31 Days / 31 Characters - DEE HOSHIYORU

Creguian (pronounced KREG-e-on) is the name of a Japanese Play-by-Mail Role-Playing Game that began in 1990 and continued on until the parent company Hobby Data went out of business suddenly in 2003. Over the 13 years that Creguian ran, the game became incredibly popular, resulting in a Tabletop RPG boxed set released in 1992.

Additionally, a second boxed set expansion, a softcover supplement, and a dozen published scenarios were produced. Numerous light novels based on the background events of the setting were published as well. Over the course of its 10+ years, the actions of its player base generated and developed the characters, equipment, and events of the game's universe as much as any material issued forth by those running the PBM. 

At a NJ gaming convention in 1992 I met a fellow whose older brother was in the military and had been stationed in Japan for some time by that point. We got to talking about Japanese RPGs and he mentioned his brother playing Japanese made games as well as one or two that were PBM. The older brother had sent some of the tabletop games back home to his younger sibling and in fact, the fella had brought some of these games to the show. We met after the convention for dinner and he pulled a few JTRPGs out of his backpack: Sword World, Horai School Advenure, and none other than Creguian. I'd seen ads for Creguian in Japan's Dragon Magazine and it had always intrigued me. 

The guy ended up running a session with myself and two friends and it was great, largely because of the world building. The Creguian setting was very interesting to me. I honestly don't recall the rules very well, except that it reminded me of classic Traveller, though if I recall correctly it was 2D10 instead of two 2D6 for resolution. That or it may have been a percentile system but I distinctly remember getting a strong Traveller vibe from the game. Before the con ended, this guy was able to photocopy some of the English translation pages and gave them to me. Combining these notes with MegaTraveller I was able to run a short Creguian campaign of my own a week or two later. It rocked and featured this awesome character by a very cool gal I used to know...

Character: Dee Hoshiyoru

AKA: Lady Star, Starlight.

Player: Sasha

I think. I can't clearly remember her name. I can picture her in my mind like our last encounter was yesterday when it's got to be 30+ years since I last saw her. She was of mixed-heritage; her father African-American and Latin-American, her mother Caucasian and Japanese. She was strikingly attractive. 

She always wore a black leather [motorcycle?] jacket, biker shorts, and either a punk band or comic book related t-shirt. That's all regardless of season or temperature btw. Overall she looked like a rock-n'-roll fitness instructor, which incidentally she was. Her day job was as a personal trainer. 

System: Creguian, Tabletop RPG / MegaTraveller.

 

Nature: Short Campaign: Homeward Bound

Gamemaster: Adam Dickstein

Circa: 1992

Origins: I remember discussing my experience playing Creguian with a friend at my job [at a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book and Comic Book store] when another regular customer standing nearby, Sasha, said how cool it sounded. All three of us got to talking and decided to get together to run a game. Adding two others, we ran a trial session; basically a one-shot just to show everyone what the game was all about. Sasha asked me, "So what happens next?". Checking with the others to see if anyone else was interested in answering that question, I got a resounding 'let's find out'. 

 The Creguian RPG Boxed Set 

Cover and Contents.

Backstory: Dee Hoshiyoru was a drifter with a past she would rather not talk about, moving aimlessly through the stars of the Frontier Sector trying to survive and forget. Although everyone she ran into out there could tell she was native to this life, that she was destined for or came from higher status, no one could argue she didn't belong. Hoshiyoru could hold her own.

On a routine job guarding Outer World cargo headed for the Inner Sphere, Hoshiyoru saw a ghost, someone she thought was long since dead. The daughter of the altruistic, wealthy, corporate nobles who'd raised her was being forced to board a starship of ill-repute. Dee believed she had failed her family, that everyone had been murdered but no, the youngest daughter had survived! 

Banding together with a charming conman Smuggler, a cyborg Mercenary with a Mech, and a dying alien Baptist Psychic, Dee Hoshiyoru - or Lady Star as the Smuggler liked to call her - set out to right what she felt was her greatest wrong so she, the noble's daughter, and all her new friends could be Homeward Bound. 

Overview: I can best describe this campaign as 'Star Wars as written and directed by Blade Runner era Ridley Scott'. Each PC had a reason to chase this group of Interstellar Organized Criminals with the separate but unified goal of 'getting to go home'. For the Smuggler, the crooks had cheated him out of a score that would pay off his debts so he could return to his home planet. The Merc swore he wouldn't return home until he got revenge for the death of his brother. The alien was one of the few members of his species left in the galaxy. The entire race was going extinct. Dee's noble corporates had developed a medicine [of some sort] that might prevent this.

Lastly, Dee is revealed to have been an orphan taken in by the corporate family and raised by their Chief Of Security as his own daughter. She eventually became Security Head herself. One day, a surprise attack on their home ended with the murder of the entire group by a guild of assassins working for a business rival. With her family gone, her reputation in ruin, and even some suggestion by the media that she might have been in on it, Dee ran. She eventually lost herself on the frontier, which is where we see her when the game starts. 

Her real name is actually something different but her adopted father always called her 'Hoshiyoru', which in Japanese means Starlight. 

