Mongol Home

Mongol Home

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Of Yurts, and Books




I have recently decided that my project for this summer is to build a Yurt for camping. Am I taking this Great Khan thing too far? I don't think so. I have been in the SCA for decades now and Yurts are kind of a pain in the ass to set up, but are the palaces of the tent world. I have actually been trying to get my wife Mona to agree to building Yurts for us to live in full time, year round, for about a decade or more, but she is reticent to live in what she refers to as a "glorified tent", despite the fact that there are actually people doing just this very thing in upstate NY. There is even a campground along the Salmon river that uses Yurts for lodges year round. So I figure a really kick-ass camping Yurt may change her mind. Plus they are ecologically sound, reducing our footprint significantly, and I think it would be cool to have each of my kids get their own Yurt, like having a more private bedroom; they're all teenagers now. Ashli will be twenty in October, while her condition currently precludes her from living on her own, I am pretty sure a Yurt of her own would be OK. So I bought these books to help me with my Yurt quest, I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but I imagine they'll be useful, they had good Amazon reviews.






I already had this one from years ago, back then it was simply referred to as the definitive Yurt book. I learned a lot from this book, but I figured more information is always better.



Otherwise I just would have stuck with this one. It's a do it yourself guide to everything Mongolian, including Yurt building, but also clothing and the Uighur alphabet, among other things. It's real hands on, written for SCA folk.



Now, I also mentioned I had been reading some Mongol history recently, this is the book, it apparently accompanied a BBC series I will most likely never get to see. I have read a lot of Mongol history in the past too, this was just something new for me. I have an entire shelf of books devoted to the Mongols actually, with a couple more books on the way soon, not counting the Yurt books of course. Are there any Mongol RPG books out there? Was there ever a GURPS Mongols? I mean, I have TSR's "The Horde" and "Forgotten Realms Horde Campaign" for 2nd edition AD&D, and I bought the companion novels "The Empires Trilogy- Horselords, Dragonwall and Crusade"; spoiler alert- so they can keep the Forgotten Realms at status quo ante bellum they might just as well have never introduced any of the main characters in "The Horde" boxed set, they're all dead or irrelevant by the end of the 3rd book.



As far as history goes, I also got this in the mail today, it was a seminal read for the formation of our Mongol online gaming guild- The Steppe Warriors



And, because I am a giant Mongol nerd, I also got this, but I haven't had a chance to start it yet. I am still finishing up the last series I was writing about.



This copy of the L5R RPG's Boxed set "City of Lies" came in the mail yesterday, funny story, I was bidding on three boxed sets, two of which I had never seen before. They were all from the same seller, so I figured if I won all three I'd just pass this along to Dalton since he has an interest in running the L5R RPG, but I'd save on shipping and all. I got super sniped at the end of the auction on the other two and only won the one I already had.




Lastly, this came in the mail today, another WotC D20 Star Wars Sourcebook. I really liked the New Jedi Order series of novels, so I wanted to see their take on all of it, and, of course, it was an excellent deal.





No comments:

Post a Comment