While technically 3PP, I am currently in early development of my next big project, and will use this homebrew forum for setting discussion.
For those of you who know me, I published the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG) as an imprint under Rite Publishing, in addition to being a pro freelance cartographer. However, I had a special deal with Steven Russell (rest in peace) of Rite Publishing for it. Rite Publishing was the publisher, though I own the IP, and share copyright with Rite Publishing, and was the creator, developer and project manager, but I had a team of freelance author/designer, illustrators, editors working on it. We released 15 book, with the GMs Setting Guide published in June 2017, and the Player's Guide December 2017, though there may be some follow up products - it's near it's end.
Since I'm a small publisher now, mostly doing Starfinder compatible stuff - got a free one-shot module I wrote called Rude Awakening, Dead in Space - a series of one-shot space horror mods by T. H. Gulliver, and just released a 174 page (80 pages of art and deck plans) Starships, Stations and Salvage Guide by Edward Moyer, as an optional rules supplement for Starfinder. I do have a couple smaller products on the way - a Vehicle Guide and a Mecha Guide, as well as a followup to Dead in Space by the same author, Chains of Purgatory...
My next big project, I'll be the author, with Ed as my primary designer. Since I own Kaidan IP, I'm going to publish the Kaidan Interstellar Empire of Japanese Horror for Starfinder, so feudal Japan crossed with dark space opera, (or Kaidan 2000 years later). Tentative release scheduled for Halloween 2018.
So while I'm doing a direct conversion of Kaidan the dark fantasy setting to Kaidan the space horror setting, there is going to be new content, aside from needing to tech things up pretty heavily. I want to include some aspects of cyberpunk, use MegaCorps owned by the great samurai houses of Kaidan, each with private military samurai, covert operative ninja (some as conversions of PF classes, some as themes and archetypes). Adding a few more player character races, than the Kaidan original, each getting their own planet or moon across several star systems governed by the Empire/Shogunate. Samurai carry both a traditional katana, and a powered monofilament katana for fighting in and against powered armor opponents. Formal dress, even in corporate situations is the traditional kimono, or "shirt and pants" kimono samurai wore. Every one in society generally wears traditional Japanese garb, so feels very much like feudal Japan. The capital city will be what you might imagine a futuristic Tokyo would be - a juxtaposition of traditional castles, temples, shrines, parks and oddly shaped skyscrapers, sky-elevators, starports. However, the countryside will look more tradition - though tech exists: buried underground, inside traditional buildings, or inside beams, floors, the structure of common buildings with full future accommodations. Imagining traditional folding fans as video cell phones/IPads as well as a way to cool yourself.
I've already started gathering art. Interestingly, I paid for a lot of the original Kaidan art, much of it was never published - we never did a Kaidan bestiary. I got other pieces that just didn't have a good place to go in the Kaidan products so were never used - that saves me from having to procure them, and most of it is pretty awesome work. I've got a several of my own vector illustrations, I did for Way of the Samurai (PFRPG), which I'll definitely use again - though all of it is traditional rather than space opera, so I'll need to create a few pieces, and maybe find a few additional pieces before I'm done. I did pay a low, but still kind of expensive price for an awesome piece I intend to use as cover art, though since it was from the artist's personal gallery of work, rather than a custom piece I could no way afford, the characters placed in his illustrations are self portraits, and he's Italian (Alessandro Botti), so the guy in the samurai outfit doesn't look Asian - but for the price I got it for, and for it's awesome quality and perfect fit, I'm glad I got it. Aside from more than dozen maps I'll include, my art is pretty much covered - a very expensive part of publishing requirements out of the way, with a now empty art budget.
Anyway, I'll a couple of posts below some specifics I have in mind for different aspects of this new project. I'll appreciate any feedback or suggestions you might have.
So each race will live on their own unique planet - kappa (turtle people) on a small swampy moon around a gas giant, oni on a larger hellish planet of many active volcanoes and physics anomalies (named Jigoku after the Japanese hell), etc.
Three of the 4 new races we've got ideas for.
Same-bito (shark shapechanger) who have no fingers, so can't manipulate complex tools relegated to hunter/gatherer sea dweller tech, but once conquered by Kaidan some agree to serve as slave-samurai warrior hulks wearing power armor with fingers so they can use tools and weapons, those who disagree stay as hunter gatherers in their undersea city.
Jorogumo (spider women) race, have ant-like culture, Queen SW with male drones (like mechanic drones, in symbiotic relationship), and a few fertile princesses, with majority of population as sterile females. Robot spider slaves are laborers and builders. Jorgumo aren't starfarers, but they think in binary (machine language) so are supremely computer skilled.
