This small collection of maps and plans was inspired by the difficulty I found getting hold of useful material for playing the magnificent role-playing game Bushido (produced by FGU). Over the past 14 years I have acquired more than 100 books on various aspects of Japanese history, architecture and culture, and I wanted to turn some of this material into Bushido fodder. In the event, as so often with serious role-playing, it has proved difficult to find and keep other players; and, most unfortunately for my own sanity, much (or should I say all?) of the time no-one else wants the onerous task of designing scenarios and games-mastering them. So most of these plans and maps have so far seen little action, sadly, but I live in hope of finding some serious, well-informed and reliable players within a few miles of Coventry, one day!
Partly because it is often difficult to find suitable material for any one period, especially the early ones, and partly because it is more fun to pick and choose, the materials used in Samurai role-playing tend to be drawn from a variety of periods of Japanese history. This is true of the following material, although for my own benefit I have tried to find authentic 14th century material where possible.
In the future I may add more to the collection but make no promises. It may partly depend on my getting any feedback (or finding some decent players for Bushido!). Anyway, I hope that someone finds these maps and plans of use.
Note that at present I do not have access to my books; when I do I shall be able to add a few vital features, such as a scale to the Sado Island maps! Bushido users will see that they use the standard Bushido map hexes, as shown on the map of Japan that comes with the game.
Contents:
1) Boat plans; these are self-explanatory classic small boat and larger junk plans.
2) House plans: These are at 25mm scale or 6' = 1", for use as ground plans for role-playing. Timber posts, sliding doors, hinged doors, verandahs, etc., are largely obvious and need no explanation. Some have explanatory diagrams showing room use, etc., where known.
Of these, only SuyeMinka, a typical minka or farmhouse common even today, represents a recent type of floor plan. As in England, during the middle ages in Japan most of the houses of even the 'middle classes' were relatively simple in plan, as in the Sennenya, which is the rural farmhouse of a lesser Samurai built perhaps in the 14th or 15th centuries. (The name sennenya or "Thousand Year House" used of the few very ancient Japanese houses is an exaggeration; very few houses in Japan are older even than the 16th century. The materials of which they are made, wood and paper for the most part, have made them very susceptible to fire, which has swept through most Japanese towns and villages many times in the past few hundred years. Fire was so frequent and destructive a hazard that in 18th-19th century Tokyo it was an offence punishable by death not to raise the alarm if one saw a fire break out!)
The two priests' houses are unusual designs, adapted to their special use as clergy dwellings.
AtagobHse and SanShirRes are classic Samurai houses of the early period. The Sanjo Shirakawa Residence is the house of a fairly major family.
3) MiscItems:
Tents: these can be cut out, coloured and glued together for use in role-playing. Exhaustive search of my book collection produced only one possibly early tent design and this is it. The tents should be coloured in stripes, possibly red and white, green and white or black and yellow. The Samurai mon or heraldic emblem can be displayed if the owner can claim one.
Mats: From the 17th century or so onwards Japanese rooms have been measured and named after the rice straw mats, tatami, now generally 2 by 1 metre by about 15 cm deep, which are their version of carpets. Before then it was much more common to have only a few mats, not of any standard size, in a room; bare boards or packed earth were probably more usual. Once mats became common and standardised, rooms could be called after the number of mats in them , hence four and a half mat rooms, six mat rooms or eight mat rooms, to name a few of the more common. The mats on this sheet can be cut out of paper and used to make ad hoc floor plans of houses or parts of houses for role-playing. This is especially useful when the gamesmaster wishes to keep the players guessing about the overall layout of the building without having to cover bits up as he goes along.
4) The Sado directory is material (2 very basic maps showing places and topography, largely factual but with some invention to fill in the gaps) on an island off the north coast of Japan, used throughout the middle ages as a place of exile for opponents of whichever regime happened to be in power at the time. It is the basic material for a scenario, still (after some years!) in the process of being written. The story will involve the attempted rescue of a samurai leader in exile there but threatened with imminent execution, so the deadline for the player-characters are tight. The action takes place in the 14th century, probably my favourite period in Japanese history, which was the time of the wars of the rival northern and southern courts, and its basic theme and facts are taken from the chronicle The Taiheiki. I shall hopefully get round one day to finishing the whole scenario.
5) Temple Plan: At present this consists only of the floor plan of the main worship bulding and the ground floor plan of the pagoda of a Buddhist temple, so is very incomplete. Perhaps I shall add more if I have time, as well as doing some Shinto temple buildings. I did begin to do a plan of a large Zen Buddhist temple complex but have not got very far with it.
6) Town Plans: TownPlanA is typical of the sort of towns that sprang up from an early period as commercial centres at river crossings and around temples.
TownPlanB is a typical castle town, dating from the late 16th century onwards when the Samurai were gathered by decree around the castles of their overlords.
Fort Vill is an early 16th century fortified village, when rural Samurai were still allowed to stay in the country and be farmers, too; these were the ji-samurai. The plan shows where the houses of the different inhabitants were in the complex.
Future possibilities: I should eventually like to add a detailed castle plan to this collection, although finding detailed information in English on e.g. all the floors in a keep is not easy. Early (i.e. 8th-15th century) Japanese castles were usually just large palisaded complexes, often in rough terrain, with relatively flimsy wooden towers for archers scattered around the periphery. (See Chihaya195, which is taken from the Proceedings of the Japan Society of London c.1900; this is an old Japanese woodcut of the site of a famous siege during the civil wars of the 14th century, when the samurai Kusunoki Masashige held out against massive odds for many months, as recounted very memorably in the chronicle The Taiheiki.) The classic Japanese castles like the famous all-white Himeji (which has featured in umpteen films including a James Bond) are 16th century or later. (For an example see Nagoya195, which is from an old Japanese woodcut as reproduced in the Proceedings of the Japan Society of London c. 1900.) Many were destroyed by American bombing in World War II and some have been rebuilt in reinforced concrete, rather than the inflammable wood and plaster of the originals. (This is also true of some temples.)
It might also be useful to add more old woodcuts, showing the general appearance of houses, etc.. We shall see!
