Nada The Lily Q7 - Gaming
Would this book have any impact on your gaming, in any way? Could you use the setting or any of the characters in your games?
Welcome to the Tabletop Roleplayers' Book Club!
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Categories
In this Discussion
Help offset server costs by donating. This is totally optional. Any overages will go to library fines or new books.
Comments
I might use the plot set-up or the setting, but if I used the latter I'd do some independent research. I already discovered that there are no wolves in South Africa, so the wolves in question are actually Jackals (which in places can be called 'wolves' like the Golden Wolf of North Africa). I'd me more specific about things like that.
The book does have some interesting details which can be used, like the Esedowan, which we don't actually encounter but is mentioned. Googling this, I find only one reference from an old Travelogue called Among the Zulus and Amatongas, edited by H.W. Drummond, second ed. 1876. And this seems like a much more interesting resource.
"At night, while at Faku's, we heard a great noise of men shouting and dogs barking.
Upon enquiring next day what it was about, I was told that they were chasing an " Esedowan." I asked what it was, and, to my great astonishment, was told that it was a beast about the size of a wolf — rather larger — with a hole in its back about the size of a Kaffir basket ; that it only lived upon
the brains of people, and the way it obtained them was that it would come to the hut door at night, and say something, for instance, it would tell one of the men that the captain
wanted him, or ask for something in the hut; and the instant he put his head out of the door it would whisk him
away into the hole in its back, and off to some stone, and then dash his brains out. I endeavoured to convince them what nonsense it was; but Aplain swore it was true, and [referred to] to Makovella, who, he said, had escaped from one while it was carrying him off, by clinging to the branch of [a tree].
He also told me to ask the Zulus — which I did at the next kraal I came to; when they said one had been killed
[some] time before as it was carrying off a boy. It had got a the hole in its back, and was walking him off, when,
at the gate, it was met by a man, who happened to [see this] from a distance. He stabbed it, and roused the
[rest of the] people, and between them they finished it."
Interested to hear what others say but my feeling is that it would take a whole lot of research if not to end up with a rather simplistic arena for the game.
The political setup is easily transferred to most settings. The despotic ruler, the relatives trying to take over, it's all standard stuff.
The setting and background is a lost cause, I think. I wouldn't trust anything in the book to be an accurate portrayal of anything in Zulu or related culture.