The Emerald Court Under Heaven

I received in the mail a copy of my favorite collection of Korean folklore that I read as a child. I don’t remember but a single story of a man trying to get a pearl of wisdom from a fox woman (gumiho 구미호) and how it explains the divide between earthly/heavenly knowledge between men and women.  I remembered the name Hong Il-Dong (홍 일동) from one of the stories but completely forgot what his story entailed.

I look at it and a flood of nostalgia hits me as I think back to how I read it long ago. I think it might’ve been a first edition with its yellow fabric binding (after losing the paper cover) and a bright green string to mark your place (pictured is a friend’s copy before I got mine). I now sit and read with loving and care for the opportunity to revisit these short stories that entertained me for some time until I grew into bigger ones.

Seeing the Perry miniatures range for the Koryo I considered making another army. You get all sorts of history and monsters from medieval Europe it seemed that bringing in Asian cultures might be fun after the Arabian Knights I put together. Taking out the majority of the Japanese and Chinese mindshare when it comes to Asian armies you can find some interesting history from the Korean peninsula (aside from the Hermit Kingdom) that would be fun to work with. I also think that breaking from the general color palette of other arenas could make for good tabletop.

With soldiers and warriors both on foot and mounted there is quite a selection to choose from and work with. Starting with a male general this is definitely new territory for me.

I do have a few ideas on how to add female figures with traditional hanbok later but it’ll take some work for modelling.

The monsters are really what get my mind going. Making the magical portion of the army does take a bit of thought though as Korean myth is less well known.

Dokkaebi are the Korean monsters of myth and folklore akin to goblins of European myth. There is not one set shape or size for them. This is what I thought would be interesting to include into an Age of Magic army as their misshapen/odd bodies will relate their alien nature as Creatures and Monsters in play. Magical animals/beasts are found written about here and there so I should be able to come up with things worthwhile to put before people and amaze the eyes.