Oni (a subspecie as a PC race, with many subspecies that aren't) taller and more heavily, physically built than most humans, perhaps 8 feet tall, though still medium, use a special kind of oni magic being developed just for them. While they are a starfaring race, they more heavily rely on spells and magi-tech than other races of Kaidan. We've only started development on oni. Though the Kaidanese humans dominate rule in their systems and races, the oni are smart brutes with access to more magic and magic-tech than other races and due to their warlike nature have gone to war once in the last century with the Kaidanese, so there is little trust between them, a state of constant animosity.
Kaidan is closed like Tokugawa Japan, their drift beacon (what starships use to home in on specific planets) is shut off minimizing encountering other starfaring races. Though they plan to turn it on at some point.
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Unlike the standard Pathfinder ghost, the Starfinder Kaidan setting will include templates, as well as standard CR monsters as ghosts, since Yurei (Japanese ghosts) come in such variety - currently building 13 ghosts. Unlike PF ghosts, ghost of Kaidan have special abilities based on who they were in life, how they died to become ghosts or other major mitigating factors that was imbued in their creation. Almost every ghost you'd encounter is unique compared to others, though they are all ghosts.
One already built is the Baku Nagaru Appu, these are the ghosts of women who were murdered by abusive spouses, lovers, companions or just males in general. Although they are incorporeal, they appear as a badly beaten woman with visible contusions, broken bones and bruises everywhere, however both of her legs are severely broken, so she crawls at a slow rate (20 ft movement). She has a "bone snap" special attack, and though she is incorporeal she can beat her victim and cause blunt damage combined with magic cold damage. While some are anchored to where they were killed, some can hunt for prey for great distances, usually males whom she may watch for days to see if her possible chosin victim shows any evidence of abuse, ridicule or other trauma caused to women around him. If evidence reveals itself, she will stalk him choosing to prepare an ambush when the chosen male is away from his compansions and alone. Because misery loves company sometimes several gather in small packs to hunt male victims. Though she'll only attack males in an adventuring party, females that attack her get her retaliation in kind, however, she will never hurt children, backing off even if a child tries to attack her - even risking destruction to avoid harm to a child.
Another ghost will be the Strangling Hair Ghost (will have a Japanese name), I included in a one-shot I wrote for the original Kaidan. A bath house attendant was killed by her employer at a bath house, because the matron thought the attendant was committing an act of prostitution, something she didn't want her respectable business to be seen as a brothel, murdered her by coming up from behind, wrapping the attendants long hair into a back-scrubbing brush and forcing her under the water's surface of the bath the attendant was taking at the time, not letting her see the perpetrator of her murder. The attendant actually secretly married a young poor samurai, above her station, and just consummated her wedding, unknown to her murderous employer. So as a ghost, she is fully incorporeal, but her hair (already foot length in life grew to 12 feet in undeath) is semi-corporeal and can grapple or strangle opponents with animated hair. If she passes through her victim, she causes their lungs to fill with water, and be subject to the effects of the Suffocate spell.
So the ghosts of Kaidan are unique undead beings, often more powerful than their standard Pathfinder Bestiary counterparts, with unique abilities distinct to each ghost.
Like the original Kaidan setting, the samurai will be represented up to 5 different types, but one of the Pathfinder samurai class main abiliites was Resolve, which Paizo stole from the samurai and gave it to everybody, so instead of doing a class conversion to Starfinder, we're doing samurai as a Starfinder theme, archetypes, samurai orders, so PCs can choose to be soldiers, envoys, operatives, and possibly any other Starfinder class choice. We are directly converting our Yojimbo ranger into it's own class in Kaidan.
Although we didn't use the monk class in the original Kaidan, in Kaidan 2.0 we are fully converting the Monk class into a Starfinder conversion with Ki powers, martial arts skills and use of Monk/Ninja weapons which we're making new Operative weapons for Starfinder.
Also definitely converting the Kaidan Tattooist Wizard to Starfinder, with the option that the arcane tattoos could be alternatively done as magi-cybernetics instead of tattoos as a sci-fi upgrade for Starfinder.
There's a Kaidan samurai prestige class I want to include, and leaving it up to the designer on how to covert a prestige class into something appropriate for Starfinder, called the Bugyo, which is an aristocrat/bureaucrat with immense political power that really fits Kaidan's government positions.
Oh, one of the military starships we're designing for Kaidan are Huge (2000 x 2000 ft) ships that resemble Japanese castle fortresses set atop a starship superstructure. Using one of the new starship options from Starships, Stations and Salvage Guide, plus a twist. These starship, normally serve as pocket battleship/flag ships for the Kaidanese navy, always accompanied by fleets of cruisers and destroyers, sometimes a carrier, protected by squadrons of fighter starships. According to Starfinder Core Rules, the largest ship that can enter an atmosphere, land on the surface, and takeoff and leave atmosphere are large ships (up to 800 feet long) - just an arbitrary ruling. So in our guide we created a huge ship that when landing on a planet becomes an oversized drop pod. It can enter atmosphere, even control a landing on the opposite side of a planet, landing with pinpoint accuracy, but once they're on the ground, they cannot leave the planet. In this state, these fortress starship/landers become the military/government center that Kaidan overlords control subject worlds of the empire. The starship parts are eventually built over with local labor as stone structures, with the ship's intact as sublevels beneath the fortress top. Walled areas, of multiple bailleys are constructed surround the fortress sturcture itself - like a traditional Japanese castle.
