Author Topic: Koreanizing the Dresden Files  (Read 7959 times)

Offline lokisdottir

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Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« on: January 26, 2010, 08:22:36 AM »
The discussion in the DF Adventures thread drifted a bit into localizing the Dresden Files for South Korea. Some thoughts on that...

The supernatural heavyweights

Since it appears the powers of supernatural beings are affected by mortal beliefs, a Korean adventure will probably be lighter on the Sidhe and deal with a lot more ghosts/specters/shades. The country's old shamanistic tradition emphasizes the role of the dead, with shamans (ectomancers in Council terms) enlisting the help of their helper spirits for clairvoyance and luck for their clients. Confucianism is another old tradition in which ancestor worship is the primary religious element.

Other traditional supernaturals include dokkebi (shapeshifting spirits who arise from a place or old object like a broom or a tree), mountain/forest spirits who may be in the form of bearded old men or tigers, Taoist lords of the heavens and the underworld, and the "god-beasts" of the elements and the directions including dragon for the East, white tiger for the West and so on.

All of these elements could be given a more modern twist, for instance a resident forest spirit fighting against the razing of his hill for a new apartment complex. A tiger showing up to wreck the proceedings will be a matter of great consternation for the city and the contractors, especially since tigers are extinct in the wild in Korea.

The western mythologies have definitely made inroads, of which the White God is especially prominent given the huge numbers of Christians (both Protestant and Catholic, though Protestantism has more adherents) in the country. A minister, priest, or nun could definitely be an ally (or foe) in any supernatural adventure.

Also there's plenty of more modern beliefs to draw from like 동학/천도교 and the Heavenly Mother (하나님의교회 세계복음선교협회) wackos.

And never forget the Moonies when you're talking wacko. Korea is home to so many minor religions, and some were not some minor--the 동학 or Heavenly Way believers actually started a rebellion. All these religions are great fodder for conspiracies, adventures, and new supernatural weirdness.

The long reach of a long history

Another way a Korean-centered urban adventure is different is that the dominant culture in the country has a history of more than two centuries with the land--a lot, lot more. One of the recent popular dramas, Queen Seon-duk (선덕여왕), was about a queen who ruled almost 1500 years ago. It may be the year 2010 in the Gregorian calendar, but it's the year 4343 by the Dankun calendar, Dankun being (we are told) the son of a heavenly lord (환웅) and Bear-Woman (웅녀) who founded the first nation on the peninsula. (The lord from heaven was probably a member of a Bronze Age culture who married into a local bear-totem tribe, but who knows.)

That long history, the earliest events so long ago that history is indistinguishable from legend, is a gold mine for supernatural adventures. For example: Maybe Bear-Woman was the progenitor of a long line of powerful shamans, mother to daughter, and her latest descendent is... the teenaged daughter of a U.S. serviceman? Or: Pillars of water were seen rising from the Kingsrock (대왕암) or Water Grave (수중릉), final resting place of king Munmu, the monarch who united the Three Koreas in the seventh century. (And you thought the current Two Koreas situation was bad...) Munmu had asked to have his ashes buried there specifically so he could become a dragon and defend the land from Japanese marauders. Is something up with Japan? Are the pillars signs sent by the ancient dragon? And so on.

Korea's more recent cluster@#$! of a history has a lot of good stuff, too:

Quote from: Bosh
I especially want to learn a bit more about Korean Geomancy, especially after reading an historical article about how after their occupation of Korea the Japanese drove iron spikes into several Korean mountains to screw with Korean geomantic energies. Having people be able to do things like that to alter geomantic energies would be a great source of plot hooks and a good reason to get people to travel to strange locations.

Yup. In fact, a Korean modern fantasy/horror novel series called 퇴마록 (The Record of Banishing Evil, to provide a clumsy translation) capitalized on that tidbit when it had a KIA (Korean Intelligence Agency) agent tasking the protagonists with finding the spikes. That's just the kind of thing a geomancer would be good at, and could result in a lot of great adventures, a lot of them far from civilization. Also, the Korean War, the decades under military dictators, and the current standoff with North Korea are all sources of enough suffering and fear to pack whole campaigns with. Heck, if the Denarians or the Black Circle want to do a lot of damage worldwide they might find it worth their while to tamper with the North-South situation.

That's all I have time to write for now, but yeah, there's a lot of great stuff out there for supernatural adventures in Korea. Just how different to make a Korean adventure from a Euro-American adventure really is a matter of taste, but there's a whole lot to draw from if desired. The same probably goes for any location or culture, really. An adventure with a Native American bent, for example, would probably look very different from the original Dresden Files even if it took place in or near Chicago. But in the end it's all relatable, and all fun--people are people, no matter where you go or where you come from.
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Offline Ihadris

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2010, 02:10:21 PM »
Wow flash backs to my Religious Traditions of East Asia module in first year. A few character ideas sprung to mind whilst reading through that-

-Dakun's family lines sounds like a fantastic chance for a Were-bear

-True Beleivers for Confucianism? Was it the Moist view that human nature was basically good and that with the right education everyone could better themsevles? Sounds like a teacher with a steadfast faith in something greater than themsevles to me. Perhaps they could help out with the kids that get miseld by your vampire child in your campaign?

Offline Bosh

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2010, 03:01:19 AM »
Long post is long…

My knowledge of Korean folklore isn't too strong, but I've got a pretty good handle on Seoul itself (I live here dammit ;) ). I'm looking forward to learning a bit more about Korean folklore on this thread (any good reading suggestions lokisdottir?)...

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Since it appears the powers of supernatural beings are affected by mortal beliefs, a Korean adventure will probably be lighter on the Sidhe and deal with a lot more ghosts/specters/shades. The country's old shamanistic tradition emphasizes the role of the dead, with shamans (ectomancers in Council terms) enlisting the help of their helper spirits for clairvoyance and luck for their clients. Confucianism is another old tradition in which ancestor worship is the primary religious element.

Right, in Dresden terms lots and lots of Ectomancers. Korean's shamanistic traditions are similar enough to Siberian ones that you could transplant some bits of Siberian (ore even Sami/Lapp) folklore related to shamans pretty seamlessly. There’s also a lot of interesting ways of dealing with ghosts (such as putting up a colander so it’ll get distracted counting the holes).

Also, when it comes to ghost-based supernatural there's a lot of modern pop culture and cinema to draw on such as A Tale of Two Sisters (장화, 홍련). Sumi would make a great NPC.

For Fae you do have 도깨비 (Doggaebi/dokkebi) which you already mentioned and which fit a lot of European fae archetypes pretty well. Nothing fae-like I can think of besides them unless you count the shape-shifting foxes.

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mountain/forest spirits who may be in the form of bearded old men or tigers, Taoist lords of the heavens and the underworld, and the "god-beasts" of the elements and the directions including dragon for the East, white tiger for the West and so on.

Don’t know much about these. I know a bit about Chinese Taoism, but not about what form it took in Korea.

Probably having beings/organizations relating to the four directions would be a good substitute for the role of the conflict between the Summer and Winter courts in Dresden.

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The western mythologies have definitely made inroads, of which the White God is especially prominent given the huge numbers of Christians (both Protestant and Catholic, though Protestantism has more adherents) in the country. A minister, priest, or nun could definitely be an ally (or foe) in any supernatural adventure.

Korean Christians can be quite aggressive against non-Christian forms of religion. Some of them hold protest marches on Buddha’s birthday holding signs that Buddha is burning in hell, etc. They also had a big burning of Korans after a Korean soldier was beheaded in Iraq which (thankfully) never seemed to hit the international media. I would probably portray a lot of churches being a lot less willing to cooperate with someone like Harry than the local Catholics in the Dresden Files books.

