Continuing our Chinese based review of the World of Darkness book line!
Demon Hunter X
Demon Hunter X is an expansion to an expansion. The book expands on the groundwork in Hunters Hunted with additional lore and mechanics for playing hunters in Asia. There’s tons of well-organized lore and a solid Storyteller section. There are two new types of hunters, the Shih and Strike Force Zero.
Shih are an ancient line of independent monster hunters. They have chi powers made for fighting monsters and their base stats are actually slightly stronger than vampires and kuei-jin. Shih also get kungfu moves that are the perfect counter to different World of Darkness foes. Shih start every day with 5 Yin and 5 Yang chi. Yin chi comes from Self-Control and Yang chi comes from Courage. Shih also have Hun with Conscience and Po, but they aren’t as central to the mechanics of the character. Chi is used as fuel for the Shih powers, but using it is exhausting, inflicting a condition similar to wounds until the chi is recovered.
Strike Force Zero (SF0) agents are a MIB organization started by the Japanese government after World War Two. SF0 agents are cybernetically enhanced, but only as strong as vampires instead of slightly stronger like Shih. An SF0 agent’s robot parts draw power from their chi just as Shih do for their magic and kungfu. The agents also have simple psychic powers drawing from the same list as Hunters Hunted. The main draw is the cybernetic powers which are extremely varied. Pretty much everything you could think of for anime robot superheroes. Laser eyes, magnetic hands, an arm that turns into a laser cannon? All on the table.
Demon Hunter X is stronger than Hunters Hunted in some ways and weaker in others. The personality conflict elements are replaced by tracking a hunter’s Po score. The Po does nothing for a hunter. It’s tracked simply for deciding what happens to the Hunter when they die. If Po is higher than Hun then the Hunter rises as a kuei-jin or similar undead monster. So be careful or your PC could become the next villain! As for the weaker elements, I felt that Hunters Hunted gave more useful lore information for the present. A lot of Demon Hunter X‘s lore was focused on the history of Shih and Strike Force Zero instead of the current state of Asia.
If you’re interested in the Demon Hunter X book you can check it out at DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/337/world-of-darkness-demon-hunter-x
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