Suikoden - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

is a role-playing game series originally created by Yoshitaka Murayama

Yoshitaka Murayama

is a Japanese game designer, game director and game producer. He is the creator of the Suikoden series of console role-playing games , which he produced and directed for Konami until his departure in 2002 before the release of Suikoden III....

. The game series is loosely based on the classical Chinese novel, Shui Hu Zhuan

Water Margin

Water Margin , also known as Outlaws of the Marsh, All Men Are Brothers, Men of the Marshes, or The Marshes of Mount Liang, is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.Attributed to Shi Nai'an and written in vernacular Chinese, the story, set in the Song Dynasty,...

by Shi Naian

Shi Naian

Shi Nai'an , was a Chinese writer from Suzhou. He was attributed as the first compiler of the Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.Not much biographical information is known about him...

and Luo Guanzhong

Luo Guanzhong

Luo Ben , better known by his style name Luo Guanzhong , was a Chinese writer of the early Ming Dynasty period of Chinese history. He was also known as Huhai Sanren...

. Shui Hu Zhuan is rendered as 水滸伝 in Japanese, and read as Suikoden. Each individual game in the series center around relative themes of politics, corruption, revolution, mystical crystals known as True Runes and the "108 Stars of Destiny

108 Stars of Destiny

The 108 Stars of Destiny are at the core of the plot of the Chinese classic Shui Hu Zhuan , commonly translated as Water Margin, Outlaws of the Marsh, or All Men Are Brothers, edited by Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong during the 13th century and 14th century...

" — the 108 protagonists who are loosely interpreted from the source material.

Though the Suikoden games follow an irregular chronological sequence of events, the entire series takes place within the same world among continuing and overlapping histories.