I’m a
Kindred of the East whore. I might as well admit it. I’ve been so happy with all of the releases of to this point that White Wolf could just about slap the logo on any book and I’d buy it (as is likely to happen with
San Francisco by Night sometime soon). I’ll admit that the game and all of its books aren’t
perfect, but hell, they’re just damn good fun. Whenever a new one comes out, I get all excited in anticipation of it, so I was very happy when RPGnet was kind enough to send me the most recent bharma book, covering the dharma that I had the least interest in from the write-up in the main book. By the time I finished it, the Resplendent Cranes had become my second favorite dharma.
The opening manga was pretty good, with a nice (if really brief) story. I came away from it with a new character concept, at least, which is more than I can say about a lot of the previous comics in previous Kindred of the East or Werewolf: the Apocalypse releases. The first chapter attempts to explain Crane beliefs and values, and it was not long into this chapter that I came across the little kernel or twist that made the book worth reading and vastly increased my appreciation for the dharma. Simply adding in a bit of Taoist methodology managed to transform the Cranes from obsessive-compulsive lawyers into philosophers convinced that there is a Way for each of the Ten Thousand Things. They become seekers of the Truth, attempting to discover and understand the laws of the world to such an extent that they no longer need to make any decisions as they simply naturally follow those laws without any thought. Discover the laws of the universe. Internalize them. Live them until they become not just second nature, but your first nature. Become the laws, or the Way, and you will dwell only in Righteousness.
That was basically the clicking point for me and the dharma. From that point on, the dharma book was simply filling in the details and fleshing out the dharma as a whole. The rest of the chapter provided tons of ammunition for stirring in-character discussion with looks at the eight tenets of the dharma, as well as its Eightfold Lotus Path and the Fivefold Way, along with a discussion of the virtues the dharma values and why. It also adds in the other main twist of the book, but one I didn’t take to as strongly as the first. Unlike the other dharmas, the Resplendent Cranes do not see the coming of the Sixth Age and the ascendance of evil across the world as an inevitable thing. Instead, the see Righteousness as a tool to effective turn back (or at least slow down and maybe even halt) the advancing of the Wheel. The Wheel of Ages doesn’t automatically and inexorably turn, the Ages have advanced instead because more and more people have broken the Laws, and thus left their Way and abandoned their state of Righteousness. Bring people back to Righteousness (or destroy those who have wandered) and the previous Ages will return. This doesn’t stir my imagination as much as the Taoist spices added to the dharma, but it is nice to have an inherently hopeful splat in a White Wolf game.
The first chapter was composed of excerpts from longer writings provided by a wide variety of Cranes. The second chapter is a much more objective look at the organization of the dharma. We get a look at a few sects within the dharma (only two of them heretical and outlawed), some of which are quite interesting, but I would have liked a much longer list for a group as hierarchical as the Cranes. This lack is somewhat alleviated in a later chapter by the section covering why sects form and how to build your own. The chapter also covers the dharmas involvement in the Great Leap Outward (given their beliefs, they have more reason than any others to back the “invasion”), its relations with other dharmas (which are the usual Kindred of the East mixture of insight and unexpected but reasonable relationships) and how the dharma is spread around Asia. I wish I knew why Japan wasn’t covered in the geography section, however. Cranes are certainly on the island in force and the gaki are referred to in other sections, but they are just skipped over here.
As usual, the character creation and system chapter has insights of its own. Short discussions on how to orient a budding character to the Crane philosophy should help a lot of players who are not entirely sure of how to portray the dharma, or just where to begin with it. Additionally, as I mentioned above, this chapter include a section on sects, talking not only about why they form, but how to construct on in a game (as well as some brief system effects). I would have sorely liked many more detailed sects, but this will have to suffice. The usual gaggle of character templates and famous NPCs rounds out the book, of course, but they did not really stand out or stir my imagination to any great extent.
Like its predecessors, Dharma Book: Resplendent Cranes lives up to the high standards I have for the game line I love so much. In fact, this is probably my second favorite dharma book, second only to the superb Devil Tigers book. Both of them took difficult dharmas and transformed them into exciting and enticing options for character concepts. As I said when I started this review, the book managed to make the Cranes one of my favorite dharmas and I would leap at the chance to play one now, where previously I wouldn’t have given them a second thought. Isn’t that what a splatbook is supposed to do? Well, that’s just part of it, and Dharma Book: Resplendent Cranes fulfills its other duty in providing me with enough information to fully and confidently play a member of this dharma.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)