The Dresden Files > DFRPG
Koreanizing the Dresden Files
lokisdottir:
--- Quote from: Bosh on January 27, 2010, 03:01:19 AM ---I'm looking forward to learning a bit more about Korean folklore on this thread (any good reading suggestions lokisdottir?)...
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I can't think of anything in English, since my knowledge of Korea comes sort of "through the pores" as a native Korean. I did notice a book called "Korean Tales" by Horace Newton Allen on the kyobobook.co.kr site, but I can't recommend it without having seen it. It might be a good resource for covering the bases.
--- Quote ---Right, in Dresden terms lots and lots of Ectomancers. Korean's shamanistic traditions are similar enough to Siberian ones that you could transplant some bits of Siberian (ore even Sami/Lapp) folklore related to shamans pretty seamlessly.
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Yeah, language seems to indicate a Ural-Altaic origin, implying some kinship with such groups as Mongolians and Finnish. The Koreans' Northern origins are something that could definitely be useful for constructing playable myths.
--- Quote ---Probably having beings/organizations relating to the four directions would be a good substitute for the role of the conflict between the Summer and Winter courts in Dresden.
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That's a fascinating thought, because there's a whole system of symbolism and elemental harmony/antagonism between the five directions and five elements.
The five directions: North, East, South, West, and Center.
The five elements: Water, Wood, Fire, Metal, and Earth. (In corresponding order.)
The seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Changes (the in-betweens).
Yin/Yang: Strong yin, yang, strong yang, yin, and balance.
The five colors and beasts: "Black Tortoise," Blue Dragon, "Red Phoenix," White Tiger, Yellow Dragon.
("Tortoise" and "Phoenix" are equivalents, but not the same. Even the dragon is quite different from the European conception. See here for pictures, which are in order of "Phoenix," Tiger, Blue Dragon, and "Turtle.")
The elemental harmonies: Wood creates Fire, Fire creates Earth, Earth creates Metal, Metal creates Water, and Water creates Wood.
The elemental antagonism: Wood digs up Earth, Earth blocks Water, Water puts out Fire, Fire melts Metal, and Metal cuts Wood.
...All of which can make for a pretty complex system of alliances and enmities. Or, for simplicity's sake you can simply equate South and East (yang) with Summer and North and West (yin) with Winter, with the Center as neutral arbiter or just non-existent. Mortals could gain a god-beast as an ally, rather like being a Knight of Summer or Winter. (Riders of the god-beasts, perhaps?) There was an entire graphic novel series (later adapted as a musical and TV drama) that revolved around this concept, called 바람의 나라 (Land of Winds), with the king protected by the Blue Dragon while his son was backed by the Red Phoenix and so on.
--- Quote ---That also reminds me that with Korean last names there’s separate lineages for most Korean family names. You could attach supernatural significance to some of the lineages. For example my wife’s family name (허) is composed of seven different lineages/clans.
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Korean genealogy, at least paternal genealogy, is pretty crazy. I can look in a book and find out all about my famous paternal ancestors, going back a thousand years. That in itself is pretty good fodder for adventures based on history.
--- Quote ---I would love to hear more about this, sounds like great adventure fodder.
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It's been a long time since I read 퇴마록, so my memory is very fuzzy. I think some of the related adventures takes place in 퇴마록 혼세편. There's a blog where the original internet serial is reproduced. Do a text search there for 말뚝.
Other stuff I've read on the subject: One rationale behind the iron spikes was that Koreans during the Japanese occupation were holding out hope that Korea's feng shui (Korean pronunciation pung-soo, literally "wind and water") would give rise to the birth of heroes who would liberate the country. Messing with the flow of the land's energy was an attempt to prevent this from happening.
If feng shui is related to heroic births, you could very well have an adventure with competing factions trying to prevent or fulfill some specific birth by way of geomancy. There's also the fact that Koreans may be doing a swell job of messing with the land themselves. Someone could realize that all those apartments and buildings are being put up in points where they cut off all the land energy. Instant adventure!
--- Quote ---That whole vibe doesn’t fit in Seoul at all so a different feeling is really called for.
