The first one, which will be published in June 2009, involves a group of standard "western culture" outsiders (PH1 & 2 type classes) visiting this feudal Japan like setting, called the Gaijin Gift.
The next campaign is intended to take 1st level characters through to 20th level all consisting of local Kaidanese PC (samurai, ninja, yamabushi, etc.) I've been working on the first adventure of the campaign, tentatively called, "Lord Tanaka's Challenge".
After the adventure setup, the PCs are "invited" to the local noble lord's castle, who has spies that have caught the PCs doing epionage type activity in the domain. Lord Tanaka is secretly the head of the local ninja faction, having been a member in a previous life. He insists on any espionage activity in his domain to be only sanctioned by him.
Lord Tanaka's Challenge involves giving the PCs a headstart to try and escape his castle, samurai and monks, and his castle town - if succeeding PCs are all free.
Here's a map showing the "chase" route through the town. Originally intended for use in VT apps, I will have printed version of these maps in a downloadable book of maps as well. The maps only show the chase scene route, not the entire town or castle...
Tell me what you think (still in need of some tweaking, but close to completion.)
VT Map Chase route
I didn't post a small version as this map is quite huge, at only 50 ppi, this JPG measures 72 inches by 32 feet, split up into 14 maps with a couple duplicates.
Thoughts, ideas, critiques?
GP
The only criticism I could give on the map is that the shadows are not all going the same way. Also, the paper lanterns look huge. Was that intentional?
The thing that springs to mind right away is that the PCs might try to go off the map. I wouldn't, because I'm a nice guy and I see how much effort you put into the map, but some might. Ninjas especially might want to leap across rooftops.
To keep the PCs running, I suppose you should have more enemies entering the board at the back edge constantly, as well as enemies positioned on the road.
What a lovely map! I especially like the weeds in the castle moat and the shallow cove where the PCs will presumably crawl up out of the water, exhausted (or not exhausted... it's kung fu). Oh, and of course the seemingly outdoor bath full of naked ladies who can shriek appropriately.
The only criticism I could give on the map is that the shadows are not all going the same way. Also, the paper lanterns look huge. Was that intentional?
The thing that springs to mind right away is that the PCs might try to go off the map. I wouldn't, because I'm a nice guy and I see how much effort you put into the map, but some might. Ninjas especially might want to leap across rooftops.
To keep the PCs running, I suppose you should have more enemies entering the board at the back edge constantly, as well as enemies positioned on the road.
Shadows weren't planned but originally I designed only three tiles, then on afterthought a few days later created the rest of ther series. They don't perfectly match, which is among the things I need to do to tweak it. However, for game play, those attributes don't take anything away from it. Some paper lanterns are actually extremely huge, 10' radius or more, but I do think the ones I placed are inappropriately large - tweaks to do, like I said.
My plan is this is a 1st - 3rd level adventure, so the ninjas and such won't be as highly skilled and doing the more obvious climbing on roof tops.
Enemies from behind and more along the way is definitely part of the plan. If the PCs had more time they could get more creative with their escape plan, however, because they are under chase, and any stop will mean opponents showing up to kill or capture them, they've got to keep moving. I've purposely closed off other avenues to moving into tiles that don't exist. It is intentionally linear in this way.
And yes, that is an outdoors public bath, ladies section that the PCs run past, that was just for some extra "fun". Sightseeing as they escape...
While I do plan to make a more complete map, it probably won't be all at this realistic style and scale. I just wanted to try something specific for use in a VT app - like MapTool, Battlegrounds, etc.
It starts from left to right, beginning at Lord Tanaka's castle. The party is given a count to 100, before the castle alarm goes off, in an attempt to escape capture. While inside the castle 24 armored samurai are down one hall, and a band sorcerers are coming down another. A maid pops out from that side door next to the noble court chamber. The balcony in the far northern chamber accesses a gable roofline just below that leads south to an easy jump to the parapet tower, then the parapet. However the alarm has gone off, and 20+ samurai and ashigaru are heading for the stairs to the parapet, and the party will be forced to jump into that filthy ass moat.
Once crossing the pretty stream to help wash off the moat sewage, a monk is on the opposite side ready to fight the PCs. While doing so, ashigaru will be jumping out of that same tunnel into the clean river to get the PCs. Once past this, a dozen sohei are practicing martial arts on that stone square behind the temple - who will join in the chase.
Although not obvious in the maps, the textual descriptions will include closed culdesacs, cliff faces and such blocking avenues south of the maps, or seen groups of soldiers coming sometimes on horseback towards the PCs forcing them to change directions provided. This is true once crossing the red bridge canal, for a run through a silk dying factory on the other side. I thought of the chase as a movie clip from James Bond or something, all while designing it.
Those two carts blocking the street just before the public baths, will have a dozen samurai trying to negotiate around those to get at the PCs...
Basically not a moment of rest until they reach the pier on the Holy Shrine grounds at the river bank.
