This is a supplement for playing HERO System campaigns in the 3x3 Eyes (Sazan Eyes) manga universe, a contemporary Eastern occult setting where magic usage is commonplace, demons and monsters are not such an unusual sight, and death is not such a serious and permanent threat as it used to be... at least to some (un)fortunate ones.
DISCLAIMER: This entire work portrays the author's unofficial and non-sanctioned personal view of the 3x3 Eyes universe and characters. Information contained herein may not match the views of Yuzo Takada, author of the manga, and cannot be considered canon.
SPOILERS WARNING: This text includes numerous minor spoilers to the original 3x3 Eyes stories (both the OVAs and the Manga) as well as some major ones, most of them in the 3x3 Eyes magic section and in the sample character sheets. This fact cannot be avoided, and prior knowledge by the reader of either the complete OVA story or the first six manga is assumed throughout the text, although it is not required. The two first sections (introduction and overview) are safe and should not contain any spoilers.
The characters in this RPG supplement are closely based on originals from the 3x3 Eyes manga, which is copyright Yuzo Takada. The characters described in this RPG work, their names, and the Sanjiyan Unkara and Wu character concepts are copyright by Yuzo Takada.
The 3x3 Eyes manga was first published in Japan in 1987 by Kodansha. Currently it is serialized in the Young Magazine, also published by Kodansha. It is also available in tankoubon (collected volumes) format (3x3 Eyes the manga finally ended in 2002 after spanning 40 volumes—ed.).
The setting, most of the names, magical creatures (including those for the summoning spells), and almost all of the 3x3 Eyes specific spells are heavily based on their manga counterparts, and as such, are also under copyright by Yuzo Takada.
Original 3x3 Eyes story and art Copyright © 1987-2002 by Yuzo Takada.
At the time of this writing the English rights to the 3x3 Eyes manga are licensed to Studio Proteus, and the manga is being published in the USA by Dark Horse Comics (Dark Horse stopped publishing 3x3 Eyes after 8 volumes. It is doubtful anyone else will release any more volumes—ed.).
The 3x3 Eyes OVAs (videos) are copyright by Bandai Visual, Kodansha Video, Star Child, and King Records (The OVAs were rereleased in 2001 by Pioneer LDC/Geneon Entertainment—ed.)
The GURPS role playing system is copyrighted and published by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated (SJ Games) and is used without permission. This text file contains copyright material from SJ Games, included for game reference purposes.
The HERO System is copyrighted and published by Hero Games. HERO System and Champions is a registered trademark of Hero Games Incorporated and is used without permission.
The original compilation of new GURPS material this work is based off (rules, spells, and character sheets) Copyright (c) 1996-2007 by Henrique M. Holschuh.
This adapted version for the HERO System contains new material which is Copyright © Michael Surbrook 1998-2007. Adaptation done with permission from Henrique and without permisson of the other copyright holders.
This text file may only be distributed on a shared basis. No compensation can be charged for its distribution, not even on printed matter. Distribution of this work at conventions is strictly forbidden. Small and large-scale distribution as printed matter is strictly forbidden. No infringement of copyright is intended by the creation and/or distribution of this work.
This work has been made by fans for fans, for personal use only. The author of the 3x3 Eyes GURPS supplement requests that the RPG is always distributed complete and unmodified, for free (no, not even a small fee for printing it to others is allowed), and that any of the files composing this RPG should never be distributed by any media other than the Internet, public BBS systems or personal-scale disk swapping. Distribution on Anime conventions and similar events is prohibited (Permission has been given to edit this document for use with HERO Games' HERO System—ed.)
I would especially like to thank the following people (in no particular order):
Yuzo Takada for creating, writing, and drawing such an amazing manga.
My Brother, Leonardo M. Holschuh, for ideas, proof reading, play testing, and support. Too bad he declined to be my co-author due to the lack of time.
Iain Sinclair for compiling and writing the "3x3 Eyes Magic and Names Guide", which was of great aid during the early work on this setting.
Jeff Hansen for his ongoing English translation of the Japanese manga, years ahead of Dark Horse's schedule, and for coordinating the 3x3 Eyes translation efforts.
