Café de Nuit

Waldi: I like your Taiga clan. Maybe we could say they conquered Yujing 400 years ago, and then ruled for four or five generations (another 200 years), then were overthrown by the Can dynasty. The Can founder's name, Kangfan, literally means "Repeller of the Barbarians" so that would have a good continuity.

I also like the idea of a Japanese style ruler working with knowledge of the Hua empire. That would be similar to an Anglo chieftain working with the Romans, knowing he is too distant to fear retribution. Don't forget that Tokyo is literally "Dongjing" in Chinese (or "Eastern capital"). The Chinese certainly believed Japan to be part of their sphere of influence... but whether that's actually true is entirely up to realpolitik!

If the Taiga clan is to be the Mongolian style horsemen, then we also need the Manchu tribes too - hence the Nürfan. These people are tall, strong of limb and long of bone. They are not the same as Hua ethnic people, although many of them may be a crossbreed between Taiga and Hua.

Living in the cold extremes of the north, they make for very dangerous swordsmen and bowmen. They call themselves the Nürfan tribe ("Nu'erfan" in Chinese, roughly meaning "Raging children of barbarians") and share a lot of racial characteristics in common with the Taiga. In fact, up to DM prerogative, they may even have been Taiga at one point, but then got left geographically and culturally separate when the Taiga dynasty collapsed awhile back.

The Nürfan exist in the tragic vacuum between true civilization and nomadic existence. Like the Taiga, they value strength and horsemanship and battle prowess, but they have been more assimilated into the Hua empire and many long for the relatively lawful glories of banners, army formations, and garrisons in great cities.

The Nürfan are the ones who braid their hair in the back and shave it from the front. In an alternate universe, where they conquer all of the Hua Empire, perhaps all Hua people would do the same. They have strict laws concerning household sleeping arrangements, especially concerning sisters and aunts, which must sleep at least two to a room.

Right now this nation, like Manchuria, is more a lesser satrap of the Hua empire, where warring clansmen fight each other for supremacy and pacts both treacherous and foolhardy are spoken. Like Beowulf of Old English lore, these fighters would be the type who believed that the only salvation due to them came in the form of dying on the battlefield, and a peaceful death meant wandering the afterlife as a shade.

Even as they raid to gain gold and precious belongings, their greatest leaders pine for the security of empire and the trappings of civilized rule.

Jorpuk, domain of the Nürfan tribes. ("Chaobei" in standard Zhengyu, which means "Facing north". "Chao" also is a term for "dynasty" as well as "Korea" in Chinese.)
CL: (very roughly) 3 to 5.
Cultural background stolen from: Chinese Outer Mongolia, Manchuria, parts of Korea.
Landscape: Brief summers, long winters, merciless snowstorms and plain winds. The Hua people believe (with some poetic justification) that civilization ends beyond here... although some rumor that a Mistway to Sanguinia and the Frozen Reaches lies further north. (Russia?)
Major Settlements: Aisinhar (Hua "Jinhe", meaning "Gold River" in very tentative Manchurian), 20,000 permanent, up to 35,000 further transients. Total populace throughout entire domain estimated less than 100,000. Humans: 99% (60% Nürfan, 35% Taiga, 5% Hua) Others: 1%
Characters: Humans. Classes: Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Bard. Very limited Wizard and Cleric opportunities because of religion (see below). Characters here would gain a bonus for Str, Dex, or Con, but likewise take a penalty to Cha or Wis.
Language: Nürfan, Taiga, Hua.
Religion: Shamanism and animism. The domain has no Dragon and does not bow to the Celestial Bureaucracy.
The Law: Nomadic tribal. Ostensible leader is Oboi-saha, ruling at Aisinhar
Trade: Horses, hides, furs, timber.
Resources: beer, coal, bronze, iron, and lots and lots of snow and ice.
Coinage: generally, a barter system is used.
Important notes: The Western-oriented cultural levels do not do this domain justice. The horsemen have innovations and advances in horseriding and animal breeding, and quite a few advanced military tactics. They use obsidian and flint for their arrowheads, and also occasionally sew metal plates onto their breast and backplates for armor, but generally the Nürfan are master workers of leather and furs. They also use silk as an underarmor cover, allowing them to pull out arrows from wounds without cutting around the arrowhead.

Politics: There are about six tribes in the area, some of which want nothing to do with Aisinhar and Oboi-saha, and others who greedily contest his rule and hope to take over the domain's major permanent settlement. Oboi-saha himself has reached his position only by extreme brutality of his rule, even going so far as to execute his own blood-brother in order to cement a political friendship (another tribe claimed he had committed atrocities that required his death). Oboi-saha has, uncharacteristically, weary of infighting and wishes for the splendid eaves and pillars of Yujing to be built here in his land, to glorify his people as a nation.

Darklord: Oboi-saha was brought up to be a pure warrior, and is the direct descendant of a mighty Nürfan general who once conquered Yujing, although this general died before he could declare himself emperor. Once, as a very young boy, he accompanied his father on a trip to Yujing, where his father begged the Throne for aid against the traitorous Chi-jison tribe. The Emperor granted a cavalry tribe of Taiga to aid them. Oboi-saha revelled in the slaughter, and was there at his father's side when the victorious Nürfan also struck down the Taiga to keep their victory exclusively theirs - but the young man had been awed by the opulence of Yujing, and the lives the citizens led there.
He grew to question the creed of his people, that he who dies in a tent is forever disgraced, and he who dies on the battlefield will be reborn as an eagle. He began to wonder whether civilization truly was the recourse for a "soft race", as his people mocked the Hua. He recalled one lowly scribe in Yujing's Confucian temple, who slept on a more comfortable bed, and ate better food, than Oboi-saha's own father did as a king.
Oboi-saha shares much of the torment of Harkon Lukas in the Western Core. He has the makings of a great leader, and tries to promote pursuits like a written epic record of his clan's feats, and a collection of Nürfan writings in Aisin-har. He has seen the very real miracles performed by clerics of the Celestial Bureaucracy, and the invocations drawn from nature by the Dragon mages - he imagines a future when his own people will command such power.