In the updated history of Kaidan, it will begin with the original Kaidan setting, it's founding involving the suicide of an entire imperial house (taken from real Japanese history with the Genpei War, 1180 - 1185 AD), it's divine curse of the Tenmei (Buddhist) reincarnation cycle with the social castes, as an engine of evil where the souls that travel across the reincarnation cycle, to maintain it's dark power. And give an overview of Kaidan that was.
The next jump in history will be an analog of a slightly futuristic modern Japan, as a constitutional imperial monarchy, with the Shogun eliminated. This would be much like modern Japan with powerful corporations and a military bureaucracy greatly influenced by the "west" - men were suits, women in western styled dresses and more modern fashion, a rather cyberpunk influence in it's upgraded timeline. However, one powerful CEO, perhaps creating the first real MegaCorp of Kaidan has a dream (calling that subchapter - Matsudaira's Dream) where he sees a return to traditional values, re-establishment of the Shogun, a return to wearing traditional garments of the feudal period rather than the westernized fashions worn in his time. A more fascist and militaristic Kaidan, retaining all high technology, but hidden within a traditional skin of items found in feudal Kaidan. As an aside this CEO loses his hand in a samurai katana duel with a corporate competitor. Rather than choosing to regrow his hand, he chose an early form of cybernetics and thus cybernetics becomes a major component of Kaidan society, as well as the beginnings of a starfaring age.
Then 200 years before the current timeline of the setting, the Corporate Shogun of Kaidan makes a deal with a more powerful non-Kaidan MegaCorp, Anomaly Investments Ltd., one of the five largest MegaCorps in the alternate Milky Way Galaxy we chose as the base setting for Dead in Space and it's followup (next year) Chains of Purgatory by Trevor Gulliver. In that universe setting Earth is the human homeworld, but with humans over-mining, ecological abuse, disruption of the climate - the Earth becomes sentient and seeks the expulsion of humankind, to recover and protect itself from future threats. The nation states of the Earth are given a 10 year period to leave the planet and never return. After two great odyssies, a century apart, the nearest starsystems to the Earth become "Corporate Space", then a further expansion beyond Corporate space by those seeking indendence (and a war) from Corporate control as colonized space. The Shogun sought to find a new distant starsystem and habitable world to become the new homeworld of the potential empire of Kaidan. Anomaly Investments is as it's initials might imply, an AI owned MegaCorp, where it's CEO, board of directors and it's stock-holders are all artificial intelligences. Anomaly sent a million probes into deep space searching for investment opportunities, including the eventual homeworld of MegaCorps of Kaidan, the Shogunate and the Emperor. Through a very expensive down payment to Anomaly followed by a century of a percentage of it's gross national product, Kaidan was eventually free. Because Matsudaira's Dream is still a national treasured concept, though they name their homeworld in the system, Kaidan, the system itself is called Mirai (which is Japanese for "dream").
The rest of the history will be the next two centuries of war, planetary invasions that are conquered and governed by Corporate Naval Daimyo's ruling the local populations of the other PC races (kappa, kitsune, tengu, etc.) Current politics, rebellions stirring, potential civil war, and another possible oni war weighs in the balance of MegaCorporate exploitation, corporate espionage, and other intrigue, when the Drift Beacon will be turned on allowing non-Kaidanese starfarers to finally find the empire for trade and war opportunities into the future.
The Yakuza are major players in the setting, a MegaCorp unto themselves, though they operate both legal and illegal companies, shell companies to hide the money trail. They are involved in the slave trade, illegal salvage operations, narcotics trafficking, arms trafficking, smuggling goods and people, patent and IP theft with cheap knockoff versions of better quality tech goods, and though not pirates themselves, they facilitate the pirate trade with places to hide, black markets to sell stolen goods and starship parts, and shadow banks. As more traditional Yakuza operations they are involved in loansharking, racketeering/protection, prostitution, gambling, and even control the entertainment industry in Kaidan from modern/futuristic entertainments, holosuites, to Kabuki theaters, street buskers, the porn industry and more. They operate both inside and outside the empire's domain of conquered worlds, with satellite offices in distant star systems. They have their own paramilitary brigades and naval fleets, often hiring mercenaries for black operations. Much of the cyberpunk activities are managed by the Yakuza.
My first thought is you shouldn't post this here and talk with Paizo directly about removing this post, because I believe Paizo has IP issues with anything posted in the threads here on their forum. Essentially they can claim ownership over anything posted here...which is why I suggest you talk with Paizo directly else things could get sticky...from a legal standpoint. I'm not a lawyer, just don't want you to have headaches later on.
