What is it?
The cover tells us this is 'A Dark Kingdoms Sourcebook for Wraith: The Oblivion'. This pretty much covers it. Dark Kingdom is the only supplement ever published by White Wolf to cover a Dark Kingdom. As players of Wraith know, the default setting of the game is the Western Underworld and Stygia. Stygia and it's sphere of influence is also called the Dark Kingdom of Iron and is but one of many Kingdoms that exist across the Shroud. The Chinese Restless Dead have their own place, the [drums] Dark Kingdom of Jade [hi-hat]. And this book provides all you need to know about the Chinese afterlife. Good luck with finding it though — it's long out-of-print.
A small note on the metaplot
The Dark Kingdom of Jade has a place in Wraith's metaplot. Stygia has been at war with the Yellow Springs, as the inhabitants of the Dark Kingdom of Jade call it, for a long time. This war culminates in Ends of Empire. As you can guess, this book lays the groundwork for this development. The direct references to the plot in Jade are easily ignored. I think it's not so easy the other way round: to gain a greater understanding of the metaplot, you should read this book.
What do ypu get?
As every Wraith supplement does, the Dark Kingdom of Jade opens with a Ghost Story. This one, A Prelude to Hell, tells us about a wraith girl sent to hell. Horrifying as the narrative is, it ends on a note of hope. The story immediately sets the oppressive mood that pervades the afterlife in the Yellow Springs.
The Introduction holds the obligatory What to Do With This Book, Recommended Sources and a Lexicon of about half a page. Nothing new or exciting here.
The Chinese Dead, as the first 'real' chapter is called, tells us what a Chinese wraith actually is and how his immediate surroundings differ from the Stygian wraith's. Instead of a Psyche and a Shadow, a Chinese wraith consists of the hun (which controls mental and spiritual aspects) and the p'o (that governs physical aspects). Instead of Stygian steel, we have True Jade as the most valuable substance and White Jade instead of normal soulforged steel. Nothing spectacular. Things start to change when we arrive at the paragraph about Eunuchs: lobotomised and Moliated wraiths who are used as catalogue devices and messengers. The last building brick in this underworld is the presence of kuei, or 'Hungry Ghosts'. The results of improper burials, these malevolent spirits are similar to Spectres in more than one sense.
As you can see, the basics are very similar to the basics in the main book. Everything is more or less the same, with a little twist to make things interesting.
Chapter Two: The History of the Jade Kingdom gives us a course in history of the Yellow Springs. While dry in some places, it is very complete and gives many vital facts. It closely resembles the history of Stygia in Wraith's core rulebook.
According to the history the first emperor of a unified China, Qin Shihuang, prepared himself for the afterlife with the help of a mage. Together they created the Immortal Guard: 24,000 warriors Fettered to the famous terra cotta army in Xi'an. After crossing the Shroud, the Emperor and his Guard swept over the divided Yellow Springs and unified it. After this, Shihuang named himself Yu Huang.
The Kingdom's economy, like the Stygian economy, is based on White Jade and the enslavement and soulforging of wraiths to provide this. This policy lead to rebellions in the mainland of China. To remedy this, the Emperor began to occupy the neighbouring countries: Vietnam, Laos, Japan, etc. The wraiths in these so-called Conquered Territories are used to fuel the economy, without the chance of rebellion in the vast mainland.
A sound strategy, or so it seems. One drawback: the occupied areas will rebel. To counter this, the Territories are controlled by the Imperial Army and the Guard. Stationing in the Territories is a chance for a wraith to gain wealth and honour.
The third chapter, The Government, details how the Kingdom is ruled. To govern his vast Empire Qin Shihuang established a huge Bureaucracy. How large? Over one-third of the population is involved in the government, a number I think is ridiculous. It's easily tweaked though.
Ruling isn't based on the Trias Politica we're all familiar with. Instead, the government consists of four branches: the Protectors of the Prosperous Realm, the Judges of the Dead, the Imperial Army and the Jade Censors. Each branch is detailed here, along with statistics for sample NPC's. Looming over these branches is the immensely powerful Immortal Guard which makes sure that all obey the Emperor.
Life Among the Dead details how everyday life, ehrm, existence is structured in the Yellow Springs. Pretty much everything revolves around the family, the central unit in Chinese society. The impact of Buddhism and Communism is also described.
Chapter Five: Unreal Estate tells us about the Imperial Palace, Important Necropoli and Noteworthy Haunts like the obligatory Great Wall. The authors also take a look at the Conquered Territories like Korea and Vietnam and their resistance movements. This chapter is actually a long list (fourteen pages) of story ideas, packaged as a tour guide. Want to explore the labyrinthine Jade Palace? Want to play a platoon of American soldiers that died while on duty in Vietnam or Korea? You can do this, and more. Excellent!
Speaking of tours, A Guided Tour of Hell is the next chapter and describes (the history of) the Chinese Hell. To punish his subjects, Yu Huang built a place in the midst of the Tempest, modelled after Buddhist beliefs. The history of the place is told. After that there is a description of the horrifying journey towards it. The player characters have the chance to meet some interesting NPC's here.
My major gripe with this chapter is with what follows: descriptions of sample hells. The White Wolf 'Games for Mature Minds' stamp is all over it, a lame excuse for providing some devious tortures. If you've read La Divina Commedia or Larry Niven's Inferno, you have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about. Not quite my cup of tea.
At the end of the chapter there is a short paragraph on how and why a wraith could escape from Hell. A nice addition, for why would you send your characters to Hell if they have no hope of return?
