Other point is if a "jianghu" D&D setting should add something like the "spirit-realm", a transitive plane like the Shadowfell or the Feywild, but with its own style. The spirit realm or spirit world can't be only an astral domain or a reskin of the Feywild.
I mean if we're talking about wuxia, specifically, the closest you get are the various heavens and hells. The heavens are also where you'd find the Celestial Bureaucracy and the infrastructure of gods and spirits that run the natural world.
With the right design the hengeyokai could be a popular PC specie because the "kemonomimi" (= animal-ears) are very loved in the manganime fiction, but we should remember in the design the ears shouldn't be on the top of the head because the ear canal can't be too vertical.(L-shape or diagonal maybe?)
Ok so we're no longer talking specifically about wuxia since we've switched to Japanese terminology.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I would rather the term "jianghu" ( = rivers and lakes) becuase this is more focused toward the setting while "wuxia" (= errant knight) is more about the "superhero" who saves the day.
You may like it or not but at the moment Japan has got the strongest "soft power"( I mean thanks manga+anime it has got a stronger cultural influence in other societies). Manghua (from China) and manhwa (from Korea) are starting to be known better thanks internet and webcomics. You can blame nobody if most of players would rather to user Japanese franchises as sources of inspiration for their homemade settings. Japan arrived before to Western audiences.
I love that youtube channel "Alan Walker saved my life", with AMVs using spectacular CGI dónghuà (Chinese animation). But the martial artists/cultivators from those videos are too powerful for D&D standars. I stopped watching Dragon Ball when Pikolo appeared and then the fighters were too OP for my taste. Al least Superman told more plot with fewer pages.
My opinion about fantasy dónghuà is this is too humanocentrist for my own D&D preferences, I miss other fantasy races/species. And I say the same about a lot of isekai titles. A D&D group with only humans is like if they were wearing the same clothing. One of the main elements of D&D game spirit is about how so different people from diverse origins learn to cooperate and work together.
Other point about fiction as source of inspiration is most of times the plot is about only two opposite factions, and then when the big bad guy is defeated then the kingdom becomes very peaceful.... and boring for OP heroes. Here we can see the difference with the worldbuilding for MMOs where the PCs have to face different enemy factions and there are "parallel plots".
I don't like planar cosmology with only "outer planes" (celestial and infernal ones) but I want something could be explored by PCs closer to the Feywild or the Shadowfell. "I don't want to go again to that place I have visited several times". I would rather to imagine the "Spirit Realm" like a second layer or a demiplane within the astral sea. The difference with the Feywild is the Spirit Realm is more "impregnated" with psionic/chi/ki/spiritual force&incarnum and elemental/primal forces than positive energy. We always need to explore and discover a new thing. Other option is the spirit realm to be a mixture of a astral sea and mirror plane because a cosmic power "borrowed" things from both to create a demiplane. And I would like to imagine the korobokur were living in the spirit realm in the past, maybe infiltrated as "okupas" but because it was their last opportunity to survive after a serious natural disaster.
* A thing I love about the background of the vanara PC specie is you can play the role of unintentionally rude foreigner. They come from a society where the rules of courtesy and good manners may be different, and then when they try to be friendly, kind and polite but they are rude for the eyes of the natives because he doesn't understand the reason their actions or words may be offensive (They are not used to such informal treatment with strangers, get straight to the point when dealing with a matter, question the boss's authority or to be too close other's personal space, for example).. This could be useful to tell tales about the importance of the social skills to resolve (or avoid) conflicts. Some times the right answer is to explain the reason about why something is unpolite or offensive. But this doesn't mean vanaras can't play different types of behavior or personality. They shouldn't be typecasted into certain tropes.
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I mean if we're talking about wuxia, specifically, the closest you get are the various heavens and hells. The heavens are also where you'd find the Celestial Bureaucracy and the infrastructure of gods and spirits that run the natural world.
Ok so we're no longer talking specifically about wuxia since we've switched to Japanese terminology.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I would rather the term "jianghu" ( = rivers and lakes) becuase this is more focused toward the setting while "wuxia" (= errant knight) is more about the "superhero" who saves the day.
You may like it or not but at the moment Japan has got the strongest "soft power"( I mean thanks manga+anime it has got a stronger cultural influence in other societies). Manghua (from China) and manhwa (from Korea) are starting to be known better thanks internet and webcomics. You can blame nobody if most of players would rather to user Japanese franchises as sources of inspiration for their homemade settings. Japan arrived before to Western audiences.
I love that youtube channel "Alan Walker saved my life", with AMVs using spectacular CGI dónghuà (Chinese animation). But the martial artists/cultivators from those videos are too powerful for D&D standars. I stopped watching Dragon Ball when Pikolo appeared and then the fighters were too OP for my taste. Al least Superman told more plot with fewer pages.
My opinion about fantasy dónghuà is this is too humanocentrist for my own D&D preferences, I miss other fantasy races/species. And I say the same about a lot of isekai titles. A D&D group with only humans is like if they were wearing the same clothing. One of the main elements of D&D game spirit is about how so different people from diverse origins learn to cooperate and work together.
Other point about fiction as source of inspiration is most of times the plot is about only two opposite factions, and then when the big bad guy is defeated then the kingdom becomes very peaceful.... and boring for OP heroes. Here we can see the difference with the worldbuilding for MMOs where the PCs have to face different enemy factions and there are "parallel plots".
I don't like planar cosmology with only "outer planes" (celestial and infernal ones) but I want something could be explored by PCs closer to the Feywild or the Shadowfell. "I don't want to go again to that place I have visited several times". I would rather to imagine the "Spirit Realm" like a second layer or a demiplane within the astral sea. The difference with the Feywild is the Spirit Realm is more "impregnated" with psionic/chi/ki/spiritual force&incarnum and elemental/primal forces than positive energy. We always need to explore and discover a new thing. Other option is the spirit realm to be a mixture of a astral sea and mirror plane because a cosmic power "borrowed" things from both to create a demiplane. And I would like to imagine the korobokur were living in the spirit realm in the past, maybe infiltrated as "okupas" but because it was their last opportunity to survive after a serious natural disaster.
* A thing I love about the background of the vanara PC specie is you can play the role of unintentionally rude foreigner. They come from a society where the rules of courtesy and good manners may be different, and then when they try to be friendly, kind and polite but they are rude for the eyes of the natives because he doesn't understand the reason their actions or words may be offensive (They are not used to such informal treatment with strangers, get straight to the point when dealing with a matter, question the boss's authority or to be too close other's personal space, for example).. This could be useful to tell tales about the importance of the social skills to resolve (or avoid) conflicts. Some times the right answer is to explain the reason about why something is unpolite or offensive. But this doesn't mean vanaras can't play different types of behavior or personality. They shouldn't be typecasted into certain tropes.