Korea has a higher percentage of Christians than any Asian country besides the Philippines. The Protestants tend to be a bit more educated and urban and have been a real force in the reigning South Korean establishment since the founding of the country (universities founded by Protestant missionaries have been very popular in Korea since they were the only alternative to dealing with the Japanese system during occupation so a lot of the elite were Protestant-educated and sympathetic to Protestantism even if not Protestant themselves). Catholics tend to be a bit poorer and more rural than the Protestants and were much more sympathetic to the pro-Democracy movement during the military dictatorship.

There are a number of strange homebrewed versions of Christianity of which the Moonies are the most famous. They can get pretty creepy.

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That long history, the earliest events so long ago that history is indistinguishable from legend, is a gold mine for supernatural adventures. For example: Maybe Bear-Woman was the progenitor of a long line of powerful shamans, mother to daughter, and her latest descendent is... the teenaged daughter of a U.S. serviceman? Or: Pillars of water were seen rising from the Kingsrock (대왕암) or Water Grave (수중릉), final resting place of king Munmu, the monarch who united the Three Koreas in the seventh century. (And you thought the current Two Koreas situation was bad...) Munmu had asked to have his ashes buried there specifically so he could become a dragon and defend the land from Japanese marauders. Is something up with Japan? Are the pillars signs sent by the ancient dragon? And so on.

At good stuff. There’s a lot of reminders of history around but it isn’t as visible as in Europe since Korea traditionally built with wood instead of stone. There’s also a lot of interesting local myths like on the east coast in southern Kangwon there is a place with hundreds and hundreds of giant carved penises (they’re still making them and trying to turn it into a tourist attraction) since a long time ago a woman was engaged to a local fisherman and always stood out on a rock to watch him come home, so when there was a big storm both of them drowned. Then she came back as a ghost that was damn angry that it had died a virgin.

That also reminds me that with Korean last names there’s separate lineages for most Korean family names. You could attach supernatural significance to some of the lineages. For example my wife’s family name (허) is composed of seven different lineages/clans.

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capitalized on that tidbit when it had a KIA (Korean Intelligence Agency) agent tasking the protagonists with finding the spikes.

I would love to hear more about this, sounds like great adventure fodder.

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True Beleivers for Confucianism? Was it the Moist view that human nature was basically good and that with the right education everyone could better themsevles? Sounds like a teacher with a steadfast faith in something greater than themsevles to me.

The Mohists are a very interesting bunch but they were VERY anti-Confucian (there’s a great passage that is nothing but spittle-flecked ravings on how degenerate Confucians are) and I don’t think they ever got to Korea.

As for Confucianism, it was probably stronger in Korea than anywhere (arguably even China) in its heyday and is still a very strong influence in the culture but since studying Confucian texts was the job of the elite and the old elite has been displaced there is almost nothing left (aside from a few schools) of organized Confucianism.

Another thing that works well for Korea is you can get out from under Western stereotypes about China and Japan while still being able to introduce plenty of Chinese and Japanese things without ninjas and whatnot taking over the whole setting

For Koreanized Dresden I think what’s just as important as the specific supernatural critters is the overall feel. A lot of Western Urban Fantasy, like I said in the other thread, seems to be set amidst Detroit-style urban decay, with a lot of the supernatural critters representing various aspects of urban decay. For example in Dresden it often feels like the city is coming apart at the seams.

That whole vibe doesn’t fit in Seoul at all so a different feeling is really called for. In Urban Fantasy the bad guys generally feed off of or represent various social problems/the, so I’d probably go with:

-The dysfunctional education system. Anyone who’s taught both elementary-age and middle school-age Korean kids can see a real start difference. The elementary school kids are full of energy while the middle school ones often look like zombies that have had all the life sucked out of them. I had one 7th grader in a history class I taught who came down with an ulcer. Not so much the kidnapping of children that you hear about a good bit in the Dresden books (which feeds into more American fears, although there have been a series of gruesome murder/kidnappings in the news) but the using and feeding off of children.

-The massive power of the Chaebol conglomerates: Great conspiracy fodder there. Especially how much they’ve married each other that the big Chaebol families are half-way into turning into a caste. Arrogant members of the Chaebol founding families with a thousand connections who dabble in What Humans Should Not Do are perfect villains.

-Alienation: even in one of the biggest cities in the world you get a lot of lonely people. Koreans tend to be a lot closer to their old school/army buddies and there’s a lot of forced socialization at work but if they don’t like being forced to do shots with your boss and you don’t have a circle of old school and army buddies a lot of Koreans end up pretty damn lonely since a lot of the avenues by which Americans meet new people don’t really exist so much here (for example in most Korean bars it is very unusual to EVER talk to anyone except the people you came with). People living cramped little lives with a crappy job and living in a kosiwon (tiny rent-a-dorm rooms) would be stock NPCs.

-Foreign workers getting screwed over: the Thai/Pakistani/Iranian/Cambodian/Philippino/Chinese/Indonesian etc. people working in a lot of the factories around Seoul (Suwon, Anyang, etc.) tend to get screwed over pretty hard and are not integrated into Korean society at all.

-Incompetent cops: in every Korean movie I’ve ever seen the cops have been bumbling fools at best. A lot of that is just the movies, but the local cops really abused their power under the dictatorship and they got a lot of their muscle taken away in the 90’s. They really don’t have enough power to do anything like keep a lid on supernatural issues.

-Korea has some of the best internet infrastructure in the world and there are Cyber Cafes EVERYWHERE. I’d probably have a lot more net-based plotlines than Dresden has (which puts wizards at a severe disadvantage). With the prevalence of the internet I think that the creepy crawlies couldn’t hope to keep information about them off the internet, so their best bet would be to counter information about them on the web with vast floods of misinformation rather than ignoring it or trying to shut it down. That means websites that have videos posted of real vampire attacks, but also hundreds of faked videos as well. Its up to the PCs to figure out which is which…

-The city never sleeps. There’s waaaaay more people up an about on random weekdays at 3 AM than in any American city. This militates against “everyone around here knows better to go out at night” plotlines. Of course there’s plenty of creepy crawlies to do when the night is full of people…

Generally more of a feeling of “human culture and its leaders are being corrupted from within and changing into something that is very wrong even as it keeps the cheery mask screwed on tight” than “humans are herd animals being fed on by predators and the predation is ripping human society apart” that you get a lot in Dresden.

Offline tonpa

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2010, 05:39:27 AM »
Extremely inspiring reading, thank you guys for sharing!

Could you think to materialize a pdf Dresden add-on for Korean mystical background? Would be nice for globetrotting campaign background to have few places to focus, maybe something like Seoul - San Francisco - Baltimore - München - (Some tiny tiny place in Finland :D )... One can hope. :)

Thanks again

Cheers

-Tonpa

Offline Bosh

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2010, 07:46:03 AM »
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Could you think to materialize a pdf Dresden add-on for Korean mystical background? Would be nice for globetrotting campaign background to have few places to focus, maybe something like Seoul - San Francisco - Baltimore - München - (Some tiny tiny place in Finland  )... One can hope.
I'm sure we can slap something together, I could post my campaign notes at least when summer comes.

Basically to better express what I meant at the end of the last post, Seoul gives me more of a:

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I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables — slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact.
vibe

and less of a:

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“Last year in the U.S. alone more than nine hundred thousand people were reported missing and not found. You can check with the FBI. That’s out of about three hundred million, total population. That breaks down to about one person in three hundred and twenty-five vanishing. Every year. Maybe it’s a coincidence but it’s almost the same loss ratio experienced by herd animals on the African savanna to large predators.”
vibe

But with no fight clubs ;) and with not much in the way of a counter-culture, just a lot of quiet neurotic desperation in which dark things lurk...

