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!

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Space is for the CREGUIAN

Science Fiction in Japan can be traced all the way back to the year 720 and a time travel fairy tale called Urashima Tarō, a story not unlike the Western world's Rip Van Winkle. In it, a fisherman rescues a turtle who rewards him by taking him to the Dragon Palace, a supernatural place populated by the Dragon God and other such beings. There he is entertained by a princess and after several days of the most wonderful hospitality returns home to find between 100 or 300 years have passed (depending on the telling). His home is a ruin, his family long dead, and he himself forgotten.

Another early story tells of a princess from the Moon, taken to Earth for her safety as the heavens erupt in a celestial war. She is cared for on Earth by a humble wood-cutter. When her true family returns to bring her home, they do so on a large bright disk resembling both the Sun and the typical early depictions of flying saucers.

Modern Japanese Science Fiction finds its roots in the Meiji Restoration Era of Japanese history (agreed by scholars to be from 1868 to 1912). Among the first novels of Western origin translated into Japanese and widely distributed were those of Jules Verne. The term 'Kagaku Shōsetsu' or Science Novel was put forth in the late 1800s and became a popularized name synonymous with what we know of as early Science Fiction.

Fantastic tales of undersea warships and rifts in space carried the literature movement through the early 20th century and all the way to the Second World War. With Japan's defeat and the horrific nature of the weapons used to accomplish this task, Japan's Science Fiction changed and evolved. Among the first to usher in this new age was not a novelist but a manga artist, none other then Osamu Tezuka, considered the 'Godfather of Manga' and the creator of Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy) and Black Jack, among many other works. Tezuka's early successes, such as The Lost World and Metropolis (1948-1949) were a major influence on Japanese Science Fiction authors of the period. 

The first full-length Japanese SF novel was Inter Ice Age 4, written by Kobo Abe, an accomplished playwright, musician, and inventor. Abe's writings have been compared to that of Frank Kafka. As more and more writers started to embrace the genre and Japan began to climb back from it's wartime conditions, interest in Science Fiction increase considerably. While periodical struggled to capitalize on the phenomena the way American companies did in the 1950s, novels did very well. In addition, American troops stationed in Japan brought their own interest in SF with them and by the 1960s many of the Western Science Fiction authors beloved in the US were also very much appreciated in Japan. 

Sci-Fi exploded in the late 1960s and 1970s with the expansion of manga, early animation, and the release of the Star Trek TV series, the first Star Wars film, and the first real Light Novels. Magazines made another attempt to impact the market and were more successful this time around. Before long the audio and visual mediums of movies and television surpassed the literature element of SF in Japan, thanks largely to Anime and Manga. Unfortunately, in the view of some Science Fiction literature scholars and enthusiasts alike, the line between novel, light novel, and other forms of SF blurred in the 80s and 90s, which caused the genre to be taken less seriously as an art form. 

Soon after the Science Fiction genre gradually dropped in popularity, with Japanese audiences looking for something fresh and the various entertainment industries not knowing how to respond. At least in the publishing business. SF Anime and Manga remained popular if not particularly deep or innovative in the mainstream.

The first Japanese Science Fiction Tabletop RPGs appear in the early 80s. Enterprise, a Star Trek RPG made entirely in Japan, is not only the first SF game but possibly the first stand-alone Japanese TRPG ever, coming out in 1983. Crusher Joe, based on a series of novels first published in 1977, received two RPG boxed sets in 1983 as well to coincide with the release of an animated film. Japanese language editions of Traveller and Star Quest came out the year after, with Traveller being especially popular. Interestingly, the covers and illustrations in the Japanese Traveller books were done by Naoyuki Kato, an artist best known for painting the covers of many Western SF novels when they were translated in Japanese [such as Dune, The Stars My Destination, The Forever War, and more]. 

