gnosis92

hi,
D&D had "Oriental Adventures"
http://www.amazon.com/Oriental-Adven...e=UTF8&s=books
http://www.amazon.com/Rokugan-Legend...=UTF8&s=books\
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Adventures
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20011012a
http://www.amazon.com/Way-Ninja-Shaw...e=UTF8&s=books

but AFAIK no "Hindu/India" adventures.

What would be the Hindu equivalents to:

fighter
knight/samurai
theif/ninja?
martial artists?
magic user? wizzard/wujin?
cleric/monk/guru?

What are common "monsters" of classic Indian/Hindu civilization?

"Oriental Adventures is the title shared by two hardback rulebooks published for different versions of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game. Each version of Oriental Adventures provides rules for adapting its respective version of D&D for use in campaign settings based on the Far East, rather the medieval Europe-setting assumed by most D&D books. Both versions of Oriental Adventures include example campaign settings."

How to adapt it to a Hindu setting?

Pooty

You would probably need to research the history of hinduism and Indian culture.

gnosis92

I'm asking people who are familiar with the culture. I believe there are Indians here who have such familiarity.

premjan

some terms that might fit - partially at least (BTW, chess supposedly originates from 'chaturanga' which is a game involving a four part (i.e. chatur=four anga=part) battle (though chess typically has only two opposing players). The pawns are footsoldiers, I think the castles are elephants, the bishops are (prime) ministers (I guess prime ministers were originally advisors to kings / queens), and the knights are horseriders. Kalari Payattu is one of the iconic martial arts though I am not sure what you call a practitioner exactly. Magician is 'jadugar' though not a common word - you might prefer to use 'betal' (phantom).

I dunno you would have to really come up with equivalents since there may not be ready made ones.

hindweb

ummm may be...


fighter - Arjun (Mahabharata)
knight/samurai - Hanuman (Ramayana)
theif/ninja? - Ravana (Ramayana)
martial artists? - Bhima (Mahabharata)
magic user? wizzard/wujin? - Depends on uages, good or bad? If bad, then the Asuras
cleric/monk/guru? - Dhrona (Mahabharata)

Sanatana dharma

aupmanyav

fighter/knight/samurai - Yoddha (war -Yuddha), Sainik (Soldier), Sena (army), Veer (brave).
thief - chor
Martial artist - Malla
Magician - Abhisara, Indrajaal (like the illusion that Indra can create)
Cleric/monk/guru - Purohit/Sadhu/Acharya

Monsters - Not very bad or freightening in Hinduism, very mixed, non-hindus would have great difficulty in understanding the principle. Commonly known as Rakshasas. Some were very pious, very learned, very brave, e.g., Ravana, Prahlad, and Bali. Ravana never came to Sita without the presence of his wife Mandodari. He was a great devotee of Shiva. He was son of a brahmin sage, Pulastya.

Prahlad was a great devotee of Vishnu and son of Hiranyakashyap. Because of his devotion to Vishnu, Hiranyakashyap tried to kill him in many ways but Vishnu saved Prahlad every time. At last Hiranyakashyap confronted Prahlad and asked him if he believed Vishnu permeated everything. Prahlad said yes. Hiranyakashyap pointed to a pillar and asked if Vishnu was present there also. Prahlad again said yes. Trying to prove him wrong, Hiranyakashyap broke the pillar and out came Vishnu in his man-lion avatara, NriSimha, and killed Hiranyakashyap.

Bali was a great king, and very generous. Vishnu came to him as a dwarf and asked for land equivalent to three steps. Bali agreed even as he knew that it was Vishnu in disguise. Vishnu took the heavens in one step, and earth in the second, and asked Bali as to where should he put his third step. Bali offered his own body. Of course, Bali was allowed to reside in Vishnu's world and also promised to be made Indra, which is sort of a nominative chair, king of lesser Gods, when earth will rise again after the next dissolution.

Kumbhakarna - Ravana's brother, very pious, tried to dissuade Ravana from fighting with Rama, but when Ravana did not agree fought with him because of loyalty as a brother.

Ghatotkatcha - Son of one of the Pandavas, bodily strong Bhima and a Rakshas female, Hidimba, worshipped in Kulu as a Godess. Fought on the side of Pandavas and was killed in battle like other Pandava sons.

So they were family persons, individually nice, perhaps their only wrong was to exceed their given boundaries and trouble lesser Gods and humans. We do't have monsters and devils common as in colder climes and longer nights which probably increase such superstitions. We do have various kinds of ghosts, they are supposed to be souls of humans who died with unfulfilled wishes or those for whom the death ceremonies were not done properly. But then we have a very simple procedure to ward them off, remembering the monkey-god, Hanuman.

Sarpedon

there were all kinds of mosters in hinduism. You're right that some rakshasas and asuras were pious, but most of them werent. There's also tigers, which to the hindus had supernatural qualities, a variety of nagas, some were good, some were monstrous, a whole host of malicious spirits and so forth.

Besides, most d&d monsters don't come from mythology. They are more or less made up by people who's job it is to do that.

Pooty

And you never completely forgo the core monster book anyhow. The expansion books only add to the current ruleset.

aupmanyav

Yes, the rakshasas were the anti-socials. I have not heard of tigers with supernatural powers. One of the most loved nagas (snakes) is the their king, Sheshanaga, with seven heads providing shade to Vishnu or Krishna. Even Lakshamana, Lord Rama's brother and companion in the forest is believed to be an avatara of Shesha. Most of the seemingly malicious spirits are from Shiva's army. When Shiva went in this horrendous attire for his marriage with Parvati, her mother fainted. Then Shiva and his army appeared in his auspicious attire and charmed everyone. Shiva does not change, his army does not change, it is only the attire which can be different. Don't they make interesting stories?

Philippe*

A guy has produced a roleplaying game called "kali yuga" inspired from Mahabharata.

You can play :

Brahmans (Priests, Rishis, Astrologist)
Kshatriya (Rajas, Warriors)
Vaishya (Craftmen, Traders, Scientist)
Sudra (Peasant, Workers)
Untouchables



I have found that once I was lurking on internet, I asked myself why people didn't take into indian background as there is quite a lot of material for inspiration.

http://apokalipstick.blogs.com/kaliyuga/

I don't know if it's worth reading it.

I used to play sometimes to RPG such as D&D, Call of Cthulhu when I was a teenager. As a child, I used to read a lot and all has begun with books and board games, I read dozens of books "in which you are the hero" which were famous in the 80'ies then later I read the Lord of the Rings.
Well, I have given up as it was time-consuming and tended to create too much mental confusion for me, but I have a lot of friends who still play RPG.
Anyway I like to play roles in my relationships with close friends of mine, brothers and my lover, I am a teacher so it is a bit of roleplaying with students too.

Philippe