Offline lokisdottir

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2010, 09:17:24 AM »
I'm looking forward to learning a bit more about Korean folklore on this thread (any good reading suggestions lokisdottir?)...

I can't think of anything in English, since my knowledge of Korea comes sort of "through the pores" as a native Korean. I did notice a book called "Korean Tales" by Horace Newton Allen on the kyobobook.co.kr site, but I can't recommend it without having seen it. It might be a good resource for covering the bases.

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Right, in Dresden terms lots and lots of Ectomancers. Korean's shamanistic traditions are similar enough to Siberian ones that you could transplant some bits of Siberian (ore even Sami/Lapp) folklore related to shamans pretty seamlessly.

Yeah, language seems to indicate a Ural-Altaic origin, implying some kinship with such groups as Mongolians and Finnish. The Koreans' Northern origins are something that could definitely be useful for constructing playable myths.

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Probably having beings/organizations relating to the four directions would be a good substitute for the role of the conflict between the Summer and Winter courts in Dresden.

That's a fascinating thought, because there's a whole system of symbolism and elemental harmony/antagonism between the five directions and five elements.

The five directions: North, East, South, West, and Center.

The five elements: Water, Wood, Fire, Metal, and Earth. (In corresponding order.)

The seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Changes (the in-betweens).

Yin/Yang: Strong yin, yang, strong yang, yin, and balance.

The five colors and beasts: "Black Tortoise," Blue Dragon, "Red Phoenix," White Tiger, Yellow Dragon.

("Tortoise" and "Phoenix" are equivalents, but not the same. Even the dragon is quite different from the European conception. See here for pictures, which are in order of "Phoenix," Tiger, Blue Dragon, and "Turtle.")

The elemental harmonies: Wood creates Fire, Fire creates Earth, Earth creates Metal, Metal creates Water, and Water creates Wood.

The elemental antagonism: Wood digs up Earth, Earth blocks Water, Water puts out Fire, Fire melts Metal, and Metal cuts Wood.

...All of which can make for a pretty complex system of alliances and enmities. Or, for simplicity's sake you can simply equate South and East (yang) with Summer and North and West (yin) with Winter, with the Center as neutral arbiter or just non-existent. Mortals could gain a god-beast as an ally, rather like being a Knight of Summer or Winter. (Riders of the god-beasts, perhaps?) There was an entire graphic novel series (later adapted as a musical and TV drama) that revolved around this concept, called 바람의 나라 (Land of Winds), with the king protected by the Blue Dragon while his son was backed by the Red Phoenix and so on.

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That also reminds me that with Korean last names there’s separate lineages for most Korean family names. You could attach supernatural significance to some of the lineages. For example my wife’s family name (허) is composed of seven different lineages/clans.

Korean genealogy, at least paternal genealogy, is pretty crazy. I can look in a book and find out all about my famous paternal ancestors, going back a thousand years. That in itself is pretty good fodder for adventures based on history.

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I would love to hear more about this, sounds like great adventure fodder.

It's been a long time since I read 퇴마록, so my memory is very fuzzy. I think some of the related adventures takes place in 퇴마록 혼세편. There's a blog where the original internet serial is reproduced. Do a text search there for 말뚝.

Other stuff I've read on the subject: One rationale behind the iron spikes was that Koreans during the Japanese occupation were holding out hope that Korea's feng shui (Korean pronunciation pung-soo, literally "wind and water") would give rise to the birth of heroes who would liberate the country. Messing with the flow of the land's energy was an attempt to prevent this from happening.

If feng shui is related to heroic births, you could very well have an adventure with competing factions trying to prevent or fulfill some specific birth by way of geomancy. There's also the fact that Koreans may be doing a swell job of messing with the land themselves. Someone could realize that all those apartments and buildings are being put up in points where they cut off all the land energy. Instant adventure!

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That whole vibe doesn’t fit in Seoul at all so a different feeling is really called for.

I think you've got the feel down really well. What it comes down to is the general atmosphere of oppression and menace, and a system that is so wrong yet so integral that any fundamental change is going to be difficult, painful, and fatal for many. Combine that with...

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-The massive power of the Chaebol conglomerates

...and the villain's rant practically writes itself. "You fools! The people you're fighting for don't WANT to be free of us. They want someone to tell them what to do. They want to place their decisions, their lives, in the hands of an all-controlling social system. Go on, get rid of me. Watch the untold confusion and misery you will have caused. And then...(smirk)...watch someone just like me take my place. You're not fighting me--you're trying to fight Korea."

Is s/he right? What choice will the PCs make? *cackles* In some ways it's a very similar choice to the one Harry faced in Grave Peril, but with different emphases and nuances.

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Generally more of a feeling of “human culture and its leaders are being corrupted from within and changing into something that is very wrong even as it keeps the cheery mask screwed on tight” than “humans are herd animals being fed on by predators and the predation is ripping human society apart” that you get a lot in Dresden.

Very much so. That systematic failure is something that was implied in a lot of the DF books, but can be explored with much more clarity in a Seoul campaign, IMO.

I'm sure we can slap something together, I could post my campaign notes at least when summer comes.

Sounds good. I can put up some preliminary notes as I write my way through the thought process. I'm just not sure where to place the notes. Here, maybe?
« Last Edit: January 29, 2010, 09:19:29 AM by lokisdottir »
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Offline lokisdottir

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2010, 09:41:21 AM »
-Dakun's family lines sounds like a fantastic chance for a Were-bear

You could even have a were-tiger from the same mythology. Here's the tale of Bear-Woman in full...


A bear and a tiger lived in the same cave and prayed to Hwan-Ung (환웅, the son of heaven) to be human. Hwan-Ung gave the two a bag of magical mugwort and twenty cloves of garlic, saying, "If you eat these and see no sunlight for a hundred days, you shall become human." The bear and tiger ate these things. The bear prayed for twenty-one days and changed into a woman, while the tiger was unable to complete the ritual and failed.

The bear maid had no one to marry, so she prayed daily before the Holy Birch Tree to have a child. Hwan-Ung briefly took human form to marry her and they had a son, Dankun ("Birch Tree King").


The prevailing historical interpretation of this myth is that the expanding and technologically advanced culture, of which Hwan-Ung was a leader, allied with a bear-totem tribe but met with enmity from a tiger-totem tribe. The tiger tribe was eventually driven out, having lost the conflict. If you run with that and go with the lycanthrope angle, there's a whole bloodline of were-tigers out there with a huge axe to grind.

ETA: Holy crap. There are evidently wall paintings in China, including one in Jiang Xi, where the tiger became human but the bear didn't. Looks like we have a good guess where the tiger tribe(s) migrated...
« Last Edit: January 29, 2010, 09:48:19 AM by lokisdottir »
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Offline Bosh

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2010, 03:40:48 PM »
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There was an entire graphic novel series (later adapted as a musical and TV drama) that revolved around this concept, called 바람의 나라 (Land of Winds), with the king protected by the Blue Dragon while his son was backed by the Red Phoenix and so on.

This could work, with which faction is in ascendant could be determined by old calendar system and the traditional zodiac instead of just the season.

I'm a bit leery to straying toooooooooo far from Dresden canon however. The simplest (perhaps too simple) way to make things match up would be, like you say, making ying and yang match up with winter and summer and sticking everything else into wildfae.

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Korean genealogy, at least paternal genealogy, is pretty crazy. I can look in a book and find out all about my famous paternal ancestors, going back a thousand years. That in itself is pretty good fodder for adventures based on history.
Especially with the rampant faking of genealogical records after the end of the 양반 (yangban) as an organized class so that everyone and their dog could claim to have 양반 ancestry.

