Publisher's blurbFrom the exotic, mysterious East they come to menace western civilization, to challenge all that decent, God-fearing men hold virtuous. With hatchet and knife, pistol and poison, they strike from the shadows. These are the Perils of the Orient, the sinister villains who swarmed across the pages of pulp magazines from the very beginning in the late 1800s to the very end in the 1950s.
Written by novelist C.L. Werner (Witch Hunter, et. al.), Pulp Villains: PERILS OF THE ORIENT is your complete guide for including these villains in your d20-based pulp campaigns. In these pages are presented some of the most common themes that were evoked in the pulps -- from Mongol warriors dreaming of a new empire to sinister Tibetan monks with terrible powers of mysticism and mesmerism; from the Tongs of Chinatown to the nefarious machinations of the sinister Oriental Mastermind.
This supplement contains details of the most common archetypes of the genre, with fully-statted generic NPC examples of each, ready to use. An armory of exotic oriental weapons is included, for use against (or indeed, by) your pulp heroes. Horrific creatures appear as well....including the dreaded Mongolian Death Worm!
At their worst, pulp tales of oriental peril preyed upon and exploited the fears and ignorance of its audience, playing upon racial stereotypes of the time as a way of enhancing the tale's own impact. Other tales, however treated their subjects with a great deal more care and dignity, although today these stories are almost universally lumped together with their cruder imitators.
Pulp Villains: PERILS OF THE ORIENT attempts to present the genre in all of its excess, but at the same time with the knowledge that the characters presented here are not representative of their entire culture, any more than a murderous Thugee is indicative of India's vast population or a jack-booted Nazi represents the entire German ethnic group. A game centered around the themes of heroics and adventure will, by definition, focus upon the unusual and the extraordinary - and you will find Pulp Villains: PERILS OF THE ORIENT to be both.