Once they make it to the otherside, the Noble Lord Izo Tanaka - who is actually a kind of vampire/shapechanger, will be waiting for the PCs on the other side. Honoring his deal not to capture them as they escaped his town, however, all of the chase was a test of skills, to see if they were worthy of his employment. Or else a threat to not perform clandestine operations in his domain without his permission - which is what attracted Tanaka to the PCs in the first place, and incited the challenge.
It just seemed like a fun way to bring some action for starting PCs, as well as a quick tour of a feudal town in Kaidan.
GP
Kaidan is a dark fantasy world, a chain of islands with a distinctly feudal Japan feel. I've heavily borrowed from Japanese history, legend, folklore, ghost and horror stories, built a coherent world around that, and gamed it up for D&D. This is not Japan, Rokugan, Kara-Tur and very much a different setting that those types. In many ways it has "Ravenloftian" qualities and is much closer to gothic horror than typical historical-fantasy Japan.
The Cosmology of Kaidan, unique to the islands only and nowhere else in the world is based on the Sorrowful World or Wheel of Life concept in Buddhism, with a unique twist. The Wheel of Life is six planes of existence, all considered forms of Hell: heaven, asuras, human, animal, hungry ghost, and hell.
In Kaidan, rather than metaphysically different planes, five of the six coexist in the prime material of Kaidan. Four consist of the four castes of Kaidan society: heaven = nobility, asuras = samurai, human = Commoner/Monk, hungry ghost = Eta, pretty much restricted to Yakuza types. The Animal hell is living in the wilderness as hengeyokai. The Hell hell is something like the Ethereal plane just out of sync with the Kaidan prime, which is home to the Oni, demon-spirits and other dark denizens.
PC death has unique reprecussions in Kaidan. Raise dead and other Ressurrection types spells do not work in Kaidan. Reincarnation is hard-wired into society. Most begin life as PC in Kaidan as Commoner/Monk/Artisan caste. Throughout their adventuring lives an attribute score is maintained based on Lawful and Chaotic acts chosen in life. This attribute is called Karma. Lawful acts produce positive Karma, while chaotic acts produce negative Karma.
While Karma in life can affect saves, and provide greater or lesser access to spell casting abilities, Karma score is primarily used to measure whether a dead PC will reincarnate in his/her current caste, or the next caste above or below his current caste. Sorcery spells can access to whom a reincarnated PC now resides, as well as help regain his memories of his previous life (and previous life's skillset.) Of course a new PC is rolled up and new ability scores can affect access to certain former life's spells and feats.
With use of such sorcery PCs die, reincarnate as new characters and are in effect multi-class now.
Because the noble class can die and reincarnate out of power, most have chosen to voluntarily join the undead, to escape the trap of the Wheel of Life. Arcane spell casters (Onmyoji) are controlled by the Imperial Court, and are neutral or evil, never good alignments. Sorcerers (Jugondo) are outcasts and almost always good primarily acting as monster slayers in that culture. The Wu Jen does not exist in this setting.
Though other classes from OA will be included, some will not, and several new classes will be made available - due to caste restrictions from being a samurai if not of samurai caste (for example). Ashigaru (peasant soldier) will be made into a class in Kaidan. (Perhaps rather than being true actual classes, rather renamed versions of existing PH1,2,3+).
The final goal for a party of PCs is to discover the hidden secret of Enlightenment, that his outlawed by the Imperial Court, but provides a path to escape the Wheel of Life, depart to the Pure Lands, with the options to "finally die" into Nirvana, leave Kaidan and escape return to the Wheel, or go back to Kaidan and take the Paragon Path - Inkyo (Boddhisattva) monk with extraordinary (psionic source powers) and master martial arts skills to serve as guides to other's seeking or introducing the idea of Enlightenment.
That's the setting in a nutshell. Its rather divergent from Core, I understand, but its the world I'm trying to develop.
GP
Kind of what I have always wanted to do - at least as far as detail goes - but havent been able to achieve. Plus its nice to see someone actually going out and creating a believable culture (unlike *cough* Forgotten Realms *cough*) and doing something to create a Ravenloft style setting without sitting arond complaining that Ravenloft has yet to be released :P 
Good luck with all of that and I hope it works out for you.
Oh yeah, the map looks great to :embarrass
This post has been relatively unanswered for so long, I was afraid something about this world was not allowing a suspension of disbelief enough for a viable, dark fantasy setting.
And yeah, I've wanted to develop a Ravenloft-style setting, plus a thoroughly Japanese setting that was not Kara-Tur or Rokugan, but something quite unique. Things are coming together, and as an intended publication, I have been acquiring cover art and illustrations, while specifically working on maps at this time.
It is indeed a fun project, and am hoping it has some marketing success. I'm also working on crunch at this time, as my fluff is pretty much developed.
Now I've got more work to do!
GP
Enjoy!
GP
I have always wanted to run a D&D game in a world I created myself, but my groups have always been of the mindset of: "Its the Forgotten Realms or nothing!" 
One of these days I will have to get serious and work out how to make better looking maps using GIMP (I cant afford any of the expensive programs) or just buy Campaign Cartographer :p Or perhaps Auto-Realm... its free :D
Anyway, sorry fo the side trek there... The map is very believable looking and the province names sound very Japanese. Excellent job.