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Other stuff I've read on the subject: One rationale behind the iron spikes was that Koreans during the Japanese occupation were holding out hope that Korea's feng shui (Korean pronunciation pung-soo, literally "wind and water") would give rise to the birth of heroes who would liberate the country. Messing with the flow of the land's energy was an attempt to prevent this from happening.

Sort of like the 화랑 reborn then? They have a cool Arthurian vibe that could fit in just fine.

One idea that the whole iron spike thing inspired is that if, driving iron spikes into important locations can tap town 풍수/feng sui/geomantic powers why not take it to its logical conclusion. Get iron spikes and drive them into every important place all over the world. Would be a great plot for a bunch of Enlightenment types or a cool element of back story (the whole reason for a lot of the late 19th/early 20th century craze for going to crazy places like the poles, Everest, the source of the Nile as a campaign to screw the whole supernatural world over and give humanity some breathing space by slapping iron spikes (with flags on top of course) in every important location from the South Pole to the summit of Mt. Everest, but now they're coming loose and magic is recovering...), but that's wandering a bit off topic...

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If feng shui is related to heroic births, you could very well have an adventure with competing factions trying to prevent or fulfill some specific birth by way of geomancy.
Especially since Seoul (or at least the older districts within the four gates) is pretty much the center of Korea's geomantic energy (or at least so the guys who won the civil war over the issue say...).

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What it comes down to is the general atmosphere of oppression and menace, and a system that is so wrong yet so integral that any fundamental change is going to be difficult, painful, and fatal for many. Combine that with...

Exactly. One thing that REALLY rubs me the wrong way about Dresden canon is how passive regular people are (or at least how passive Harry describes them...).

Offline lokisdottir

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #8 on: January 30, 2010, 08:06:43 AM »
I'm a bit leery to straying toooooooooo far from Dresden canon however. The simplest (perhaps too simple) way to make things match up would be, like you say, making ying and yang match up with winter and summer and sticking everything else into wildfae.

Yeah, I wonder at what point it becomes a completely different fictional world just using the Dresden Files rules. That's not a bad thing if it's a stand-alone campaign, but for those playing a more conventional DF campaign it would be better to keep basic similarities.

Speaking of Wildfae, the Center/Yellow Dragon is an interesting entity that could help focus the theme of the five elements and directions. The Center is rather like a Spring and Autumn Court in the dual Summer-Winter system. If you go by yin and yang the balance that the Center represents is even more important, since neither yin nor yang is the ideal by itself--rather, the balance is critical. (Which was kind of the entire point of Summer Knight, when you think about it.)

The Yellow Dragon as neutral arbiter could be the one that's keeping the Yin and Yang Courts from a state of constant conflict. If the Yellow Dragon went missing, however, the two Courts may have difficulty containing hostilities or maintaining balance. The reason behind the recent severe snowstorms, perhaps?

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Especially with the rampant faking of genealogical records after the end of the 양반 (yangban) as an organized class so that everyone and their dog could claim to have 양반 ancestry.

Yeah, no one knows whether they really are of noble blood or our ancestor was an enterprising commoner who bought/stole a name. 양반 outnumbered the commoners by the end of the Chosun period anyway, because many who were actually of noble blood were selling their name to make money and those commoners who could afford a noble name wanted the yangban's immunity from forced state labor. Factor in the confusion of the fall of Chosun and the Korean war, and it's really hard for anyone to know their actual ancestry.

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Sort of like the 화랑 reborn then? They have a cool Arthurian vibe that could fit in just fine.

The Hwarang (화랑) were warrior nobles who swore allegiance to the king, so I suppose they're largely equivalent to a European medieval king's knightly vassals. Hwarang as an institution lasted for hundreds of years and not all Hwarang were heroic figures, but yeah, the idea of some of the bigger heroes coming back is an interesting idea.

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Get iron spikes and drive them into every important place all over the world.

Coolness! Thus the knowledge of the supernatural didn't just fade, but was actively suppressed along with the power of the supernatural. An additional campaign premise might be that this is the reason that predatory supernaturals like the vamps thrived in secret--not only did humanity start ignoring the paranormal, but (mostly) benevolent entities like guardian spirits or land gods largely faded away.

Speaking of the recovery of magic, the Korean government and private groups alike have been active in removing these spikes for the past decades. That, in campaign terms, could help bring about the reemergence of magical beings like the god-beasts (신수) and the birth of magical talents.

On the subject of magical talents, I'll extend the original post into an important area where a Korean campaign is different:

Korean magical talents

An important point of consideration in a Korean campaign is the forms that magical talents may take. These may be very different from the European or American conception of a wizard. The traditional Korean concept of a supernatural mortal is less "wheezy wizard" and more "supernatural warrior" or "religious practitioner." Some of the archetypes are outlined below, and may be useful for NPCs or PCs.

Gods/shapeshifters: I'm not sure what other tradition to place these under, so I'll start with the old gods in the founding myths. They themselves are not strictly mortal, but they are also the ancestors of the ancient kings whose bloodline is dispersed widely in the population by now. Some of their specific powers, or just general supernatural talents, may show up unexpectely in modern characters.

Some of these beings were from the heavens, as in the case of Hwan-ung (환웅) or Haemosu (해모수). They both showed shapeshifting powers, as when Hwan-ung helped a bear become human and later changed into human form to marry her. Haemosu, who seems to be a sun god, had a shapeshifting battle with 하백 (Habaek, The River Chief). When Habaek became a carp, Haemosu became an otter to catch him; when Habaek became a deer, Haemosu turned into a wolf; when Habaek became a pheasant, Haemosu became a hawk.

Then there are the river gods, like the abovementioned Habaek, another shapeshifter. This line of gods was joined to the sky-gods' line after Haemosu married Habaek's daughter, Yuwha (유화, Willow-Flower). She was then abandoned by Haemosu and cast out by her father, and subsequently impregnated by a ray of sunlight that followed her around (another reason to think Haemosu was a sun god). She gave birth to the first in a line of hero kings, the legendary archer Jumong (주몽). Well actually she didn't give birth to a baby, she lay a huge egg out of which came the baby.

Another set of demigods-become-kings are babies dropped off by the heavens. In both stories, they were found when horses wept at where they were hidden, possibly indicating a horse totem tribe connection. Both have a connection to sky and water. One was found after ritual prayer to the heavens, the other had their location indicated by a ray of sunlight. One was a baby in the form of a golden frog, another was a baby in an egg inside a well.

Some suggestions for using these myths include shapeshifting abilities, perhaps limited to a specific animal like a bear or horse, an affinity to water including the help of water creatures, and shafts of sunlight as unexpected guides. And maybe incredible martial prowess because hey, why not? It seems to be the number one perk of divine ancestry.

Shamans and the shamanistic tradition: Shamanism is arguably the oldest extant religious tradition in Korea. The central figure in shamanism is the shaman (무당). A wizard of the White Council would probably call her an ectomancer, and a character like Mortimer Lindquist would probably feel right at home talking shop with her. These are mostly women, and the talent is thought to pass through the bloodline, often mother to daughter (enforcing the canon idea, incidentally, that magic passes through the distaff line). It may lie dormant for generations before it springs up on an unsuspecting person, usually young and female.

There is a great amount of cultural ambivalence surrounding the shaman. On the one hand, her services are much sought out for those who want good luck in their endeavors, are haunted by ghosts, or want a glimpse into the future. On the other hand, being a shaman is not considered a respectable occupation at all, and being struck with the talent is most often seen as a personal disaster that the budding shaman and her family will try to resist.