However, he knows he can never rest because of the various challenges to his power, and the fact that his civilization yearnings could easily be interpreted as weakness among his people. Already he has had to strike down three blood relatives - one for justice to prove his commitment to redress wrongs done to another tribe, and two because they had disapproved of his soft ways and sided against him. Oboi-sahan dreams of living as an enlightened Emperor, much as the Hua throne.
Of course, he has no idea that the Hua Emperor deals with exactly the same problems but on a much larger scale.

I'm thinking now that instead of including the quasi-Asian domains in this, we could have them functioning as a sort of gateway to Gothic Asia (still need a name). That is, just past Rokushima Taiyoo is the Misty Border; sail into it and a few days later you emerge on the Sea surroudning the continent (need to write up the sea as a domain too). What do you think?

A mistway over Rokushima Taiyoo and the surrounding ocean as a own domain sound quite great (and fits to my Siranga-Purang-Introduction )! Another mistway leads from Jorpuk to the Frozen Reaches and a third one from Sri-Raji to Siranga-Purang...I don´t think, we would need more connections between the Far East and the Core.
The "Silk-Sea" could be a pirate-plagued tropical ocean full of small islands (Philipines and Indonesia someone ? ) that is plagued by terrible taifuns during certain times of the year. Just think of those oriental pirates like Cui-Apu or the fictive Sandokan and you can catch the feeling !

@HuManBing
I love Jorpuk (and the idea of having a mistway to the frozen reaches) !!!!!! Perhaps there could be some small villages with people from Vorostokov ? Another idea (I suppose, I meshioned it already) fitting to Jorpuk, the Taiga and the north of the Hua-Empire would be vistani-like nomads with a cultural style similar to the Kirgisians or similar cultures (the "western" vistani simply don´t fit to a mock-asia !)

I also like the idea of a Japanese style ruler working with knowledge of the Hua empire. That would be similar to an Anglo chieftain working with the Romans, knowing he is too distant to fear retribution. Don't forget that Tokyo is literally "Dongjing" in Chinese (or "Eastern capital"). The Chinese certainly believed Japan to be part of their sphere of influence... but whether that's actually true is entirely up to realpolitik!

A good point. Another idea behind the Jomon is, to have a japanese domain, that is shown from a more "chinese" point of view. For a lot of modern westeners, Old-Japan is the exotic land of brave samurai and beautifull geishas. For modern chinese, Japan was (and still is ) a land of bloodthirsty, hostile conquerers. Just think of all those eastern-movies from Hong-Kong showing japanese like american movies show nazi-germans. First, I wanted to catch this feeling, and second: Nearly all the high-developed CL-9 domains in the old western core apear to be the "good realms" where you can ignore the darklord completely - so I wanted a CL-9-Domain that has a more obvious evil touch.

The feuding kingdoms

These are the lesser kingdoms that crowd Yujing to the east and south, and have an agenda, ranging from expanding their own power at the expense of the Throne, to actually overthrowing the Emperor and claiming Yujing for themselves. In terms of geography, they are much larger than Yujing, but their political access to other tribes and areas and resources is much more limited.

Kingdom of Que
Far to the west of the Tombs of Eternal Peace, the kingdom of Que (pronounced "Ch'weh", meaning true, honest, also a synonym for Imperial City) stretches all the way from the Western Sea, along with the major port city of Yang'An ("Calm seas") in the west to the lake-dotted provinces in the south, and then finally to the south of Yujing and the Tombs. Que is geographically the largest of the kingdoms, but also has changed the most in size. It has traditionally born the brunt of Taiga raids, and many uprisings come from within its borders.
The Que boast of their land as "Wanlongzhou", or the "land of 10,000 dragons" because of the many rivers, which take barges and boats everywhere. At its present state, the state of Que is occupies substantially larger an area than Darkon, the largest Western Core state. Similar to its Western neighbor, it has a very large cosmopolitan population and a greater emphasis on magic than religion or psionics.

Based on: Hangzhou, Shanghai, other cities along the Yangzi River.
CL: (very roughly) 8 in coastal cities, to 5 in inland areas.
Landscape: Valleys, gorges, mountains, and islands make the Que kingdom a very picturesque place. Trade goes well up and down the rivers, and the lakes feature pagodas, palaces, and towers.
Major Settlements: Yang'An ("sea of calm"), the largest city in this kingdom, with a permanent population of 75,000 and almost the same number of transients in city and suburbs. State capital at Huzhou ("Lake land"), pop. 55,000, where many rivers are artificially channelled to an immense inland lake through canals. (Zhonghai lake, literally "central sea".) Lesser cities include Hezhu ("river pearl") a trade and agricultural city, pop. 15,000; Nanping ("Southern Peace"), a trade and cultural arts center, pop. 30,000; and the temperate Chunliang ("spring"), where the weather is mild and sunny, like spring, all year round, pop. 25,000. Literally thousands of smaller cities and villages dot the fertile river valleys, bringing the estimated population to just under 1 million, easily the largest of any one kingdom in the Eastern Core.
Humans: 95% (99% Hua). Foreign ships have brought some other races, which have set up their small communities largely unmolested by the Que leadership, provided they pay their taxes and obey all rules.
Characters: Most likely humans, but occasional cross breeds are not unknown. Such individuals lose their ancestral ranking (a document that lists all individuals born to a family back through 30 or more generations) and cannot qualify for official jobs that require this to be presented - usually civil servant jobs. Classes: Fighter, Rogue, Bard, Wizard, Cleric.
Language: Hua Zhengti/Zhengyu, Que spoken, hundreds of different minor dialects. The large population and the dispersal throughout the gorges and river valleys means entire dialects can change with just a day's ride by horse or boat. However, the Hua Zhengti script keeps edicts clear and allows enforcement of the Que king's rules.
Religion: The domain has a very powerful link to its Dragon and also recognizes the Celestial Bureaucracy. Many smaller villages also worship different shamanistic deities, which the Que king does nothing to stop.
The Law: Taixiang, the current king of Que, largely stays out of lawmaking, preferring instead to translate directly any edict from the Emperor Can. He has chosen to break with Can's rule on one important point - he allows overseas ships to land at his ports as they see fit. This has led to regrettable incidents, such as the ceding of Yadao to the foreigners (see below) but by and large has guaranteed freeflow of trade. More importantly, it has allowed the mage-king to research magic brought over from the Western Core. King Taixiang allows the local princes and dukes to impose their own wills, and does not interfere much with their running of their areas. This is in marked contrast with his forebears, who have run the gamut from public works improver to bloodthirsty warmongers.
Trade: Grains, fruits, agricultural produce, fertilizer, vegetables, meats. Wines, spirits.
Resources: A budding banking industry, fuelled by mercantile ventures and shipping. A large manpower base also allows large scale projects to be undertaken, such as constructing temples and monasteries.
Coinage: The yinbi and tongbi are identical to the Imperial standard. Que prints banknotes of its own, and also exchanges notes from other kingdoms.

