How do you do low-fantasy wuxia/fantasy-china? Everything I've heard about Chinese Mythology makes it sound like super high-tier dragonball stuff. So how would one do a fantasy china while trying to keep things grounded?
>>74696024 (OP)
>>74696024 (OP)Just remember that the Chinese tended to enormously inflate numbers in their writings, even in historical accounts.Like how when the warlord Zhang Xianzhong exterminated the population of the Sichuan province in the 1600s, the official Chinese account says he killed 600 million people, which was four times more than the combined population of all of China at the time.
>>74696024 (OP)That's because Dragonball is wuxia/xianxia.
>>74696161 天生萬物以養人 人無一善以報天 殺殺殺殺殺殺殺
>>74697207Based.
>>74697207based and killpilled.
>>74697207>>74696161>seven kill steleWas Zhang the 17th century version of pic related?
>>74696024 (OP)By basing it on Chinese Martial-Arts stories instead of Chinese Mythology.There are like, a million low-fantasy wuxia movies. Watch a few. Some easy ones to watch are Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, The House of Flying Daggers, and A Chinese Ghost Story. They're all very low-tier fantasy.
>>74697281True Legend?
>>74697281five deadly venoms, too
>>74697281>>74697300Also, the Ip Man films are set in the WWII era, but might as well be Wuxia films for how skilled the martial artists are.
>>74697207Standard xianxia "mercy". Weirdest fucking genre ever.
>>74697329Examples of movies to emulate:>8 Diagram Pole Fighter>36th Chamber>Legendary Weapons of China>Golden Arms>Five Deadly Venom>Crippled Avengers>One Armed Boxer>Flying Guillotine >Dirty Ho>Leg Fighters>Invincible Armor
>>74696069That's an awesome post and you're awesome for saving and sharing it. Thanks anon!
>>74696024 (OP)Keeping it grounded is reasonably easy. Set common limits, restrict energy attacks, remember that weak magic systems look impressive. Wuxia has several genre limits that are common. Apparently some don't make sense w/o a feel for the bullshit legends martial artists like to throw around. DBZ looks like kung-fu fantasy to some people. Yeah it sounds crazy, but I've met people who didn't see the distinction. If you make things grow directly out of a realistic combat system you'll be fine. Some old school kung-fu movies will give a good feel for the low fantasy power level of the wuxia genre. Simple tip: If someone is Enlightened, Blessed by a God, or takes an Elixir... these people fall out of the power level limit, even in low powered wuxia. They don't show up often in wuxia, they're mostly in the past. If any of these people are common, you aren't in low-fantasy wuxia anymore.
>>74696024 (OP)Read Grandmaster of Demonic CultivationThen do that
>>74698685That's pretty high fantasy.>>74696024 (OP)Legends of the Wulin RPG. But use the rewrite version made some time ago, original have very messy rules.
>>74701612Qin afaik is lower tier power stuff.Also, someone else has been rewriting the rules. 1.5.2 is the last, I think.
>>74696024 (OP)Read zhiguai instead of gods-and-demons you fool. Zhiguai focuses on earthy, urban-legend styles of ghost stories and fairy tales. You want shit like Pu Songling, not Xu Zhonglin.Zhiguai = shit ilke a Daoist demon-hunter meets a fox-girl without knowing it and they start a forbidden romance until the fox-girl has to reveal herself to save the demon-hunter from a monster. The fox-girl dies, and the demon hunter is very sad, but then he hears that the body of a dead servant-girl has woken up, and he's overjoyed to find that the soul of the fox-girl commandeered the freshly dead body. The poor dead servant-girl doesn't get any say in this.>>74696069I fucking hate this picture so much.>>74697281I hate you, too.
>>74696024 (OP)That artwork is traced from some DFO art.
Why is Chinese fantasy almost always consists of a world dominated by Martial Arts schools who act like Kingdoms?
>>74703851Men who can fly, slash 5 opponents in a second or kill a man with one punch quickly become solid bases for governance.
>>74703851That's all that retard westerners know about China.
