The Gaming Den

The background music for this review shall be I think I'm Turning Japanese by Oingo Boingo.


The title does not tell you much.

The year is 1998. Vampire is as popular as ever, and White Wolf are churning out supplements to existing things that let you play the game in an entirely different way, rather than just adding X to your game. Actually they're doing that as well. And releasing entirely new games to plug into the World of Darkness. Badly. They've also caught a scent on the breeze, and have realised that THE MYSTERIOUS FAR EAST is becoming a bigger thing amongst Western gamers. Hong Kong Action Theatre has existed for a long time, but now, more Jackie Chan movies are making it to your Video store for the household to watch, not just the nerds, and more importantly, anime has hit America (although we're still talking Akira, Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Sailor Moon and perhaps Ghost in the Shell. I'm pretty sure Evangelion has not yet hit Western shores).

So they made a decision: take their biggest game (Vampire, obviously), and add it to this new popular Asian feel - by tapping into anime for visual ideas but mostly building on actual Asian religion and myth and lore for more "traditional" stuff, in stark contrast to V:tM which mostly expects you to play Spike and Angel, not Dracula or Vlad. How did it fare? Read on.

So, guess how long it takes before there is art with tits in it? If you guessed "the splash art for the introduction, before you even get the story", you were correct! Googling "Kindred of the East" + art/tits/introduction came up with nothing, and Vampire tits came up with a lot of stuff that's unrelated to this, so just enjoy this, from Rosario + Vampire:


The intro proper begins with a short story in which a 500 year old Cainite gets killed by a super ninja assassin. It's very short, so it's all good. Then there's a piece of zen poetry - while living, be a dead man. Honestly, I think every Discipline, Background and so on should come with a silly message that came from a fortune cookie. But then we get into the real text. It explains that Caine's children are Not Invited to Asia. Duh, it's Asia, try going there as a whitey, I dare you.

It then states that the vampires of Asia are actually demons, or possibly revenants or something. But close enough, and Demon wasn't released yet and calling it "Vampire" is a licence to print money, right?

They then point out that it's a sourcebook for Vampire, even though it's really not. I mean, a lot of stuff isn't included because it's just "refer to V:tM" (Merits, Flaws, some Backgrounds, descriptions of most Abilities, the combat system...) but you don't plug this into Vampire, you use the Vampire basic rules to run this on its own.

Then it tells us about the Middle Kingdom - which is Asia. Basically, it's Asia but painted with the WoD brush. So everything is "the darker, crime-filled parts of Shanghai" and "Pol Pot". You get the drill. Also, a lot of art has people in traditional garb worn by nobility at least a thousand years ago, with hair done up like we imagine geisha to be, and all that. I assume they think Japanese still live in paper houses.

Next we have Shen: the catch-all term for supernatural crap. Basically, shen are less obtrusive than vampires and all that, so they're not as concerned with mystery and veils. Also people just accept mysticism as a fact of life because of course Asians are superstitious! And people know better than to stick their nose into things anyway.

On the one hand, this gives you a bit more freedom as players. On the other hand, they handled the explanation really badly. Over the next few pages, they explain the Yin and Yang worlds (the spirit realms of death and wild life), what chi is (life essence that you divide up and share like pizza slices), Kuei-Jin (the actual Kindred. Of the East.), and what happens when you die. Also there is some shockingly bad art of a guy kicking a yakuza guy, in a teahouse.

As for what happens when mortals die, how the Kindred are created, and what the start of your character's new existence involves, I'll leave that to next time. Spoilers,

I've been waiting for evar for this!

V:tM which mostly expects you to play Spike and Angel, not Dracula or Vlad

Or? Isn't Dracula - Vlad Tepes?

I'm sure Dracula himself has actually been statted up as an NPC somewhere, but VtM doesn't actually expect the players do be like that, nor does it expect a game to feel like Dracula/Nosferatu/whatever. It really wants a counter-culture goth-punk "I can tell that you shop at hot topic" pseudo-modern urban feel. With moping and eroticism.

