Slush pile: Tarim Basin Campaign Setting
The Tarim Basin is an expanse of central Asia roughly the size of Pakistan or Venezuela in what is currently China's Xinjiang province. Once an important section of the Silk Road, I think it would make a fantastic basis for a D&D campaign outside of the standard pseudo-Europe milieu.
Just as D&D pseudo-Europe is riddled with anachronisms and borrows freely from ~1000 years of history, I'm going to play fast and loose with the timeline, instead focusing on pulling cool ideas from the basin's history pre-1500 or so.
Geography
The Tarim Basin is surrounded by mountains, with the Himalayas in the south and the Tian Shan in the north. In the center is the vast, bone-dry Taklakaman desert --- an endorheic basin, basically meaning that rivers go there to die. However, the Tarim river stretches for around 1,500 kilometers across the desert, creating a riparian corridor of desert poplars and grasslands.
Pretty much all ancient and medieval human settlement in the basin was along its edges, at the foothills of huge mountain ranges. These are usually described as 'oasis city-states', and most seem to have had elaborate irrigation systems.
(From Wikipedia)
Travel in and out of the basin is limited by the mountains and deserts. In the west --- to reach modern-day Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan --- the key crossing seems to be the Irkeshtam Pass to the Alay valley. In the easy, the Evocatively-named Iron Gate pass provides access to the steppes of the Yanqi basin.
Culture and Faith
The Tarim Basin was situated smack in the middle of the Silk Road making it a nexus for an amazing panoply of cultures from many different ethno-linguistic families
Inhabiting the basin since around 800 A.D. are the Uyghurs, a Turkic people. Their arrival seems to be an explicit example of a migratory steppe group exchanging nomadism for settled agriculture. To the west and southwest (within and beyond the basin) were Indo-Iranians: Sogdians, Saka, Scythians, Persians, Balochis, Punjabis, and others. Directly south of the basin are the Tibetan highlands. To the north are various Turkic nomads: Karluks, Yaghmas, Chigils, and so on. Further north, one would find indigenous Siberians (it looks like Evenks, specifically). Northeast is Mongolia, and due east is, of course, China.
In Antiquity through the arrival of the Uyghurs, the Tarim basin was home to the Tocharians, an early branch of the Indo-European linguistic tree who followed some form of Buddhism. At some point the basin was overrun by the Xiongnu, who might (?) be the same as the Huns who invaded Europe. Other rulers include the Hepthalites ('White Huns'), the Kushan empire of northern India, the Tibetan Empire, and various Chinese dynasties. There is also evidence of Greek influence by way of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom founded by Alexander's conquests.
There are also mummies in the basin, likely predating the Tocharians, though it's a bit tough to piece together the details, and excavations are politically fraught. Some mummies predate the Tocharians by 2000 years(!). In real life the mummies were found buried in boat-like coffins (from what I can tell), but in this fantasy setting maybe the mummifiers built lavish booby-trapped tombs around them.
Then we have religion. Most westerners would practice Islam, but some would be Nestorian Christians, Manicheans, or possibly Zoroastrians. Different forms of Buddhism were practiced but died out around the Middle ages (from what I can gather).
Making it Gameable
Filing the serial numbers off, collapsing some groups together, and playing fast and loose with chronology, fantasy Tarim could look something like this:
Faiths could be condensed down to fantasy versions of Islam (monotheistic and evangelical), Buddhism (contemplative, ancient, dying out in this region), Turkic and Siberian shamanism (animistic, remote), and Chinese Confucianism and Taoism (syncretic), with fantasy Manicheanism and Nestorianism practiced by various travelers and merchants.
The 'local culture' could draw on a hybrid of Uyghur and Sogdian/Saka/Tocharian inspirations, likely varying from city-to-city.
Most cities would have the feel of an enormous truck-stop --- a watering hole for merchant caravans but generally not the end destination for their goods.
For neighbors, we have:
A continuum of fantasy Indo-Iranians to the south-west. I imagine the Saka, Sogdians, Bactrians, etc. could be portrayed as the hinterlands of a distant fantasy-Persia.
Steppe nomads in the north. I like the idea of using random tables to flesh out individual clans --- things like, 'where are they headed?', 'are they here to raid or trade?', 'which faith have they converted to?' and so on.
Fantasy Tibetans in the south. Given (1) the difficulty of traveling through the mountains and (2) the theme of fantasy-Buddhism in decline, I like the idea of fantasy Tibet as a place where mystical traditions are preserved, and, at the cost of a risky journey to a remote monastery, useful secrets could be learned.