>>74703851Same reason that european fantasy is always monarchies with a bunch of knights hanging around. Its just the tropes
>>74696069Quality post. Thank you
>>74702229You're courting death.Grandfather is not someone Junior should provoke.
>>74703851Because it's actually way more realistic than in western fantasy. Chinese fantasy acknowledges that if there is a society of super-strong warriors with near-infinite growth potential, then those guys will naturally end up in charge.Furthermore, the social contract goes to shit because while in our world, a group of people almost always beats out an individual, in a Wuxia/Xianxia world one guy can train hard enough to surpass a group. Because of this, no matter how much fine dressing you put on it, the only meaningful metric of power is might makes right. Are you a king? You better constantly be training, because all it takes is for one peasant or rival king to train harder than you and you lose everything. Are you a democracy? Better hope one guy dissatisfied with your way of doing things doesn't train harder than you, or guess what you lose everything. If you are in any position of power you are constantly shit on by superiors who want to slow your growth, while your inferiors covet your position and seek to surpass you. It's a pure Darwinian zero-sum race where anyone will kill anyone else for the power to grow in strength just a little bit faster. Institutions are a pyramid with the weakest practitioners at the bottom and the strongest at the top. Are you smarter than our current leader? Too bad, unless you train harder than him you literally cannot usurp him because he can blow a hole clean through a mountain and you can't.
>>74708523Again, you see the mountain but can’t see Mount Tai, you’re just a frog in a well! My pills allow me to triple my cultivation speed, making me a once-in-a-millenium wonder! Only I can truly reach the Heavens in a single bound!
>>74697416Flying guillotine is a great movie. The semi remake the guillotines annoy me because it switched power levels out of nowhere, and ended on a harsh note. Like oh hey look at these guys do crazy martial art shit and now they're dying if sickness, being rushed by peasants, gunned down and dying after fighting like they never trained beforeAlso, both brotherhood of blades movies are great. But the 2nd is a sequel
>>74702229Is there any zhiguai exactly like that?
>>74708603I thought this was Wuxia, not XianxiaHmph. Even if you tripled, or even quadrupled your cultivation speed, you're still in the trifling Dao Seeking stage.Allow Grandfather to show you there are Heavens above Heavens.
>>74709232Fuck your sister, "my grandfather" my ass! This grand uncle will put you in your place in 5 moves!
>>74709129I basically smashed two Pu Songling stories together. Idk if you've seen that Hong Kong episode of Love, Death, and Robots, but aside from the steampunk and reeeee Britain shenanigans that's a pretty good representation of your average zhiguai.Well, other than the zhiguai which take one page max and describe how a guy accidentally hung himself while trying to prank someone.
>>74709331Even without any magical techniques, I don't need more than one finger to put you in your place. See the fruits of someone who has been practising cultivation for ten million years!
>>74709925>Ten million years of fruit cultivationLiteral xianxiafags. Adding evil and homo will turn out wonderfully, I'm sure.
>>74708523>>74708603>>74709232>>74709331>>74709925Xianxia dialogue never fails to amuse me.
Any wuxia or xianxia story recs for a frog in a well, my grandfathers?
>>74703851Because Chinese bureaucracy is boring. The only system of government that makes for interesting fantasy is feudalism.
>>74696024 (OP)>super high tier DragonBall stuffThat's partially because fucking goku is based on the monkey king
>>74710202>xianxiaWorld of Cultivation (not really xianxia, but that's the genre it's published under. it's a good read tho)A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality (drop it once MC leaves the first world)Lord of the Mysteries (it's a xuanhuan, but ehh it's close enough)Most of Er Gen's stuff>wuxiaAll of Jin Yong's stuff
>>74696024 (OP)Not all wuxia is super high powered. The Legend of the Condor Heroes recently is getting some pretty good official English translations.
>>74703906
>>747085653 impetuous young masters disliked this post
>>74696024 (OP)Jade Empire is a good start
>>74708565Pretty much this. You don't want to live in a Wuxia/Xianxia world unless you're the sort of rabid asshole willing to abandon your morals for the never-ending escalating path of power.