The first manifestation of the talent is illness, called 신병 (spirit sickness) or 무병 (shaman sickness). The afflicted, often a young girl or young woman, may experience symptoms including constant thirst, food refusal, social avoidance, and visual (ghosts and spirits) and auditory (cymbals, voices) hallucination. She may also suddenly rush out of the house dancing wildly then fainting in an ecstatic state, and could start giving premonitions, or oracles. These conditions have been observed in Central Asia and Siberia as well.

The sickness is not cured by medicine or by the usual shamanistic rituals (such as 푸닥거리) but only with a special ritual of advent (called 내림굿) where the shaman's guiding spirit is invited to possess her. After she is thus cured, the shaman in training (called 애기무당, or baby shaman) will be trained by her spirit mother (신어머니, 신모, whom the shaman might casually call 신엄마, or "spirit mom") to be a full shaman.

A shaman's primary responsibility is to help the living and dead communicate. In her capacity as fortune-teller she passes on her spirit's glimpse into the future, and as an exorcist she drives out the malignant spirits from a place with rituals (called 굿) involving dance and music. As priestess she brings peace to the dead and prays to the spirits for good fortune in her clients' endeavors.

There's an interesting video showcasing some of the different shamanistic rituals here. You can see a male shaman talking there, too. Male shamans, called 박수, are very much in existence and I'm guessing they go through much the same process as their female counterparts. I know one of my dad's friends is one, though I never had the chance to talk to him. There's also a freaky part where a shaman is walking barefoot on the cutting edge of a fodder-chopper and she's WALKING BAREFOOT ON THAT FREAKING GIANT BLADE starting at about 1:40. Man, that stuff still weirds me out.

I don't know if these shamans would be invited to join the White Council. From the Council's point of view most are probably closer to focused practitioners or minor talents, and other shamans might not be interested in the foreigners' funny business. Shamans tend to be traditionalists, like most religious leaders, though younger shamans might be more open-minded. But as the Council itself isn't the pinnacle of open-mindedness, the two groups are likely to steer clear of each other for the most part. That doesn't preclude cooperation, and individual shamans may well choose to join the Council.

Taoism: Taoist influence is perhaps best seen in the many 도사 (dosa) figures in Korean literature and popular imagination. Dosa are basically mortals who, through training and meditation, took on supernatural powers and long lifespans. Some may be of the "guardian of the forest" variety, popularly visualized in the form of old men with long white beards (산신령). Other dosa are accomplished martial artists, armed or unarmed. Some common abilities for dosa include shapeshifting, near-teleportation (moving great distances in a short time), flying, and illusions. They may be the closest thing to the Dresden File conception of magical practitioners, and the added martial element can make them very interesting and useful.

Many characters in popular fiction skirt the border between mundane martial arts and supernatural powers. The most powerful martial artists may have gotten their skills by practicing not just punches and kicks, but the skill of controlling their 기 (ki), or life force. Armed martial artists might also have the added advantage of a mystical or spirit-possessed weapon. A whole genre of fiction, called 무협, is devoted to these almost-supernatural martial artists who might or might not be dosa, but do use varying levels of supernatural forces to power their prowess.

Buddhism: Buddhist temples are most often found deep in the hills. Some are a part of well-established tourist or hiking routes, and others might be really out of the way. They will often have the kind of holy aura that repels the nastier supernatural creatures. Individual monks may have supernatural powers such as banishment or exorcism, and there are Buddist rituals that persuade a ghost to let go of its emotional attachments and follow the light to the next world. Reciting holy texts like 금강경, 아미타경, 천수경 and so on may soothe a ghost of its obsessions. In the late sixteenth century, during the Japanese invasion of Chosun, a number of Buddist monks (called 의승병, voluntary priest-soldiers) rose up to defend the country, acting as independent militia or as adjuncts to government forces. A modern monk might be an inheritor of that martial tradition.

Christianity: Churches are usually located wherever people live, especially in big cities. In a city like Seoul Protestant churches (교회) are extremely numerous, from big megachurches to smaller outfits that might take up less than a floor of rented space. Catholic churches (성당) are less numerous, but each is typically a building of its own.

As Bosh mentioned, hardline Protestants can be pretty intolerant toward other religions, and probably all supernatural phenomena that they don't see as divinely inspired. Catholics are generally more tolerant, though there is obviously a wide variety in individual attitudes. Individual ministers or priests, based on the strength of their faith and/or preexisting talent, could have supernatural power. Churches administered by sympathetic holy men could serve as safe houses and sanctuaries, much as in the original novels.

Also as Bosh said, much of the educated urban class is Protestant and pretty conservative to boot. Adventures that involve the supernatural activities of the elite could well involve some snooping around churches. It could be interesting if these rich megachurches aren't actually holy places at all, but that really depends on what kind of social commentary you're willing to introduce into play.
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Offline Bosh

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2010, 02:14:33 PM »
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The Yellow Dragon as neutral arbiter could be the one that's keeping the Yin and Yang Courts from a state of constant conflict. If the Yellow Dragon went missing, however, the two Courts may have difficulty containing hostilities or maintaining balance. The reason behind the recent severe snowstorms, perhaps?
Possibly. But coming from Maine, nine inches or so (at least where I was) isn't exactly severe :)

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Factor in the confusion of the fall of Chosun and the Korean war, and it's really hard for anyone to know their actual ancestry.
Right and ancestry seems to matter in the Dresdenverse (see knights of the cross being descended from kings, etc.)

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The Hwarang (화랑) were warrior nobles who swore allegiance to the king, so I suppose they're largely equivalent to a European medieval king's knightly vassals. Hwarang as an institution lasted for hundreds of years and not all Hwarang were heroic figures, but yeah, the idea of some of the bigger heroes coming back is an interesting idea.

Ya, I meant the 화랑 in the legendary band of heroes sense not so much the historical sense (like Arthurian legends are hardly a good guide for what actual knights were like).

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Coolness! Thus the knowledge of the supernatural didn't just fade, but was actively suppressed along with the power of the supernatural. An additional campaign premise might be that this is the reason that predatory supernaturals like the vamps thrived in secret--not only did humanity start ignoring the paranormal, but (mostly) benevolent entities like guardian spirits or land gods largely faded away.

I never thought of that. It makes sense that that kind of anti-supernatural campaign would hurt most of the supernatural world but leave the vampires mostly untouched (since they feed on human souls).

Basically I don't much like the explanation in the Dresden Files for how the supernatural stays under the radar (humans are dumb, passive and incurious) and the traditions are too old for supernatural power to be a new thing, so the supernatural being resurgent after a period of weakness (and every bit of supernatural truth being well-guarded with a bodyguard of lies) makes sense to me. I like the image of Victorian/early 20th century gentlemen kicking the supernatural world between the legs by doing things like travelling to the south pole and climbing Mt. Everest to go screw with the ley lines. The Venatori Umbrorum would be a logical remnant of these guys.

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That, in campaign terms, could help bring about the reemergence of magical beings like the god-beasts (신수) and the birth of magical talents.

And what's awesome about this is that Seoul (especially the area inside the four gates) is the logical epicenter for all of this since it was picked specifically since its such a great geomantic location (they even fought a war to prove it ;) ).

To look at things from a slightly different tack, where exactly does supernatural power come from in the Dresden files and how does that translate in Korean terms (the following probably makes things more systematic than Jim intended, but it makes sense to me):

1. Human souls: this is a big one, human souls seem to be special and a real source of potent power. To really get at all of their power, however, you need to kill the human, which is why death curses are so powerful. Most of the non-human critters don’t seem to have souls and you seem to get a class of critters (vampires for the most part, arguably ghouls as well) that get their sustenance from feeding on them in one way or another. Ghosts fit into this category as well, since they’re created by the power that gets released when a human soul gets extinguished/passes on.

