply jumped onto a Jumbo-jet that was waiting to take them half-a-world away.
Yes... these things exist NOW, but ancient Rome did NOT have Yakuza gangs! back in 'the old days', most folks never even left their own village.
-I'm pretty sure than Don Vito Corleone didn't take the jumbo-jet to the United States either. Or any of the actual Mafioso who exist(ed) in the era. Those Kara-Turan Yakuza might not have been able to take a jumbo jet, but, they might have, you know, teleported or something. Maybe a little Spelljamming to spice things up a bit.
Someone thought Yakuza gangs were 'kewl', but Kara-Tur just hurt their heads too much, so they took the coolness and dumped it into an area they didn't have to put a lot of thought or detail behind.
Is it that, or was it a deliberate choice to make the Realms less local, less medieval–Renaissance and more like a modern-day, foreshortened (as I've been using the term) Earth?
Its effect is one of thinning, as discussed in the Clute and Grant Encyclopedia of Fantasy, either way.
Just my
not actual fact. Throwing a Hypothesis out there;)If the elves can make it to eastern Faerun on foot as well as magic 20,000 years or so ago, then what makes you believe that the Shou couldn't have walked or used magic to get to eastern Faerun, then after a few hundred generations move further to western Faerun? And there was Asian people in Rome and Greece during the empire who traveled along the Spice roads from China to Spain on foot thousands of years ago.
It's not the fact that they can't travel that far, it's the point that you don't try to put a point of a power in a place that is so disconnected from the hub.
You expand gradually.
At such a pace, you wouldn't even be in the Silver Marches at this point unless you were extremely fast paced and reckless.
Forgive my ignorance(I seem to have a lot of that lately) But where is Kara-tur located in relation to Luskan?
On the other side of the continent.
gets off their drunken binge and explain ieverything that happened in that 100 yr gap I fear the rest of this thread will be pure speculation
You know I can actually see them downing shot after shot of peppermint schnapps sitting around the board table thinking of further ways to fustrate players and DM's alike with more 4e tom-foolery.
;)I agree that it is possible to provide a good explanation (the Shou could be coming the other way now - via Laerakond), or say that that gate in the Inner sea (highlighted in my CKC article, but it is in fact canon) has been put to more 'commercial' use.
You also have the Shou expatriates in the Unapproachable East, and the nation of Yaïmunnahar has probably gone a long way in making them even more prevalent, and the Spellplague itself is a great explanation of why large groups of people migrated around a lot for the past hundred years.... buuuuuuuut...
The real reason is that the designers thought it would be cool. Toril doesn't really exist, and 'pretend people' don't migrate anywhere. We can come-up with as many in-game explanations as we want (both good and bad), but the bottom line is that they are there because of the 'Kewl Shiney' factor.
Forgive my ignorance(I seem to have a lot of that lately) But where is Kara-tur located in relation to Luskan?
-Thousands of miles to the east.
My point is that given the level of technology, globalization has NOT occurred, even with magic (AND all those Shou Spelljammers).
-Depends on what you want to consider globalization. Do nations in one area rely on nations in another area, for something? Yes. Is there an internet that allows jobs in one area to be outsourced elsewhere? No.
But like I said, you didn't have Yukuza Gangs in Rome, or a bunch of 'bent-nose' Sicillians running numbers in downtown Beijing. :P
However, I can see them 'coming the other way', as I pointed out above, using Returned Abeir as a 'stop over' (which would mean we need a lot more 'globalization' in Laerakond then I am seeing).
Can anyone tell me if Ed's DDi article has something to that effect? I'd ask someone to send me the article, but that would be just plain wrong. ;)
But like I said, you didn't have Yukuza Gangs in Rome, or a bunch of 'bent-nose' Sicillians running numbers in downtown Beijing. :P
-No...But, you did have Tibetans in Beijing, and Mongolians in Lhasa, so...Distance is key. And then, of course, the Jews got around.
My point is that given the level of technology, globalization has NOT occurred, even with magic (AND all those Shou Spelljammers).
Who the hell is talking globalization? We're speaking of a power base.
Regardless, the two would not have Luskan as a focal point.
Well Imo there could be quite a few explanations as to why The Yakuza are in Luskan on the other side of the world and until Wotc
You know I can actually see them downing shot after shot of peppermint schnapps sitting around the board table thinking of further ways to fustrate players and DM's alike with more 4e tom-foolery.
Um. You were such a swell guy until you were subjected to me.
I need to add more fine text to my Disclaimer.
. I just can't resist throwing a shot WotC's way whenever there's a lack of info concerning a subject dealing with 4e. -And then, of course, the Jews got around.
They still do...
Take my ex-wife, for instance.
-He'll be here all week, folks. No, really, but, anyway...
They still do...
Take my ex-wife, for instance.
Well, if all wives were all like LK, then they would all eventually be Ex's.
Of that, I am quite sure. ;)
If the elves can make it to eastern Faerun on foot as well as magic 20,000 years or so ago, then what makes you believe that the Shou couldn't have walked or used magic to get to eastern Faerun, then after a few hundred generations move further to western Faerun?