On the tape trading front, Evangelion is near-simulcasted in the States and in Japan by '98. You've got Ranma 1/2 and Bubblegum Crisis as big money players, too. Also the grindhouse shit like Demon City Shinjuku and Cyber City Oedo 88.

And, crucially, Vampire Hunter D.

Wow, that far back? See, I remember Evangelion just making it to SBS (our "foreign stuff" free-to-air channel) in (late?) 1999 over here. I forgot that anything we get, America had a few years before us.

Except Pokemon Bank

Given that I was born in '82 and didn't tape trade just to get that stuff I always kinda end up feeling like I missed the "Evangelion is the greatest thing EVAH" age window by the slimmest of margins. I'm more of an FLCL guy.

Koumei wrote:. I'm pretty sure Evangelion has not yet hit Western shores).

Whippersnapper.

Eva was '96.

'98 was Cowboy Bebop, although you only got to see it around here that early if you knew people who did their own fansubs.

I hated, and still loathe, Eva.

Fucking love Cowboy Bebop, though.

I first watched eva at age 10 or so. The first half was just "Cool, giant robots!" the second half was completely incomprehensible.

I really thought that Pacific Rim could have been better with more direct Evangelion conversion. The part with the 'synchronization' matches pretty perfectly with a particular episode.

I wish they hadn't run through their budget toward the end - they recycled a lot of animation.

Eva- is kind of an odd duck in the universe of anime. Because it has cool monster of the week battles that are interesting to watch. But unfortunately all of the characters are insufferable and loathsome especially the main characters, you know, the ones we have to watch all the time. Shinji is an insufferable whiny bitch who never grows up, Asuka is a grating, boastful jackass who never does anything useful despite all the shit she talks, and Rei is only the better than them by dint of never getting any characterization.

So you'd be well within your rights to hate the show on the principle that all of the characters are horrible. But uh, the fight are really good. But yeah, if you were to mute everything but the fights and write in your own dialog it would almost certainly be a 100% improvement.

I enjoyed Pacific Rim. Despite not enjoying the lead's 'acting'.
His performance could underwhelm Keanu Reeves.

Right, time to actually do post two before this gets completely off topic.

So you have the wheel of ages, a big cycle of life. We're approaching the Sixth Age, which is Gehenna, because the apocalypse always has to be around the corner for reasons.

Then there's Chi. You have Yin Chi, which falls under the domain of the Ebon Dragon (Hi, Exalted!), and is the energy of death, silence, tranquillity, peace, chaos (wait what?), repose and oblivion. It is black and cold. Then there is Yang Chi, belonging to the Scarlet Empress, and is the energy of life, growth, motion, anger and fire. Creatures in the spirit world generally consist entirely of one or the other, whereas things in the Middle Kingdom have a mixture of both.

And then there's you. As a vampire demon thing, you don't actually generate Chi at all, you have to live your "life" stealing it from others.

They explain that Asian "vampires" are not descendants of Caine, and thus are really unrelated to Vampire at all. They don't have Generations, and Dharmas (~=Clans) are chosen, they're not passed down as bloodlines. A Kuei-Jin starts their story in the same place that a great many WW games start:

So you died, and then you went to hell. This being one of many Asian philosophies or religions and not Christianity, you in fact went to one of a thousand and one hells. But you clawed your way out of there.

Now, one does not simply walk out of Mordor. The way you escaped is by teaming up with the beast within, the demonic part of you that serves as the reason for going to hell in the first place. They call it your P'o.

Having freed itself, the soul drags itself back into its body - or into a fresh corpse it can find, if need be. It is animate once more, but it can no longer sustain itself and blah blah blah you're a Vampire but sort of a Demon, okay?

Most, upon coming back, are instantly confronted with a loss of clarity, with hunger, and with knowledge that their predicament is their own fault. They go mad, as cannibalistic monsters, but there are other Kuei-Jin waiting to teach them how to be enlightened.