1A. Human faith: I’d put this as a sub-set of 1 since humans having souls is what gives their faith oomph. Basically instead of channeling their power consciously through magic, they do it unconsciously and at a low level (but which is powerful in the aggregate) through their faith. Faith seems to especially be caught up in specific objects (swords, coins, shrouds, etc.) but can be expressed in more abstract ways as well.

2. 풍수/Geomantic/elemental forces: in the book they’re described as ley lines and although I don’t think it’s exactly canon I think of them as bits of the Nevernever leaking into the world through various weak points. This includes the Fae and a lot of the other critters that have a strong link to the Nevernever (but then ghouls seem to be natives of the Nevernever as well, where do they fit?). It seems that the most powerful Nevernever critters can’t hang out on the Earth too long since the ambient magic (ley lines) etc. aren’t powerful enough to sustain them for too long.

2A. Location-based geomantic/elemental forces: while most of these forces in the Dresden books seem pretty free-ranging, a few like the Demonreach critter seem to be bound to specific location that they’re connected to.

3. Sensitivity: being able to pick up on supernatural forces of various kinds via the Third Eye, Soul Gazing and basic-level Ectomancy (I See Dead People but not having any power beyond that).

4. That leaves the Old Gods, they’re a bit fuzzy. Are they creatures of the Nevernever like the Fae but different, are they constructs that exist because people believe in them (kind of like in American Gods by Neil Gaiman?) or did they get their mojo by eating lots and lots of souls and growing strong from that (like the necromancers try to do by eating all of the souls of the ghosts of Chicago). They’re the most unclear bit of the Dresden Mythos and I’m not sure what to do with them.

What makes wizards so damn powerful if they have one (they’ve got souls and know what to do with them), they have two (they can draw on geomantic energies) and they’ve got three (Soulgaze and Third Eye).

Now how to fit this into Korean Myth and legend (in order to fit Korean stuff into the Dresden cosmology instead of making up a whole new cosmology):

A. Anything that feeds off of humans is probably a vampire and should be interpreted in those terms. These things get their power by eating human souls and then using that power to do weird shit. Either use the existing three courts or make up shit about the Korean sub-set of the Jade Court.

B. Most Korean ghosts should follow the Dresden rules, just behave a bit differently and maybe have a few tweaks when it comes to their capabilities.

C. Spirits/critters of specific locations should work like the Demonreach critter (connected to the area, local omniscience, etc.).

D. Elemental/creatures of the five directions/etc. are basically analogous to the fae and either should have their own organization or be sub-sets of the fae courts. Traditional astrology marks the systems of ebb and flow of these elemental powers.

E. Things related to the old gods and Heaven, I’m not sure what to do with them since Dresden cosmology gets all fuzzy when it comes to gods.

F. For demigod types, I think they’d be basically a weird sort of changeling. Either they have non-human ancestry (in which case they’d work quite a bit like Dresden changelings) or they have human ancestry but due to the time and place of their birth (as determined by traditional astrology and geomancy) they have a natural link to certain powers of the Earth/elements/Nevernever and draw on these powers unconsciously, which give them power. Basically Dresden usually draws on one of the ley lines when he casts a spell, but these people would have an inborn talent to draw upon this sort of energy all the time. They would have a deep connection with the land, and maybe some of them would lose their mojo if their feet aren’t in contact with the ground (I know there’s myths about this in lots of countries, not sure about Korea).

G. Shape shifters: a lot of them in Korean myth seem to be animals that have figured out how to turn into humans rather than the other way ‘round, which we only have one example of in the Dresden books, but that’s something to extrapolate off of. Although they do get a bit weird with the liver eating and whatnot.

H. 무당/Shamans: the vast majority of them would be able to get themselves into a psychological state in which they can open their Third Eye, (굿 more or less) but most wouldn’t be able to do much beyond that and maybe some very very low-level Ectomancy, maybe the occasional Soulgaze. They’d be able to figure out a lot of things that a normal human wouldn’t be able to but, except for a small handful, they wouldn’t really have any more power to do things based on that knowledge that a normal human would. Long on sensitivity, low on raw power, but very good at what they do (figuring out what their Third Eye is telling them).

I. Taoists: like you said, they’re the closest thing to White Council Wizards (the long lifespans are a dead giveaway).

J. Buddhist monks: most of them would be good at building up Thresholds and burying bodies in a way that helps keep them from turning into ghosts, but some would have some power beyond that. Buddhism, in general, doesn’t have the force in Korea that it has in a lot of other Asian countries however…

K. 기-manipulation/수박/Martial artist dudes: the way I interpret these guys is that they are really good at using the power of the human soul in a very focused way. I see them as doing the same sort of things as White Court vampires (more strength, more speed, faster healing, emotional manipulation, etc.) for the same sorts of reasons but through finesse (via training) rather than brute force (via eating souls). Probably I’ll use some of the White Court vampire rules for these guys, but with a different set of limitations (i.e. no eating souls necessary).

Very rough framework, but seems workable to me...

Offline lokisdottir

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #10 on: February 05, 2010, 08:23:49 AM »
Basically I don't much like the explanation in the Dresden Files for how the supernatural stays under the radar (humans are dumb, passive and incurious) and the traditions are too old for supernatural power to be a new thing, so the supernatural being resurgent after a period of weakness (and every bit of supernatural truth being well-guarded with a bodyguard of lies) makes sense to me.

I like that, too. The reemergence of the supernatural after comparative dormancy could make a fun campaign premise in of itself, and has implications for the war with the Red Court, too. I think I'll run with it for my own campaign, even if it's not canon. And hey, Harry never made any pretense of being all-knowing, so it could very well fit pretty snugly into the canon.

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To look at things from a slightly different tack, where exactly does supernatural power come from in the Dresden files and how does that translate in Korean terms (the following probably makes things more systematic than Jim intended, but it makes sense to me):

That works for me, too, by and large. It looks like a great way to look at supernatural powers systematically. I especially like the explanation for death curses.

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2. 풍수/Geomantic/elemental forces: in the book they’re described as ley lines and although I don’t think it’s exactly canon I think of them as bits of the Nevernever leaking into the world through various weak points.

That's one way to look at it, but I see 풍수/geomancy as a more inherent rather than alien or otherworldly power. It's the characteristics of the land itself that give rise to the supernatural qualities.

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4. That leaves the Old Gods, they’re a bit fuzzy. Are they creatures of the Nevernever like the Fae but different, are they constructs that exist because people believe in them (kind of like in American Gods by Neil Gaiman?) or did they get their mojo by eating lots and lots of souls and growing strong from that (like the necromancers try to do by eating all of the souls of the ghosts of Chicago). They’re the most unclear bit of the Dresden Mythos and I’m not sure what to do with them.

They could also be nature spirits, like how Haemosu is a being of sunlight and Habaek is a river guardian, Bear-Woman is, well, a bear and so on. These could be the very parts of the supernatural who were weakened by the tampering with geomancy but are recently resurgent.

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G. Shape shifters: a lot of them in Korean myth seem to be animals that have figured out how to turn into humans rather than the other way ‘round, which we only have one example of in the Dresden books, but that’s something to extrapolate off of. Although they do get a bit weird with the liver eating and whatnot.

Nine-tailed foxes (구미호) could be a subset of "things that feed on humans," since the eating of the liver is an act of absorbing the essence of the victim--and the victim would obviously have to die, thus releasing the soul-energy. These beings could be the intersection between nature spirits and vampires, that is animals who gained an extra oomph by feeding on humans.

