Journey to the West: Tales of the Monkey King (OGL Ancients)

mthomason

Mongoose
DD2000 - Journey To The West: Tales of the Monkey King
An OGL Ancients Sourcebook produced by DancingDryad.com

Available Q3, 2005

The Tang priest Sanzang wiped his brow. The mountain pass seemed to climb forever, without any sign of their ever reaching the halfway point to begin their descent. Monkey had gone on ahead to scout for trouble, after their last encounter had (like so many others) nearly ended in a demon feasting on the priest's flesh in an attempt to make itself immortal. Pig had his snout in a sack, trying to root out the last of their meager supplies, and Friar Sand was stoically bringing up the rear.

Suddenly, a few stones hit the ground just in front of them. Looking up, the priest was horrified to see a creature with a vaguely human form, standing atop an outcrop of rock. The comparison ended at having four limbs and a head, however, as its flesh hung off in shreds and evil-looking jagged bones protruded from deep openings.

Pig stepped forward. "Bother us not, fiend! This is the priest Sanzang, sent on a holy quest by the Emperor himself to fetch the Buddhist scriptures! Nothing shall stand in our way. Why, I myself have seen off more than twenty of your kind on this journey."

Puffing out his chest, Pig brandished his rake and stared the demon in the eye. Friar Sand looked worried, knowing well that they didn't stand a chance against another of these creatures without Monkey there to protect them.

The creature leapt from its outcrop to land in front of Pig, with a force that shook the mountain itself. Yelping in terror, the cowardly Pig took his rake and leapt into the bushes. The creature then turned its attention towards Sanzang, licking its lips with a forked tongue...

Journey To The West is based upon the classic Chinese mythological novel of the same name. The Tang priest Sanzang journeys from China to India to bring the Buddhist scriptures back to the Emperor. Aiding him in his quest are his three disciples - Monkey, Pig, and Friar Sand. Together they face demons and monsters, with the mischevious Monkey usually being the one to get them through the encounter alive.

This supplement for Mongoose Publishing's OGL Ancients RPG brings the world of the Monkey King to life in your games, and is packed with new character classes, monsters, NPCs, magic, and a sample adventure. Guidance for playing games with the original characters and ones of your own devising is included.

This book will be available in both PDF and printed versions.

Further information will be available at http://www.dancingdryad.com/content/products/dd2000/index.html soon :)
 
Choke....sob....you've made me so happy :D

Will there be any direct references to the TV show in the book?

I'll be getting it either way....possibly both the pdf and the hardcopy versions if it looks like the pdf would be out some time before the hardcopy...either way it must be mine :)
 
Wow, thanks Mthomason for writing this. I didn't plan to buy OGL Ancients, but with this supplement coming, I just might. That's the strenght of th OGL system, I guess. :)
 
Its Irrepresable Desire meeting Unstopable Force for Monkeys... Still can't access the web site, but what the heck, I'll be going a copy and an OGL ancients to boot.

Hats off to you boys, you made an old man, very young!
 
bobrunnicles said:
Will there be any direct references to the TV show in the book?

Probably nothing other than an acknowledgement of it's contribution to spreading the legend (in other words, anything we can do without having to licence the TV show's material ;) )... We're going to take a look and see how far the storyline diverges from the book, and if - as I'm guessing - it doesn't really stray that far the only real differences will be the use of the book's names for characters instead of the TV show's versions.
 
The name changes, from what I can see, amount to the following:

Monkey = Monkey (the most important one!)
Friar Sand = Sandy
Pig = Pigsy
Sanzang = Tripitaka (probably the biggest difference)

Does that about sum it up?
 
bobrunnicles said:
The name changes, from what I can see, amount to the following:

Monkey = Monkey (the most important one!)
Friar Sand = Sandy
Pig = Pigsy
Sanzang = Tripitaka (probably the biggest difference)

Does that about sum it up?


Thats about it ;)
 
Oops. That was from me.

And we'll probably add a footnote of "sometimes referred to as.... ... in other sources" somewhere, for what it's worth :)
 
Anyone interested in playtesting should mail me at matt@dancingdryad.com. I'll get back to you in the new year once there's a clearer idea of what will be ready when.
 
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