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My second thought is that your setting sounds like Shadowrun with a mix of Dark Matter.
Thanks, Claxon, while I can delete the thread, maybe it's better moved to the Starfinder 3PP forum. I posted this question in the General Discussion board - we'll see how Paizo responds on what best to do.
Some Dark Matter has been a part of my concept actually. But since I've never played Shadowrun - aside from including some cyberpunk options, I don't know enough about Shadowrun to know it that fits.
Others mention Rifts, which is another game I never touched, but am aware of it's existence now for Japan Space.
But the original Kaidan as Pathfinder, was distinctly Japanese Horror, which to my knowledge wasn't a subgenre used in TTRPG, at least not D&D/PF, so it isn't quite the same as anything before it, even if in some ways like it.
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Sounds amazing. Are you planning a kickstarter, or going direct to publishing?
One single issue I have with original settings is the lack of adventures - nowadays I prefer to buy them ready and make small adaptations to fit the PCs backgrounds. Will you release adventures specific for this setting, maybe even have a bunch of modules with a coherent metaplot?
Is this a Planet Japan kind of setting, or are there western options somewhere on other continents?
I'm trying to move this to the Starfinder 3PP forum - I flagged the OP, but hit the wrong selection. Please somebody else flag this and state "in wrong forum".
Anyway. No Kickstarter - if I had needs for a print budget or art budget I might need a KS. But, I'm doing POD at OneBookShelf/DrivethruRPG, so I don't need a print budget. And I'm re-using all the art I paid for, my own art, my maps, and create new maps from my original Pathfinder setting of the same name (dark Japanese fantasy). I'm a pro game cartographer - I can include the best maps and more of them than any other publisher. The only thing I need is time - and a Kickstarter won't give me that. So I don't need nor want a Kickstarter.
The original Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRGP) had a trilogy of full modules as an intro to the setting, then 6 one-shot modules, in both of our class/faction guides there's a town, NPCs, magic items and a plot - so almost one-shots. And the haunts guide could be run as full module if you strung the haunts together - so no APs, but lots of module content.
I am self publishing, as Gamer Printshop (hence my name) with 2 designers working on it now, and though am the author, I cannot get to it fulltime until May. But scheduled release for Halloween 2018.
We'll add some supplements, one-shot modules a few, maybe even a trilogy of full modules, but no APs planned, after the Core release.
So including the original Kaidan races, with the new races included in this project, there will be 9 player character races: hebi-onna (snake women/people, not naga), hengeyokai (many subspecies), jorogumo, kappa, kitsune, koropokuru, oni, same-bito and tengu - and of course humans. Ysoki can fit as is as nezumi.
Think of it as it's own Pact Worlds like setting, but across several separate starsystems, 7 planets and moons so far, may need more. An oort cloud (Yomi, place of the dead) is represented too. Each PC race get's it's own planet, though the Kaidan empire are their overlords, and MegaCorp suppliers of goods and services.
No western required - use the Pact Worlds for that, as starfarers that could visit the planet/systems of the empire.
I'm thinking of doing a rehash of my Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House one-shot I wrote for Kaidan - think a bath house as more than a bath house, rather the veritable fantasy tavern of Japan. A public bath, restaurant, tavern or nightclub/gambling casino and inn. Some were brothels, some geisha establishments, many reputable, every town has one or more.
So for the Starfinder version I see creating a gargantuan ship with minimal guns and armor, maybe high defenses, but is an entertainment ship that visits planets, space stations, naval fleets, large ships, asteroid mines. is owned and operated by the Yakuza, filled with interesting NPCs from across Kaidan society, a ghost and creepy haunting aboard. Maybe a Kabuki theater, MMA arena - entertainments.
Would make a cool one-shot or possibly 2 or 3 shot, and adventure location. Sounds like a good first module to include - and a way for non-Kaidan adventurers to encounter their first glimpse of Kaidan.
I was initially thinking a gargantuan ship would be enough, but its not. So am using one of the options included in Starships, Stations and Salvage Guide by Ed Moyer, which I just published 3 days ago.
A colossal variant frame is for a station sized (colossal+) ship with 4 colossal bays, and 20 standard bays for 1000 crew as an 18,700 foot long ship - its fricken' huge. The biggest deck plan, I'll have ever designed. Think a luxury liner that is dress up like a feudal Japanese city's entire red light district on a ship.
Thanks, Ronald, Raggi and Claxon!
Just a clarification, I mentioned 3 out 4 of the new races, and I mean new as additions to the races Kaidan already has.
Kaidanese (humans) are Asians and mostly Japanese in descent, being the citizens of the empire.
