Nerd-Rage of the Rakasta

Just to get it out of the way, I'm talking about these guys:

Mystaran cat-dude chillin'

NOT these guys:

Evil tiger-spirit in the Temple of Doom

The rakasta first appeared riding their sabre tooth cats in X1 The Isle of Dread, and have become one of those breakout hits of D&D (albeit in a niche manner). They went on to get their own moon kingdom (Japanese inspired) orbiting the world of Mystara (the Known World and Hollow World of BECMI), as well as a kingdom on the Savage Coast (a Merrie Olde England parody). They have gone from B/X to BECMI to AD&D 2E and still have many fans online. Why am I going on about them?

Polyhedron 101. Roger E. Moore wrote a short article brainstorming an OA campaign set on the rakasta moon of Myoshima. It was a really fun thought experiment and although some people despise anthropomorphic animal characters, I think they can be interesting if done well.

Can I get the rakasta (or some very similar being with a name change) into my work on "OA for LL"? Just maybe.

I knew it must exist somewhere

Now I find this? Sounds good too.

Classes of the Far East

Is there a need for me to do this work? With this and Red Tide, I could be sorted. I guess I had better buy them. :D

EDIT: Just thinking out loud. I shall continue, as there are many classes that are not covered in either book.

"Oriental Adventures" for Labyrinth Lord

Just a status update to let interested parties know where I am with this project. I've scribbled down my notes for the sohei and kensei, and have had some more thoughts on things to alter or add to a potential Labyrinth Lord supplement, to whit:

Removing fox and racoon-dog from the hengeyokai and having them as either race-as-class under their correct designations of kitsune and tanuki, or shunting them to being monsters.

Finishing off the class conversions - except yakuza, as noted before. Maybe write up some outlines of how characters can fit into a yakuza or ninja clan.

Type up shugenja and sohei spell lists.

Convert spells not in AEC. My hope is that I can find them or equivalents in OSRIC or another clone.

Creating a setting outline... The urge to hexmap is strong in this one...

Putting weapons and armour notes into legible format.

House rule suggestions - rules "fixes" and genre emulation.

So, not much then!

What would be great is if any of you helpful readers had name suggestions for such a supplement. If so, please comment, thank you!

Towards an OA Retro-clone

The stars are right... all the omens are propitious...

Jagatai at Ramblings of a Great Khan is proposing an OA retro-clone for OSRIC, and Lord Gwydion  at What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse is putting the final touches on a clone of Chris Pramas' 2E-inspired game Dragon Fist. I've started doing ports of the OA classes and races to Labyrinth Lord. As can be seen the swell of Asian fantasy is building both in OSR and 'new-school' circles. To break it down with the current products and their parent games:

Ruins & Ronin (Swords and Wizardry) - Mike D (Sword +1) created the high-water mark of recent D&D oriental shenanigans with this excellent work. If you can't tell, I love this book. The inexhaustible imagination of Matt at THE LAND OF NOD has created Mu-Pan, a sandbox setting encompassing folklore, myth, pop fiction and game lore for Ruins & Ronin. Both have produced amazing, inspiring work.

Red Tide (Labyrinth Lord) - Another Asian sandbox with elements of horror and culture clash built in. I don't have this book, but everything I hear about it screams "buy me!" and its by Kevin Crawford, author of Stars Without Number. Nuff said. It introduces new races and classes

Jade Regent Adventure Path (Pathfinder) -  I have mixed feelings about Paizo as a company and of their products, but I applaud their re-introduction of Asian tropes into 3.x gaming. Wayne Reynolds art - another thumbs up.

Heroes of the Jade Oath (Arcana Evolved) - This has been in development for several years, and I don't know much about how transferable its ideas are, but there are free previews of it to download at RPGNow, and DriveThruRPG.

So, there's lots out there right now that caters to the desire to break out of Western Europe and get down with the samurai and the wu jen (these are all quite Chinese and Japanese inspired, but I pass no judgement on that).

Regarding what there is for OSRIC, a key work if someone were to embark on OA for OSRIC would be this OSRIC Unearthed. It has conversions for martial arts, the ninja, the yamabushi (new take on the monk), and the barbarian. I think that it should be the first port of call for someone looking to write/play/run OSRIC OA.

What would I want in an OA retro-clone? That's for another post!