Japanese Sword and Sorcery

That would depend on what the old Japanese viewpoint on sorcery and magic users was, which I'm not really familiar with.

Actually it doesn't, beyond being set in the same world. I went with a different hero(ine) for this one.

While I have a lot of Shintaro Oba stories plotted out, I also think the Mu-Thulan setting would lend itself to alot of different characters. I keep thinking how Robert E Howard could have really fleshed out the Hyborian Age by doing more stories like 'Wolves Across the Border' where the only appearance of Conan is a mention of him as King of Aquilonia.

In a related vein, I've been thinking of re-inventing the Shinsengumi as an organization of witch hunters in Mu-hulan. The historical Shinsengumi were a secret police force used by the Shogun to combat foreign influences in Japan. They were made up of ronin and quite fanatical in their loyalty to the Tai Kun. In this setting, they would be opposing sorcerers and witches rather than foreigners and maybe acting as the Shogun's counterpoint to the Onmyoji who serve the Emperor. Any thoughts on this idea? Or are witch hunters in an Oriental setting too odd a fit?

Wait, does this one have anything to do with Oba?

Just finished 'Foxfire' and sent it off to (hopefully) a warm reception at Sword and Sorceress 24. Yes, that means I have done a talking fox in a story now.

Well, I don't think koi or octopi have ever been said to shape-shift though. I'll probably just stick to the ones that feature in Japanese myths to avoid having too many animals doing this kind of thing. Otherwise I end up with an Oriental Narnia.

Go with something non-traditional, for sure. River otters and badgers are good ideas, you rarely see those guys used in any kind of fiction. Or, try a hand at aquatic creatures like octopi, puffer fish or koi, those are all big in Japanese culture and haven't been played around with at all.

Well, other prominent animals of this sort in Japanese mythology are river otters, badgers, cats and to lesser degrees snakes and wolves. Really not big on doing the wolves and snakes though and I have something different in mind for cats (as in they are predisposed to demonic possession if they get too old, a reason cats make such good familiars for witches and sorcerers).

I'd love to see some shapeshifting intelligent animals, but that's just me.

Anybody have any opinions on how prominent I should do shapeshifting animals? As big a part as the kitsune (fox) and tanuki (racoon-dog) play in the folklore, I know I'll be using them at the very least. Any opinion as to how far I should take the intelligent magical animal thing? Obviously, I'll be going the skaven route with them - they're intelligent, but it isn't a human sort of intelligence.

Congrats on another successful outing. I hope you manage to build up a solid world around the Oba character and the Japanese sword-and-sorcery.

I doubt that the piece I'm currently working on would fit for the Demons, but I'll probably submit it anyways just for shits and giggles.

Well, looks like Oba is going to make it into Demons, even with a foul-mouthed oni along for the ride.

Finished 'Bodyguard of the Dead' last night - I hope everybody else who aspires to be an author has gotten their stories ready to send for Demons!

Hey, any of you rats know anybody who's good at drawing maps?

I'm currently working on 'Bodyguard of the Dead' for Rogue Blades which will introduce the character of Kambei Tsukamoto, the sokushinbutsu as well as the brutal Ushitora, one of the oni plaguing Mu-Thulan.

Anyway, in developing Kambei's character I did alot of thinking about how the transformation from man to mummy would work. I've decided that the physical preseravtion aspect resulting from the slow poisoning and deprivation is secondary to the spiritual aspect, in this instance karma. The monk wishing to become sokushinbutsu must have an absolute perfect balance of karma: too good to enter hell and too wicked to enter heaven. Because of this 'flatline karma' the monk's spirit is able to remain ensconced within his mummified body. Once the transformation is complete, however, the sokushinbutsu no longer has to worry about its karma. It can therefore go out and use its new, powerful nature to aid humanity by invoking powerful blessings, breaking curses, banishing demons and exorcising ghosts. While most sokushinbutsu remain in seclusion within monasteries, a few of them do wander the countryside as these nomadic holy men, walking relics whose very presence in a village or town is regarded with religious awe.

Now, of course, being freed from the restrictions of karma, a sokushinbutsu could just as easily turn to evil as good. In the long history of the practice, there has been only one mummy that used its new state for evil. I haven't come up with his name as yet, but his title is the Ghost-Master. This is an exceedingly ancient sokushinbutsu who used his undead state to become a master of necromancy and the black arts. It raised an army of ghosts to lay waste to Mu-Thulan, stopped only by a cataclsymic battle when the nine Dragons were summoned and set against the spectral army. The very landscape of the continent was reshaped, with the area invaded by the ghosts broken and submerged, becoming the Haunted Sea beneath which lies the Drowned Kingdom. Some areas of the Ghost-Master's realm survived the cataclysm, enduring as a string of lifeless islands scattered just beyond the Haunted Sea. These are places infested with the undead and it is here that the Ghost-Master holds its silent court. Because, in a way, it won the war. The Ghost-Master did not attack out of need for conquest. It desired to sow fear in the souls of men, because from fear it draws power. Now, centuries later, the Ghost-Master is still a being that evokes terror, a grim legend known to every man. That terror feeds the Ghost-Master.

The Ghost-Master is also the source of vampires. Sometimes men desperate to stave off the approach of death will seek a terrible means of achieving immortality. By journeying to the Ghost-Master's realm and braving its horrors, these men can sometimes appeal to the fallen sokushinbutsu. If the Ghost-Master finds them worthy, or simply amusing, it will allow them to drink its poisonous blood. Any mortal who sips the blood of the Ghost-Master becomes a vampire of awful power. Most are driven mad by the experience and lurk in the barrens of the islands waiting to prey upon any intruders. A few, however, escape the experience with their intellects intact if not their morality. These vampires are the ones that return to Mu-Thulan and spread the curse with their own polluted blood, creating vampiric minions to do their bidding. Of these, the most sinister is the princely ruler of the Forsaken Kingdom, a cursed land that is almost like a Japanese Transylvania. His line doomed to extinction by a priest's curse, the prince sought the immortality of vampirism to prevent his family from dying out and in so doing brought the curse of the gods themselves upon his entire kingdom.

Yes, that means I'm thinking in terms of both a Nagash type character and a Dracula analog as entities in the background and landscape of this setting.

A new anthology open submission from Rogue Blades: http://www.roguebladesentertainment.com/

And, yes, I'm going to try and get a Shintaro Oba story into this one too.