One of the more interesting things you can do as a Restless Dead is dealing with the world of the living. The seventh chapter, The Quick, gets you started. The role of the family is rather large here, as it is in just about everything in China. There are descriptions of the funeral ceremony and 3 festivals. During these festivals, the Shroud weakens and the Quick interact with the Dead. Following, there are sections on Spirit Mediums, Exorcists, and Charms & Talismans. Various systems are included.
About five pages are covered with Fortune-Telling and accompanying systems. Mentioned are, among others, Zodiacs, the I Ching and Feng Shui. Five pages, and no advice for the GM on how to handle these things. This is something I find odd and annoying, given the difficulty of this subject in RPG's.
Closing the book is Systems and Stories. This is the 'goodies-chapter' with new stuff to satisfy your inner ruleslawyer. New Merits and Flaws (for instance: Dysfunctional Family, a rather awkward flaw in these family-minded territories), Skills (the inevitable Martial Arts) and Backgrounds. The real meat however, goes into the six (6) new Arcanoi. The first 4 are named after the Four Ways of Confucius:
- The Way of the Scholar is about questioning, discerning lies and mind control.
- The Way of the Artisan is more or less the same as what Artificers do: manipulating True and White Jade.
- The Way of the Farmer is a mixture of Castigate and kuei-manipulation.
- The Way of the Merchant deals with Pathos. While despised, Merchants are considered a necessary evil.
The Way of the Soul deals with the wraith's own Shadow, or
p'o. It's a useful tool, like Castigate. Unlike Castigate, few practitioners of this Path are able to influence the
p'o in other souls.
The Immortal Guard comes with their own Arcanos: the Chains of the Emperor. This should make the Guard even more memorable adversaries because the Arcanos not only chains and binds captured wraiths,
it can cancel another wraith's use of Argos. Awesome power here. The book fortunately says that this Arcanos is very rare outside the Guard.
For those who've managed to read the book and still be without any clue on how to base a story on the material, the final section provides chronicle ideas. The book contains a lot of ideas (just read the fifth chapter), but those unable to read between the lines can find more than one page of gold nuggets here.
What does it look like?
The Dark Kingdom of Jade's look-and-feel is pretty standard as far as Wraith is concerned. A full colour cover by Joshua Gabriel Timbrook which is solid but not particularly evocative. Inside the text is divided in two columns, surrounded by the trade-mark Wraith border by John Cobb. This, together with the decorative capitals by said Cobb end the chapter font really defines the Wraith-look for me. This is complemented by the chapter frontispieces by Mike Danza. His elegant paintings always strike me.
The abundant black-and-white illustrations are done by Heather J. McKinney, Harold Arthur McNeill (whose style touches upon Japanese ink paintings), James Daly, the aforementioned Timbrook, Ken Meyer Jr. and Drew Tucker. Ken Meyer illustrates only the Ghost Story, the rest of the artists appear throughout the book. Meyer apparently had a naked girl running around in his studio, because that's all we get to see from him here. Solid, but gratuitous. Yes, he illustrates scenes from the Ghost Story, but it's too easy. Naked girl with beautiful body, blood, chains, ... Daly's black-and-white line art isn't as good, technically speaking, but doesn't offend me as much. Fortunately Drew Tucker delivers his moody, murky watercolours as usual and makes up for this.
Jade wouldn't be a White Wolf product without some quotations. This time the main sources are a translation of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and the movie Big Trouble In Little China. While the Tao Te Ching is a Taoist classic and appropriate as such, I wonder whether either of the authors has read it and really understands the chosen lines. Then again, it provides flavour.
The little things that kill...
While the supplement is rather good, it has some scratches. Some layout errors: a picture placed twice, the second time stretched in a horrible way. A quotation with the make-this-italic slashes still in it (like /this/).
More annoying are the things hinted at but left unexplained. I quote: "Such a union of the flesh will serve to fully bind the two clans together, and the dead often go to great lengths to bring it about." What I would like to see is a description of the things wraiths do in such a case. On the same page: "..., fearing that they would dishonor the family ..." Too bad that honour and dishonour aren't mentioned anywhere else. "Cats are credited with the power of scaring off evil spirits, probably because of their affinity to the tiger." While it's nice to know that cats can scare of evil spirits, the reference to tigers doesn't help me very much. What is it about evil spirits and tigers? There are quite a few of these hints that are not followed up. This is probably because of space constraints, but it's a missed opportunity.
In some areas, the history chapter in particular, the writing is a little dry and uninspired. The substance makes up for this, however. Also, there is a reference to something called a Horizon Realm. There is no clue whatsoever on what this is. After having stumbled upon the term while reading a Mage: the Ascension supplement review, I know it's a Mage thingy. But what? I still have no idea.
The book sometimes states rather incredible facts. One-third of a population involved in a bureaucracy? And Yu Huang is said to have reigned for nearly two millennia before turning his attention to the Western Restless Dead. Why, no emperor worth his salt can be this negligent. Two thousand years? The authors drop the ball here, and on some other places.
Evaluation
What can I say? Dark Kingdom of Jade is one packed sourcebook with lots of information. While it's a little dry in places, and it has some layout errors, there's nothing crippling. My problems with the description of the hells and Ken Meyer Jr.'s art are probably personal — please use the forum to give your thoughts on this matter. The internal consistency is more of a problem.
Then again, the amount of material given here is huge. Sample NPC and adversary statistics are provided and there are six new Arcanoi. You get information on (the history of) the afterlife in the Yellow Springs and the Conquered Territories. There is material on how the living interact with the dead, and some systems are provided. Best of all, adventure seeds abound.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)