Asian Monsters

And no, I don’t mean Yao Ming.  I was listening to a good podcast interview of Robin Laws in the newest Pelgrane Press “See Page XX” e-zine, and he talked a lot about one of my favorite RPGs of all time, Feng Shui. (FS is currently owned by Atlas Games, but they have no further releases planned for it.)

Well, though Feng Shui was targeted as a Hong Kong action RPG, it was always at the high end of the HK power scale.  Hong Kong Action Theatre! from Guardians of Order (R.I.P.) hit the mid/low end well.  But because of the high power level, I used Feng Shui for anime action frequently.  It was great for it.   I wrote up a mini-campaign based on the anime Blue Seed that is available for free online to this day.  And I happen to love the monster-fighting type of anime.  Wicked City, Demon City Shinjuku (yes I had that game too), all that.  I tended towards Ghostbusters-meets-anime kinds of plots and was always on the make for Asian monsters.  I cribbed from Oriental Adventures, Kindred of the East, I even considered buying a Sailor Moon RPG monster book. But those were always few and far between, and attempts to read up on Asian mythology and mosnters in my local libraries were often light on the stuff you really need to know to fully stat something up.

Then today, Fark linked an MSNBC article about a new book detailing various monsters from Japanese folklore, also known as “yokai.” Yokai Attack!  The Japanese Monster Survival Guide is on sale now! From the reviews it sounds perfect as a reference guide for an RPG.  Check it out!  I’m getting it myself as soon as I can…