Kappa (turtle people) are an agrarian based society dwelling on a swampy moon with extensive swamps, rivers, streams, sinkholes, ponds, lakes and an inland sea. Though there are some regions of hills, no real mountainous areas. The PF Bestiary is not far off, but rather a conversion from In the Company of Kappa published by Rite Publishing for the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG)
Kitsune (fox shapechangers) a somewhat more civilized race living in Rennaissasne tech and culture. They were featured in the Gamemaster's Guide to Kaidan, but the PF Bestiary listing isn't far off.
Koropokuru (primitive gnome-like race) dwelling on a heavily forested mountainous planet, very much hunter gatherings, with their own brand of magic, religion and culture - mostly an underground dwelling race, and kind of fey-like.
Hengeyokai (animal shapechangers) come in human, animal humanoid and animal forms with multiple subspecies - badger, cat, dog, hare, monkey and raccoon dog (though more may yet be discovered). They dwell on a heavily forested and mountainous planet with about 70% hydrosphere of oceans and inland seas. They are a medieval based technology, though have deeply integrated into the empire hiding in human form. In the Company of Henge for the Kaidan setting is the best source for comparison, and we're doing a direct conversion from that.
Tengu (bird-like humanoid), unlike most of the yokai which are shapechangers, the tengu is a bird-like humanoid that cannot shapechange, though are masters of swords and other melee weapons, are a very spiritual people with a close relationship to the Kaidanese humans, though live apart from them. Their homeworld is very mountainous, and each major mountain on their world as the center of a given city/society/nation for each branch of the race. In the Company of Tengu for the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG) is the best guide for it, and where it's direct conversion is derived.
For the simultaneous module release with the Kaidan Interstellar Empire of Japanese Horror Core Rulebook...
Autumn Moon Tier 27
Floating World class station-sized entertainment luxury liner
Speed 4 (6); Maneuverability poor (-5 Piloting, turn 2); Drift 1
AC 20; TL 25
HP 600 (increment 30); DT 30; CT 120
Shields heavy 480 (forward 120, port 120, starboard 120, aft 120)
Attack (Forward) Gravity cannon (2d6 x10); hellfire torpedo launcher (2d20 x 10; limit 5)
Attack (Port) Plasma cannon (5d12); heavy plasma torpedo launcher (5d10) x2
Attack (Starboard) Plasma cannon (5d12); heavy plasma torpedo launcher (5d10) x2
Attack (Aft) Persistent particle beam (10d6) x2
Power Core Gateway Ultra x7 (3,500 PCU), Nova Heavy (200 PCU); Drift Engine Signal Basic; Systems mk 4 plastic armor; mk 5 trinode computer; mk 10 defenses; crew quarters (luxury); c4 thrusters; Expansion Bays Escape Deck Colossal Bay (2000 pods); Hotel Deck Colossal Bay (100 luxury suites, 250 standard); Mass Entertainment Block Colossal Bay (public baths, fine dining, restaurant/kabuki theater, nightclub/casino, garden shrine, shops, black market place, fast food stands); standard bays brig/police station, exterior docking ring x4, memorial hall Daoist temple, maneuvering veneer minor pods, power core housing, shield augmentation bay x2, shuttle bay, sick bay, science lab, tech bay
Modifiers +8 Piloting, +13 Gunnery, +5 x3 Computers; Complement 1000; Guest Complement 350
While I like factions, I can honestly say I didn't care for and don't care for both faction as depicted as rules for both Pathfinder and Starfinder. While I'll have to annotate my OGL license to give credit to Rite Publishing because Jonathan McAnulty designed these specific rules in Way of the Samurai (PFRPG) and Way of the Yakuza - at my direction. Both these Kaidan supplements included Yakuza Gang Creation Rules and Custom Samurai House Rules, both based on the Pathfinder City Stat Block. Basically choose an alignment, name the top leader in the organization (that person's alignment), and the Samurai house lord or local yakuza gang boss's alignment and a special social practice/concept, then a following table would provide unique skill modifiers and wealth level and other modifiers that grant specific abilities for a given house or gang qualities. Then you have the social scores from the city stat block how the house or gang differs from the city stat block. I thought was a great way to create factions - and better than the 1st party choices for factions.
I plan to incorporate those Creation Rules into Kaidan 2.0, and expand them to other organizational factions - for temple/shrine clergy and worshipers and other groups, maybe pirates and MegaCorps.
Here... look at the Samurai House Creation Rules posted at d20pfsrd to see what I mean.
Since Paizo stole Resolve from the samurai and gave it to all the classes. I've created the Samurai theme based on the concept of Bushido, which allows any class to be a samurai. Add Orders as soldiers get and incorporate archetypes I can still achieve a samurai build with multiple options to create multiple samurai concepts.
I plan to convert Ninja and Monk to Starfinder for Kaidan, though. And looking at other possible classes as conversions, or themes and archetypes.
