Anything But D&D #7: Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Patreon)

I'm back with a short episode of Anything But D&D! Things get a bit...spooky!

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio is a collection of classical Chinese stories written by Pu Songling during the Qing dynasty - the last Imperial Chinese dynasty. It's a collection of short stories that deal with the supernatural and divine. While it features a variety of ghosts, demons, and animals, the author's stories primarily focus on the everyday life of commoners in China and how they are at the mercy of the supernatural (which represented real problems in society like corruption).  

There is a free English translation available through Project Gutenberg - the original 1880 translation by an English sinologist named Herbert Giles. Unfortunately, this version was influenced by late 19th century English mannerisms and social norms - which led Giles to omit content related to sex and intense gore from his translation efforts. Fortunately, Penguin Classics published an updated translation that apparently doesn't pull any punches.