The two major Creguian expansions:

On the left; a second box set detailing Starship Construction, Space Battles, and other Starship stuff.

On the right; Crisis Point, a soft cover, saddlestitch sourcebook and scenario generator. 

Highlights:

Dee would have interesting, though brief, philosophical discussions with our alien character. His species is referred to as the Baptists (See Notes below). Often his side of the argument would be about the universe have a plan for all of them and they it was all tied to destiny. Dee was of the opinion that the sentient universe the Baptist believed in was either not real or a terrible planner. "This thing has to be the worst tactician ever."

The Smuggler flirted with Dee quite a bit and she back but made it clear at one point that it wasn't serious. He was disappointed but they remained fast friends. In a session towards the end when Dee makes it obvious she's romantically interested in the noble daughter and had been for a while in their adult years, the Smuggler basically sacrificing himself so Dee can rescue the young woman and escape. His last words were, 'After all this, someone deserves a happy ending. Right?"

Game Info:

Unfortunately I can't find any of my character sheets or rule notes on this game (typical of me, I know. I save write-ups of the stories and characters but rarely prioritize archiving mechanics). I did decide to record this character as if she was a Traveller/MegaTraveller PC though so here you go:

Dee's Starlight Armor would basically act as Combat Armor-TL 12, giving her an Armor Value of 10. It adds a +1 to Strength, Dex (but not towards Ranged Weapon Accuracy - only Speed, Agility, and Reaction Time), and End. She can activate a 'Star Field' mode that increases her Str, Dex, and End to +3 and +6 on a Critical Success. Armor Value increases to 30 at this time (a super-charged force field effect). The Critical effect lasts 3 rounds and then the suit gives no bonuses, none at all, for 3 rounds. Following this it returns to normal. It can only be used 3 times in 24 hours. 

Trying to fill this out I realize how different the two games and universes really are. Like most Japanese protagonists, the PCs of Creguian skew younger than those of Traveller. For a starting Traveller Player Character to be competent, let alone proficient, they'd have to have at least a few tours of duty and be someone between 34 and 42 at least. At 24 Dee was one of the two oldest members of the team and was probably more skilled than I made her out to be above, even with fudging the numbers. Really, the above sheet was just for fun and isn't a good example of a Creguian character (or a Traveller one for that matter). 

Notes:

First, the word 'Creguian': It is a word in the alien language of the Baptists, the first extraterrestrial intelligence Humanity encountered. Directly translated it means, 'one who plots'. It is their word for Humans; we are Creguian. Unlike the calm, organized, and pragmatic Baptists, Humans are full of curiosity, determination, and daring. We are viewed as wonderfully energetic and dangerously unpredictable. We are part of the reason the Baptists are in danger of extinction. 

The Baptists get their name - given to them by Humans - for their belief in a sentient universe, which they see as a deity. A rite of passage in their culture involves total immersion in sea water until they nearly drown. If they survive it, they are renewed in body, spirit, and purpose. 

The game has numerous nods to Judeo-Christian names and mythology, attributing this to what survived after the Great War. There aren't necessarily major religious themes however. It's mostly just window-dressing. 

The setting takes place three thousand years in the future and is generally referred to as 'The 3000s'. This is the era after The Great War ended that pitched the galaxy backward technology wise. Although we are in a far future, starfaring, cyberpunk heavy era, a key element of the setting is that Humanity used to be even more advanced. Finding lost technology and abandoned colonies is a common theme (as in the Third Imperium of Traveller). 

I had this idea that each player had a secret 'Power Up' (though I don't think I called it that). If and when they were willing to spend X amount of experience points, they would unlock some cool feature of themselves or their gear. The Smuggler's ship had a hidden pre-Great War Tractor Beam. The Cyborg Merc could unlike a Flight Mode on their Mech they let them, well fly obviously, but also had considerable speed and maneuverability. The alien could 'Commune with the Cosmos', allowing him to ask the GM a question that was almost meta. For my part I had to tell the truth, though I could give an incomplete answer. 

A Creguian Mech Pilot and their Mecha Suit

Hoshiyoru's 'hardsuit', a low-level powered armor that boosted her strength, speed, and toughness, could activate a sparkling force field of golden stars that gave her a small bonus on those things and a huge bonus on a Critical Success (as noted in more detail under Game Info above). 

Legacy:

I've love to run another game of Creguian, as I would an Anime/Manga themed game of almost any kind really. Going through this project I'm realizing how much I miss the days where these games were more common place for my groups and I. 

When I started searching for information and images on this game I thought, 'I'm not gonna find anything. I'll be lucky if the Japanese websites remember it.' I mean, let's be honest. before this post had you every heard of Creguian? This was a Play-by-Mail game, only in Japan, that had only a handful of physical RPG products (not including the tie-in novels), and it ended over 20 years ago. 

Then I found this...

The New Creguian is a reboot/sequel to the original game by new publisher Frontier Works. It seems to be set up as a Play-by-Web game, though further research seems to indicate a tabletop RPG is something they're considering. 

We...the Creguian...live on.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a heron! No, it's a Mitsubishi F-X! No! It's something very different for this challenge...a brand new character! Introducing FAR FUTURE GIRL!

AD

Barking Alien