Secrets of Japan

Inside this near-perfect tome lies a wealth of information for the Keeper to bring the players into the exotic horror of Japan.

            Recent films like “The Grudge” and “The Ring” have brought the sensibilities of Japanese horror film to the general public.  The suspense, minimalist scares, and surreal dream-like images from these films make them an appealing genre to the Lovecraft fan and the Cthulhu player.  Chaosium has finally delivered its much-delayed sourcebook on the subject.  “Secrets of Japan” is a toolbox resource providing not just “Cthulhu in a kimono” but a wealth of information on Japanese culture. 

            This reviews does contain some information that some may consider spoilers, so be warned.  I’ve done my best to keep things spoiler free and have marked any segments that might spoil something.  If you want to get my basic impressions, skip on down to the Bottom Line.

The Book Itself

Weighing in at 360 pages, this book is one of the big boys on the Cthulhu block.  There is an ad on the back page for the upcoming PC/Xbox game as well as an index with some disturbing artwork.  The art ranges from traditional-looking pieces to anime/manga inspired drawings.  The sections detailing artifacts and weapons use a combination of actual photographs and computer rendered 3d drawings to illustrate what is being talked about in the text. 

            The wide variety of art is one of the first clues to the diversity of the book.  The computer rendered ‘weapons page’ is excellent for players and Keepers that might not know the difference between a katana and a tanto.  Even someone that’s played a few Asian fantasy games might find the discussion on feudal weapons interesting and informative. 

The Yonaguni Monuments (SPOILER)

            This is the large fiction piece that opens the book.  It’s not bad, especially for gaming fiction, but it is a bit lengthy.  The basic premise is that these momuments, located just off-shore, are the ruins of a city connected to both the kami and the ancient continent of Mu.  The implication is that the Imperial Line of Japan holds the keys to opening up the Big Nasty Door in the ruins and that key might be the first trigger to the return of the Great Old Ones.

Introduction and Scroll One: Atmosphere

            Following the big fiction is a short introduction on how to use the book and laying the seeds of the differences between a Western and an Asian campaign.  There’s a pronunciation guide as well as a short guide on language and politeness in Japanese society.  These work as good primers for people completely unfamiliar with the differences of Japanese language.

            Scroll One is broken into three sections.  The first section is the home of most of the crunchy bits.  It talks about handling Japanese investigators as well as foreigners in Japan.  There are a variety of new rules and options thrown in this section ranging from Meditation (which can be used to retry failed Idea and Know rolls) to Culture Shock (where Western PCs lose more SAN because of the already weird circumstances of being in another country).  There are a lot of suggestions here and the majority of them aren’t set in stone.

            The next section is a basic primer on Japan that details both its physical boundaries as well as some of the cultural differences.  A brief guide to bowing, a page chock full of pictures of yen, and the classic breakdown of costs all reside in this section.  This part of the book is just useful knowledge in general for anyone wishing to set any part of a game in Japan.

            The final section filters the major religions on of Japan through a Mythos filter.  While some folks may balk at the idea of PC magicians in a CoC game, the book is trying to cover every angle and does have suggestions for games ranging from the traditional CoC to a more anime influenced Tentacle Hunter D style of game.  I personally found the take on a…different sect of Buddhism to be very clever and devious

Scroll Two: Secrets

            This scroll is where all the Mythos tomes and magic widgets are located.  The first section of this segment talks about the tomes unique to Japan.  The following section has a listing of spells broken down by belief system as well as a variety of new spells.  The final section talks about ritual and holy implements that range from things that everyday priests use to the Imperial Regalia.  The nice thing about this section is the author uses photographs when talking about the widgets.  It really helps to see the variety of different things used in other religions and not have to give a description of a description.

Scroll Three: People

            This scroll begins with another fiction piece detailing the machinations of Project Yubei.  This is the biggest critique I have of the book.  Neither this nor the opening fiction is bad, but considering all the information that’s already in the book, I can’t imagine what was left out to put this stuff in.  I wish they would have picked one fiction and stuck with it.  Chaosium has generally done well to avoid putting extraneous filler in their books.