Next we get "Kuei-Jin Versus Kindred". No, it isn't a "Who could win?" thing, it's 200 odd dot points of "This word doesn't really apply" or "This word is now that word". Then we get various crazy art with little bearing on the subject matter, "How to use this book" (I would assume "Read it" is obvious), and the Lexicon, which is about five columns worth of crap (2.5 pages). Then there is more than a page of "Suggested Resources". I would like to quote one little bit.

"Demon City and Supernatural Beast City (Japanese). Anime that show just how malignant life (and unlife) in a city overrun with supernatural influence can be. The latter film is just shy of prurient, but the horror and love story compensate for the monster tentacle sex."

Okay now I need to stop here because I just read that. But now we're up to Chapter 1, with an awesome abandoned district fight scene involving yakuza and soul-eating.

Koumei wrote:Now, one does not simply walk out of Mordor. The way you escaped is by teaming up with the beast within, the demonic part of you that serves as the reason for going to hell in the first place. They call it your P'o.

Two questions:
1) Can my P'o take the form of giant panda trained in chinese martial arts?
2) Can I turn into this"kung fu panda" in combat as a Kuei-jin?

Koumei wrote: So, guess how long it takes before there is art with tits in it? If you guessed "the splash art for the introduction, before you even get the story", you were correct! Googling "Kindred of the East" + art/tits/introduction came up with nothing, and Vampire tits came up with a lot of stuff that's unrelated to this,

Am I looking at a different print run?
Because the first image I see is a woman in a kimono... with a skull looking at her from... the next page?
I'm not quite sure.

edit:
Unless you mean this, on page 8?

We might be talking different print runs. In mine, after you turn the Contents page over, you get a two-page spread with "Introduction" written down one side, two Indian statues (Buddhist? Hindu?), and a girl with her kimono open enough that you can see one of her boobs.

Koumei wrote:We might be talking different print runs. In mine, after you turn the Contents page over, you get a two-page spread with "Introduction" written down one side, two Indian statues (Buddhist? Hindu?), and a girl with her kimono open enough that you can see one of her boobs.

My copy has 'Tits out for Buddha and Hinduism!' girl too. I can't remember how long after the release date I bought it though

Yea, I did some srs-bizniz internet trawling and found what looks to be a copy with a silverish border with your Buddha breasts and the prevalent "internetz" copy with has a gold border. The only accessible silver border is in a different language though. xD

What's weird is that none of the wikis mention a 2nd edition or ... what ever.
All this is relatively unimportant, just figured I'd give an update.

Carry on!

My copy has the picture of the girl reclining in some sort of overgrown shrine while almost wearing a kimono too.

Chapter One: The Hungry Dead

One thing that needs to be said is that art quality varies all over the place here. Sometimes they go for very detailed, other times they go for ultra simplistic. There are some characters drawn chibi/SD style here and there. Sometimes people are drawn in ugly caricature ways. There is no standard.

What we then get is a very short story telling of someone's experience in a hell, where their skin was used to make a blanket that was pulled, bitten at, used to wipe up shit and so on. From there they go on again about how Asia Is Different, a mention of Dragon Nests (Chi reserves in the ground) and Dragon Tracks (the lines that stretch out between the Nests, so... ley lines would be close enough as an analogy), and finally an explanation as to what it means to be turned into a Kuei-Jin.

It mentions how becoming a vampire in the West doesn't actually say anything about you, how you can be murdered and turned into a beast through no fault of your own, and you can go on a drive to make a whole bunch of weak-ass minions this way, vampires who don't really have what it takes. Eastern ones, on the other hand, are created in one of two ways:
1. You live life as a monster, such that your P'o awakens while you are human. Your Humanity has to drop below 5 for this to happen, and it's most likely to happen when it hits 1 and you gain a Derangement).
2. You die in a particularly horrible way while still wanting to remain, causing your P'o to awaken at the moment of your death. It mentions that in the current day, with all these wars, torture facilitiesdetention centres and such, this is becoming more common.

Also, you actually need the will to drag yourself out of hell. You need to be strong enough to, having been given lemons by life, jam those lemons into life's eyes and demand vodka. So you need a minimum Willpower of 5.


