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Boy, was I wrong.
CHDH (as it shall hereafter be named) is small (the usual A5 size, slim) but powerful. It is a complete (apart from the main BESM rules) treatment of a neat little anime-style horror setting which we could call the Seven Seals. Background, character generation rules, organisations, opponents, magic items, starting adventure, future adventure seeds. And "horror" isn't a very good description: the PCs are monsters, but angst and gore are not really required - you could, essentially, just run it as Urban Arcana.
So what is it? I hear you ask.
Basically... it's an anime take on WoD. At least, that's how it feels to me. The PCs are monsters: bakemono (Changing Breeds, basically, though they have bulls too), mummies, zombies, kyuuketsuki (vampires), yurei (ghosts), tenshi (half-angels), oni (half-demons), sennin (immortal Highlander-type mythic heroes), and sorcerers. They hide among us mortals, intriguing, fighting, and generally trying to live meaningful and productive lives. There's a neat little comic-strip at the beginning explaining the big creation myth that explains all their origins. The myth also introduces the Seven Demon Kings (each a parent figure to each of the seven main monster types - for instance Vasuki, the berserker destroyer Demon King, is the responsibility of the bakemono), who were sealed into extradimensional prisons at the beginning of time and who strive to break free. Guess what's happening now.
Each character type has a template (what every bakemono or whatever should have), a school (or three) of magic, and a fair bit of history, background, and motivation. Plus a demon lord to keep behind a big Seal. to be honest playing a sennin or a sorcerer - more human-type guys - looks dull by comparison, and you know normally that's just not the case. In style, they remind me greatly of that Capcom arcade fighting game series, Darkstalkers - monsters battling it out kung-fu style, with lovely anime character designs and imaginitive moves. In no other fighting game could you fight a demon lord who killed you by crushing you and using your blood to sign the contract for your soul, against a background mainly consisting of a slowly waking gigantic mutant devil-baby.
Still nothing tremendously original, I hear you think. Well, that's true. What's so great about CHDH is that they've put out this cohesive, idea-loaded, manga-tastic modern fantasy setting, and it's only £11 and 122 pages. It's entertaining, interesting, and absolutely full of ideas and names you could plunder for your own modern campaign, and you could read it in an afternoon.
The bad:
It's too all-encompassing. There's this huge bewildering array of character types (if you count the various sub-types, it's more like twenty classes). The types seem a bit stretched to cover all the archetypes in places - for instance, the Zombi type covers all human-based animated beings, from zombies to liches to flesh golems to re-animated cyborg soldiers.
It's not got enough room. You don't ever have a very good idea of how all these monsters all share space, how they get on, what they're actually supposed to be doing with their un-lives. In short, not enough explanatory background. As ever, some ideas for this can be gleaned from the lacklustre introductory adventure, but I might still have some trouble running it as a campaign.
The art is mostly by Okum, but it is better than I'd have expected.
The good:
Look above. WoD without the angst! Seamless cross-type adventures! Monster kung-fu magic fighting in shadowed alleyways for the soul of the world! And small enough to slip into a jacket pocket!
Overall, a very nice addition to the gleaming BESM roster. Almost as good as Uresia. I look forward to the space opera offering.
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