Well I'm still trying to move this thread into the Starfinder 3PP forum, as Claxon rightly suggested, but I have one thing on my side, I think. Owen K. C. Stephens is the lead designer at Paizo for Starfinder, and I know him/he knows me, and he knows about this project, so I don't think as lead designer, he'd borrow much if anything from my setting. He does some product development at Rite Publishing, and my original Kaidan setting for PF fantasy was done at Rite, and I'm still the project manager for Kaidan at Rite Publishing. I don't think I have much to worry about regarding crossed IP between Starfinder, and my projects. ;)
I'm glad you've got IP issues sorted out.
I do like the things I'm reading about here and think it makes for a pretty interesting setting.
I almost think it would make a better stand alone system that wasn't necessarily tied to Starfidner mechanics, but if you paint any magic as psychic style stuff and have it be rare in setting then I think it could be really awesome. But now we're talking more SciFi than the Science Fantasy that Starfinder is.
So far, we are looking at 4 different kinds of magic, basically again converting from the original Pathfinder setting to Starfinder. Kotodama is power word spells - with a bunch of additional power word spells than either PF or SF, is the providence of the Onmyoji. There's a mystic spiritualist caster that can speak with dead, perform exorcisms, deal with haunts (we're transferring haunts to SF), laying ghosts to rest, and use karma based spells. The oni get their own magic and related to magi-tech devices. The horimyo can do tattoo casting, putting tattoos on himself and others, create tattoos as wondrous items, can do tattoo attacks. So there are some mystic aspects being included in the Kaidan Interstellar setting of Japanese Horror.
The new casters here are archetypes for mystic and technomancer, with their own unique spell schools (in addition to mystic/technomancer spells) tied to each archetype, as well as spell-like abilities.
So while the initial work will be for a Starfinder, setting. I might give thought to a stand-alone system at some future time.
The Oni planet is called Jigoku, named after the Japanese Hell, is a huge planet the size of Jupiter, and partially gas giant with a terrestrial core. The upper atmospheric layers are corrosive, toxic, alive with electrical storms, and a layer of 600 mile an hour winds, however the layer just above the terrestrial surface is breatheable. The terrestrial level should have crushing gravity forces. The oni possess mastery in magic tech, though overtime has become less powerful than centuries earlier. Power magi-tech devices exist on the highest mountains countering the immense gravity to only have 1.5 Gs of force, making it habitable for the variety of oni species on this world. Still the oni possess more skill at magi-tech than the other races of the empire, including the humans.
If you dig down a thousand feet into the terrestrial soil, the counter gravity effect goes away and 50 Gs of force is encountered - squish.
Four moons orbit Jigoku, and each are habitable as well and home to four of the yokai races, including kappa, hengeyokai, kitsune and tengu.
Since Paizo stole Resolve from the Samurai and gave it to every class, I've decided to create a Samurai theme...
Samurai +1 Wis
A samurai must choose a person, cause, or belief and devote every effort to serve, protect, defend and give all, even one’s life to uphold. Living by the rules of the strict Bushido code involving righteousness, courage, compassion, respect, honesty, honor and loyalty, a samurai uses martials arts training and meditation to achieve the balance needed to walk this difficult path in a life of militant service.
Theme Knowledge (1st)
your adherence to etiquette, protocols, restraint and the understanding of hierarchal bureaucracies grants insight into any diplomatic discussions with the ruling class or bureaucracies of societies you encounter. Reduce the DC of Culture checks to recall knowledge about the ruling class. Diplomacy is a class skill for you, though if it is class skill from the class you take at 1st level, you instead gain a +1 bonus to Diplomacy checks. In addition, you gain an ability adjustment of +1 to Wisdom at character creation.
Honorable Soul (6th)
your reluctance to bring shame to yourself, your house, your lord, cause or belief, combined with the honorable deeds you perform in service to that which you’ve dedicated yourself, as well as your recognition of the honor in others, grants you a +2 bonus to Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks to bureaucrats and authority figures of factions you encounter.
Inspiring Commander (12th)
your sense of honor, duty, and selflessness inspires the same qualities among those put under your command. Whenever someone under your charge, or a longtime ally (such as a fellow character) faces an opponent in combat, they gain a +1 bonus to their DC check versus attempts to Intimidate them or be compelled by an Enchantment to act in ways they would normally not do, while within 30 feet of you.
Samurai Lord (18th)
twice per day, after spending a minute in quiet meditation, you regain 1 point of resolve.
With the way magic works and just the mechanics of Starfinder in general I think Samurai works much better as a theme than a set of mechanics.
Upholding the ethos of Bushido doesn't require you to be covered in heavy armor and to wield a sword in combat (though you might have it be a set pf ceremonial items that all Samurai own, or at least symbolic representations like a miniature daisho).
Also, even though they gave a resolve mechanic to everyone, if you wanted to have a Samurai class you still could. Just call it something other than resolve. Call it Virtue points. Or anything you.