I could have picked any other Courage Wolf macro. But I chose this one. Have a nice day.

So far, the explanation, while later than I'd have liked, works pretty well, and the game terms they've included at least match that explanation, even if you personally think the Humanity stat (or its execution) is stupid.

What's interesting to note is that these unfulfilled spirits actually are fated to become Kuei-Jin. You aren't fighting against your destiny by living on past death and escaping hell, doing all this is your destiny in the Karmic Wheel. Now sure, destiny as an idea generally rings hollow, and once you say "oh yeah, the circle of life has a planned spot for the undead" it is weird, but at least it's kind of interesting.

So yeah, you go to a hell. Once there, the P'o realises it is not the biggest bad-ass around, and is about to be eaten. Sometimes, the Hun (human side) splits off from the P'o and remains in the world as a homing beacon, and that allows the P'o to claw its way back - if not, the P'o is eaten and the Hun remains trapped as a useless spirit. But if it does escape, if they can reunite, now you have a kindred. A monster, certainly, as the P'o is driven mad and the Hun is incomplete, but now it has a second chance at life.

A few notes: the time limit is generally a few months, so you actually can't do the Ikkitousen thing where Cao Cao and Lu Bu are reincarnated into the modern world, and this makes me sad.

Also, the body does not show the signs of death (unlike in Demon: the Fallen). Even if cremated, the Hun weaves Yin and Yang energy to reform the body perfectly - but sometimes you also come back to life in someone else's body, so if you ignored that time limit, you totally could do the actual Ikkitousen thing, where Lu Bu now looks like this:



You might think Asian burial rites and "what they do with the dead" are at least vaguely important for this - yes you get uncremated or whatever, but where do you wake up? What weird stuff did they wrap you in? If it happens during a funeral, what is going on?

You'd expect White Wolf to skip that, going "well fuck you", but actually, you do get a page that talks about the general things to expect. Yeah, it's actually surprising.

When you wake up, the P'o is almost always in control. Basically, here are the options of what happens:

• P'o is in control, you starve and die again. All gone.
• P'o is in control, you're put down by various hunters.
• P'o is in control, other Kuei Jin find you and tame you.
• Hun is actually in control, other Kuei Jin train you.

The last two options result in player characters. If you are a player character who can control their own actions, then you were put through the trials and found worthy. This means you actually know what the fuck is happening, so you can't do the shovelhead thing where you play "a vampire, I dunno" who has no clue. In actual fact, you undergo training as a Hin (non-person) for about five years before being a player character. This doesn't explain why you have such lame starting points.

Once you have finished your training, and been accepted into a Dharma, and are no longer a Hin (who can be arbitrarily killed by any Kuei Jin for any reason), you are placed into a Wu - yes, they literally go "Okay, you player characters there, form a team together. Here are your colour-coded lycra uniforms."

In other words, they actually go out of their way to start you off as a team that has to work together. Holy fucking shit, is this even White Wolf?

Also, you're assigned a Direction on top of your Dharma, and it is said that only through following both of these can you find your true purpose and achieve your goals. Let's just sum these up:

• North: Preservers and enforcers of tradition. Goals might involve establishing your influence outside of Asia or brokering peace between two Wu.
• West: Messengers and guardians of the spirit world, studying the spirits and the flow of chi. Also assassins and spies. Goals could involve relic-hunting, appeasing the dead, or turning the dead against enemies.
• East: Farmers of the herd, to engage in mortal affairs. Goals could include gaining control of corporations or gangs.
• South: Firestarters - their duty is to cause change, to question what must be questioned and to lead battles. Goals could involve battles against hengeyokai or akuma, or wiping out other Wu.
• Centre: Students of the interaction between opposing forces, they have to uncover the secrets of supernatural existence. Goals could include increasing understanding or solving riddles of important leaders.

Note that Kindred from outside Asia do not have a direction, they are barbarians that should just be put out of their misery instead.

