d20 Expeditious Retreat Press A Magical Society - Silk Road.pdf - Expeditious Retreat Press - R5700

A Magical Society:

Silk Road

Writing and Layout by Suzi Yee

Editing by Joseph Browning

Art by Claudio Pozas

Expeditious Retreat Press

Table of Contents

Introduction ..........................................4

What is the Silk Road?..............................4

What do you mean by Silk Roads?............4

Chapter 1: Components of

Silk Roads..............................5

Laying the Foundation...................5

Geography..........................................5

Design Notes.................................6

Barrier Cultures..................................7

Design Notes.................................8

Making Culture Count........................8

The Finer Things in Life......................9

Designer Notes..............................10

Features of Silk Roads...................10

A rose by any other name….................10

The Middleman...................................10

“Who picked this one camel

town anyway?”..............................11

Riders on the Storm............................12

Under Pressure...................................13

Dead Cities.........................................13

Roadside Attractions...........................13

Chapter 2: Traveling on

Silk Roads..............................14

Plotting Your Silk Road..................14

Step 1: Civilization Centers.................14

Step 2: Identify crossroads and

major trade cities within

barrier zone...................................15

Step 3: Connect the Dots.....................16

Step 4: Barrier Zone Correlates...........17

Navigating Travel...........................17

Organizing the Trip.............................18

Staging Posts......................................18

Animals..............................................19

Translators and Currency...................19

On the Road Again..............................20

Travelers of Silk Roads........................20

Trading More Than Rugs.....................20

Integrating Cultural Differences..........21

Chapter 3: Types of Caravans.....22

Desert Caravans............................22

Landscape...........................................22

Hazards..............................................23

Heat..............................................23

Vermin..........................................24

Getting Lost...................................24

Sandstorm....................................25

Mirage...........................................26

Rain..............................................26

Navigating Hazards.............................27

Water............................................27

Clothing and Gear.........................27

Stop Overs.....................................27

Animals..............................................28

Camels..........................................28

Food and Water.......................28

Other Adaptations...................28

Maintenance............................28

Horses and Mules..........................29

Food and Water.......................29

Adaptations.............................30

Maintenance............................30

Fantastic Animals...............................32

Procedure...........................................34

Desert Travel Checklist.......................34

High Altitude Caravans..................34

Landscape...........................................34

Hazards..............................................36

Trail Blazing and Getting Lost........36

Over the Edge................................37

Falling Rocks.................................37

Water Crossings............................38

Altitude Sickness...........................38

Cold and Snow..............................39

Cold and Exposure........................40

Avalanches (CR 7)..........................41

Predators.......................................42

Stop Overs..........................................42

Animals..............................................42

Yaks..............................................42

Water and Food.......................42

Adaptation...............................43

Maintenance............................43

Llama............................................43

Water and Food.......................43

Adaptation...............................44

Maintenance............................44

Other Mountain Pack Animals.......44

Procedure...........................................44

Mountain Travel Checklist..................45

Swamp Caravans...........................45

Landscape...........................................46

Movement and Bogs......................46

Undergrowth.................................47

Skill Modiiers...............................47

Aquatic Terrain.............................47

Underwater Combat......................47

Hazards..............................................48

Getting Lost...................................48

Quaking Bogs................................48

Flooding........................................49

Drowning......................................49

Vermin and Disease.......................49

Large Predators and

Hostile Natives.........................52

Rot, Rust and Ruin........................58

Animals..............................................58

Procedure...........................................60

Underground Caravans..................60

Landscape...........................................61

Magiotrophs..................................62

Hazards..............................................64

Getting Lost...................................64

Sun Deprivation............................64

Slimes, Molds, and Fungi..............65

Cave-ins and Collapses..................66

Foul Air.........................................67

Floods...........................................67

Horrors of the Deep.......................67

Animals..............................................68

Procedure...........................................70

Chapter 4: Money Matters ..........71

Micro Trade.........................................71

Macro Trade........................................72

Kinds of Goods....................................72

Cloth.............................................72

Food Stuffs....................................72

Livestock.......................................73

Raw Materials................................73

House wares..................................73

Jewelry and Adornment.................73