Dan Su and Dave Mou/Anime Berkeley 3x3 Eyes Project; Studio RAMP; d.n.a.b/Studio 3x3; Patrick Yip and Hiroshi Haga/Goddess Studio; and Helena Yan for English translations of the 3x3 Eyes manga.
Jan Dimon Bendtsen for proof reading, good advice, huge amounts of e-mail, adventure seeds, and a 3x3 Eyes-based high-quality fan fiction "Dark Soul War".
My friends Takeo and Kazuo for letting me stay on their place for three days in a row and keeping them awake until 4 in the morning translating passages of the original Japanese manga and playing the PSX 3x3 Eyes RPG video game. And Jaime for lending me his manga while I still haven't bought mine, and introducing me to 3x3 Eyes in the first place.
Gareth Clegg for some long wanted information on the proper way to make Chinese Paper Charms.
Dark Horse Comics and Studio Proteus for the professional English edition of the manga. Let's support their good and professional work.
Alan Takahashi, for his very good OVA synopses, the very nice pseudo-OVA manga synopses, and the permission to include them in this work.
Eric Nail, for proof reading, grammar advice and spotting a lot of hard to understand paragraphs for further revision.
Fred Gallagher and David Park for creating and maintaining the two best 3x3 Eyes homepages on the Internet. Their homepages and the links contained there provided me with the initial pointers to most of the information I needed to compile this document.
The 3x3 Eyes Mailing List, for the long (and interesting) hours reading their posts, getting to know more about 3x3 Eyes and sharing ideas. Also, many thanks for the crucial information on some beasts and manga plotline consistency checks.
My playtesters and those who reviewed GURPS 3x3 Eyes. This work would not have been the same without their help.
The Venice archive at tcp.com for maintaining one of the best and biggest collections of manga/anime files on the Internet for such a long time.
Bandai, Kodansha Video, Star Child and King Records for the seven 3x3 Eyes OVAs. I want more!!!
The 3x3 Eyes soundtracks, both the CDs and the Holy Eyes track from the PSX game, who provided me with the mood to win over the various writers' blocks I went through.
Most names are in direct order (given name first, family name last) when they are English or mixed (e.g.: Steve Long), and in inverse order (family name first, given name last) when in Japanese or Chinese (e.g.: Long Meixing). Sometimes the notation family name, given name was used (e.g.: Fujii, Yakumo-Fujii is the family name). The kanji and hanji writings are always in the family name, given name order.
There are a lot of different Romanizations for names, especially the Chinese ones. I'm working on it, and I'll probably ask some Chinese friend to translate them from scratch, but until then I'll use mostly the M&NG versions correcting the "R"s back to "L"s. The Chinese names are NOT always written in Chinese (Pin-Yin or whatever), but in a close-to-the-way-it-is-spoken English. Please note that the trailing 'ng' in "Ling-Ling" or "Lang-Pao-Pao" is spoken as the 'ng' in "ring".
All the monster names, magic items, demons and races are in "Chinese".
This text uses the International System of Units (SI) unless explicitly specified otherwise.
Manga means Japanese-style comic. Anime is just a shortcut for Japanese animation (i.e.: cartoons). OVA means Original Video Animation and is used for higher quality anime made for the video marked and not for TV broadcasting. Unlike most well-known Western cartoons, anime is often made for more mature audiences.
All references to pages or volumes of the 3x3 Eyes manga are valid for the Young Manga KC Special edition (the Japanese tankoubon edition) of 3x3 Eyes, unless stated otherwise.
The acronym M&NG stands for the "3x3 Eyes Magic and Names Guide" by Iain Sinclair. The abbreviations B, M, GR refer to pages in the GURPS Basic Set, GURPS Magic, and GURPS Grimoire books respectively. CI refers to pages in GURPS Compendium I, and FF to GURPS Fantasy Folk. MA refers to GURPS Martial Arts.
Page references to the GURPS Basic Set may be off due to differences in the Brazilian edition. I'll try to fix this, but I will need to find an American edition of this book here in Brazil first.
The ASCII text version of this file contains some 'ASCII ART', which are meant to be displayed with MONO SPACED FONTS. So, those of you noticing weird junk made of '_' and '/' should try using a fixed font instead of a proportionally spaced one to view this document (the ASCII text has been removed for various reasons—ed.).