>>74712272You could get lucky and be born the silkpants son of a sect/clan Patriarch who's already achieved immortality, then cultivate in peace.But of course, you'll go on to be an arrogant Young Master who provokes the new Outer Sect member with a hidden cultivation base of a type not seen since ancient times..
>>74712323You could also be potentially lucky enough to be born the son to one of the functional gods of the setting. So long as you don't make yourself known, you can basically cultivate across the Heavens without any risk of some arrogant young/old master deciding to train to kick your teeth in, kill and rape your parents, and steal your soul for added power.
>>74712272more xianxia than Wuxia. Wuxia tends to be no to low fantasy. Xianxia is when shit gets insane and power scaling becomes batshit
>>74712430Wuxia can still be plenty crazy. Thunderbolt Fantasy is Wuxia after all, and nobody wants to live in the same world where Vapeduck could take interest in them.
>>74708565>>74712272You are all speaking about "cultivation" which is an extremely recent genre derived, literally, from MMO grinding
>>74708565I'm smarter than the current leader. Surely I can use my superior intellect to defeat him in a duel or something.
>>74712867nah, just a frog in the pond. Unless your the MC, underestimating something gets you killed if you're lucky. Very lucky
>>74712837Also, see this post here >>74702229It's a bit like someone asked about low Western fantasy and the recs were all Moorcock, Brandon Sanderson and portal fantasy webnovels
>>74697329Pretty much anything by Shaw brothers is good. Historical fantasy kung fu was their bread and butter.
>>74696024 (OP)Just an ordinary Swords of the Middle Kingdom game. Good luck finding a copy, though, Event Horizon's been gone for like two decades now.
>>74708565>>74712867>>74714643I'm pretty sure there are several stories where the strong guy gets outwitted by the smart guy in Wuxia, but I can't recall them on the top of my head.
>>74696024 (OP)Reverend insanity had a pretty unique thing and was fairly low powered until it became full on dimensional wizardry at the end of book two.
>>74720772It was destined to be that high considers the world building
>>74697344OUT BY THE ROOTS
>>74720886oh I'm not dissing it, in fact it handled that pretty well since despite the MC acquiring vast amounts of power, he's never quite out of the frying pan (or rather he isn't up to the point where I read)just saying the voodoo bug magic can be grafted as a magic system onto a mundane martial arts game and by the inherent scarcity of resources you won't have sword wizards flying around ruining the low power feeling
>>74703805Really? Never noticed.
>>74716868Wuxia isn't xianxiaWuxia is martial arts heroesXianxia is surpassing gods
>>74710484Any novels like lord of mysteries? I don't want to wait a year until he starts working on a second one
How would your current character fall to the young master, and if they beat him how will their grandfather humble them?
>>74703805Now that you mention it does have similar pose to the F.nen master's portrait
>>74696024 (OP)I really like how fighting is the major social activity in wuxia. Wanna go on a date, or purchase a tea block at an auction? There will be a fight with speeches. It amusingly increases the total number of fights while reducing the severity of them. Which is the best possible outcome imho. Of course there are still deadly serious fights, but after you toss in enough "friendship though fighting" elements it gets real chummy between people who are actually trying to kill each other. Wuxia is just as crazy as xianxia, if you crank the social knob just as hard, but in the exact opposite direction (in the battle comrades direction, not the sociopath direction). It still fits a good chunk of the genre too.
Try reading some Wuxia-inspired manhua like Peerless Dad, Marital God, Chronicles of a Heavenly Demon, Yongbi The Invincible, and Gosu. That should give you some idea. Gosu gets pretty Dragonball at times though. Also keep in mind that politics also play a big part in Martial Arts drama.
>>74725439My current character isn't even relevant against the lowest end Xianxia warrior, let alone a young master.
>>74703851It's not true.That is not to say that the Jianghu and its factions aren't like relevant in the matter of life and they can gain political notoriety with populace, but they are always a world of outlaws and above them rulling, but from afar, are the various generals & emperors who actually rule the Middle Kingdom. Generally speaking of course.