Politics: Que is himself a mystic and encourages the cultivation of mystics elsewhere in the kingdom. His ability to control weather conditions (or at least see when weather conditions will be favorable ahead of time) means his navies are especially strong. Each lake tends to have at least a patrol craft, so his soldiers can practice sailing and rowing maneuvers. Que has a few enemies in his state, however. His magical studies have claimed several lives, and although most of these have been kept secret, some victims' families have reason to suspect their lord. The Prince Chen, who commands a keep on the borderlands near the Luo satrap to the south, has plans to secede from Que and to establish his own independent kingdom. Closer to home, the Duke Ying commands a considerable navy and is contemplating seceding and joining the rulership of Yadao.

Darklord:Que Taixiang has assumed many faces and many guises, but at heart he has always been the same. For six generations, he has ruled Que, robbing the youth and vigor from its sons and daughters to preserve his own. His own quest for power has revealed a process by which he might possibly live forever, and Que Taixiang is eager to do whatever he can to cement that. The arrival of foreigners on his shores has brought new types of medicine, new forms of treatments, and even new types of magic to his attention, and he intends to learn more. His light handed rule should not be mistaken for kindness - Que Taixiang once ruled in a previous generation as the ironfisted Que Jiela to construct the Great Canal, which connects several waterways and then curves northeast to connect Yuijing to the rest of the kingdoms by water. Thousands died in forced labor to dig the trenches and place the massive slabs of stone to maintain the canals' integrity. Also, when the Taiga invaded and took over Yujing, the same ruler, acting as Que JianJiu, levied and mobilized tens of thousands of troops to use as expendable conscripts in defending the northern border. Secretly, he kept the Dragon in the ground, sleeping, rather than in the sky. The Dragon's absence meant an unprecedented drought, and tens of thousands suffered as their menfolk stood ready at the border.
When the Taiga advance nearly reached the border of Que's home province, where Huzhou waited with its massed guards, Que Taixiang deduced the location of the Taiga watering holes, through whispers of the Dragon. By using spies from the frontlines, he could tell their horsemen were tired and ready to fall upon the people of his army in their vengeance.
He sent his generals to engage the enemy, then, while they were busy on the fields, his spies circled each of the three main battlefronts and fired the dry brush. For days, the dry fields blazed, and the charred stench of meat and fat, from enemies and friendly troops alike, carried across the nation. When the Dragon at last was freed into the atmosphere, it washed mud, quicksand, and corpses of man and horse into its rivers and finally out to sea.
Recently, Que Taixiang's latest incarnation has won the approval of his cowed subjects, not least because he is aloof and distant from internal affairs. However, as his body ages more rapidly, he requires greater numbers of supplicants to fuel his youth and vigor. He masks these draining rituals as part of a natural test of a wizard's ability, often as a temple meditation or deep forest retreat. Sometimes, the wizard returns, more powerful and more devoted to his lord. Other times, the disciple does not return at all.
Que Taixiang is not supernatural in the fantastic sense - he does not qualify as a lich or vampire. He must eat and drink and sleep like any normal human. What makes him unique is his ability to harness power and use it in a way that seems fair and even handed, all the while hiding his own moral corruption. His latest venture - to become an Immortal - could well be the hubristic leap that damns him in the eyes of the Dragon.
Que Taixiang does not care much for politics and is quite adept at keeping his personal enemies at bay. However, he is surprised and worried at the arrival of the foreigners. His preparations to make the ascendance into Immortality took him centuries to put in place. Now, these foreigners have arrived with their new magic and their innovations, and he is uncertain how this will affect his work.

As usual, I will preface this entry with a general trait concerning the entire Hua empire and then get into the domain itself later.

Ancestry is very important to the Hua, and even the lowliest literate family is likely to have records of their origins. In China, the descendants of Confucius are in their 50th or 60th generation (one of them recently failed to pass the exams into Taipei University, which is amusing in a childish way).

My own family records stretch back 35 generations, to circa 1200 AD, although because it was copied in great haste before the Communists could burn it, it only contains the first-born males of each generation. (So it resembles more like a family Beanstalk than a Family Tree.)

In the Hua empire, any job that requires royal or Imperial oversight usually requires your Ancestral Chronicles. Without them, you do not qualify for examinations, you cannot serve nobility because you do not have the social credentials to do so, and your children may not necessarily inherit your effects after your death. Replacing your chronicles usually requires a high ranking civil servant to agree to officiate, whereupon you are reestablished, with whatever surviving relatives can be proven. (Thus, a family-less person can't just recall that his uncle was a famous general - that general needs to be alive and kicking and willing to put his name down too.)