This text file contains normal ASCII characters and some JIS encoded characters. JIS encoding allows Japanese Kana and Kanji in normal ASCII documents, and requires special software to be decoded. To non-JIS- aware software, JIS codes look like a bunch of ASCII rubbish. It might also cause problems if you dump a JIS-encoded file directly to your printer (this text has been removed—ed.).
GURPS is the acronym for Generic Universal Role Playing System and is published by Steve Jackson Games, Inc. It emphasizes real world mechanics simulation and generic rules. GURPS will correctly handle anything from high-fantasy to science fiction and real-world campaigns.
The GURPS system uses four attributes (ST: Strength, IQ: Intelligence and Will, DX: Dexterity, and HT: Health and Hit Points) and a point based skill system. The game system is balanced, which means that a 100-point mage is as good as a 100-point cleric, 100-point warrior or 100-point cook in game terms.
Character creation is very flexible, and there are no formal character classes. Of course it's still possible to sort characters into main classes like mages (characters that know how to use magic) or warriors (characters that have a high emphasis on combat skills), but that's as far as it goes. There is no reason why a character couldn't cook, know about ancient Greek mythology, build hyperdrives and do some archery in the spare time, as long as he had enough points to learn all those skills, of course. Such a character wouldn't make much sense, but if you need to, you can do it. The character system also allows one to define personality traits, odious personal habits, quirks and so on.
Most rolls are done using three six-sided dice, added together to find a number ranging from 3 to 18 and a skill roll is successful if you roll less than or equal to the skill value, plus or minus some bonus or penalties the GM sees fit. Other rolls might require more or less dice but GURPS only uses six-sided ones.
GURPS is believed to be a somewhat difficult system to learn, due to the huge amount of rules. This is not true if you can learn it playing with your friends. If there are more experienced players in the group, one can learn rather fast. Besides, most of the rules are optional. You add them when you feel up to it, or when you need added realism. Keep that in mind while you read the GURPS rules for 3x3 Eyes: while there are rules for everything, including a Wu fighting with the left arm painfully regrowing, you only need to use those, and remember them, if you want to (or your GM wants you to).
The amount of rules also induces people to think that the system is a role-playing-weak one, which emphasizes too much in numbers and little in real role-play. This is only true if you let it be. Inexperienced players and GMs sometimes get too wrapped in the rules and forget the role-play, but that won't happen if your group likes role-playing more than dice rolling.
The following GURPS books were used in this work. Most of them are not needed to play 3x3 Eyes for GURPS, so a small description of the interesting data for a 3x3 Eyes game that can be found in each book was included in the list as well.
Required books:
GURPS Basic Set 3rd Edition, revised. This book is REQUIRED to play any GURPS game. The Brazilian 2nd Edition (mostly the same as the American 3rd edition revised) was the one used for developing this 3x3 Eyes GURPS supplement (note: GURPS has been revised with a 4th Edition—ed.).
GURPS Magic, 2nd Edition GURPS Grimoire. These two books contain the complete regular magic system. The basic rules are also explained in the Basic Set, but 3x3 Eyes really benefits from the expanded rules in GURPS Magic and the huge spell lists found in GURPS Grimoire. In other words, GURPS Magic is a requirement to play 3x3 Eyes seriously and GURPS Grimoire will be required later, when the players and GM feel the need for more spells.
Useful books:
GURPS Martial Arts, 2nd Edition. More realistic rules for hand-to-hand fighting, including a huge set of martial-arts weapons and maneuvers. The Basic Set has some generic Karate and Judo rules, but a martial artist character will benefit from the new maneuvers and become much more effective with the expanded rules. Used to build the character sheets of Li Ling-Ling and Fujii Yakumo.
GURPS Compendium I. This book contains a huge compilation of skills, advantages, optional rules and other interesting tidbits about GURPS. For 3x3 Eyes purposes, this book contains some of the lycanthropy rules found in GURPS Bestiary, plus lots and lots of interesting information for character creation. This book is a cheaper option than buying some of the other books below, albeit it is not nearly as useful.