Exactly. In my Way of the Samurai (PFRPG) product, part of the discussion is that samurai is as much a caste as a class, am why there is a ranger archetype and wizard archetype in that samurai book. So in Starfinder I can see a samurai envoy, operative, soldier even a mystic, probably a engineer less so, but not an impossible choice. Plus I'm going to be adding archetypes to offer more variety for samurai as a concept.
And while Bushido to be followed is the goal, in truth, loyalty is almost considered the first to obey in Bushido and one's lord may ask you to do something that may break one of the other Bushido codes, so it's a struggle to maintain Bushido, and sometimes impossible, but there is a goal to follow it as best one can. Individual choice still matters.
Honor and karma are also a part of the samurai concept that will be included.
I see I haven't posted anything regarding magic yet. We have 4 kinds, though not all completely developed yet.
Kotodama are Power Word spells, and a score or more of additional power word spells are being created - think Power Word: Nausea or Power Word Disarm. These were included as part of the GM's Guide for the dark fantasy version of Kaidan published for Pathfinder, and we are directly converting that to SF with balanced new spells.
Another is a kind of spiritual magic, I'm calling Mikko Magic. With cleric not existing in Starfinder, I'm looking at an archetype that grants abilities to fight undead, especially ghosts and haunts (both are converted to Starfinder as well as a necessary element of Kaidan). Contacting ancestral spirits as well as speak with dead goes with it, and exorcising possessing spirits dominating characters. Finally some specific spells regarding spirits and karma are a part of Mikko magic - karma affecting reincarnation in the setting.
Oni will have their own magic specialty regarding magi-tech, which oni are the preeminent users of magi-tech in Kaidan.
Finally, only among the yakuza are Horimyo or tattoo magic specialists with tattoos that can attack opponents, work as wondrous items and other unique magicks exclusive to tattoos. Some horimyo use their same magic with cybernetics instead of tattoos.
As an aside, I was just notified that Paizo Inc. is following my Google Plus posts - I guess Paizo is paying attention to my PF/SF work. I think that's a good thing...
I did create the original hand-drawn map of the City of Kasai, and wrote half the City of Kasai Gazetteer for The Empty Throne module of the Jade Regent AP, and got contributing author credits for that module - so I'm already an known factor to Paizo.
Expanding ideas for my adventure module I'm releasing simultaneously with the Kaidan Core Rules.
The other day I was researching Japanese doll-making, and the reason for that is that I recall a Ravenloft module featuring a doll-maker and murderous dolls featured, and was giving thoughts of either creating a module or at least a bestiary inclusion that involved Japanese dolls for my Kaidan 2.0 (Japanese horror in Space for Starfinder). The research proved to be creepier than I expected inspiring ideas that have yet to coalesce into something usable (yet).
1. In the most ancient times (3 BC), dolls were used for religious rites and it was believed that dolls take on the sins of those who touch it.
2. Karakuri Ningyo are life-sized dolls that were often mechanical automata used as mobile theater events for festival parades that often depicted a life-sized woman performing the tea ceremony using a whalebone spring to power the movements. Also such life-sized dolls often depicted a murder with the doll laying in a pool of blood. Even creepier, one type of pregnant woman doll, could open up showing the twelve stages of fetal growth within (wow, that's almost too grisly to think about).
3. Bunraku is Japanese puppet theater that in some ways was the precursor for Kabuki theater. Almost life-sized realistic puppets, operated by 3 puppeteers with one moving the left hand and foot, another the right hand and foot, and the last operating it's head.
As an aside, consider that the Japanese are working on "artificial girlfriends" which I figure by the time of a Japanese space horror setting that technology is mastered.
I'm working on a one level module that will be simultaneously released with a Kaidan Core Rule book for Starfinder - Japanese Horror in space setting. That module will feature a resort luxury cruise liner starship owned by the yakuza, and rather than a traditional resort ship, it is a redlight district entertainment ship - Bunraku puppet theater, brothels, gambling casinos, a black market, an MMA arena other similar darker entertainments.
Rather than forcing player characters to engage with doll prostitutes, using pregen characters, one will be an investigator of some repute, and the on board magistrate will ask him and his party to investigate a double murder aboard the ship, that involves a doll prostitute as a witness.
As a prelude to the module, a wealthy woman, daughter of a physician has a suite in the onboard hotel of the resort ship. She is waiting on the arrival of her fiance, a young samurai business executive for one of the MegaCorps. When he arrives, however, he will scorn the woman and break the engagement, as while she is a physician's daughter, she is a member of the Commoner caste (Japanese social castes are maintained in the setting). His family won't allow him to marry a commoner, and his family has arranged his marriage into a more powerful samurai house, and he is now already engaged to a young samurai lady, daughter of his boss.