Fantasy China in the east. Juxtaposed against fantasy-Persia in the west, fantasy-China could be portrayed as a cosmopolitan, syncretic, yet bureaucratic alternative. With this, we get a kind of interesting paired axes with trade flowing between large bureaucratic empires to the East and West, and remote hinterlands to the north and south.
Further afield, merchants, missionaries and explorers from distant fantasy-Europe, fantasy-Arabia, fantasy-India, fantasy-China, and fantasy-Korea could be included in random tables, etc., possibly peddling rare magic items.
For a 'trad' or story-game campaign, the setting is ripe for faction play and impending threats à la PBTA-style 'clocks'. Naturally, local rulers will want to manage the influence of both large empires, preserving the flow of trade and siphoning off what they can. Religious conflict brews, hordes of fantasy-Mongols muster on the borders, mysterious strangers from Taixi/Frangistan/Rūm bring dangerous [ideas/artifacts/diseases], proto-Tocharian lich-lords begin to stir deep in the desert...
The Taklakaman desert would be perfect for siting a survival hexcrawl, with a gameplay loop of searching hex-by-hex for several lost fantasy-Tocharian tomb-cities (naturally seeded with a plethora of entertaining diversions). As players acquire resources and map out oases and outposts, they'd open new areas for exploration.
Mockup of the basin overlaid with 24-mile hexes.
One could also set up a trading caravan pointcrawl in the vein of Ultraviolet Grasslands.
Misc. ideas, flavor, notes and cool locations:
-
"The Princess Iron Fan possessed the magical Iron Fan, and used it to remove the fire on the Flaming Mountains, [...] Her fan, made from banana leaves, is extremely large and has magical properties, as it can create giant whirlwinds. Using this advantage, she made the residents near there revere her as their goddess, and they would have to give her some food if they want her to solve their problem about the Flaming Mountains."
"In a Uighur legend, a dragon lived in the Tianshan Mountains. Because the dragon ate little children, a Uighur hero slew the dragon and cut it into eight pieces. The dragon's blood turned into a scarlet mountain of blood and the eight pieces became the eight valleys in the Flaming Mountains."
-
- It seems like there are quite a few cliff-side cave complexes in the area.
The mountain Khan Tengri is just north of the basin, associated with the deity Tengri worshipped by Altaic religions.
Legends of Prester John situated an idealized Christian kingdom out here somewhere. (Baudolino by Umberto Eco is a great depiction of how central Asia took shape in the European imagination).
Lots of useful bits in this book:
From Hsüan-tsang in the 600s:
- "The country [Khotan] is about 4,000li [1,500 km] in circuit, the greater part is nothing but sand and gravel, the arable portion of the land is very limited. It is suitable for the cultivation of cereals and produces an abundance of fruits. It manufactures carpets, felts of fine quality, and fine-woven light silks. Moreover, it produces white and dark jade. The climate is soft and agreeable, but there are wind storms which bring with them clouds of dust. The manners and customs show a sense of propriety and justice. The inhabitants are mild by nature and respectful, they love to study literature, and distinguish themselves by their skill and industry. The people are easy-going, given to enjoyments, and live contented with their lot. Music is much practised in the country, and men love the song and the dance. Few of them wear garments of wool and fur, most dress in light silks and white clothes. Their appearance is full of urbanity and their customs are well regulated."
Another account:
- "In the penal laws [of Kucha], a murderer is executed, and a robber has one arm and one leg cut off. For the military and civil administrative taxes, they measure the land in order to assess the levies. Those who hold no fields remit in silver coins. Marriage, funerals, customs and products are about the same as in Karashahr. It also produces delicate felt, deerskin rugs, cymbals, sal ammoniac, cosmetics, good horses, wild oxen and the like."
Agriculture:
- "Wheat, barley, millet, peas, lucerne and cotton were the chief agricultural products. According to the reports on the Western Regions in the Liang shu and the Pei-shih, rice was also planted here. Melons, peaches, apricots, almonds, chestnuts and jujube were extensively grown. Grapes grow quickly and easily in this area and many people in Kucha kept wine in their houses..."
Treasure ideas:
- "Other articles transported along the Silk Route included jade from Khotan, turquoise from Iran, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, tortoiseshell and ivory from India, coral and pearls from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, gold and silverware from Sasanian Iran, glassware from the eastern Mediterranean and bronze mirrors, tricoloured pottery and lacquerware from China. Other exotica, such as embroidered robes, tapestry, armour, swords, harness with gorgeous decorations, and metalwork, were also traded along the Silk Route. Byzantine gold coins and large amounts of Persian silver species have been found in many sites of the Tarim."
-
Discuss this post on Reddit