GURPS Compendium II. Another huge compilation. Contains almost all GURPS rules for strange situations—mostly rules that were scattered in other GURPS books—and the combat systems are thoroughly explained. Really useful if you are a GURPS player, less so if you are just learning it to play 3x3 Eyes.
GURPS Bestiary, 2nd Edition, 2nd printing. Aquatic animals, pets, wild animals, desert animals—you get the idea. A nice addition, but it's not required. It also includes the rules for lycanthropy, and those were needed to build Lang-Pao-Pao's character sheet.
Otherwise interesting source and rule books:
GURPS Fantasy Folk, 2nd Edition. Complete set of rules for creating new races. It was used during the development of the GURPS rules for 3x3 Eyes and some of the characters. One shouldn't need this book to play, but GMs might find it interesting.
GURPS Supers, 2nd Edition, 3rd printing Rules for weird creatures (a.k.a. super heroes). Usage of this book, along with GURPS Fantasy Folk, was the only way to create the beasts and other very weird characters. The forthcoming GURPS Biotech may fulfill this role better.
GURPS China. Setting information, the Chinese five-element magic system, Chinese dragons, and mythology, adventures in old China and historical data. A very interesting book. Unfortunately it is out-of-print.
GURPS Places of Mystery. Great aid to the 3x3 Eyes GM! Adventure seeds, maps, legends, and other interesting information about mystical and mysterious places all around the world.
GURPS Religion. Not needed to play 3x3 Eyes, but it includes everything one might want to know about religions, clerics, prophets, shamanistic magic, and other related topics. A build-your-own book. It was used for some research.
Recommended HERO System books:
The following books are recommended for those GMs wishing exploit this material for use with the HERO System.
HERO System 5th Edition, Revised., plus Asian Bestiary Volume I, Asian Bestiary Volume II, Fantasy Hero, The Fantasy Hero Grimoire, The Fantasy Hero Grimoire II, The HERO System Bestiary, Ninja Hero, The Ultimate Martial Artist, The Ultimate Mystic.
Although I have tried to write a good introduction to Yuzo Takada's 3x3 Eyes universe, I seriously doubt one could understand it enough to play a Wu or Sanjiyan without reading some of the manga or at least watching the Anime. I was not able to detail the background very much (and you WILL need to read the manga to get a good picture of it) due to knowledge limitations, as I myself only read up to volume 8 of the manga, most of it with the help of the fan-made translations I found on the internet. I have browsed up to the 19th volume but until I can get some comprehensive translation of those later chapters I'll not include much material from them.
As Dark Hose Comics publishes more issues (and more fan translations are made available, too) I will update this file with newer magic, creatures and more background detail; This is dependent on the amount of feedback I receive, though. If you liked this work and want more, MAKE SURE YOU WRITE ME! I cannot promise my playing group will get hooked on 3x3 Eyes and external support (i.e. feedback) may be the only reason to keep updating it.
To those of you who didn't do it yet: go watch the 3x3 Eyes Anime and buy the first volumes of the 3x3 Eyes manga or of one of the translations if you are Japanese impaired. The story is very good. Just one warning: 3x3 Eyes is not for small children (lots of bloody and strong panels, some nudity, no X-rated stuff).
I had to come up with most of the 'hole filling' data I needed by myself, so if you happen to know something canon that goes against what is written in this document, please write me with the correct facts. Also, any canon information which could improve or clarify any section of this document is welcome. In fact, any canon information is welcome.
When comparing statistics (especially character sheets) in this work with the manga, you should keep in mind that some critical data varies widely in the manga itself, such as the speed of Yakumo's regeneration. In those cases, I tried to find a solution with the primary goal of keeping the game's balance and playability.
Those of you with Internet access should take a look at the Internet pointers section, especially at the WWW home pages, and of course read the original '3x3 Eyes Magic and Names Guide'. There is a pointer to it in the Internet section.
Additions, corrections and general 3x3 Eyes e-mail are welcome, and so is general e-mail chat. If you own the GURPS Japan book and might help me in this work (I was unable to find or buy this book around here) or if you happen to have more information on the Chinese paper-talismans magic and its workings, PLEASE write me.
And please forgive my humble English. It's not my primary language, and that does show up on this text despite the efforts of some friends who kindly revised this work.
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh, 1996-05-24
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