In a moment of anger and despair she picks up an iron stone vase and knocks it into his head, knocking him out, and she continues to beat his head, until it's smashed and he is dead. She quickly cleans herself in the shower, and leaves the crime scene. Needing company to console her, but not wanting to be with a man, nor someone who could reveal her crime, she seeks the company of a doll courtesan. And "engages" with her, revealing to the animatronic doll her crime. After which she finds a quiet area in the ship and hangs herself.
That is the double murder. The twist is from #1 in my post - touching the doll transfers the woman's sin into it. Now there is a doll courtesan touched with tragedy and murder and desires those men she engages with to be her husband. When they refuse, since they know she's a doll, will attempt to murder them. Rather than a direct confrontation, she will lead them to places and people that will do the murdering for her.
Part of the issue in trying to get the doll courtesan to reveal what she knows, is that it's standard practice to erase the short term memory of doll courtesans to protect their clients from unnecessary exposure. When the player characters come to interrogate her, she is in the process or erasure, which is stopped, but she only has some of the memories, and may insist in acting out the events with one of the PCs, to their astonishment to help her regain her memory. After the partial interrogation, they will retire to their rooms. The doll courtesan will appear at the door of one of the interrogators and asks they accompany her to the bath house, where she recalls being taken by the distraught woman. In reality, the bath house is haunted by a powerful ghost, that she is aware, and taking him there to actually lead to his murder by encountering the ghost, and the doll courtesan locks the door out of the bath house. She will attempt to separate party members over time in instances of danger she intends to put them through
That is the setup to the adventure.
I want to keep the adventure PG13, and not Rated R, but it's tight rope... thoughts?
I always hate that I cannot post images to this forum - one of best kind of content I do is maps, and I'm currently making the nine planets and moons of the Kaidan empire - already created the Kaidan homeworld, a tiny moon transformed into a viable world for the kappa, Wa - the water world of the setting home of shark shapechangers and merfolk, now I'm working on Jigoku, the oni homeworld.
Couldn't you just post images on a hosting site and link to them?
Couldn't you just post images on a hosting site and link to them?
I could point to my personal FaceBook page, but as I update it the maps will move down page, and not be effective for the future - I don't use any other web page or online docs program to host that kind of thing. So for the time being link to HERE
Jigoku, as mentioned above, is a mix gas giant with a terrestrial core, with ancient magi-tech keeping the gravity tolerable at terrestrial surface at about 1.5 Gs, though above the breathable atmosphere layer and 500 feet below the terrestrial surface, gravities exceed 50 Gs (squish). Oni starships are protected against the immense gravities put upon it, allowing the oni to escape the planet, though most starships are not designed to endure such pressures. Since "Jigoku" is literally the Japanese hell, this world features horrific anomalies, including violent and constant volcanic eruptions - the place of creation to the west, while the most biological viable lands is in a state of annihilation, as the land is drawn into the great maelstrom that destroys everything entering it.
The Kappa moon is a tiny swampy world, that was artificially made viable by the oni, using ancient gravity missiles that permanently applied a 1 G force on it's entirety. Then ice meteors were directed at it - all as a weapons proving ground, though it's melt water gives it life. The kappa are bio-engineered beings by the oni, using a lesser oni as it's base, and now serve as the Oni slave force for war, labors, and bio-experimentation.
Wa is a water world, home to the same-bito (shark shapechanger) and ningyo merfolk. It is almost 98% hydrosphere with only a few small islands, though the waters surrounding the islands are fairly shallow.
The Kaidan homeworld, tentatively called Kaidan is part of the Mirai star system (mirai means "dream" in Japanese). The capital has over 130,000,000 people living in it, as a modern, futuristic urban sprawl, though the country has tech, it's buried or otherwise hidden from view appearing as a more low tech feudal society.
Working on Obake, a world of shapechangers - hengeyokai and kitsune, on an Earth-like world with two continents that will be heavily forested and mountainous (working on those tomorrow), that is undergoing an Ice Age in it's northern hemisphere, though starting to recede.
Next I'm working on a tengu planet, they live in high mountain communities, because the gravity is intolerably heavy in the lowland areas. Tengu, unlike the other humanoid races of Kaidan are advanced technologically and have built cloud cities. I'll start that map once I'm finished with Obake.
Then I'll work on a jungle planet, homeworld of serpents and snake people (not naga).
And a rocky world with underground caverns, homeworld of Jurogumo, an arachnid species with a humanoid head on a spider body...
I will be getting back to Kaidan development soon - been doing illustration and page layout now for an Ultimate Vehicles (vehicle creation rules) supplement that should be out sometime next week. Also my Starship, Stations and Salvage Guide is the number one "other company" download product from the Paizo newsletter twice in a row! I am definitely using rules from that guide for the starships and stations that will be part of Kaidan as well. That's good news.
Got delayed doing a bunch of other Starfinder publications, mostly as illustration, maps and page layout work, but getting back to this project now.
I have an Artstation Gallery page showing all my maps, look at the Sci-Fi maps link to find some of the work for this project.