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I think you've got the feel down really well. What it comes down to is the general atmosphere of oppression and menace, and a system that is so wrong yet so integral that any fundamental change is going to be difficult, painful, and fatal for many. Combine that with...
--- Quote ----The massive power of the Chaebol conglomerates
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...and the villain's rant practically writes itself. "You fools! The people you're fighting for don't WANT to be free of us. They want someone to tell them what to do. They want to place their decisions, their lives, in the hands of an all-controlling social system. Go on, get rid of me. Watch the untold confusion and misery you will have caused. And then...(smirk)...watch someone just like me take my place. You're not fighting me--you're trying to fight Korea."
Is s/he right? What choice will the PCs make? *cackles* In some ways it's a very similar choice to the one Harry faced in Grave Peril, but with different emphases and nuances.
--- Quote ---Generally more of a feeling of “human culture and its leaders are being corrupted from within and changing into something that is very wrong even as it keeps the cheery mask screwed on tight” than “humans are herd animals being fed on by predators and the predation is ripping human society apart” that you get a lot in Dresden.
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Very much so. That systematic failure is something that was implied in a lot of the DF books, but can be explored with much more clarity in a Seoul campaign, IMO.
--- Quote from: Bosh on January 27, 2010, 07:46:03 AM ---I'm sure we can slap something together, I could post my campaign notes at least when summer comes.
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Sounds good. I can put up some preliminary notes as I write my way through the thought process. I'm just not sure where to place the notes. Here, maybe?
lokisdottir:
--- Quote from: Ihadris on January 26, 2010, 02:10:21 PM ----Dakun's family lines sounds like a fantastic chance for a Were-bear
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You could even have a were-tiger from the same mythology. Here's the tale of Bear-Woman in full...
A bear and a tiger lived in the same cave and prayed to Hwan-Ung (환웅, the son of heaven) to be human. Hwan-Ung gave the two a bag of magical mugwort and twenty cloves of garlic, saying, "If you eat these and see no sunlight for a hundred days, you shall become human." The bear and tiger ate these things. The bear prayed for twenty-one days and changed into a woman, while the tiger was unable to complete the ritual and failed.
The bear maid had no one to marry, so she prayed daily before the Holy Birch Tree to have a child. Hwan-Ung briefly took human form to marry her and they had a son, Dankun ("Birch Tree King").
The prevailing historical interpretation of this myth is that the expanding and technologically advanced culture, of which Hwan-Ung was a leader, allied with a bear-totem tribe but met with enmity from a tiger-totem tribe. The tiger tribe was eventually driven out, having lost the conflict. If you run with that and go with the lycanthrope angle, there's a whole bloodline of were-tigers out there with a huge axe to grind.
ETA: Holy crap. There are evidently wall paintings in China, including one in Jiang Xi, where the tiger became human but the bear didn't. Looks like we have a good guess where the tiger tribe(s) migrated...
Bosh:
--- Quote ---There was an entire graphic novel series (later adapted as a musical and TV drama) that revolved around this concept, called 바람의 나라 (Land of Winds), with the king protected by the Blue Dragon while his son was backed by the Red Phoenix and so on.
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This could work, with which faction is in ascendant could be determined by old calendar system and the traditional zodiac instead of just the season.
I'm a bit leery to straying toooooooooo far from Dresden canon however. The simplest (perhaps too simple) way to make things match up would be, like you say, making ying and yang match up with winter and summer and sticking everything else into wildfae.
--- Quote ---Korean genealogy, at least paternal genealogy, is pretty crazy. I can look in a book and find out all about my famous paternal ancestors, going back a thousand years. That in itself is pretty good fodder for adventures based on history.
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Especially with the rampant faking of genealogical records after the end of the 양반 (yangban) as an organized class so that everyone and their dog could claim to have 양반 ancestry.
--- Quote ---Other stuff I've read on the subject: One rationale behind the iron spikes was that Koreans during the Japanese occupation were holding out hope that Korea's feng shui (Korean pronunciation pung-soo, literally "wind and water") would give rise to the birth of heroes who would liberate the country. Messing with the flow of the land's energy was an attempt to prevent this from happening.
