Tsuchirou to Tatsu - A Japanese Fantasy

[ScriptKitty]

Hehe, thanks! Yeah, some friends and I have had a few "moan and complain" sessions about misconceptions of Japanese culture and history. For me, "geisha are prostitutes" is the big pet peeve, but I've picked up on some friends' peeves like "Muramasa and Masamune aren't weapons" and "Ninja don't wear black suits and sneak around all the time, that was an invention of kabuki theater".

I'm really having a -lot- of fun writing the elves and dwarves. The dwarves are actually a big mix of Ainu and Okinawan cultures, neither of which are technically Japanese as we think of them, but are both close enough to Japanese to be familiar and yet different enough to set them apart from humans and elves. Furthermore, Ainu culture is practically extinct and Okinawan culture has become permeated with Japanese culture, to the point that the influences won't stick out like a sore thumb in the setting the same way Chinese or Korean influences would.

Elves, meanwhile, take on heavy influences of Buddhism in comparison to humans and dwarves. In particular, the end of an elf's natural life was inspired by Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov, the Buddhist lama who asked that the other lamas began his funeral rites, at which point he meditated until he stopped breathing. He was then buried, and many years later, was exhumed to find that his body had not decayed. The end of an elf's life is a similar practice, and they are not seen as dead, but simply in a state of meditation in which they have achieved paradise and their soul has entered the pure land (the highest heavenly plane).

[msa]

Hehe, thanks! Yeah, some friends and I have had a few "moan and complain" sessions about misconceptions of Japanese culture and history. For me, "geisha are prostitutes" is the big pet peeve, but I've picked up on some friends' peeves like "Muramasa and Masamune aren't weapons" and "Ninja don't wear black suits and sneak around all the time, that was an invention of kabuki theater".

Don't stress yourself over those things: there are a whole lot of innocuous misconceptions out there that don't get really affect games and are often rooted in real ambiguity. "Geisha" did refer to prostitutes during some periods and escorts during others, and a "masamune blade" is a valid term--its not worth worrying about too much. Go with what you like and what makes for the best story, and only worry about not being racist!

That said: Nice map, great project, ambitious work, keep it up and show us more!

Edited cause too long + no one cares!