Most families use the trisyllabic naming procedure. The first syllable will be the family name, in my case "Hu", meaning "barbarian". The second syllable is usually a generational marker, and is predetermined by which generation you're in. This often follows a long poem written way back by an ancestor, often with 50 to 100 characters in it, and each character represents a future generation in chronological order. Thus, my middle name "Man", meaning "crude and uncouth", would be shared by any other person unlucky enough to be born in my generation. (And believe me there are lots of us. *scratch crotch* *burp*)

Finally, each child is given a third syllable for their name, which is the only truly unique thing about them. This is often the paternal grandfather's task, and he may have a further poetic idea in mind. (For example, some poems are seven syllables long. A grandfather may name all seven grandchildren, in order of age, after words in that poem.) To follow this logic, my grandfather would have chosen "Bing", meaning "Soldier" (or possibly "hotel guest"), referring for my penchant for destruction, violence, and bouncing on hotel mattresses.

Some modern day societies still have this - in Korea, if you are born without a legitimate father, your work opportunities and schooling will suffer, as you meet difficulties with getting registered for school and getting various state benefits.

Meanwhile, back to the domain-listing...

The Kingdom of Liang
East of Que and south of Yujing is the kingdom of Liang. The king, also named Liang, is a capable, Machiavellian leader, adept at playing enemies off against each other. He is the schemer and plotter, able to think several steps ahead and to change plans when needed. He forms friendships with dukes and princes in his kingdom, but betrays them as needed to increase his power. Frequently, those betrayed go to their graves not even knowing who it was who betrayed them - LiangZhenFang is a great manipulator and knows how to frame others for his dirty work.

Based on: Inland cities and provinces in China.
CL: (very roughly) 7 in major cities to 4 in inland areas.
Landscape: Rivers for trade, hills and mountains. Forests and plains and grasslands. Liang is somewhat smaller geographically than Nova Vaasa.
Major Settlements: Capital Liangzhou in centralized location, pop. 65,000; Nanxia (South Gorge), pop. 45,000; Taihu (sunlake), pop. 20,000 (also used as their naval training lake). Sole port city was Hongjiangdu (red river city), but that has been claimed by foreigners (see below).
Population: Humans: 99% (99% Hua). Estimated population of entire kingdom: 850,000.

Characters: There would need to be a very good reason for a Liang character not to be a human. Liang himself does not have any sympathy for demihumans and often has them incarcerated. Classes: Fighter, Rogue, Bard, Wizard, Cleric. Liang also allows barbarian tribes to reside within his kingdom, as they make for good mercenaries and scapegoats. Sometimes, when criminals are captured and brought to justice, Liang spares them if he believes they were devious and creative enough in their modus operandi. Either way, he rarely wastes a good potential servant (whom he can sacrifice as a pawn anytime in the future).
Language: Hua Zhengti/Zhengyu, Liang spoken, dozens of different minor dialects. However, the Hua Zhengti script keeps edicts clear and allows enforcement of the Liang king's rules.
Religion: Liang has proven to be quite amenable to the Minglun jiao religion, and he naturally embraces the Celestial Bureaucracy. The Dragon of the land is an interesting one because it is largely man-made (see below).
The Great City: The domain has a considerable structure of bricks, earthern trenches, and walls that stretches from north to south in the western third of the kingdom.
Called the "10,000 li great city", it features crenellations and defense towers and is broad enough to allow five horses to pace side by side. It is clearly constructed as a means of demarcating the border with the Que kingdom, and has since been extended southwards to provide a defense against the foreigners who landed at Hongjiangdu.
This is patrolled almost constantly by guard regiments, drawn from the levies of the princes and dukes. This leaves Liang with the strongest at-home army, meaning his inferiors are unlikely to challenge his power effectively.
However, one possible weakness of this is if one of his servitor noble houses decides they actually want to let foreigners invade - they could maneuver themselves to be in control of the gates and then open them at the crucial time.
The Law: Liang ZhenFang sets his laws seemingly with a court consensus, or at least with representatives of his princes and dukes present. In reality, many are foregone conclusions, and the ones that are passed that are contrary to his own interests are usually done so to pit the princes against each other, or even against the Emperor. Liang has sometimes allowed laws to be passed that limit his own interests, knowing he can have them repealed bloodlessly through other means.
Trade: Construction materials, weaponry, gold leaf, wool, silk, oils, a certain type of very smelly beancurd, wine, spirits.
Resources: Meticulous records of all urban citizens are collected, and an effort is currently underway to map and categorize the holdings of all towns and villages too. Liang has the largest army of any of the states, with conscription required for most men age 16 and above. The only exception to this are those who are studying for serving the Dragon or religious or academic institutions. Each soldier usually spends some time guarding his home province, and then guarding at some station along the Great City. Although the total number of soldiers, supply personnel, and spies is certainly known to Liang, it is not public knowledge and most estimates put the total at nearly 80,000, or roughly 10% of the entire population.
Coinage: The yinbi and tongbi are identical to the Imperial standard. Liang prints banknotes of its own, and also exchanges notes from other kingdoms.

Politics: Liang is perhaps the most lawbound and rigid of the kings, though he has considerable flexibility in disregarding them himself. He dislikes demihumans and foreigners, and has no particular regard for the non-Hua tribes either. The Luo tribe - a matriarchical society - between his southwest corner and Que's southeast corner is a stubborn holdout that he wants to see incorporated into his kingdom. He also recently lost his only port city, Hongjiangdu, to the foreigners who occupied it. Liang knows he is at a disadvantage, not speaking the language or understanding the cultures of the newcomers, and he wants to size them up before committing to wiping them from the map. Secretly, the other Hua kings are relieved at Liang's focus on the newcomers, although they are guarded that this may simply be a ploy to get their guards down. It is also likely that Liang is close to the non-Hua "Indochinese" model kingdoms and regions further south. These would probably be a target for his intrigues and expansion of influence.