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Sort of like the 화랑 reborn then? They have a cool Arthurian vibe that could fit in just fine.
One idea that the whole iron spike thing inspired is that if, driving iron spikes into important locations can tap town 풍수/feng sui/geomantic powers why not take it to its logical conclusion. Get iron spikes and drive them into every important place all over the world. Would be a great plot for a bunch of Enlightenment types or a cool element of back story (the whole reason for a lot of the late 19th/early 20th century craze for going to crazy places like the poles, Everest, the source of the Nile as a campaign to screw the whole supernatural world over and give humanity some breathing space by slapping iron spikes (with flags on top of course) in every important location from the South Pole to the summit of Mt. Everest, but now they're coming loose and magic is recovering...), but that's wandering a bit off topic...
--- Quote ---If feng shui is related to heroic births, you could very well have an adventure with competing factions trying to prevent or fulfill some specific birth by way of geomancy.
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Especially since Seoul (or at least the older districts within the four gates) is pretty much the center of Korea's geomantic energy (or at least so the guys who won the civil war over the issue say...).
--- Quote --- What it comes down to is the general atmosphere of oppression and menace, and a system that is so wrong yet so integral that any fundamental change is going to be difficult, painful, and fatal for many. Combine that with...
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Exactly. One thing that REALLY rubs me the wrong way about Dresden canon is how passive regular people are (or at least how passive Harry describes them...).
lokisdottir:
--- Quote from: Bosh on January 29, 2010, 03:40:48 PM ---I'm a bit leery to straying toooooooooo far from Dresden canon however. The simplest (perhaps too simple) way to make things match up would be, like you say, making ying and yang match up with winter and summer and sticking everything else into wildfae.
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Yeah, I wonder at what point it becomes a completely different fictional world just using the Dresden Files rules. That's not a bad thing if it's a stand-alone campaign, but for those playing a more conventional DF campaign it would be better to keep basic similarities.
Speaking of Wildfae, the Center/Yellow Dragon is an interesting entity that could help focus the theme of the five elements and directions. The Center is rather like a Spring and Autumn Court in the dual Summer-Winter system. If you go by yin and yang the balance that the Center represents is even more important, since neither yin nor yang is the ideal by itself--rather, the balance is critical. (Which was kind of the entire point of Summer Knight, when you think about it.)
The Yellow Dragon as neutral arbiter could be the one that's keeping the Yin and Yang Courts from a state of constant conflict. If the Yellow Dragon went missing, however, the two Courts may have difficulty containing hostilities or maintaining balance. The reason behind the recent severe snowstorms, perhaps?
--- Quote ---Especially with the rampant faking of genealogical records after the end of the 양반 (yangban) as an organized class so that everyone and their dog could claim to have 양반 ancestry.
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Yeah, no one knows whether they really are of noble blood or our ancestor was an enterprising commoner who bought/stole a name. 양반 outnumbered the commoners by the end of the Chosun period anyway, because many who were actually of noble blood were selling their name to make money and those commoners who could afford a noble name wanted the yangban's immunity from forced state labor. Factor in the confusion of the fall of Chosun and the Korean war, and it's really hard for anyone to know their actual ancestry.
--- Quote ---Sort of like the 화랑 reborn then? They have a cool Arthurian vibe that could fit in just fine.
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The Hwarang (화랑) were warrior nobles who swore allegiance to the king, so I suppose they're largely equivalent to a European medieval king's knightly vassals. Hwarang as an institution lasted for hundreds of years and not all Hwarang were heroic figures, but yeah, the idea of some of the bigger heroes coming back is an interesting idea.
--- Quote ---Get iron spikes and drive them into every important place all over the world.
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Coolness! Thus the knowledge of the supernatural didn't just fade, but was actively suppressed along with the power of the supernatural. An additional campaign premise might be that this is the reason that predatory supernaturals like the vamps thrived in secret--not only did humanity start ignoring the paranormal, but (mostly) benevolent entities like guardian spirits or land gods largely faded away.