Next we get the Yama Kings. It's more than a page so I'll sum it up: they rule over the hells and are kind of sort of the baddies except you could also find yourselves working for them. If we looked at WoD books as being influence for the factions of Exalted, this book is the origin of Infernals, and the Yama Kings are the Yozi Kings, the Titans.

It then talks about the ranks, which depend on your rating in your Dharma. Note that the actual Dharmas have not been explained yet, but whatever you do choose, your rating in it is important. In terms of Vampire, it's both your Humanity and your Generation (except high is good). It shows how enlightened you are and directly makes you more powerful. It can both rise and fall, too.

So at 0, you are a Chih-Mei. This is a monster that can only gain Chi by eating human flesh. They are usually put down, but it is possible to rebuild them, even rebuilding them along a new Dharma altogether.

At the 0-1 stage, they are a Hin. We covered that before. Once they graduate they're still at 1, but think of it as a "solid" 1. Even as a Hin, having Dharma 1 still means you no longer need to eat flesh, you can instead drink blood for your Chi sustenance.

At 1-3, you are a Disciple. PCs start at Dharma 1 and it is assumed they are Disciples, not Hin.

At 4-5 you become a Jina, which makes you influential in the courts, and you might even want to start training Disciples yourself. At this point you can spend two Chi per turn, and have a minimum age of 5 or 10 years respectively. That's minimum age since being awoken. At 5, you can draw Chi out from someone's breath, no longer needing blood.

Once you reach 6, you're a Mandarin, so you get to boss courts and Wu around as a big-time honcho. Your Attributes/Abilities can go up to 6, any pair of virtues (Yin+Yang, Hun+P'o - individually these cap out at 10 but the paired maximum is 10 until now) can total 12, you can spend 3 Chi per turn, you can draw Chi from the world itself without needing humans to feed from, and your minimum age is 100. From this point on, the maximum rating for stats equals your Dharma and the maximum pair of Virtues becomes twice your Dharma. Minimum age and Chi/turn also increase as the Dharma increases, and you gain bonuses to social pools.

Your title can increase as you go along - at Dharma 7 you are able to be an Ancestor, and at 9 you are able to be a Bodhisattva. But you might still just be a Mandarin. Whatever.

Next we get several pages all about the way of propriety, obligation, integrity, lineage and all those other important things. It continues for a bit more, but honestly, it's not that interesting to write about.

Next time I'll finish the chapter with the writeups on the Dharmas (finally). Look forward to "Make the right choice at character creation if you ever want to advance"! There's the WW we all know and hate!

deaddmwalking wrote:I really thought that Pacific Rim could have been better with more direct Evangelion conversion. The part with the 'synchronization' matches pretty perfectly with a particular episode.

The PR sequel has them building Jaegers out of Kaiju corpses. Overall though PR fighting was more focused on being 'showy' than 'sensible', in that picking up a train as nunchucks for the sake of it or watching your friends die before you decide to use that effective weapon you had on you the entire time.

A nice touch EVA did was showing gunships and battleships barraging angels ineffectively, it gave you a sense of scale to the Eva's power, and Evas run into combat with guns or at least a knife at all times.

I wish they hadn't run through their budget toward the end - they recycled a lot of animation.

The tragedy of these shows is always the budget, their audiences are only Japan and everyone else pirates the shit out of it.

Koumei wrote:so if you ignored that time limit, you totally could do the actual Ikkitousen thing, where Lu Bu now looks like this:

Right when I was reading this, my co-worker walked by, said "Ikkitousen!" and went on her way.


All in all this sounds a lot cooler than what I was expecting from WoD. Where does the gay bondage parties and kidnapping little girls to turn them into demon wombs start?

All in all this sounds a lot cooler than what I was expecting from WoD. Where does the gay bondage parties and kidnapping little girls to turn them into demon wombs start?

Opening comic actually has a devil-tiger, who put his lover's soul in a crystal, where she is tortured forever. He then sighs, realises that being lolchaoticevil isn't fun and/or enlightening, and proceds to use her as a decoration on his table.