Pyramid Review: Shadow War (for Kindred of the East)

Pyramid Review

Shadow War (for Kindred of the East)

Published by White Wolf Publishing

Written by Edward MacGregor and Bryant Durrell

104 Pages, $15.95

Shadow War, White Wolf's third supplement for the Kindred of the East offshoot of Vampire: the Masquerade, suffers from a sort of literary schizophrenia. Buying it was really a leap of faith, because I had no idea what I was going to get. Reading the back cover gave me the impression that I was purchasing a strange hybrid of World of Darkness: Combat, California by Night, and Kuei-jin Politics for Dummies.

The fairly typical "How to use this book" introduction, with its chapter by chapter summary was, thankfully, quick to address this problem. The first three chapters of Shadow War cover inter-Cathayan warfare, including both the formal wars waged by elders against each other, and the "Underground War" waged by younger Kuei-Jin (the Bamboo Princes) against the ruling Mandarins. Chapters four and five detail "Scarlet Screens" (mortal fronts for Kuei-Jin) and Kuei-Jin activity in California respectively. Unfortunately, little effort has been made to incorporate the final two chapters into the theme of the book as a whole, and they seem tacked on to the end more because they have nowhere better to be than because they really belong here.

Chapter one, Twilight War, details formal, non-lethal conflict between a pair of Kuei-Jin. The first half of the chapter is history, fleshing out existing cosmology and . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: May 12, 2000

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