For some reason, though, the shape of the islands puts me in mind of the Phillipines. :P
BTW - I absolutely hated Kara Tur (what was it? Europeans prentending to be Japanese pretending to be Chinese or something like that?) but I love Rokugan. The Legend of the Five Rings (and The Burning Sands book as well) is an incredible game (the original, not necessarily the D20 version). just thought I would add that.
Great looking map
One of these days I will have to get serious and work out how to make better looking maps using GIMP (I cant afford any of the expensive programs) or just buy Campaign Cartographer :p Or perhaps Auto-Realm... its free :D
Anyway, sorry fo the side trek there... The map is very believable looking and the province names sound very Japanese. Excellent job.
For some reason, though, the shape of the islands puts me in mind of the Phillipines. :P
BTW - I absolutely hated Kara Tur (what was it? Europeans prentending to be Japanese pretending to be Chinese or something like that?) but I love Rokugan. The Legend of the Five Rings (and The Burning Sands book as well) is an incredible game (the original, not necessarily the D20 version). just thought I would add that.
Yes, Kara Tur was rather sad wasn't it. Now while I do like the system for L5R and the mentality behind it, the map of Rokugan always threw me, seeming more like land-locked China and Korea, rather than island nation Japan, despite being a very Japanese setting (I have 3e L5R, myself.)
I can now see how the islands do a bit look like Phillipine geography. :P
I had created a map for a contest of actual Japan during the Genpei War (1180 to 1185 AD) and I really paid attention to the many islands of the Inland Sea (between Southern Honshu and Shikoku) and I wanted to kind of emulate that in this map - but I didn't want it to look like Japan per se.
Regarding learning to map better with GIMP. I belong to the Cartographers' Guild and on that site there are dozens of tutorials using GIMP for mapping, there are dozens for other apps too (Photoshop, Campaign Cartographer, Xara Xtreme), but some of the most read are the GIMP tuts. You should go there and check it out if you want to improve your GIMP mapping skills.
Regarding Forgotten Realms, though I did use the Menzoberronzan setting, neither I nor my fellow gamers in our group ever fell for FR, we mostly home-brewed all our settings, never relying on published settings, usually.
Here's that map of Japan, I was referring to above:
And here's a closeup to see some detail in that map...
BTW, all the mountains and symbols are hand-drawn then scanned and colored in Xara Xtreme, my app of choice, and the rest of the map composited in Xara.
I plan to do all my provincial maps in the above style, especially in my initial and followup adventure arcs intended for publication.
Enjoy!
GP
Enjoy!
GP
And here's a website with some art and more details...
http://www.gamer-printshop.com/kaidan-rpg/
My design is becoming more and more international. I'm in northcentral Illinois, the collaborative publisher and author for the first module is Andy Champagne of Dementia 5 Publishing House is from near Boston. I just picked up a new writer from Australia, Andrew Chirgwin who will begin to write the second module (which will be released one month later.)
I have three artists working on the project. That cover design was created by Jan Pospisil, a concept artist from South Africa. I have Mark Hyzer who paints some of the art for Magic the Gathering working on my beastiary illustrations in pencil from the US. My last artist so far is Simon Turnbull, a UK based writer who is currently teaching in China.
Of course I'm doing all the cartography, editing, art direction, story-boarding and outline creation for the written work.
Lots of work to do, but lots of fun nevertheless!
GP
However, I am wary when I hear you want to create a whole bunch of new classes that are essentially just "Japanese" versions of the PHB classes. I can say right now that just won't work out well at all-- primarily because you'll end up spending so much effort trying to make them different that they are certain to just end up broken or nonfunctional.
It woud be so much easier just to simply give a list of equivalents
Avenger - Ninja
Bard - Traveling poets, Magistrates, or Geisha
Fighter - Ashigeru
Invoker - Exorcists
Monk - Warrior Monk
Paladin - Samurai/Yojimbo
Ranger - Hunter
Rogue - Scout or yakuza-esque characters
Shaman - Shinto Priests
Sorceror - Spirit-possessed
Warden - Mountain warriors
Warlock - Mountain witches or dark wizards
Warlord - Tactician
Wizard - Magic-users, Seers
Everything you need is already in the books-- with just a bit of refluff work and description of how they function in the world, everything you need is right there.
I really don't want to reinvent the wheel here. I guess bad wording on my part.
Although I am the primary developer, some of my friends are assisting in building classes per my instructions, but I also have an international team of artists, writers and developers - at least 3 other primary developers beyond myself, though since this is my project, I am lead designer.
I guess I'm lucky on having the skill sets to do cartography, game design, writing, editing, page layout. But with the help I got in my team, the project should be much better because of it.
Suggestions are always helpful, though.
Thanks for the suggestion.
GP
This is a Shinto Shrine, a place that will offer healing, food, lodging for the night, divinations and an explanation of Kaidan religions to the PC party. There might be a puzzle here for the PCs to decipher as well.
Agoya Shrine - enjoy!
GP