Darklord: (The following is paraphrased directly from the legend of Cao Cao.)

His personal adage was "Better that I should wrong the world than that the world should wrong me," and he was a masterful manipulator and powerbroker. A certain general, once his ally, later turned against him because of his tyranny. In one memorable episode, Liang is fleeing in desperation and is met by the enemy general at a mountain pass.
Without missing a beat, Liang hails him in humble and friendly terms, asking "You have been well, I trust, since we last met?" This appeal to their old friendship causes the general to hesitate, and Liang escapes.
Later on, the general is betrayed and assassinated by a man in Liang's pay. The severed head of the general is brought to Liang, who regards it coldly and says "You have been well, I trust, since we last met?" with a strong sense of irony.

In Asianloft, Liang commands great respect and honor from his common subjects. Higher up, his lieutenants and allies would likely have deep distrust of him, as he does of them. His curse could be similar to Elena Faith-hold. No matter how loyal his lieutenants, Liang mistrusts them and eliminates them after a while, usually playing them off against each other for his favor.

His powers would be similar to Dominic d'Honaire, though. He is able to infect even the healthiest royal court with intrigue, distrust, and suspicion. At a glance, he can divine weaknesses in relationships, and insecurities among his enemies. It would be almost impossible to lie to him convincingly.

Despite his great talents, Liang ZhenFang has a fatal flaw. He will never be a great king, because his intrigues and plots to ensure his own survival keeps his country so roiled in infighting that it will never truly act as a unified domain.

His cynicism and betrayal could be sympathetically viewed as a natural survival reaction to the time when he lived in. But, to paraphrase the Chinese film Hero (Ying Xiong), a good warrior fights battles so that he may ultimately put his sword down in peace. A bad warrior fights battles forever. Liang would be similar to one who can never know peace because he carries his own treachery within him, and infects others with it wherever he goes.

This is amazing stuff, HuManBing. It would've taken me years of research to get even half of that, let alone whether I would be creative enough to actually get that far into making domains with the info. This is great. I can't wait until we're all finished and have a complete Gothic Asian continent!

What about "Gothic East" or "Gothic Orient" as Name for the Cluster ?
I would also suggest to make some new threads to keep a better overview an keep this thread for general diskussions :
One for the already done domains,
one for domains under development
and one for oriental races and special rules.

HuManBing suggested to have a close relationship between Rukushima Tayioo and Jomon. I agree with that completely and would suggest the following (HuManBing: I sended this also in a PM to you ) :

Quote from myself:
The people of Rokushima could be the descendants of colonists, who once settlet down on some Islands further west. For centurys, there was no contact between Rokushima Tayioo and the motherland - but now the first Jomon-steamships arrived the coasts near Shiro-Koori-Castle. The developing relationship between the common people is friendly and hearty (they see it as the meeting of two long lost brothers), but the potentiell relationship between the darklords has a much darker tone (there is no real relationship yet).
To the darklord-daimyos of Rokushima, the advanced Jomon apear outright alien and eerie - on the one hand, they are just like the Rokuma on the other hand they changed in a way that is immensely difficult to understand for the darklords.
For Lord Minamoto, Rokushima represents nearly everything he hates: economic stagnation; primitiveness; superstition; reactionary traditions - in a word : Ineffectiveness !!
Of course, he plans to overtake Rokushima, and very clearly the few Samurai of Rokushima could not stand a chance against the large and well equiped modern army of the Jomon. That is even more clear, as no daimyo of Rokushima will ever close an alliance with another of his brothers.
But at the moment, Minamoto wants to use the basicly friendly relationships between the two folks. He sended "missionarys" to Rokushima, that "preach" to the peasants about the unity of the "Great-Jomon-Empire" (with the slogan "One Language - One Nation") and about the blessings of scientific progress. The peasants are easily impressed by the technological toys, those "missionarys" show them (the difference between a Jomon and a advanced westener doing that is easy: The Jomon belongs to the same ethnic group as the Rokuma and therefor is considered to be a "brother" - the westener is alien and a "Gaijin" at best and a "White Devil" at worst) Slowly the Rokuma start to believe this tales and some view Tekkoukyuu in the brightest colors and start thinking of Lord Minamoto to be the righteous leader of their whole folk - a problem, that is jet still ignored by the ignorant daimyos.....
What do you think about that way to connect the two domains ?

Another question : What about the occupators in Liang beeing the Jomon ?

Waldi, I have PMed you, and a few of the points I made there I think I probably should have made here.

Technology and Balance of Power:
In Ravenloft proper, the most advanced domains are usually the smaller domains. The idea here is that in order to achieve a certain level of academic superiority, you'd have to invest in a schooling institution, you'd have to invest in a rigorous way of passing on knowledge, and you'd have to invest in the infrastructure to keep that all going.

That takes resources and money, and it's resources and money that could be spent elsewhere. I'd argue that it's important to keep a balance in a domain's strengths and weaknesses. My proposal (which I still haven't quite written up yet) for a Cantonese style technophile domain would have imposed quite a few limits on the domain's ability to project its power.

That domain would have very advanced small arms, and even some railroad systems. However, these would be hampered by the fact that it's still following a pre-Industrial social system. In this system, it's the nobles and gentry who act as patrons and fund the exploits of engineers and chemists. They also are reluctant to allow their own investment be used by others. So one noble house may have developed an effective rifle bore and another may have developed the ability to put together primer cap and bullet in one single unit (i.e. modern bullets) - but they'll be damned if they'll share it, and this infighting means they will never seriously pose a threat to the Hua empire.