In the 1990s, with Cyberpunk and Mecha stories dominating the Science Fiction scene in Manga, Anime, and elsewhere, it isn't surprising that we see the same thing in gaming. The first real Mobile Suit Gundam RPGs appear at this time, with Dainihonkaiga publishing the Gundam Sentinel RPG in 1990 and a classic MS Gundam 0079 expansion in '91.Tsukuda Hobby would publish their own Gundam game in mid-to-late 1990 but it was really more of a wargame akin to Battletech. Also in 1990 Hobby Japan puts out one of my all time favorite Japanese TRPGs, Metal Head; Cyberpunk meets Space Adventure. Gear Antique, another game I very much enjoyed debuts in 1991. Finally, the sadly lackluster Multiverse comes out in '91 as well. A rather bland game that doesn't deserve it's cover by the amazing Kenichi Sonoda.

In 1992 we get CREGUIAN, Tabletalk RPG in the Far-Future, a fascinating game best described as an alternative Traveller. I'll be talking a lot more about this one in my next post. A boxed set RPG called Space Opera Heroes and its sequel, creatively titled 'Space Opera Heroes 2', are both published in 1992. Fun if not particularly innovative or interesting tongue-in-cheek SF. 

American RPGs Mechwarrior and Cyberpunk hit Japan in 1993, though like its wargame predecessor Battletech, Mechwarrior got a huge make over for the Japanese market. A major entry comes in 1993 with Tsukuda Hobby's Tokyo Nova, the Cyberpunk RPG with spiritual/supernatural undertones which would become far more prevalent in future editions of the game. Tokyo Nova uses Playing Cards instead of dice. The second edition came out in 1995 and the quite revamped third edition was put out in 1998 under the title, Tokyo Nova: The Revolution. Lastly, in 1994 Japan's Dragon Magazine publishes Paradise Fleet, a Space Opera that had originally been published in monthly installments in the periodical. It was, in essence, the first crowdsourced TRPG I'm aware of. Certainly one of the first in Japan. 

Japanese Science Fiction went through another change in the late 90s and throughout the 2000s. Publishing companies, experiencing a fiscally weak market at the time, were eager to try something different in order to make money. A push was made to get Science Fiction back out there in a big way. Two of the major publishers, Tokuma Shoten and Kadokawa Haruki, created writing contests for SF literary achievement awards and it worked. Science Fiction short stories and essays by the likes of Satoshi Ito and Toh EnJoe were published, renewing interest in the genre. This eventually lead to a Sci-Fi renaissance and in 2007 the 65th World Science Fiction Convention, more commonly known as WorldCon, was held in tandem with Nihon SF Taikai* in Yokohama.

The popularity of the genre hasn't ebbed since and in fact, the 80s-90s lament of the blurring lines between Pop Culture Entertainment and High Literature are now embraced. We get to see fun and entertaining books and light novels along with philosophical Anime and Manga. Self-publishing, E-books, and User generated Web Novels allow for more variety, versatility, and exposure than ever before. Animated films previously considered independent arthouse approaches like Your Name and Suzume by Makoto Shinkai are major motion picture industry hits, grossing many hundreds of thousands of dollars worldwide. 

In addition to more translations of American games, there were quite a number of cool titles appearing between 2004 and just prior to the pandemic. Among the ones that really caught my attention were those from Japan's indie/small press market, including  Doujinshi games. Fun RPGs like The Trouble with Aliens (Resident Alien the RPG?), Lost Record (Secretly kind of dark), Metallic Guardian (Japan's answer to Mekton), and Space Ship Story (Rules-lite Sci-Fi in the vein of Captain Harlock and Ulysses 31). 

Also, got to give a shout out to Spaceship Star Truck. Love the look and the concept.

Wonderful! Fascinating stuff. Only one question...

Yes Barkley?

You put Creguian in the title of the post. I understand that its one of the earliest, biggest Science Fiction RPGs of Japan but why does it deserve to be in the title? Also, what exactly is a Creguian?

Ah, excellent question! The answer to which lies in the next 31 Days / 31 Characters post...

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