Got this note from Shard@prettycelt, the author of the “Turtle Soup” foundry:
Hi there–
Thanks for leaving a review and a tip! Based on your comment about lore, I did want to let you know that Eastern lore does, in fact, exist in the Forgotten Realms, including Yakuza. You can see for yourself:
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Nine_Golden_Swords
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Xiousing
And where there’s Shou Lung/Wa influence and Yakuza, it logically follows that there might be Sumo Wrestlers (but we can just call that artistic license lol).
Anyway, thanks again and see you around Neverwinter.
Shard
When I pointed out the sheer anachronism of the yakuza and all that and the mashed up setting, while acknowledging this was, in fact, lore, she replied:
Hehe you’re the second person to say they were ‘stunned’ to find that lore…grimah said the same thing. I like Japanese and Chinese culture so when this contest came around, I already knew about Kara-Tur and I thought there might be some connection with the Cult of the Dragon. I was surprised to find it right there as close as Cormyr! So I ran with it.
FYI I’ve been consistently making adjustments and improvements almost every day, so feel free to try it again when they officially announce it for contest ratings (should be sometime after the 19th, listed on the Forums). Thanks for questioning the lore, though, it prompted me to put the claim that it’s all based on lore right there where everyone will see it, front and center. Still may not help much but it can’t hurt lol.
Take care!
We’ll be seeing Turtle Soup again when it’s featured as part of the Cult of the Dragon foundry contest.
Just wanted to mention that there’s been a drought of West Karana posts in both Feedly and my Blogger auto-updating blogroll for the past three weeks and then ten posts turned up at once today. Not sure if that’s an rss glitch of some kind or if you’ve been publishing them somewhere else (G+ maybe) and just got round to putting them up here.
Either way, even though I haven’t commented on much recently, I really enjoy reading your DCUO stories (you play it so I don’t have to) and your Neverwinter Nights Foundry reviews (you play them where I can’t – becasue I haven’t been able to get NWN to run at all for months).
I just got around to posting them up here 😛 I normally write these on G+ because people are more apt to comment on them. But I like having the posts here so I can look back on them, and sometimes people do drop by 🙂 Thank you for that!