Café de Nuit

No worries, I understand. And as it is precisely for the Kaidan setting that I would want your input I can hardly fault you for being busy with that. And me I don't even manage to read all that stuff. Yet.

How easy would incorporating Kaidan into Ravenloft be iyo? Is there a suitable candidate for dark lordship in the land whose tragedy also influences the theme of the land?

There certainly is. If you look beyond the fact that Kaidan was designed as a uniform empire comprising of multiple provinces on many islands - in a way, each provincial lord (not to mention the emperor and shogun) is it's own domain lord. All are undead of some kind - ghost, vampire, wight, ghoul lord, etc. (the entire noble caste in Kaidan is undead through a divine curse that formed Kaidan some 722 years ago.)

The island of Yonshu (one of the three main islands of the archipelago) consists of four provinces, but one of the daimyos of those provinces is the martial overlord of the island - as the most powerful military ruler of the island. Lord Hachiwara is a dread wight and a necromancer who has created unique undead as his secret soldiers. He is the driving opposing force in the Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy (the intro adventure arc set in Kaidan) against the PCs.

Each provincial ruler shares a similar history and dark participation in the overall plot of the setting. The emperor is a ghost trapped in the ethereal body of a five year old, with the mental capacity of a five year old. The shogun is a grave knight or similar and the absolute ruler of the Empire - the most likely candidate for dark lord.

While Kaidan's intergral horror element is the reincarnation mechanic - for Ravenloft, you could hand-wave that aside and focus on the actions and histories of any given provincial lord and work it out as one of many domains of dread. I think it would be easier to alter these setting conditions, and bend Kaidan towards actually being a part of Ravenloft.

I'm sure there is tons more I can say, to help convince, but these are just some of what there is towards that goal.

More food for thought...

Consider that I based the founding of the Empire of Kaidan on a true event and real people from historical Japan. The emperor, the shogun, the imperial family and all the current daimyo of Kaidan were leading members of House Taira (the losing side in the Genpei War 1180 - 1185). The winning side is House Minamoto, the first ruling Shogun house in Japan. According to history, the final battle of the Genpei War, the Battle of Dan-no-ura (April 25, 1185) was a naval engagement. A traitor on the Taira side revealed to the leadership of the Minamoto, which particular ship held the imperial family, so many ships exclusively focused there attacks on that one shop - virtually killing all on deck. The imperial family - Emperor Antoku, his mother, grandmother and remaining family decided it was better to die drowning in the sea than to be captured by the Minamoto forces. So the entire imperial family leapt into the sea and committed mass suicide.

My bit of fiction was to decide that as Antoku's grandmother carried the young emperor in her arms just prior to their deaths utterred a divine curse - cursing Japan, the Minamoto clan, the Great Wheel, and demanding that if the world had any justice, Antoku and her family would rule the empire for eternity.

Looking from a dark fantasy point of view - what if the dark powers (or some other powerful evil entity) witnessed the utterance of a divine curse, consummated with the suicide of an entire imperial house. What better material is there to form the basis for a dark and evil curse?

So those who jumped ship into the sea, were 'rescued' and brought back to ship, however since those 'rescued' actually died, they have not been rescued to Japan, rather to Kaidan - which was created to house the cursed imperials and their supporters. Thus Kaidan was born.

No doubt, the Shogun, Lord Taira no Kiyomori is most likely the overall domain ruler of Kaidan, the empire, while the rest of his family, including Antoku the emperor are really just victims caught within the cursed state that is Kaidan.

In the end, it must be stated that when I decided to design a horror setting as my own IP, in no way could I duplicate mechanics or concept from Ravenloft without using it's IP - something that I cannot do, without threats of law suits. So the way Kaidan is built is really nothing like Ravenloft. There are no 'Dark Powers', there are 17 domains, each ruled by an undead aristocrat, under the control of a Shogun. Each can be defined as domain rulers, or can be defined as lieutenants of a greater domain ruler. While one can impose 'powers checks' to force PCs to become trapped in the setting. The way Kaidan works, anyone even the most lawful good PC, who'd never think to perform an act that would require a powers check, need only die to become trapped in Kaidan's reincarnation cycle. It's the cycle that makes Kaidan so dark.

I finally got my first review for my Haiku of Horror release! 10/10 rating by Roleplayer's Chronicle.

I desperately needed some feedback to see if I had chosen the right kind of product to create - this is a great start!

I'm dancin'!

I just created a Google+ community for fans of Kaidan, the setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG).

Please join and post if you have a Google+ account, or help spread the word! I will post regular updates on our progress, new releases, posted reviews and more.

Kaidan Google Plus Community

Roleplayer's Chronicle reviewer/interviewer John Rust did a Word in Edgewise interview: with Michael Tumey of Rite Publishing (me) discussing my background, my work with Rite Publishing, my development of the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror and more - check it out!

According to John Rust, this article has been posted to Zite.com News, in the RPG section - cool stuff!

This is my second online interview, the first back in Oct 2009, done by Steve Russell of Rite Publishing.

I know Paranoia, what's HOL?

You might want to edit the "lesser designer" to less prolific or less disciplined or less experienced perhaps.

Will there ever be a Kaidan novel?

How about a little Coliseum Morpheon/Kaidan crossover? Maybe in the Faces of the Tarnished Sukh line?

The Giamarga wrote:I know Paranoia, what's HOL?

Human Occupied Landfill - this was a White Wolf product under the Black Dog label, a spoof of a super hero games and all RPGs, where PCs at char-gen sentenced to the planet HOL, with goofy powers, factions, etc.

The Giamarga wrote:Will there ever be a Kaidan novel?

We're currently looking at the possibility of a Kaidan short story anthology, like was done for Coliseum, but that product didn't sell well, so Steve Russell is still up in the air on that possibility.

The Giamarga wrote:How about a little Coliseum Morpheon/Kaidan crossover? Maybe in the Faces of the Tarnished Sukh line?

In a way, Haiku of Horror uses some conceps from Faces of the Tarnished Souk, with varying CR NPC/monster encounters.

There's a 40% off sale for Kaidan products at DrivethruRPG/RPGNow going on until July 1st - don't miss out!

Kaidan products page on DrivethruRPG