Art ................................................73

Magic and Religious Accoutrements 73

Trade System......................................74

Trade System Terminology.............74

Price Evaluation............................74

Pricing Examples.....................75

Buy DC and Sell DC......................75

Determine DC................................76

Buy DC Example.....................77

Sell DC Example......................77

Time to Divest...............................78

What’s all this costing me?............78

Animals...................................78

Loading Animals......................80

Cost Per Diem..........................80

Between Stops.........................80

Night Out on the Town.............81

Other Expenses.......................81

Cost Example..........................82

Renting and Investors....................83

Caravan Random Events...............83

Chapter 5: Trade Goods..............84

Cloth ................................................113

Cosmetics...........................................114

Gems ................................................114

Ornamental...................................114

Semi-precious...............................118

Fancy............................................121

Precious........................................122

Ornate...........................................123

Exquisite.......................................124

Glass ................................................125

Livestock.............................................125

Livestock Tools....................................126

Metal...................................................126

Pure Metal.....................................126

Metal Alloy....................................127

Organic...............................................128

Pen and Paper.....................................128

Skins...................................................129

Stone...................................................130

Tobacco..............................................133

Transportation....................................133

Wood...................................................133

Other ................................................137

Chapter 6: The Historic

Silk Road...........................139

Tarim Basin..............................................139

Radial Landscape.....................................139

Cultures of the Silk Road..........................140

People of the Steppe............................140

China ................................................141

India ................................................142

Tibet ................................................143

Persia ................................................143

Barrier Cultures.......................................144

Producing Cultures.............................144

Trading Cultures.................................145

Raiding Culture...................................146

History and Politics...................................146

Routes across Central Asia.......................147

Maps, Maps, and More Maps!.......148

Adornment and Craft

Appendix................................150

Appliqué.............................................150

Brocade..............................................150

Emboss...............................................150

Embroidery.........................................150

Felt Making.........................................150

Inlay....................................................151

Incense...............................................151

Combustible Incense...........................151

Incombustible Incense........................151

Jewelry Making...................................152

Casting...............................................152

Filigree 152

Repoussé and Chasing........................152

Cloisonné............................................152

Lapidary.............................................153

Beads ................................................153

Lacquer...............................................153

Mosaic ................................................154

Paper Making......................................154

Sericulture..........................................155

Silk Road Bibliography................156

Open Game License

Version 1.0a...........................156

Introduction

Silk Road. The name itself invokes adventure,

danger, and a hint of the exotic. The historic Silk Road

resides in Central Asia, surrounded by numerous

mountain ranges and unforgiving deserts, but in a

fantasy world, it can reside wherever you wish.

A Magical Society: Silk Road explores networks of

land-based trade routes that span continents. Like its

predecessors ( A Magical Society: Western Europe and A

Magical Society: Ecology and Culture ), A Magical Society:

Silk Road synthesizes information from the historic silk

road and presents trends and information for role-

playing and world-building. Unlike its predecessors,

we provide information on the historic silk road due

to the general unfamiliarity of Central Asia.

Although the Silk Road covers a vast area (Arabia,

India, China, and the nomadic people of the Steppes

and the Tibetan Plateau), this supplement only covers

aspects of these cultures as they are applicable to the

workings of the Silk Road. A Magical Society: Silk Road

discusses the crossroads where all these cultures

and their political structures interact while offering

tools to simulate a great overland trade route in

your own campaign. Our mechanical representation

of the historic Silk Road is not rooted in a speciic

time, rather it is a representation of the Silk Road, its

tumultuous history, and its lare for the exotic.

In Chapter 1: Components of Silk Roads , we address

what is the Silk Road, what conditions produce silk

roads and common features found in conjunction

with silk roads. Chapter 2: Traveling on Silk Roads

gives guidelines for plotting a silk road, keys

points in navigating through the silk road, and who

travels along great overland trade routes. Chapter

3: Types of Caravans explores the traditional desert

caravan as well as alternative types of caravans. In

Chapter 4: Money Matters , we talk about how goods

move along silk roads as well as an economic trade

simulator. Chapter 5: Trade Goods contains over 1000

commodities. In Chapter 6: The Historic Silk Road ,

we apply all the design principles of the preceding

chapters to give you a holistic picture of the historic

Silk Road.