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I. Taoists: like you said, they’re the closest thing to White Council Wizards (the long lifespans are a dead giveaway).

K. 기-manipulation/수박/Martial artist dudes: the way I interpret these guys is that they are really good at using the power of the human soul in a very focused way. I see them as doing the same sort of things as White Court vampires (more strength, more speed, faster healing, emotional manipulation, etc.) for the same sorts of reasons but through finesse (via training) rather than brute force (via eating souls). Probably I’ll use some of the White Court vampire rules for these guys, but with a different set of limitations (i.e. no eating souls necessary).

There's some overlap between the Taoist ideas of using life force and the martial arts practitioners' training, especially in the martial adventure genre of fiction. I see most of the martial dudes as focused practitioners who are very good at one thing, like most shamans. A few of the martial arts dudes are or have the potential to be really scary all-around practitioners, the highest level of Taoists who are probably White Council material. Traditionally these practioners, the 신선 who reached the Taoist ideal, are transcendent and detached beings who are at one with nature, hanging out in remote mountains and so on. They're hermits, basically. But of course, their more recent disciples might not have the same ideas.

Oh, and here's one major difference between the Taoists and the White Council. Traditionally, the abilities of the former do not depend on bloodline at all. It was a way of living and training, not something that was inborn. So either Taoism would have to be altered for the Dresden universe to fit the mythos of the books, or magic in Asia could work differently.

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J. Buddhist monks: most of them would be good at building up Thresholds and burying bodies in a way that helps keep them from turning into ghosts, but some would have some power beyond that. Buddhism, in general, doesn’t have the force in Korea that it has in a lot of other Asian countries however…

Speaking of Buddhism, there are a few bhodisatta (those who endeavor to transcend and become Buddha) who were born again and again and have tremendous enlightenment, but deliberately held themselves back from the complete transcendence of Buddha so they could help fellow mortals. These bhodisatta might or might not be monks, though they would tend to be eventually drawn to Buddhism, and they probably have more supernatural powers than most. Many evil spirits, for instance, really wouldn't want to tangle with someone who could have transcended the material universe but chose not to out of sheer mercy. The bhodisatta could be a wise and formidably powerful old monk or a kid or housewife or anyone, since they keep being reborn. Also, they might be able to delve into the memory of their former lives, which could help solve mysteries with a historical element.

Of course, introducing the concept of samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth) into a campaign could be problematic, given how Hell is very real in the Dresden universe. Agh, the afterlife hurts my brain.
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Offline Bosh

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2010, 09:49:36 AM »
lokisdottir:

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I like that, too. The reemergence of the supernatural after comparative dormancy could make a fun campaign premise in of itself, and has implications for the war with the Red Court, too. I think I'll run with it for my own campaign, even if it's not canon. And hey, Harry never made any pretense of being all-knowing, so it could very well fit pretty snugly into the canon.

Right, the series hardly gives the impression that Harry has a solid grounding in supernatural history and a lot of his explanations of why humans don't know about the supernatural can reflect his own biases and sense of responsibility.

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That's one way to look at it, but I see 풍수/geomancy as a more inherent rather than alien or otherworldly power. It's the characteristics of the land itself that give rise to the supernatural qualities.

That would be more in line with traditional Korean thought. With this level of theorizing, what to do with the Nevernever then? Is it a reflection of natural forces on the Earth or something more alien?

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They could also be nature spirits, like how Haemosu is a being of sunlight and Habaek is a river guardian, Bear-Woman is, well, a bear and so on. These could be the very parts of the supernatural who were weakened by the tampering with geomancy but are recently resurgent.

Yes, that works well for a religion such as old-school Korean shamanism.

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Nine-tailed foxes (구미호) could be a subset of "things that feed on humans," since the eating of the liver is an act of absorbing the essence of the victim--and the victim would obviously have to die, thus releasing the soul-energy. These beings could be the intersection between nature spirits and vampires, that is animals who gained an extra oomph by feeding on humans.

Hmmmm, in the context of the Dresden canon, 구미호 seem a bit like Winter Court fey. They even do the whole tricking people into marrying them thing which pops up in one of the Dresden Files short stories.

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There's some overlap between the Taoist ideas of using life force and the martial arts practitioners' training, especially in the martial adventure genre of fiction.

I think I'll have to give my Chuang-tzu (장자) a reread. Some seriously trippy stuff in there and a much better source of gameable stuff than the Tao Te Ching, now that I'm thinking of that some of the stuff in there (like the parable of the butcher) could apply well to martial arts stuff as well.

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Oh, and here's one major difference between the Taoists and the White Council. Traditionally, the abilities of the former do not depend on bloodline at all. It was a way of living and training, not something that was inborn. So either Taoism would have to be altered for the Dresden universe to fit the mythos of the books, or magic in Asia could work differently.

Well in terms of the RPG rules there seem to be three skills that govern magic: Conviction, Discipline and Lore.

Harry is long on Conviction (its hard to imagine a less Taoist mage than Harry so that colors a lot of how the magic of the books look) and the kind of raw power he has would be the sort of thing that would be tied to bloodline.

But that leaves Discipline and Lore. For Lore I'm thinking that the Neo-Platonic/Hermetic/Alchemist tradition would probably be strongest here and that stuff doesn't talk about inborn power either. For Discipline, I'm thinking that the Taoists would have that as their strong suit, so with that as their apex skill (usually) their magic would have a different feel from Harry's.

In the Dresden File books it says that EVERYONE is capable of doing a little bit of magic with the proper training but most people never do and even with the proper training regular people couldn't do much. The Taoists would probably disagree with Harry on that point and think that with the proper training anyone can do the important magical stuff by using more finesse instead of Harry-style brute force. For example:

"Prince Huei's cook was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand, every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of his knee, every whshh of rent flesh, every chhk of the chopper, was in perfect rhythm, --like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, like the harmonious chords of Ching Shou.

"Well done!" cried the Prince. "Yours is skill indeed!"

"Sire," replied the cook laying down his chopper, "I have always devoted myself to Tao, which is higher than mere skill. When I first began to cut up bullocks, I saw before me whole bullocks. After three years' practice, I saw no more whole animals. And now I work with my mind and not with my eye. My mind works along without the control of the senses. Falling back upon eternal principles, I glide through such great joints or cavities as there may be, according to the natural constitution of the animal. I do not even touch the convolutions of muscle and tendon, still less attempt to cut through large bones.

"A good cook changes his chopper once a year, -- because he cuts. An ordinary cook, one a month, -- because he hacks. But I have had this chopper nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints there are always interstices, and the edge of a chopper being without thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness into such an interstice. Indeed there is plenty of room for the blade to move about. It is thus that I have kept my chopper for nineteen years as though fresh from the whetstone.

"Nevertheless, when I come upon a knotty part which is difficult to tackle, I am all caution. Fixing my eye on it, I stay my hand, and gently apply my blade, until with a hwah the part yields like earth crumbling to the ground. Then I take out my chopper and stand up, and look around, and pause with an air of triumph. Then wiping my chopper, I put it carefully away."

"Bravo!" cried the Prince. "From the words of this cook I have learned how to take care of my life.""

From the Chuang-tzu

Think of that in terms of magic. Harry hacks, so he needs a lot of power to get his work done. But a good Taoist doesn't need as much power to get the job done, so they don't talk much about the kind of inborn talent that helps you hack. So in the Dresdenverse, Taoist wizards would be much more willing to train people with a level of talent that most White Council wizards would turn their noses up at. I don't think it takes much straining of the Dresden Canon to have it be possible for someone without much going for them in terms of inborn talent but a hundred years of training and the right mentality being able to stand toe to toe with Harry. A lot of the hedge mages we see hanging out at McAnally's are capable of a lot more (with the right state of mind and decades upon decades of expert training) but all the White Council does with them is make sure they don't hurt themselves and don't break the Laws of Magic.