            The second section talks about the different power groups in Japan.  There’s a breakdown of everyone from the Imperial household to the yakusa.  This information could also be useful for anyone running a game in Japan just to see how these different factions can play foreigners off one another.

            The third section details some of the secret societies in Mythos Japan.  They range from a yakuza family controlled by a Mythos race to a secret division of a Japanese corporation using the Mythos to fuel their research.  The allies that follow in the next section are well done as well. 

Scroll Four: The Six Realms

            This is the main chapter that details how the Cthulhu Mythos fits into Japanese cosmology.  While there are a few instances where the author took the easy route and just dumped a lot of Asian flavor on an avatar of a Great Old One, there are also great imports from standard Japanese horror like oni and drowning spirits.  Much like the main rules have stats for werewolves and less strange scary creatures, this book does well talking about more traditional adversaries for investigators.  And yes, for those of you looking for a bit of camp in your Cthulhu scenarios, a generic Godzilla-like creature that can stomp Tokyo.

Scroll Five: Scenarios and Sinister Seeds (SPOILERS)

            This section contains some sample adventures and short seeds for the Keeper interested in using the book.  The seeds provide a wonderful array of scenario ideas but the scenarios themselves leave a bit to be desired. If you don’t want to know what the adventures involve, skip the rest of this section.

            The Hin-no-Mazu Slayings involves a samurai/demon coming back and taking his revenge on political party members.  This is probably the best fleshed out scenario and even it comes off as a little weak.  It’s a fairly standard “Monster of the Week” scenario with some political overtones thrown in for flavor but few Mythos connections.

            Meiro (The Possessed) is a Mythos scenario involving some of the organizations in the book.  The hook to get players involved is something that I’m not sure most folks would take seriously.  A collectible card game featuring anime characters does, in fact, put an addictive substance on the cards that drives players to eventual madness/cult formation.  While an interesting idea of satire, I’m not sure if it holds up under CoC’s dark light.  The scenario ends with a dungeon crawl, with a clever riddle to get into the dungeon, traps, and Mythos beasties to run from.  While these can be fun, I generally don’t enjoy them in games of CoC, as most players are smart enough to run when confronted by a Mythos creature.

            The Yonagumi Monuments sounds familiar for a good reason.  The last full scenario suggests running a story based on the front fiction and has stats for all the characters from that story.  This part seemed a bit too self-congratulatory, as if the Keeper was impressed by the fiction enough to say “Dang! I sure loved that story!  But creating a session based on it would be such hard work on my own.  If only I could have my players meet those characters, they’d be sucked in for sure!”  I would have much preferred an index of the characters from the story and used the extra space elsewhere than a reprint of the same story in the same book twice.

Appendices 1-4

            The book ends with four appendices with things that didn’t necessarily fit anywhere else.  In general, they are full of good information and story hooks if you don’t mind digging and thinking about them for a bit.

            The first appendix goes a little more into the anthropology and cultural analysis of Japan.  It’s a glossary of terms that explain unique ideas of Japan’s culture.  These ideas always make for good scenario ideas.  The second appendix is a calendar of strange happenings in Japan similar to the one in the main CoC rule book.  The third appendix gives short blurbs on other Asian countries and the Mythos (as I don’t think Secrets of Laos is on the schedule anytime soon).  The last appendix develops Tokyo University as a home base for investigators in Japan, similar to good ol’ Miskatonic U. in the regular game.

The Bottom Line

Style: 4. This is a tome chock full of information about Japanese horror that doesn’t necessarily need to be used for Call of Cthulhu alone.  I only wish they would have left out the game fiction and crammed even more information in.

Substance: 4. Everything you need to get started for a dark setting in modern Japan.  The only weak spot are the full-out scenarios.

Who should buy it?

Japanophiles, fans of The Ring and The Grudge, Call of Cthulhu Keepers looking to send their players on a ‘working vacation’.