Perhaps they could have, but up to the decision to have 'Shou yakuza' they hadn't even begun that long process -- except for Troy Denning's rightfully ridiculed Shou embassy in Elversult. In Europe, Chinatowns didn't exist before the nineteenth century; adding one (or something like it) to far western Faerûn, far outside any apparent support network, evokes that kind of modernity and is just one more instance of the long-term erosion of Faerûn's localness in favour of world-shrinking globalism -- like multiple visitors to the Dales knowing detailed news all the way from Thesk in the "Zhent Headless Horseman" piece or any number of other examples.
Perhaps they could have, but up to the decision to have 'Shou yakuza' they hadn't even begun that long process -- except for Troy Denning's rightfully ridiculed Shou embassy in Elversult.
-Which novel/sourcebook is this from? I don't recall it.
The Veiled Dragon.
-One that I don't have, but want. :embarrass
You'll get it soon enough.
Then Faraer will be the subject of execution! You damn Faraer!!
I tried to find every 'Sea Portal' I could for that piece.
Also, LK, that piece of novel-lore was canonized in source on Pg. 108 of Races of Faerûn -under the Shou entry, naturally.
Realmsian migrational patterns fall-out in my particular area of study.
That is one of the portals I detailed in my CKC article - I didn't make them all up - several of them were canon already. ;)
I tried to find every 'Sea Portal' I could for that piece.
Also, LK, that piece of novel-lore was canonized in source on Pg. 108 of Races of Faerûn -under the Shou entry, naturally.
Noted already.
BTW, what the hell do you do all day?
Read and hang-out on my computer.
I'm disabled.
Mostly?
Read and hang-out on my computer.
I'm disabled.
Almost--almost--wish I had that job.
You've been bringing up the disabled thing for a bit now.
What is it?
---
And you have no need to answer that if you don't want to.
Though I see you doing it. ;)
In the past ten years I have packed-on an extra 100 lbs. I have also struggled my entire life with VERY bad asthma. Put the two together, and I'm lucky if I can make it to my mailbox without stopping to rest.
Also, I've had Arthritis since I was 35 (my hands), which makes it hard to hold tools (I was a carpenter my whole life), and it spread to my knees when I hit forty (making it even harder to walk with the weight and Asthma).
Basically, I'm old, and falling apart.
But on the bright side, I sit around all day and troll internet boards, and can eat all the Alpo my fixed-income can buy. :D
But on the bright side, I sit around all day and troll internet boards, and can eat all the Alpo my fixed-income can buy. :D
Um...
You do realize there is something wrong with that, right?
I mean, I'm not paying you to sit on your ass and eat Alpo!!
EDIT: There was more to that, but I lost it reaching for for some Purina.
Also, LK, that piece of novel-lore was canonized in source on Pg. 108 of Races of Faerûn -under the Shou entry, naturally.
-Well, it was already canon, being in the novel. I just don't have it, and would like to read it. It features Ruha the Witch, who is a character I like.
I tend to take things in novels with a pinch of salt, until they appear in a sourcebook. I know thats not how it is officially, but it at least gives them some time to 'fix' any lore inconsistencies.
Anyway, someone else pointed me to that bit in RoF (I tend to overlook that source) when I was doing my article research. I'm still trying to figure out why they established and Embassy with a land-locked TOWN, when there are THREE cities with harbors they have to bypass to get to it.
Another case of ZERO thought put into backstory.
I just KNEW you were going to say something to that effect, which is why I put it "canonized in source".
-I know, which is why I responded in turn. ;)
-I want to read that book, though.
I'll take my Shou-lore any way I can get it. :D
So do I... that and Yellow Silk.
I'll take my Shou-lore any way I can get it. :D
-I have that one. I liked it. It was pretty good.
I like the idea that with portals, spelljamming, and planar travel the world would be a much smaller place, but I never understood how Torilians are capable of traveling the cosmos and visiting other planes but don't do the same globally.
If people from Kara-Tur are able to not only migrate thousands of miles to the west but set up a Yakuza style crime syndicate wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that something similar could be said of the folks from Anchorome, Katashaka, and Osse? I mean, the existence of portals and spelljamming give the Yakuza question some validity, but then how come we never hear of anyone in Faerun hailing from any of the aforementioned continents and there are almost no tales of Faerunians visiting these lands?
-Because no one has taken the time to write about those things.
Its not like Eberron, where we know absolutely NOTHING about every single other continent... oh no... FR has been fully detailed...
Because they told us so.
That can't possibly be true - we were told that every single square foot of the Realms has already been written about... they wouldn't lie to us, would they?
-Well, if you want to define the Realms as Waterdeep, then...But, otherwise...
But I'm beating a dead horse here - if FR-detractors haven't learned by now that MOST of the Realms were never detailed, and it was the same exact lore being re-printed over and over again, they never will.
If anything, I think its the humongous amount of material I'd have to learn about Eberron that keeps me from playing it - every sourcebook is about something different -- it hasn't been around long-enough to have fallen prey to the 'repetition-glut' that FR fell to.
Which Waterdeep source are we talking about here? The first one, or the thrtyseventh one? :P
-The totality of the sum thereof.
I always had some extra love for the cities in the swordcoast, like neverwinter and luskan. Although i hate the 4.0 for destroying my dear Neverwinter. I like the idea of luskan totally ruined... but i wonder, in the FR camp. setting they saying something about running into gang of thieves, wererats, or Shou yakuza in luskan... - What or who are Shou yakuza? - And could someone tell me why Neverwinter is in ruins? What happend there? They didn't rely on mages or something to survive, right? So why are they so much effect by the Spellplague? Thanks for the replies!
Bump!