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Speaking of Buddhism, there are a few bhodisatta (those who endeavor to transcend and become Buddha) who were born again and again and have tremendous enlightenment, but deliberately held themselves back from the complete transcendence of Buddha so they could help fellow mortals.

Those would be great to include as long as they don't help fellow mortals too much and make the PCs' job too easy :)

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Of course, introducing the concept of samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth) into a campaign could be problematic, given how Hell is very real in the Dresden universe. Agh, the afterlife hurts my brain.
Agreed. I think my thoughts are going in the same basic direction as yours on this subject.

For the gods/hell/heaven/devils/etc., going waaaaaaaay off topic here, but one thing I'm not sure I like about Dresden Canon is the White God/Devil stuff (or at least what Harry Dresden thinks, he could of course be very wrong). Now I like how the Knights of the Cross work and the Denarians are a great idea that I love, but for the rest it seems that there's sooooooooooo many supernatural stories out there where the Catholic Church is your basic bunch of white hats or the church gets greyed up by having angels and the hierarchy be Lawful Stupid assholes. And, like you say, the Dresdenverse's Christianisms preclude samsara/reincarnation. My brain wants to do something more along the lines of:

-The White God is more of an overarching force of Order/differentiation/stasis that is just as much Vishnu as YHWH who works through a variety of religions. Then add in sky gods of every myth (the Olympian half of the Olympian/Cthonic split), Ahura Mazda, the Gnostic Demiurge, Jungian/Campbellian blather about the conscious mind and mythic representations of it and blend it all together according to the Rule of Cool. Have the White God not be so much good as wanting A Place for Everything and Everything in It's Place, which more often than not is good for humans. But how to pull this off without going back to "angels are Lawful Stupid assholes"? Hmmmmmm.

-For the devils (Denarians etc.)  there's some hints that there's more to them than pure evil (Lash etc.), so maybe mix in some Shiva and Jewish conceptions of STN to grey them up a bit. Mix in Greek Cthonic cults, Jungian/Cambellian blather about the unconscious mind, a heavy dose of Lovecraft and other fun stuff like that. Come up with a reason why they're so interested in human souls and you're good to go.

-For the ultimate deity have it either be non-existent or something Gnostic-ish, with all of the weirdness that that implies. Stick in a bunch of Prometheus as well for added fun.

Offline Bosh

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #12 on: February 05, 2010, 10:39:27 AM »
For a less abstract post, I see some of the following groups being active in Seoul:

1. Netizens with magic: there's got to be a thousand websites with information about how to cast spells, especially in the absence of many white council people looking for apprentices. 90% of them would be utter BS (perhaps planted) but those 10% are enough to mean that you really really don't want to mess with someone who has a dozen practitioners linked to his Cyworld page. The interconnectedness of the Netizens makes these people potentially powerful if a bit weak individually.

2. Decimated White Council: probably pretty decimated by the vampire war. The Taoist types had headed for the mountains and the foreigners/foreign taught have retreated to the American garrison at Yongsan (with jobs as liaison officers, military contractors, etc.), which they've turned into an anti-Red Court fortress. But the garrison is about to be relocated due to political machinations...

3. Traditionalist practitioners: probably not especially organized, I see a lot of 무당 being hired by various factions rather than having their own organized factions.

4. White Court: they've got to be all over Korean TV and music. The recent spare of celebrity suicides just screams white court. But which families are involved and which emotions do they focus on?  Also having one's soul eaten away really does explain the a lot of K-Pop. You probably couldn't throw a stone in some parts of 압구정 without hitting a white court vamp or one of their victims.

5. Jade Court: not sure what to do with them. Any Korean legends of human-eating dead to base them on?

6. Red Court: something about them really screams "foreigner!" to me. There's nothing much like them in Korean myths (well maybe 빨간마스크, but that's pretty modern) and a lot of people say 19th century stories about vampires represent Victorian fears of degenerate diseased fancy-pants foreigners, which map pretty well onto modern Korean worried about degenerate diseased fancy-pants foreigners/교포s. A lot of arrogance and ignorance of Korean tradition from these guys and during the time period when the geomantic powers were weak they grew like kudzu. Probably not massive numbers of them (keep the power from getting too widely distributed) but piles of spit-addicted people, Renfields, etc. I'm imagining a little old grannie vampire of some small/rare lineage working to convert a whole bunch of her lineage (and only her lineage) into vampires while leaving enough alive to produce kids while keeping under the radar of the other red court factions and trying to undermine them.

7. The Moonies: they're too weird not to be up to something...

8. The North Koreans: you better believe that there's a path through the Nevernever that goes right past the DMZ...

9. Geomantic forces: making a big resurgence, especially in the bit of the city within the four gates (Seoul was specifically chosen as geomancy central). I'm seeing some geomantic turning points being the demolition of the old Korean National Museum in 1996 (it was the old Japanese colonial administration building and people said it was made to look like "日" (the first character of Japan), perhaps it was a lynch pin of the whole "screw over Korea's geomantic forces" scheme. The return of the 청계천 would probably also help a lot as well.

10. The 재벌 (Chaebol): they're up to their ears in geomantic experimentation (probably with help from prez. 2MB, his canal project and 청계천 stuff could be interpreted as having geomantic purposes). They could be trying to direct geomantic energies for their own purposes (giant apartment complexes as stand-ins for mountains?) perhaps to direct geomantic energies into the children of 재벌 families,  using whole work sites of people as lab rats, having private prisons (think Old Boy). Perhaps a good long-term plot would be to do to Seoul what Harry Dresden did to the Demonreach, which would give you a really staggering amount of power.

11. Marine Veterans: the nickname of these guys is the ghost busters (귀신 잡는) how can we not include them? These marine veterans association is made up of some very scary dudes who are often involved in hard-right activism (some pining for the days of the military dictatorship). I could imagine these guys being a good equivalent for the role that Marcone plays in the books, very useful mortal allies against creepy crawlies but not necessarily people you'd want to hang out with outside of that context.

12. Catholic Church: perhaps infiltrated by the Red Court, to take a page from Thirst (박쥐) (note: 박찬욱 is awesome) and trying to purge its ranks and is now in a defensive crouch.

13. Yoido Full Gospel Church (여의도 순복음 교회): it claims 830,000 members (largest congregation in the world) and is freaking huge. If want want Korean Protestantism Militant, these guys could organize a militia without break a sweat. The Island of Yoido is also a perfect defensive position (in the middle of a river and moving water is perfect for keeping out all kinds of things), so I could imagine these guys keeping the island itself pretty much clear of most anything supernatural.

Offline lokisdottir

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #13 on: February 05, 2010, 01:19:13 PM »
Oh, my GOD.

Bosh... You are awesome.

So much to think about & add thoughts to and I'll take at least a day to get around to it, but for now suffice it to say... man, I think I love you.
Walk in mercy and truth.

Offline Bosh

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Re: Koreanizing the Dresden Files
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2010, 02:03:58 PM »
Oh, my GOD.

Bosh... You are awesome.

So much to think about & add thoughts to and I'll take at least a day to get around to it, but for now suffice it to say... man, I think I love you.

Well one of the symptoms of my weird-ass freelancing schedule (two 학원s, one hospital, one corporate job and a 과외) is that I have random chunks of downtime that are too short to go home and get back but long enough to write long-ass posts :)