Speaking of the recovery of magic, the Korean government and private groups alike have been active in removing these spikes for the past decades. That, in campaign terms, could help bring about the reemergence of magical beings like the god-beasts (신수) and the birth of magical talents.
On the subject of magical talents, I'll extend the original post into an important area where a Korean campaign is different:
Korean magical talents
An important point of consideration in a Korean campaign is the forms that magical talents may take. These may be very different from the European or American conception of a wizard. The traditional Korean concept of a supernatural mortal is less "wheezy wizard" and more "supernatural warrior" or "religious practitioner." Some of the archetypes are outlined below, and may be useful for NPCs or PCs.
Gods/shapeshifters: I'm not sure what other tradition to place these under, so I'll start with the old gods in the founding myths. They themselves are not strictly mortal, but they are also the ancestors of the ancient kings whose bloodline is dispersed widely in the population by now. Some of their specific powers, or just general supernatural talents, may show up unexpectely in modern characters.
Some of these beings were from the heavens, as in the case of Hwan-ung (환웅) or Haemosu (해모수). They both showed shapeshifting powers, as when Hwan-ung helped a bear become human and later changed into human form to marry her. Haemosu, who seems to be a sun god, had a shapeshifting battle with 하백 (Habaek, The River Chief). When Habaek became a carp, Haemosu became an otter to catch him; when Habaek became a deer, Haemosu turned into a wolf; when Habaek became a pheasant, Haemosu became a hawk.
Then there are the river gods, like the abovementioned Habaek, another shapeshifter. This line of gods was joined to the sky-gods' line after Haemosu married Habaek's daughter, Yuwha (유화, Willow-Flower). She was then abandoned by Haemosu and cast out by her father, and subsequently impregnated by a ray of sunlight that followed her around (another reason to think Haemosu was a sun god). She gave birth to the first in a line of hero kings, the legendary archer Jumong (주몽). Well actually she didn't give birth to a baby, she lay a huge egg out of which came the baby.
Another set of demigods-become-kings are babies dropped off by the heavens. In both stories, they were found when horses wept at where they were hidden, possibly indicating a horse totem tribe connection. Both have a connection to sky and water. One was found after ritual prayer to the heavens, the other had their location indicated by a ray of sunlight. One was a baby in the form of a golden frog, another was a baby in an egg inside a well.
Some suggestions for using these myths include shapeshifting abilities, perhaps limited to a specific animal like a bear or horse, an affinity to water including the help of water creatures, and shafts of sunlight as unexpected guides. And maybe incredible martial prowess because hey, why not? It seems to be the number one perk of divine ancestry.
Shamans and the shamanistic tradition: Shamanism is arguably the oldest extant religious tradition in Korea. The central figure in shamanism is the shaman (무당). A wizard of the White Council would probably call her an ectomancer, and a character like Mortimer Lindquist would probably feel right at home talking shop with her. These are mostly women, and the talent is thought to pass through the bloodline, often mother to daughter (enforcing the canon idea, incidentally, that magic passes through the distaff line). It may lie dormant for generations before it springs up on an unsuspecting person, usually young and female.
There is a great amount of cultural ambivalence surrounding the shaman. On the one hand, her services are much sought out for those who want good luck in their endeavors, are haunted by ghosts, or want a glimpse into the future. On the other hand, being a shaman is not considered a respectable occupation at all, and being struck with the talent is most often seen as a personal disaster that the budding shaman and her family will try to resist.
The first manifestation of the talent is illness, called 신병 (spirit sickness) or 무병 (shaman sickness). The afflicted, often a young girl or young woman, may experience symptoms including constant thirst, food refusal, social avoidance, and visual (ghosts and spirits) and auditory (cymbals, voices) hallucination. She may also suddenly rush out of the house dancing wildly then fainting in an ecstatic state, and could start giving premonitions, or oracles. These conditions have been observed in Central Asia and Siberia as well.
The sickness is not cured by medicine or by the usual shamanistic rituals (such as 푸닥거리) but only with a special ritual of advent (called 내림굿) where the shaman's guiding spirit is invited to possess her. After she is thus cured, the shaman in training (called 애기무당, or baby shaman) will be trained by her spirit mother (신어머니, 신모, whom the shaman might casually call 신엄마, or "spirit mom") to be a full shaman.
