Convenient Resource on Japanese Feudalism

[M. J. Young]

I'm creating a game world that's going to borrow heavily on Japanese feudalism for both color and structure, and I need something more than just OAD&D Oriental Adventures to provide me with this. It's focused mainly on Ninja and Samurai, but I need something of the hierarchy and titles to provide the structure for an empire.

I'd rather find something fairly light and easy to read that's available on the web, but I'll take what I can get.

Any help with this?

Thanks.

--M. J. Young

[Andrew Martin]

Sengoku could be very useful here. It was written by people who were very much into Japanese history.

[Valamir]

Heh.  Yeah, but Sengoku fails the "light and easy to read" test pretty profoundly.

There is this thread down in the TROS forum that you might find of interest.

I don't know that there's any specific references to what you're looking for but there are a bunch of people there who seem to be familiar with the period who could probably point you in the right direction.

[Paganini]

M. J., IME it's hard to find good Japanese historical material. I did a fairly extensive search a year or so ago, and all the books I found were either extremely expensive, out of print, or on a very specific subject.

Strange as it may seem, the manual that comes with Shogun: Total War - Warlord Edition is actually a very nice concise overview of Japanese feudal history. You should be able to get it (and a bunch of other interesting stuff) at this page: http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/faq.shtml

(BTW, the Shogun game itself is very nice as far as historical accuracy and atmospheric depiction. There were many bugs with the first release, but the Warlord Edition (and / or the patch) fixed them all. You can probably find it for under $10 (I got mine for $9.95) in the bargain bin at Wal Mart, or on Chips & Bits, frex.

[Valamir]

BTW:  I did just notice that Sengoku Revised is now available as PDF from RPG.Now for about $5.  For that price might not be a bad place to start afterall.

[M. J. Young]

Thanks to all.  I found some resources that seem to do the job; it is in some ways much simpler than I imagined, and in some ways more complex, but I think I've got enough for the scenario now.

--M. J. Young

[Jack Aidley]

Depending on what exactly you are looking for you may find the Hagakure, and The Book Of Five Rings useful. Cheap, and interesting too.

Probably too late now, though.

[quozl]

Thanks to all.  I found some resources that seem to do the job; it is in some ways much simpler than I imagined, and in some ways more complex, but I think I've got enough for the scenario now.

--M. J. Young

So what did you find?  Inquiring minds want to know!

[M. J. Young]

What did I find? Hmmm....

[*]http://www.no-cool.com/TJ/STATUS/mibunseido.html gave me a devil of a time trying to print it (hard-coded to wider than page width; maybe I should have tried changing orientation of my paper), but had some valuable material particularly on titles within the hierarchy (which is rather thin). It distinguishes Buahi from Kuge as parallel hierarchies.[*]http://www.northnet.org/americankangdukwon/samurai.html had a decent glossary of terms at the bottom of a sketchy history.[*]I copied a glossary from a page by Ando Hiroshige, but did not print the page, so I don't have the URL.[*]Encyclopedia.com had some useful information in the entries on daimyo, titles (non-western), and Shogun (and I think I also read Mikado, but there wasn't enough there to be worth printing--I believe it said that this title of the emperor was not used by the Japanese people themselves, but by Europeans only).[*]http://net4tv.com/Story.cfm?storyID=291 provided more detail on feudal Japan, and particularly the Kuge, who were difficult to trace apart from this.[*]http://www.wargamer.com/shogun/ttt-9.asp wasn't that useful overall, but provided an important distinction between shogun and kanpaku.[*]http://www.kt.rim.or.jp/~shinichi/HARRY/seifu.html appears to be in the halting English of someone whose native tongue is Japanese (although his name is Harry Johnson, so maybe I'm giving him too much slack); it provides some insight into the relationships particularly of the Mikado and the Shogun, but also of some of the other noble classes.[/list:u]
To summarize the major points--

[*]The emperor, whose title is Mikado but who is not called that (addressing and referencing him as son of Amaterasu Omikami rather than by an official title) is technically ruler of all, but since political and worldly affairs are considered "dirty" he doesn't actually rule any of it. Rather, he appoints the Shogun, who is the highest Daiymo, to take care of worldly matters.[*]There's not all that much distinction in rank by title. The Shogun is the highest Daimyo, but otherwise it's just Shogun--Daimyo--Samurai--Bushi, with a few others below that who are considered noble (in the sense that they are above the commoners) but wouldn't fit well with our western sense of nobility.[*]There's a parallel track of Kuge nobility next to this track of Buahi, or warrior, nobility. The Kanpaku are highest here, and most are dedicated to religion or arts.[*]Differences in rank between nobles are measured by their worth in rice.[/list:u]
I haven't really digested it all yet; I've got it on my clipboard to read and use for the scenario in development. However, since this isn't going to be historical Japan, I probably have more than enough for my purposes. I wanted to avoid using terms and concepts in ways that would be identified as wrong by people who know, and to build such hierarchy for my world as would properly use the titles. In some ways it's going to be simpler than I expected (no structured duke, prince, count, earl, baron nonsense), and in some ways it's going to be more complicated (getting the relationship between the Shogun and the Kanpaku clear).

Anyway, it will be in The Third Book of Worlds, which if things go smoothly should be out by early next year, I'd wager, and maybe sooner.

Thanks again for the pointers.

--M. J. Young