Also, CL 9 in the Core Rulebook says "residents begin to think that science is slowly replacing magic". That's an important thought to keep in mind. For the Cantonese domain, the dragon has already left because the natural beauty of the land has been irrevocably disrupted, and monasteries are packing up and leaving, taking their meditations and psionics with them. So this mighty domain counts as CL 9 in a few cities perhaps (important to remember: rural areas are still hovering at around CL 5) but the price they pay is: no arcane magic, no psionics, and an oppressed underclass of workers who are essential to producing the fine arms and works, but who never get to use them themselves.

And now onto geography:

I've been constructing this area so that the northern half resembles East Asia - China is in the middle, with Korea and Manchuria to the northeast, and Uighurs and Mongols to the northwest.

However, to the south, things are reversed. The sea is to the West (so Westerners really are Westerners) and so is the Japanese style domain of Jomon, and the Rokushima Taiyoo cluster. As you get further south, you run into the Indochinese style of domains.

The invaders who have taken two ports - Yadao and Hongjiangdu - are intended to be primarily white Westerners from Western Core. However, there's no reason why the Jomon can't be there too. Maybe they helped take over the ports, as a way of asserting their "inevitable destiny".

Third lesser kingdom

I'm also working to include the final "lesser kingdom" (which roughly equates to a full Core Domain in Western Ravenloft terms) called the Wen kingdom, based in the foothills and mountains to the east of the capital. These would be heavily religious and feature many monasteries. They would have little of an army or trade, but their mastery of psionics would be unparallelled, and they would have plenty of clerics and mages too.

Anybody aiming to work on a Tibet-style high mountain aerie domain could easily fit that in even further east of this Wen Kingdom, representing an even more hard-core spiritualist domain.

After I finish Wen, all that I have left to do for the Hua empire is to fill in a few smaller domains - the likes of Keening and Tepest in West Core - with their colorful leaders. These would represent non-Hua subjects in the empire, and they have various levels of freedom. The Lolo tribe (Luo minority) is especially interesting, because they are a matriarchy and has historically given the Hua empire a lot of trouble.

@HuManBing:
What you said about power-balancing is completely right ! We have to keep the "high-tech-domains" at bay a bit
The most logical possibility to do that in Jomon would be in my opinion a civil war. There would be something like the Satsuma-Rebellion - only extendet !
Lord Minamoto cannot just send his troups to some foreign country to conquer it, because then he would lack the manpower he needs at his homeland to keep the traitionalist rebells at bay.
In this case, Jomon would not be a single domain, but just the name of the island.
Tekkoukyuu would be a autonome (and small) domain while the rest of Jomon is a domain by its own.
The capitol-city and the near, sorrounding citys are a clear CL-9-domain, while the rest of Jomon has a CL somewhere between 6 and 8.
Tekkoukyuu is a highly industrialized and high developed area where no one questions the might of Lord Minamoto. Minamotos problem is, that he is a kind of false emperor. His ancestors where just normal landlords and had no connection to the old imperial dynastie. 20 years ago, Minamoto took over the power in Jomon after the old Tenno (the last of his dynasty) died mysteriously. At first, most of the other daimyos accepted Minamoto as new Tenno. Then he started his "reforms"....
Today, Tekkenkoukyuu is shaped exactly after the will of Lord Minamoto. The whole rest of Jomon is now splitted in two parts - the imperial loyalists and the rebelling traditionalists.
The CL of single settlements depends on the party it belongs to. But certain pieces of "high-tech" are common in all Jomon, bycicles or modern looking police-uniforms...

Before the Can Emperor expelled the Taiga from the Yujing palace, and before the Taiga barbarians even thundered down and conquered the capital four centuries ago, the former rulers were the Wen dynasty. Theirs was a rule marked by a religious renaissance, as various faiths flourished and grew. One such faith was the then-newly-arrived Minglun jiao, brought over by travellers from a land called "Sri Raji".

Well, dynasties come and go, but faiths are more tenacious. And throughout the Empire, the Minglun jiao temples now dot the landscape, with various different abbots heading them. The grandest and most influential of these still resides in the Wen kingdom to the east and southeast of the Imperial capital.

Kingdom of Wen
The rolling plains of Yujing and the grasslands of eastern Liang give way to the east to hills, forests, and finally the Yangfeng mountain range ("Sun Peaks", named for the direction where the sun rises. This is the domain of Wen ("sense" or sometimes "taste"), a former empire unseated by the hordes of the Taiga.
The last Wen Emperor, remembered only as "Zhong Di" ("final emperor") was a cautiously capable ruler, perhaps well-suited to maintaining the balance in a time of relative peace. However, at a time when famine struck the land and the Taiga invaded in unstoppable waves from the north, Wen Zhongdi's best attempts were futile. Aided by the traitorous royal Shun house, the Taiga finally broke through the Emperor's defenses north of the capital. Legend has it that they were aided by an artifact stolen by a Shun scion from Zong'Anling, the necropolis.
Wen Zhongdi oversaw a fierce resistance within the city, and refused to quit his residence even as the Taiga fought their way into the Huangjincheng. He was struck down in his throne room, wearing a battle tunic and leggings instead of his royal robes, clutching his seal in one hand and a sword in the other.
Wen's descendants found some grudging succor in other kingdoms, and aided the Can royal family in its ascent to the throne. In return, Wen was gifted their own lands to the east, where once had only been monasteries and mills. The descendants turned their pursuits to monastic concerns, with the appearance of exiled kings ruling over a scattering of hermits. In name at least, they have forsworn most Imperial goals.