A shaman's primary responsibility is to help the living and dead communicate. In her capacity as fortune-teller she passes on her spirit's glimpse into the future, and as an exorcist she drives out the malignant spirits from a place with rituals (called 굿) involving dance and music. As priestess she brings peace to the dead and prays to the spirits for good fortune in her clients' endeavors.
There's an interesting video showcasing some of the different shamanistic rituals here. You can see a male shaman talking there, too. Male shamans, called 박수, are very much in existence and I'm guessing they go through much the same process as their female counterparts. I know one of my dad's friends is one, though I never had the chance to talk to him. There's also a freaky part where a shaman is walking barefoot on the cutting edge of a fodder-chopper and she's WALKING BAREFOOT ON THAT FREAKING GIANT BLADE starting at about 1:40. Man, that stuff still weirds me out.
I don't know if these shamans would be invited to join the White Council. From the Council's point of view most are probably closer to focused practitioners or minor talents, and other shamans might not be interested in the foreigners' funny business. Shamans tend to be traditionalists, like most religious leaders, though younger shamans might be more open-minded. But as the Council itself isn't the pinnacle of open-mindedness, the two groups are likely to steer clear of each other for the most part. That doesn't preclude cooperation, and individual shamans may well choose to join the Council.
Taoism: Taoist influence is perhaps best seen in the many 도사 (dosa) figures in Korean literature and popular imagination. Dosa are basically mortals who, through training and meditation, took on supernatural powers and long lifespans. Some may be of the "guardian of the forest" variety, popularly visualized in the form of old men with long white beards (산신령). Other dosa are accomplished martial artists, armed or unarmed. Some common abilities for dosa include shapeshifting, near-teleportation (moving great distances in a short time), flying, and illusions. They may be the closest thing to the Dresden File conception of magical practitioners, and the added martial element can make them very interesting and useful.
Many characters in popular fiction skirt the border between mundane martial arts and supernatural powers. The most powerful martial artists may have gotten their skills by practicing not just punches and kicks, but the skill of controlling their 기 (ki), or life force. Armed martial artists might also have the added advantage of a mystical or spirit-possessed weapon. A whole genre of fiction, called 무협, is devoted to these almost-supernatural martial artists who might or might not be dosa, but do use varying levels of supernatural forces to power their prowess.
Buddhism: Buddhist temples are most often found deep in the hills. Some are a part of well-established tourist or hiking routes, and others might be really out of the way. They will often have the kind of holy aura that repels the nastier supernatural creatures. Individual monks may have supernatural powers such as banishment or exorcism, and there are Buddist rituals that persuade a ghost to let go of its emotional attachments and follow the light to the next world. Reciting holy texts like 금강경, 아미타경, 천수경 and so on may soothe a ghost of its obsessions. In the late sixteenth century, during the Japanese invasion of Chosun, a number of Buddist monks (called 의승병, voluntary priest-soldiers) rose up to defend the country, acting as independent militia or as adjuncts to government forces. A modern monk might be an inheritor of that martial tradition.
Christianity: Churches are usually located wherever people live, especially in big cities. In a city like Seoul Protestant churches (교회) are extremely numerous, from big megachurches to smaller outfits that might take up less than a floor of rented space. Catholic churches (성당) are less numerous, but each is typically a building of its own.
As Bosh mentioned, hardline Protestants can be pretty intolerant toward other religions, and probably all supernatural phenomena that they don't see as divinely inspired. Catholics are generally more tolerant, though there is obviously a wide variety in individual attitudes. Individual ministers or priests, based on the strength of their faith and/or preexisting talent, could have supernatural power. Churches administered by sympathetic holy men could serve as safe houses and sanctuaries, much as in the original novels.
Also as Bosh said, much of the educated urban class is Protestant and pretty conservative to boot. Adventures that involve the supernatural activities of the elite could well involve some snooping around churches. It could be interesting if these rich megachurches aren't actually holy places at all, but that really depends on what kind of social commentary you're willing to introduce into play.
