Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 shoe2 Jul 25, 2009 15:16:12	I am having a group of 2 ninjas (3.5 ed) sneak into a palace and murder the emperor and I need some inspiration. I have DM'd for 15+ years, but always traditional fantasy, not Oriental. I dont know much about Japan/CHina's history and was wondering if there was any published maps of an Imperial Palace i could use. Any ideas? -Shoe
#2 Shiftkitty Jul 25, 2009 19:51:17	I couldn't find any blueprints for ancient oriental palaces. What you'll have to do is look at a few sites that have images of these places and learn what the rooms were, what the layouts were like, etc. Depending on how fast you want it, get a copy of Dragon #121. It has a map and adventure for the Sun Dragon palace. I believe there's a policy on this site that forbids me from scanning the maps and keys for you, but I can give you this quote from the map which should help you a little: "Only a few of the rooms within most Oriental castles have a specified purpose." Only 9 out of 41 rooms are detailed thusly. They are: 1) the entrance ramp 2) the courtyard 3) the entry hall 4) the well 5) three watch towers and one main watch tower 6) the reception hall One thing I noticed on the map and in photos is that these palaces seem to have a lot of windows. That, I believe, is the difference between a castle and a palace. A palace is a royal residence while a castle is a fortress.
#3 gamerprinter Jul 26, 2009 3:37:09	If you got ninja, then its probably a Japanese style oriental palace. Generally a palace consists of an interlinked maze of single story stone buildings connected by halls that open to a garden courtyards on the inside with large open rooms attached raised above the hallway by a single step with sliding paper screen doors. Hallway floors are of wood, chamber floors have tatami straw mats. Large chambers can be subdivided into smaller chambers with sliding screen walls. Palaces generally sit within the second walled in bailley of a Japanese castle. The tall multi-stacked roof fortress is only used as a lookout tower and storage, except during wars/seiges. The walls that surround the bailley is pierced by a single right angle gate. The walls have a 20' base of stone then an enclosed roofed hallwayway at the top of walls pierced by arrowslits - with soldiers within the walls. The first bailley surrounds the second bailley, or at least prevents access to the second bailley and contains a garrison, shops and additional storage towers (smaller fortresses). The third bailley beyond the second bailley has its own right angle gate and that bailley contains the large multi-towered fortress. Sometimes palaces feature nightingale floors or floor boards that squeak giving away someone is passing over them - like a hidden non-magical trap on a major hallway. Palaces are heavily guarded. I am in the process of creating many maps, including a Palace map for my upcoming adventure set in a dark Japanese setting called Kaidan, scheduled for publication on August 13, 2009, as a downloadable PDF - if you can wait that long. Its a 3.5 compatible adventure for Pathfinder ($7.99). It will contain: an island town map, town inn, tavern, yakuza fight club, haunted country inn, shinto shrine, castle town with castle and inner palace, a regional map and 3 sub-regional maps - and that's just for the first adventure of a 3 part mini-campaign arc introduction to my settting. Even if you don't use the adventure, it's pretty cheap for all those maps. Here's a sneak preview map for the adventure: the Shinto Shrine GP