The Silk Road encompasses a large geographical

area. The most conservative boundaries attributed to

the Silk Road are from Xi’an (Chang’an) to Kashgar

(between which lies the edge of the Gobi Desert and

the Taklamakan Desert), with a northern border of

the Tien Shan Mountains and a southern border of

the Kunlun Mountains. The most liberal boundaries

expand north of the Tien Shan Mountains, northwest

to transoxiana, west into west Asia (aka the Middle

East), and south through the Pamirs and the Hindu

Kush into the Indian Subcontinent. Despite efforts to

focus the Silk Road on China or “The West” (whether

that be Greeks, Persians, Parthians, Romans, or

medieval Italian merchants), the real story lies

in Central Asia, a unique landscape with its own

tumultuous past. The people and places of Central

Asia are the heart of the Silk Road, although its

arteries and veins carry Chinese silks, Roman glass,

Khotanese jade, Mongolian horses, Indian incense,

and steppe raiders.

There are many popular misconceptions

concerning the Silk Road. First, the Silk Road was

not a single trade route from one end of the compass

to another. In reality the Silk Road was a network of

smaller trade routes that facilitated localized networks

of trading as well as vast overland endeavors. There

were many beginnings and ends along the breadth of

the Silk Road. Second, the silk trade was not the only

mercantile value of these overland trade routes. Many

other luxury goods and more mundane commodities

changed hands along the Silk Road, and traders were

not the only people moving along this artery of the

desert. Diplomats, pilgrims, refugees, scouts, and

normal everyday travelers found their way through the

treacherous terrain. And lastly, goods were not the only

things exchanged along the Silk Road. In many ways,

Central Asia was a marketplace of ideas, religions, and

technology as they and their neighbors to the east and

west explored, experimented, created, conquered, lost,

and rediscovered a number of technological advances,

cosmologies, religions, and philosophies.

What do you mean by Silk Roads?

Throughout the supplement, we use the term “silk

roads” analogous to vast overland trade routes in the

vein of the historic Silk Road. To avoid confusion, we

use the plural silk roads to denote general observations

on overland trade routes. When we are discussing the

historic Silk Road, we make a point to capitalize and

mention “historic” or “real life.”

What is the Silk Road?

Strictly speaking, the term “Silk Road” is a 19 th

century European invention describing the overland

trade routes that connect China to the West (i.e.

Europe). The Silk Road derived its name from

the demand for Chinese silk by China’s western

neighbors, to which people attribute the existence of

such overland trade routes.

Chapter 1: Components of Silk

Roads

Laying the Foundation

Constructing a silk road in your world can

be a daunting task, but the trick is creating all the

foundational components before iguring out how

many camels you need to carry a thousand bolts of

silk. The basic considerations when creating great

overland trade routes in your world are geography,

cultural groups, and trade goods from afar.

Such places are less desirable to new or displaced

emigrants because other locales have less-dificult

geography. This relative isolation gives populations

a chance to develop unique cultures, technologies,

religions, and ways of life.

To borrow an example from Earth, consider the

historic Silk Road. The Taklamakan Desert is 600

miles east-west and 250 miles north-south. Along the

northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert is the Tien

Shan Mountains stretching 800 miles alongside the

desert from Turfan to Kashgar. Along the southern

edge of the desert is the Kunlun mountain range.

To the east are the Gobi Desert and some smaller

mountain chains. To the southwest are the Pamirs

and Hindu Kush, and to the northwest is transoxiana

followed by more deserts.

The area that is to become the infamous Silk Road

looks barren and foreboding indeed, but such deterring

geography increased the isolation of developing

societies in the region. Chinese society develops

east of the Silk Road. Tibetan society develops south

of the Kunlun Mountains. The Persians (with their

Hellenistic inluences) and other Iranian groups

develop west of the Silk Road, while the Mongols and

numerous steppe nomads and pastoralists develop

north of the Tien Shan Mountains.

Geography

As with any business venture, the key is location,

location, location. Geography is one of the most

important considerations in placing silk roads. The

development of a great overland trade route begins

with isolation due to physical barriers that make

migration more dificult.

Although it seems counter intuitive (how can

isolation promote the establishment of a great

overland trade route?), physical barriers are a vital

part of the process. As populations of intelligent

species expand (be it humans, elves, gnomes, etc.),

they migrate into new areas, often displacing earlier

migrants. Daunting physical barriers (such as deserts,

mountains, dense jungles, or expansive swamps) are

effective boundaries to the expanding population.

Lake Balkhash

Dzungarian

Basin

Lake Issyk Kul

Trans-

oxiana

Mountains

Gobi Desert

Tarim Basin

Taklamakan Desert

Pamirs

Hindu Kush

Tibetan Plateau

India

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