Bosh:
--- Quote ---The Yellow Dragon as neutral arbiter could be the one that's keeping the Yin and Yang Courts from a state of constant conflict. If the Yellow Dragon went missing, however, the two Courts may have difficulty containing hostilities or maintaining balance. The reason behind the recent severe snowstorms, perhaps?
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Possibly. But coming from Maine, nine inches or so (at least where I was) isn't exactly severe :)
--- Quote ---Factor in the confusion of the fall of Chosun and the Korean war, and it's really hard for anyone to know their actual ancestry.
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Right and ancestry seems to matter in the Dresdenverse (see knights of the cross being descended from kings, etc.)
--- Quote ---The Hwarang (화랑) were warrior nobles who swore allegiance to the king, so I suppose they're largely equivalent to a European medieval king's knightly vassals. Hwarang as an institution lasted for hundreds of years and not all Hwarang were heroic figures, but yeah, the idea of some of the bigger heroes coming back is an interesting idea.
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Ya, I meant the 화랑 in the legendary band of heroes sense not so much the historical sense (like Arthurian legends are hardly a good guide for what actual knights were like).
--- Quote ---Coolness! Thus the knowledge of the supernatural didn't just fade, but was actively suppressed along with the power of the supernatural. An additional campaign premise might be that this is the reason that predatory supernaturals like the vamps thrived in secret--not only did humanity start ignoring the paranormal, but (mostly) benevolent entities like guardian spirits or land gods largely faded away.
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I never thought of that. It makes sense that that kind of anti-supernatural campaign would hurt most of the supernatural world but leave the vampires mostly untouched (since they feed on human souls).
Basically I don't much like the explanation in the Dresden Files for how the supernatural stays under the radar (humans are dumb, passive and incurious) and the traditions are too old for supernatural power to be a new thing, so the supernatural being resurgent after a period of weakness (and every bit of supernatural truth being well-guarded with a bodyguard of lies) makes sense to me. I like the image of Victorian/early 20th century gentlemen kicking the supernatural world between the legs by doing things like travelling to the south pole and climbing Mt. Everest to go screw with the ley lines. The Venatori Umbrorum would be a logical remnant of these guys.
--- Quote ---That, in campaign terms, could help bring about the reemergence of magical beings like the god-beasts (신수) and the birth of magical talents.
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And what's awesome about this is that Seoul (especially the area inside the four gates) is the logical epicenter for all of this since it was picked specifically since its such a great geomantic location (they even fought a war to prove it ;) ).
To look at things from a slightly different tack, where exactly does supernatural power come from in the Dresden files and how does that translate in Korean terms (the following probably makes things more systematic than Jim intended, but it makes sense to me):
1. Human souls: this is a big one, human souls seem to be special and a real source of potent power. To really get at all of their power, however, you need to kill the human, which is why death curses are so powerful. Most of the non-human critters don’t seem to have souls and you seem to get a class of critters (vampires for the most part, arguably ghouls as well) that get their sustenance from feeding on them in one way or another. Ghosts fit into this category as well, since they’re created by the power that gets released when a human soul gets extinguished/passes on.
1A. Human faith: I’d put this as a sub-set of 1 since humans having souls is what gives their faith oomph. Basically instead of channeling their power consciously through magic, they do it unconsciously and at a low level (but which is powerful in the aggregate) through their faith. Faith seems to especially be caught up in specific objects (swords, coins, shrouds, etc.) but can be expressed in more abstract ways as well.
2. 풍수/Geomantic/elemental forces: in the book they’re described as ley lines and although I don’t think it’s exactly canon I think of them as bits of the Nevernever leaking into the world through various weak points. This includes the Fae and a lot of the other critters that have a strong link to the Nevernever (but then ghouls seem to be natives of the Nevernever as well, where do they fit?). It seems that the most powerful Nevernever critters can’t hang out on the Earth too long since the ambient magic (ley lines) etc. aren’t powerful enough to sustain them for too long.
