The Mandate of Heaven RPG was inspired by Hong Kong action movies – heroic bloodshed movies, kung fu movies, wuxia movies and horror movies. The inclusion of the horror angle is part of what sold me on working on the project. Asian horror movies can be just plain insane. Maybe if you grew up in Chinese culture it all seems matter-of-course but to my fairly ignorant eyes some of those movies (and some of those monsters) were mind boggling. I really had to kick my imagination to have it go down some of the unfamiliar paths that would necessary to design things as strange as some of the creatures I saw in those movies.

And that’s a good thing. One should never let one’s imagination stick too close to the same paths.