Japan

[Bhu]

Perchance can anyone translate what the name Onimasa means?

[Brother Oni]

I found the the following terms for japanese potential criminal occupations (please let me know if there are better ones):

Scout (Teisatsu)
Spy (Kancho)
Assassin (Kishu)
Agitator (Konran)
Hoka-han (Arsonist)

I cant find one for saboteur though

I'll try asking my wife when she comes back from holiday.

Perchance can anyone translate what the name Onimasa means?

I assume you mean 鬼龍? In which case, I believe it's 'demon dragon'.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I'll also need to look up some names for particular kinds of criminal (arsonist, political rabble-rouser, saboteur, etc) for SHinobi specialty PrC's.

Shinobi in itself is a specialised form of Samurai, so I don't think Shinobi really had specialisations. Other than Kunoichi at least. Extreme specialisation does happen in teams but that sounds like feat and skill choices rather than something you should even be trying to represent with classes.

Historical Ninja preferred to have large bands of less trained Ninja led by better trained generalists rather than a team of highly specialised elites.

http://jisho.org/words?jap=&eng=sabo...dict&romaji=on

[Bhu]

I assume you mean 鬼龍? In which case, I believe it's 'demon dragon'.

Unsure, I've never seen it in kanji form, just the romanisation.

Shinobi in itself is a specialised form of Samurai, so I don't think Shinobi really had specialisations. Other than Kunoichi at least. Extreme specialisation does happen in teams but that sounds like feat and skill choices rather than something you should even be trying to represent with classes.

Ever military has it's specialists, and I couldn't think of anything else to use as PrC's for the Shinobi.

[Brother Oni]

Unsure, I've never seen it in kanji form, just the romanisation.

Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Japanese to understand the different readings of their kanji and romanisation tends to lose the original meaning, for example 'gama' could be scythe as in kusarigama (鎖鎌), but used by itself it means a toad (蛙, which can also be read as kaeru).

I'll try asking my wife, but she's probably going to ask the same question as me - what's the kanji?

[Closet_Skeleton]

Ever military has it's specialists, and I couldn't think of anything else to use as PrC's for the Shinobi.

That's what I was saying, Ninja are specialists. You don't have a military made up of Ninja unless you're fighting a guerilla war.

Having PrCs that exist just for there to be PrCs is bad design. The best PrCs have some kind of cool hook or concept, they aren't just arbitrary specialisations.

Specialised Ninja in fiction tend to be guys with cool powers, not military roles.

Part of my problem with d20 is the utterly arbitrary choice to gate some abilities behind PrC levels when there's a perfectly good feat system.

[Bhu]

I'll try asking my wife, but she's probably going to ask the same question as me - what's the kanji?

I'll see if I can find it. If I do, how do we post Kanji on GitP?

Specialised Ninja in fiction tend to be guys with cool powers, not military roles.

Part of my problem with d20 is the utterly arbitrary choice to gate some abilities behind PrC levels when there's a perfectly good feat system.

Give nthe existence of magic their abilities are necessarily just skill related.

[Brother Oni]

I'll see if I can find it. If I do, how do we post Kanji on GitP?

My preferred method is a simple copy and paste if I can find it online.

The next easiest way is using the Microsoft language bar and the IME (you'll need to install it, Japanese fonts and other such gubbins). Change to Japanese, then change the entry to hiragana. Type in the word in romanji and it should come up in hiragana then press the space bar to change it to an kanji reading. If there's more than one available reading, then carry on pressing space.
For example, I type in 'oni' and おに shows up; pressing space gives me　鬼 and pressing it again gives a number of other readings.

The most technically demanding way would be to use kanji lookup sites which can find your word by radicals (character components) or stroke count (simplest explanation is how many lines there are in it). You'll need to know either a bit of Japanese or how to write kanji.


If it's not on computer then either try to find it through the kanji lookup or take a picture and post that.

[Bhu]

Further research determines it's not what 'm looking for. I'm trying to think up a term for someone slowly becoming an Oni.

[Brother Oni]

Further research determines it's not what 'm looking for. I'm trying to think up a term for someone slowly becoming an Oni.

Looking it up, but I'm not sure there is such a term.

That said, there is a myth that a wife of great jealousy will become a hannya. Depending on the version of the myth, a hannya has horns, a leering face and unkempt hair and possibly a serpentine body. The myth of Kiyohime is a good example of the snake body version, although it's unclear whether she actually became a hannya.

I'm not so sure of the male counterpart myth, that a man with great anger will become an oni.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Further research determines it's not what 'm looking for. I'm trying to think up a term for someone slowly becoming an Oni.

An anime I watched had a term for it, but it was just translated as 'half-Oni' and presumably that was pretty literal.

[Bhu]

I just noticed how many languages are available in old japan. As a poll, would people prefer a more realistic approach, or just the usual COmmon?

[Brother Oni]

I just noticed how many languages are available in old japan. As a poll, would people prefer a more realistic approach, or just the usual COmmon?

For simplicity, I'd advocate a system much like the Chinese approach - one standardised imperial language, to be used at all formal functions and for official business, with regional languages used for informal encounters.

Since you're having class divides, this could be a good way to emphasise it, if the PCs go travelling - the commoners are generally unable to speak any 'civilised' language and any interactions would have to be between intermediaries (village headmen, magistrates, educated locals) who speak both the local and formal language.

It's only when you really reach the wilderness extremes (the far north of Hokkaido, the far south of Kyushu) that communication may be an issue. I remember a myth I was told that the island of Shikoku had a gateway to hell on (the only reference I can find to it is Mount Osore which is on the northernmost tip of Honshu though), so you could have an extreme garrison town mentality for the peoples of Shikoku as they have to deal with periodic supernatural critter attacks.