Based on: Yunnan province, Anhui province, Qinghai province, lower Tibetan plateau.
CL: (very roughly) 6 in major cities to 4 in inland areas.
Landscape: Hills and forests, with a massive lake Cuihai (pronounced "Ts'way high", emerald sea) at a medium-high altitude in the foothills of Zifengshan ("dzz'fung shan", meaning "Purple Phoenix Mountain"). Cities are few and far between here, with the majority of the populace contained in small villages and even smaller monasteries.
Major Settlements: Capital Juedu (Judgement Capital - also can sound like "Dissatisfaction Capital"), pop. 50,000, perched on a minor plateau fed by Cuihai streams; Yin'Guang (Thunder Expanse), pop. 35,000, a center for lumber mills, so named because its eastern view is breathtaking, with distant rainclouds and mountains in the bright year-round sunshine; Yunming (Cloudbright) aerie, set high up on a moderate plateau with a view of the valleys, often enshrouded in mist. The final site of the treacherous Shun ruling family's redoubts is a walled city named Luonan, and it has been slow to attract residents, as a terrible massacre occurred there. (In reality, the Shun attracted the attention of a shade serving the undead ruler Hua Gaozu, who followed the artifact thief back to Luonan and slowly drove him and his family insane. As Wen troops approached the city, the ruling family were struck down by the thief's family, who then proceeded to open the gates and allow the army to enter.)
Population: Estimated 300,000, spread out in about 2,000 villages, monasteries, abbeys, and temples.
Characters: This far into the mountains, some nonhumans have continued to live quietly away from the Imperial throne. Thus, dwarves, elves, and other fantastical races may be found, although they are insular and keep to themselves. They are not represented in official census counts, although the king of Wen does not tax them. Classes: There are few fighters, as one of the good-faith gestures is that Wen maintains only a small fighting army. However, there are many monks here, and psionic discipline is high as the mystics hone their skills in the solitude of their monasteries. Since the disturbances of the Wen's family fortunes, the worship of the Celestial Bureaucracy has waned somewhat, but some temples to Shangdi and other deities are still found. The people are poor, and rogues tend to find slim pickings, although bards are welcome as calligraphers, performers, and bringers of news. The demihumans can field barbarians as well.
Language: Hua Zhengti written, Hua Zhengyu spoken. Also numerous dialects from mountain town to mountain town. Wen also exists as an archaic language, and is sometimes used as a semi-secret script.
Religion: Celestial Bureaucracy (waning), plenty of competing psionic/philosophical pursuits, including Minglun jiao (Wheel of Enlightenment, mock Buddhism) and Shuangqi jiao (Double-Spiritism, mock Daoism).

The Law: King Wen Zunhe (pronounced "Dzwin Huh", meaning "respecter of harmony") rules with a moderate distance. He is the 10th ruler of this realm, and has outwardly devoted himself to study of the classics, and to fostering a kingdom of free religious and spiritual introspection. Most of the people are agrarian, with villages usually supporting a small caste of priests or monks.
Wen Zunhe rules through the prince-abbots. In the larger towns and cities, a great temple or monastery usually dominates, with the abbots within overseeing much of the rule in an advisory post. Generally, the king's edicts are not strict, but he occasionally rules to change traditions and customs. This has caused some consternation, but so far has been accepted. Most recently, he banned foot-binding for all women in the kingdom.
Every so often, an advanced abbot will go to consult with the king in a divine ritual. On occasion, the abbot has not returned, and a replacement is quietly chosen while a statue of the former is placed in the temple's memorial.
Trade: Grapes, minerals, abundant bamboo, sheep, ibex, cattle, persimmons, apples.

Resources: The domain also is home to a certain type of curious animal, which has earned itself a reputation for being something of a despoiler. Entire forests of bamboo have ended up gone after this creature, said to be about the size of a bear, passed through. The locals have described it as being rather like a Shuangqi symbol - black and white and rather round - and possessing fearsome fangs and claws. Other sightings have said it carries around a smaller, reddish bear or monkey - this smaller counterpart is nimbler and has been reportedly stealing meats and food from larders. The local term for this is "shi tie shou", or "beast that eats iron". Other terms for it include "liangse xiong" (two colored bear), "mianyin mao" (shadow-faced cat), and "yougun" (the buttered stick).
Coinage: The yinbi and tongbi are identical to the Imperial standard. Wen prints banknotes of its own, and also exchanges notes from other kingdoms.

Politics: Wen Zunhe has had a somewhat uneasy relationship with King Liang and Emperor Can. His dynasty owes its survival to both, and he is the balancer between an ambitious Liang and a complacent Can. His grandfather, Wen Tuolun, put down a civil conflict stemming from religious differences between the Shuangqi sect and Minglun sect, and the kingdom since then has forsworn arms and weapons. This has resulted in a greater emphasis on martial arts, studied in the cloisters and undercrofts of the monasteries. Wen Zunhe now seeks a way to control this potentially-violent tool, and he looks with unease at Liang's increasing militarization, wondering if his monks will someday meet their halberdiers in battle.

Darklord: Wen Zunhe cultivates the appearance of a man who is peacefully seeking religious and spiritual enlightenment, but that is only part of the story. The spirits of his ancestors call out to him, clouding his mind, and reminding him of the glories of the Imperial throne and shaming him with his "kingdom of lambs". At the same time, his religious advisors seek to turn him to their faith and away from the others. Although consciously striving to free himself from the crass demands of flesh and bone, which warp the matrix through which he perceives the universe, Wen Zunhe is subject to outbursts of rage and fits of violence. The martial arts he has learned to control his own spirit become deadly techniques. He seeks communion with religious leaders to calm his soul, aware that he must not divulge his true forbidden Imperial feelings to them, while enduring their veiled power-plays and intrigues. On occasion, in holy sanctuaries and in edified altars, he has lost control of his own rage and torn his victims into pieces. When he returns, it is understood that the abbot has once more returned to the cosmos, while he - as always - is left behind.

