An Eastern Flavor

I am not to familiar with the mechanics of honor and shame in The Blossoms are Falling, but how hard would it be to give Mouse Guard an Eastern Flavor, instead of the Western flavor it has.

thanks for any help.

d :smiley:

Should be do-ableā€¦ depends on what youā€™re after.

Heian era is already covered in ā€œBlossomsā€, so why do that again?

Samurai are probably the thing that is easiest to get to since everyone is pretty familiar with Kurosawa & movies based on his moviesā€¦ although the concept of going from Kurosawa to, say, Clint Eastwood, and back to Japan reminds me of Super Karate Monkey Death Car from News Radio.

You might wish to tweak the skill list towards what Samurai do versus what dirty peasants do (i.e. the dirty peasant jobs in the Mouse Guard list doesnā€™t seem appropriate for Samurai). I wish I knew where my copy of the Hagakure isā€¦

Obstacles might be re-worked as well. Primarily, you deal in the lands of oneā€™s feudal lord, as a Samuraiā€¦ so travel isnā€™t necessarily an obstacle when youā€™re a favored class of person in home territory. Weather also might not necessarily be an obstacle. Thereā€™s a passage in the Hagakure that is about the certainty of death, but it also relates to how one should move through the rainā€¦ so making an obstacle of rain & wind (the famous blessing of the kamikaze in defending Japan against Mongol invasion), I think that may be kind of a mistake.

Shinto spirits, and the spirit worldā€¦ these might be a better obstacle if you want some supernatural. The actions of the rival neighboring daimyo are certainly important in any context.

A lot of it is just the storytelling. A fair grounding in things like the Kojiki, the teachings of the Zen master Lin-chi (Rinzai), the Hagakure, Musashiā€™s famous bookā€¦ thatā€™s all better than I could say.