2A. Location-based geomantic/elemental forces: while most of these forces in the Dresden books seem pretty free-ranging, a few like the Demonreach critter seem to be bound to specific location that they’re connected to.
3. Sensitivity: being able to pick up on supernatural forces of various kinds via the Third Eye, Soul Gazing and basic-level Ectomancy (I See Dead People but not having any power beyond that).
4. That leaves the Old Gods, they’re a bit fuzzy. Are they creatures of the Nevernever like the Fae but different, are they constructs that exist because people believe in them (kind of like in American Gods by Neil Gaiman?) or did they get their mojo by eating lots and lots of souls and growing strong from that (like the necromancers try to do by eating all of the souls of the ghosts of Chicago). They’re the most unclear bit of the Dresden Mythos and I’m not sure what to do with them.
What makes wizards so damn powerful if they have one (they’ve got souls and know what to do with them), they have two (they can draw on geomantic energies) and they’ve got three (Soulgaze and Third Eye).
Now how to fit this into Korean Myth and legend (in order to fit Korean stuff into the Dresden cosmology instead of making up a whole new cosmology):
A. Anything that feeds off of humans is probably a vampire and should be interpreted in those terms. These things get their power by eating human souls and then using that power to do weird shit. Either use the existing three courts or make up shit about the Korean sub-set of the Jade Court.
B. Most Korean ghosts should follow the Dresden rules, just behave a bit differently and maybe have a few tweaks when it comes to their capabilities.
C. Spirits/critters of specific locations should work like the Demonreach critter (connected to the area, local omniscience, etc.).
D. Elemental/creatures of the five directions/etc. are basically analogous to the fae and either should have their own organization or be sub-sets of the fae courts. Traditional astrology marks the systems of ebb and flow of these elemental powers.
E. Things related to the old gods and Heaven, I’m not sure what to do with them since Dresden cosmology gets all fuzzy when it comes to gods.
F. For demigod types, I think they’d be basically a weird sort of changeling. Either they have non-human ancestry (in which case they’d work quite a bit like Dresden changelings) or they have human ancestry but due to the time and place of their birth (as determined by traditional astrology and geomancy) they have a natural link to certain powers of the Earth/elements/Nevernever and draw on these powers unconsciously, which give them power. Basically Dresden usually draws on one of the ley lines when he casts a spell, but these people would have an inborn talent to draw upon this sort of energy all the time. They would have a deep connection with the land, and maybe some of them would lose their mojo if their feet aren’t in contact with the ground (I know there’s myths about this in lots of countries, not sure about Korea).
G. Shape shifters: a lot of them in Korean myth seem to be animals that have figured out how to turn into humans rather than the other way ‘round, which we only have one example of in the Dresden books, but that’s something to extrapolate off of. Although they do get a bit weird with the liver eating and whatnot.
H. 무당/Shamans: the vast majority of them would be able to get themselves into a psychological state in which they can open their Third Eye, (굿 more or less) but most wouldn’t be able to do much beyond that and maybe some very very low-level Ectomancy, maybe the occasional Soulgaze. They’d be able to figure out a lot of things that a normal human wouldn’t be able to but, except for a small handful, they wouldn’t really have any more power to do things based on that knowledge that a normal human would. Long on sensitivity, low on raw power, but very good at what they do (figuring out what their Third Eye is telling them).
I. Taoists: like you said, they’re the closest thing to White Council Wizards (the long lifespans are a dead giveaway).
J. Buddhist monks: most of them would be good at building up Thresholds and burying bodies in a way that helps keep them from turning into ghosts, but some would have some power beyond that. Buddhism, in general, doesn’t have the force in Korea that it has in a lot of other Asian countries however…
K. 기-manipulation/수박/Martial artist dudes: the way I interpret these guys is that they are really good at using the power of the human soul in a very focused way. I see them as doing the same sort of things as White Court vampires (more strength, more speed, faster healing, emotional manipulation, etc.) for the same sorts of reasons but through finesse (via training) rather than brute force (via eating souls). Probably I’ll use some of the White Court vampire rules for these guys, but with a different set of limitations (i.e. no eating souls necessary).
Very rough framework, but seems workable to me...
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