The Dragon of this land resides in the mountains, either in the lightning that strikes it during the storms, or in the jagged peaks that rise up in the far distance during a clear day. Of all the central kingdoms, it is the least tolerant of humans, and sends earthquakes almost weekly. The wild, untamed spirit of the Dragon gives little aid to King Wen's meditations in self-control.

Religious details The Minglun temples are called "cha", whereas the temples for the Celestial Bureaucracy and traditional Chinese gods (including Confucius) are called "miao". The Shuangqi temples are called "si", and are highly prevalent in this domain. Several temples exist following the secret ways of the Qunsen ("Chwin sun", meaning "sprawling forest") martial arts temples. These vary across all three beliefs: Minglun, Shangdi, and Shuangqi, but all stress physical health and fitness. What many do not know is that this is the elite fighting force that Wen is cultivating in case of war - a force of people gifted with impressive physical skills, and the ability to infiltrate and deal death without even needing a blade. A tiny subsect of the Qunsen monks, known as the Huangzhi Hui ("Yellow Branch Society", also sounds like "Emperor Support Society") also have an ulterior motive - to eliminate the Can dynasty and restore King Wen to the Imperial throne. (Based heavily on the San He Hui, better known as the Triads, whose original purpose was to restore the Ming dynasty to the throne.)

Here is a very rudimentary map showing the rough locations of important cities and the nations.

Yujing is an imperial province that is reasonably large, though not nearly as large as a kingdom.

Zong'Anling (note the spelling change) is just a city within Yujing province, although it counts as a domain itself.

I also did not get round to finding a Chinese literation of the Taiga city.

Taiga is translated as "tai ge", which literally means "Raise spear" in Chinese.

You'll notice a few "corner" domains between Que, Liang, and Wen. These will be the minor domains that I hope to outline later on, featuring ethnic minorities of China.

Many, many major cities are not listed here because of space limitations. The entire size of the Hua Empire is roughly the same as Ravenloft's Core. Bear in mind Que is slightly larger than Darkon, Liang is about the size of Nova Vaasa. I hope it all works out in the wash...

Here's the map. I also have a copy in Paint Shop Pro, so anybody who has that software can PM me and I'll send you the original copy, with happy layers and sprites and stuff.

There's space to the south for plenty of Indochinese style domains, and space to the East for a Tibetan style domain, and of course everybody's favorite Co-Prosperity Economic Sphere founders, the Japanese, can be located a little ways west in the ocean.

The signature at the bottom left is "HuManBing zuopin", which is rather like saying "Savage Cruel Barbarians products (TM)".

Wow !!! A cool map ! I like it !
I will copy it, and add Jomon and Siranga-Purang perhaps this evening..

Wow... just wow! You guys have done fantastic work, all just in the last few days.

Btw, when you've gotten a domain fully written up, just pm me and I'll give you my gmail addy to send it to. Note that "written up" doesn't necessarily have to include darklord stats - several domains in the canon rules have only a description of the darklord but no stats (e.g., Mircea of Sanguinia). So if you'd rather skip doing a full description of the darklord on any domain for now that's okay. You can even leave a domain's lord as "unknown", as was done with Bluetspur for years.

Leaving Darklords unknown is a good point !! I think, I will do that with the jungle-domain north of Siranga-Purang. In this case, I will just menshion, that there is a terrible, bloody guerilla-war going on between the tribes and the godkings army....and that there is something unspeakable that was never realy seen by mortal eyes (only flickering shadows) lurking in the forests and strikes tribesmen and soldiers alike.
I will leave open, what this thing is exactly. You could view it as a kind of dangerous animal, a demon or even a ravenloftian "Predator" - all that should be possible and no one knows, when it strikes next or what the true nature of the "thing" is. This kind of darklord would easily mirror the guerilla-war-conept, I intended for this domain.
What do you think of that ?

Another thought, I had, was one about western foreigners in Asialoft.
In our history, first the gouvernments of western nations had few direct influence in Asia - therefore trading-companys and missionary-societys were very active. I think, we should adapt that:

As an example:
The Eastern-Orient-Company
This is a strong alliance of wealthy traders from Nova Vaasa, Darkon and Mordent that was initialy founded by Claas Clemenson, a rich tea- and spice-trader from Egertus.
Today, the clippers of the Eastern-Orient-Company are the most seen western ships in Asialoft. Thanks to the fact, that they are the only faction, that conducts trade between the eastern and the western core really extensive, the Eastern-Orient-Company grew rich and powerfull. At the moment, the Company holds greater embassys and tradingposts Yang´An, Yadao, Hongjiangdu, Tekkenkoukyuu, and Siranga. The Company owns also some small islands in the western ocean where they founded some spice- and tea-plantations.
However, the Companys might comes from cunning and economic cleverness, but not from arms. So, the Company pays mercanerys to protect their tea-clippers. During the last years, also some oriental tradesmen joined the Company to increase their profits (by importing western wares to the Orient). That development was benefitial for the Company - the native members give the Company the great advantage of knowing their customers better than their rivals.
Unfortunately, the company-agents started recently to meddle in internal political affairs of some oriental realms. That caused a lot of tumult in some cases, and not all company-traders like the way, the Company has chosen.

So, this is the extendet map. I added mainly Jomon, Siranga-Purang, the Northern Jungles and a mountain-area for use as "Tibet"

*applause*

Great map, Waldi! Hats off to you for your good work!

(By the way, how long did it take you to put that together? My own scribblings actually took me and my ancient computer about 1.5 hours *shiver*)

As far as unknown Darklords go, I also feel I would like to keep one darklord permanently unknown, and that is the power behind the throne at Yujing. I have toyed with the idea of A) a corrupt dragon, B) vengeful ancestors of emperors, and C) an actual Dark Power. None of them really fits, although I prefer C as a possible explanation.

I'd like to keep Yujing's throne power misty and undefined. It should suffice as a lesson that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".