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Nothing, keep them as dwarves.

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Eastern Dwarves

1 (50%)

Tanuki

1 (50%)

Other

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Total Members Voted: 2

[Sorgklaan]

I've already figured out Tengu for elves and goblins, Kappa for kobolds, leaving humans as humans and adding some asian influence, and adding a new race of samurai praying mantis people. The dwarves are tricky though, and I'm thinking of just leaving them as they are with some mild changes.

[Meph]

Why not replace the dwarves with human samurai/japanese? The stereotypical digging bearded dwarf that loves gold is a western fantasy theme and would not fit a far-east setting.

[Sorgklaan]

That's the thing though, I still want it to be dwarf fortress. I want what is essentially the same fantasy setting with japanese/chinese influence. It sounds strange, but I think it could work. I want it to have a unique asian-fantasy sort of atmosphere instead of it being strictly based around historic Asia. Having the dwarves just be humans would ruin the feel of dwarf fortress, I think.

The only real question here is do I want to use established folklore, create my own race, or simply edit the dwarves in a way that has them make sense within the setting?
If anything, I would probably make the Tanuki a separate race. I'm starting to really like the idea of simply editing the dwarves and adding some asian folklore inspiration to them, but how do I prevent that from conflicting and being too similar to the actual human race? I don't know. I'll have to think about this a bit.

[Teneb]

That's the thing though, I still want it to be dwarf fortress. I want what is essentially the same fantasy setting with japanese/chinese influence. It sounds strange, but I think it could work. I want it to have a unique asian-fantasy sort of atmosphere instead of it being strictly based around historic Asia. Having the dwarves just be humans would ruin the feel of dwarf fortress, I think.

The only real question here is do I want to use established folklore, create my own race, or simply edit the dwarves in a way that has them make sense within the setting?

While you say Asia, everything I've seen so far points to Japan. China, SE Asia, Mongolia and especially India have a huge pool of stuff to pull from. Don't limit yourself to a couple of islands.

[Sorgklaan]

That's the thing though, I still want it to be dwarf fortress. I want what is essentially the same fantasy setting with japanese/chinese influence. It sounds strange, but I think it could work. I want it to have a unique asian-fantasy sort of atmosphere instead of it being strictly based around historic Asia. Having the dwarves just be humans would ruin the feel of dwarf fortress, I think.

The only real question here is do I want to use established folklore, create my own race, or simply edit the dwarves in a way that has them make sense within the setting?

While you say Asia, everything I've seen so far points to Japan. China, SE Asia, Mongolia and especially India have a huge pool of stuff to pull from. Don't limit yourself to a couple of islands.

Absolutely. I'll browse wikipedia for a while and get back to you guys. I probably shouldn't post before I have my coffee.

Edit: Finding lots of cool shit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaksha This especially catches the eye.

[Teneb]

That's the thing though, I still want it to be dwarf fortress. I want what is essentially the same fantasy setting with japanese/chinese influence. It sounds strange, but I think it could work. I want it to have a unique asian-fantasy sort of atmosphere instead of it being strictly based around historic Asia. Having the dwarves just be humans would ruin the feel of dwarf fortress, I think.

The only real question here is do I want to use established folklore, create my own race, or simply edit the dwarves in a way that has them make sense within the setting?

While you say Asia, everything I've seen so far points to Japan. China, SE Asia, Mongolia and especially India have a huge pool of stuff to pull from. Don't limit yourself to a couple of islands.

Absolutely. I'll browse wikipedia for a while and get back to you guys. I probably shouldn't post before I have my coffee.

Alternative

[Sorgklaan]

Oh yes, very good. I'm taking notes of anything interesting I'm finding.

I think these Yaksha have to be the replacement for dwarves, they essentially are korean/indian dwarves.

The yakṣas may have originally been the tutelary gods of forests and villages, and were later viewed as the steward deities of the earth and the wealth buried beneath.

In Indian art, male yakṣas are portrayed either as fearsome warriors or as portly, stout and dwarf-like. Female yakṣas, known as yakṣiṇīs, are portrayed as beautiful young women with happy round faces and full breasts and hips.

[Sorgklaan]

Made some good progress, mostly finished making the japanese weapons and reactions. Tomorrow I suppose I'll try to do some indian weapons, then chinese, and whatever is left I'll probably try to merge together. Then I'll try to get the factions working, then probably start adding some creatures that I think would fit into the world. Not entirely sure where I'm going with everything so far, but that's the fun of it.

[Avnas]

Even though it's not east Asia, would you consider making keris weapons? I guess you could just use kukri if you wanted to keep the eastern theme.

[Meph]

A keris is from east asia. Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.

[Avnas]

That is South-East Asia.

[Sorgklaan]

I'm mostly done with the Indian weapons, it was a bit strange because there was a bit of a limited selection, atleast of the practical weapons.
I settled on the Gada, which is essentially a massive ball on a big stick, it's basically a renamed maul.
The Tabar, which doubles as an axe on one side and a warhammer on the other, multi-purpose and pretty strong.
And the Talwar, which is just a renamed scimitar.

The indian ranged weapons are the Chakrams, which have a higher contact area and penetration value than arrows, with the hopes of severing limbs. If they are too weak or broken, I might limit how many are crafted per metal bar. Which is another good thing to mention, you can only make them out of metal.

Other indian weapons I might also possibly add:
A sling, probably definitely going to add this, but I really want the projectiles to be blunt, which will be odd, but rad.
A smaller mace of some sort, since the Gada is fucking massive. Alternatively, I could make the Gada slightly smaller.
A generic-ass spear since there aren't really any interesting indian spears.

Any other suggestions? A kukri and a Keris would definitely be really good dagger reskins/alternatives, those can definitely go in the misc section.

I'm not making progress as fast as I could be, but atleast it's staying fairly consistent. can't really ignore when friends want to hang out and do shit

Starting on chinese after I finish up the indian weapons, china should be easy. tons of cool shit.

[Werdna]

Perhaps make the Tengu the Dwarves?  The best of the Tengu were the Daitengu (big tengu) and each historically claimed a mountain (a lot like a Mountain King?).  Perhaps the 7 starting Tengu are disciples hoping to make a mountain home for their lord.  The worst of the Tengu were the kotengu (little tengu) - perhaps these could be your goblins.

[Sorgklaan]

Perhaps make the Tengu the Dwarves?  The best of the Tengu were the Daitengu (big tengu) and each historically claimed a mountain (a lot like a Mountain King?).  Perhaps the 7 starting Tengu are disciples hoping to make a mountain home for their lord.  The worst of the Tengu were the kotengu (little tengu) - perhaps these could be your goblins.

Great idea. I lost internet for a couple days due to a lightnng strike, but I'm ready to start back working on this either tonight or tomrrow

[Sorgklaan]

Having second thoughts about how I want to do the civilizations, anybody got any ideas? I'm thinking about doing either animal people that correspond to the particular region, or humanoids that come from the lore of that particular region. Or I could have mostly human civs with just a handful of other races as minor civilizations.

I still definitely like the idea of either Daitengu or Yaksha as the primary " dwarf " race.