Editing Kara-Tur (section)

== Settings ==
Like most TSR-created D&D worlds, Kara-Tur is built to imitate real-world cultures/peoples/countries to varying degrees. Specifically, Kara-Tur is built with China and Japan in mind, but each nation divided into two to create an adventure environment based on specific time period and theme.
* '''Shou Lung''' is an empire representing the stable periods of China with a bureaucracy and Emperor...also showing them as "good China" as almost all bureaucrats and the Emperor are non-evil alignment.
* '''Tu Lung''' is another fantasy China who broke off from Shou Lung and show off more chaotic periods of real-world Imperial China...except the aristocrats and Imperial Family being downright evil and the entire kingdom being chronically rebellious and war-torn that the one wonder why Shou Lung or other neighboring kingdoms hadn't taken over.
* '''Wa''' is the Tokugawa Shogunate, complete with a military dictatorship ruling in lieu of Emperor and the chronic issue of unemployed Samurai after unifying the warring clans.
* '''Kozakura''' is Sengoku-era Japan--also Kamakura era due to inclusion of retired Emperors ruling behind the scenes and series of regents being the power behind both the Shogun and the Emperor--where the feudal Daimyos fought against each other yet strangely had to no historical connections with Wa despite using Japanese aesthetics and terminology.

Later on, when Kara-Tur was added to Forgotten Realms--which [[Ed Greenwood]] disliked the addition due to its near-historical analogues being out of place and arguments over whether historical aspects made sense within Toril--where they added Tabot (a mountainous theocracy united under the worship/rule of a holy child monk emperor, aka Tibet), Bawa (Indonesia), [[Malatra]] (Indochina with [[dinosaur]]s), and Koryo (Korea's Three Kingdoms and the later Korea unification under Silla).

It also gained its own set of [[Mongols|shitty-wall hating, loose collective of steppe horsemen]] [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|(although not as yet a grand uniter of clans)]], who even got their own spin-off sub-setting called [[The Horde]], which came complete with a campaign (and tie-in novel trilogy) in which they try to invade Western Faerun... which goes a lot worse for them than it did for the Mongols, since you have realistic horse nomads turned light cavalry going up against pissed off [[dragon]]s, powerful [[wizard]]s, and a variety of monsters willing to make common cause with the native humans to get rid of these jumped up invaders.