An alternative would be to have them as extreme risk takers, people who constantly like to live life on the edge as they know the frailty of life all too well (much like the popular view of Icelanders, who also have a gateway to Hell on their island).

[Bhu]

I must thank you for that. Looking into Mount Osore led me to an article on blind shamans called the Itako.

Would there be any major racial divisions besides the Japanese, Ryukyuans, and Ainu that aren't foreigners? I've found a bit about the Tsuchigumo being a tribe that was later ret-conned into earth spiders.

[Brother Oni]

Would there be any major racial divisions besides the Japanese, Ryukyuans, and Ainu that aren't foreigners? I've found a bit about the Tsuchigumo being a tribe that was later ret-conned into earth spiders.

I don't quite understand the question - are you asking whether there's any major racial divides among those three groups, or between native and overseas members within those groups?

[Bhu]

Basically I'm asking f I design races for the setting, is there anything other than Japanese, Ryukyuan, and Ainu. As in would there be substantial differences in abilities from one place to another.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I remember a myth I was told that the island of Shikoku had a gateway to hell on (the only reference I can find to it is Mount Osore which is on the northernmost tip of Honshu though), so you could have an extreme garrison town mentality for the peoples of Shikoku as they have to deal with periodic supernatural critter attacks.

That shows up in a horror movie I've seen, but it may be original to the book its based off.

I've found a bit about the Tsuchigumo being a tribe that was later ret-conned into earth spiders.

That refers to rebels who fought Emperor Jimmu (6th century BC) and Emperor Keiko (1st century AD). Its mythical history mostly from the Nihon Shoki.

Basically I'm asking f I design races for the setting, is there anything other than Japanese, Ryukyuan, and Ainu. As in would there be substantial differences in abilities from one place to another.

Different ethnic groups don't have substantial differences in abilities. Unless you're trying to model specific disease resistances, average height, lactose tolerance and how easily people sunburn.

There are multiple groups of 'Ainu'. Ainu is a modern term, the Emishi may have been related.

[Brother Oni]

Different ethnic groups don't have substantial differences in abilities. Unless you're trying to model specific disease resistances, average height, lactose tolerance and how easily people sunburn.

There are multiple groups of 'Ainu'. Ainu is a modern term, the Emishi may have been related.

Yeah, I've been digging into it and I can't find anything that's not xenophobic and racist to some degree.

[Bhu]

Different ethnic groups don't have substantial differences in abilities. Unless you're trying to model specific disease resistances, average height, lactose tolerance and how easily people sunburn.

They can, however, have different skillsets. People living in mountainous regions tend to have different skills than those living on the ocean shore. I was thinking of doing the regional variants on people like Faerun does, unless finding the necessary info is too big a pain.

[Bhu]

Is there a similar mythical history for the Emishi or Ryukyuans as the Nihon SHoki?

[pendell]

BTW, "Mount Isore" shows up in Shaman King manga volumes 19-21. It's a very restless place. Our hero has to placate a demon summoned by his fiancee. Just the thing for a ... hot date.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Bhu]

Would Teikiatsu be an appropriate term for an individual with a bad temper?

[Brother Oni]

Would Teikiatsu be an appropriate term for an individual with a bad temper?

My wife is a bit confused - teikiatsu means a weather low pressure zone/front.

She suggests tanki (短気) instead.

[Bhu]

I understand the confusion. when I googled terms for bad temper, i got about 10 or so, all of which had alternate meanings. The one I posted here apparently means bad temper, low pressure front, and cyclone. It seemed th most likely candidate out of the 10 so I went for it first.

[Brother Oni]

I understand the confusion. when I googled terms for bad temper, i got about 10 or so, all of which had alternate meanings. The one I posted here apparently means bad temper, low pressure front, and cyclone. It seemed th most likely candidate out of the 10 so I went for it first.

Can I ask how you googled it? My wife can't find any alternate reading of teikiatsu that means a cyclone or bad temper and when I plug in 'Bad temper in Japanese' into google, I get tanki as well.

[Bhu]

Can I ask how you googled it? My wife can't find any alternate reading of teikiatsu that means a cyclone or bad temper and when I plug in 'Bad temper in Japanese' into google, I get tanki as well.

I think I googled "japanese word for bad temper or something similar. It led me to this site: http://www.eudict.com/?lang=engjap&word=bad%20temper among others. Once I had a list of words I began googling the individual words to find their meanings.

[Brother Oni]

I think I googled "japanese word for bad temper or something similar. It led me to this site: http://www.eudict.com/?lang=engjap&word=bad%20temper among others. Once I had a list of words I began googling the individual words to find their meanings.

My wife suggests that you shouldn't use that particular translator as most of those terms are either not quite right or outright wrong (at least those particular ones are).

[Asta Kask]

In ringu, a small boy sees the picture of a woman he knew well, who died under mysterious circumstances. He makes a peculiar gesture, rubbing his index finger in small circles just between his eyes. Is this some recognized gesture in Japan? A sign of loss? A ward against ghosts? Or is it just something peculiar to the boy?

[Bhu]

My wife suggests that you shouldn't use that particular translator as most of those terms are either not quite right or outright wrong (at least those particular ones are).

Give your wife my profuse thanks!

[Brother Oni]

In ringu, a small boy sees the picture of a woman he knew well, who died under mysterious circumstances. He makes a peculiar gesture, rubbing his index finger in small circles just between his eyes. Is this some recognized gesture in Japan? A sign of loss? A ward against ghosts? Or is it just something peculiar to the boy?

Do you have a clip or a time index in the movie when this occurs?