Kindred of the East
A role-playing game about Asian vampires subsisting on chi.
Kindred of the East is a tabletop role-playing game book and game line released by White Wolf Publishing in February 1998 for use with Vampire: The Masquerade. It is the first and main entry in the Year of the Lotus line of Asia-themed books, introducing Asian vampires called kuei-jin as player characters. The game covers Asia as portrayed in the World of Darkness setting, with a focus on China.
Quick Facts
- Designer
- Robert Hatch
- Illustrator
- Lawrence Snelly
- Publisher
- White Wolf Publishing
- Date
- February 1998
- System
- Storyteller System
- Parent game
- Vampire: The Masquerade
- Series
- World of Darkness
Facts from the source article.
Overview
Kindred of the East is a major rulebook and game line for Vampire: The Masquerade, set in Asia as portrayed in the setting, primarily China. It introduces kuei-jin, also called the hungry dead, who are undead but differ from the vampires of Vampire: The Masquerade: they do not originate from the biblical Caine, but were originally created by the divine August Personage of Jade during the second age from the most virtuous humans to protect humanity from the Yama Kings and their demonic followers. During the third age, they discovered they could sustain themselves through chi stolen from living beings, and as punishment the August Personage of Jade returned them to their dead bodies and cut them off from the world's chi, forcing them to survive on stolen chi. The game is set during the fifth age, in modern times, after the August Personage of Jade has turned away from the world. New kuei-jin are created from humans who have done evil and crawl back from hell, sometimes returning to someone else's dead body, beginning as zombie-like chih-mei until taught to control themselves by an older kuei-jin.
Production and release
Kindred of the East arrived in February 1998 from White Wolf Publishing, after a delay from the previous November. It was the flagship release of the Year of the Lotus line, a series of books that introduced Asian supernatural beings to the World of Darkness. Robert Hatch led the design, with contributions from Phil Brucato, Jackie Cassada, Mark Cenczyk, and Nicky Rea. The game was built as a supplement for Vampire: The Masquerade, requiring that core rulebook to play, a model borrowed from the publisher’s Mummy Second Edition. This approach let it draw attention like a new standalone game without committing the publisher to a full product line. Before this book, Asian vampires in the setting had only been hinted at through the Cainite bloodlines Gaki and Bushi, which were later removed from continuity. The designers suggested themes like balance versus imbalance, tradition versus new thinking, the group versus the individual, east versus west, hierarchy, and redemption versus damnation. The lore was initially meant to mesh with the Exalted role-playing game, but the two settings eventually went separate ways. Lawrence Snelly served as art director and cover artist, Ash Arnett designed the logo, Andy Lee provided calligraphy, and interior artists drew inspiration from manga.
Reception
Kindred of the East and its supplements were critically well received at release, with Dosdediez, Dragão Brasil, and Dragon calling it among their favorite World of Darkness games, Casus Belli calling it an excellent game, and Poltergeist recommending it to anyone wanting to play an urban-fantasy role-playing game set in Asia. Critics generally liked the gameplay mechanics, with Backstab much preferring them to those of Vampire: The Masquerade, though conceding they were a bit complicated to use, while Magia i Miecz thought the game may require some modifications to simplify the rules. Dosdediez liked the chi mechanics for adding unique flavor, while Poltergeist considered the risk of using p'o disciplines so unbalanced that they never feel worth using, the dharmas' descriptions too brief, and the p'o archetypes often indistinctive. Sci-Fi Universe liked the game for standing out from Vampire: The Masquerade, facilitating many new story ideas. Casus Belli, Dragon, and SF Site criticized the game for requiring learning a lot of terminology and concepts before playing. The mystical setting and writing were well received for their mood and atmosphere, though Dragão Brasil did not find it dark enough for the series. Rollespilsmagasinet Fønix thought it deviated far too much from what had been established, while Backstab thought it was a better game for the differences.
Related media
The live-action role-playing game Mind's Eye Theatre received a Kindred of the East adaptation called Laws of the East, released in 2000 and developed by Cynthia Summers with writing by Peter Woodworth. Two years earlier, in 1998, Activision had secured the rights to create video games based on Kindred of the East, as well as Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Dark Ages. The kuei-jin later appeared in the 2004 video game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, where Ming Xiao, a kuei-jin who controls Los Angeles's Chinatown, serves as one of the antagonists. They are also present in the tabletop book Nights of Prophecy from 2000, and their activities are referenced in Beckett's Jyhad Diary from 2018. With the release of Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition in 2018, the kuei-jin are no longer considered part of the official setting. Manga-style comics were included in several books within the game line. Additionally, Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote the short story "The Lotus of Five Petals," published in 1998 within the anthology The Quintessential World of Darkness, edited by Anna Branscome and Stewart Wieck.
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