Itha Wen Ua: Basic Rule Set

If you were to ask which game introduced catgirls to tabletop role-playing, some might point to イサー・ウェン=アー “Itha Wen Ua” (1991), citing as evidence the cover art which looks like it was made from a color negative and tellingly has a catgirl front and right of center.

The box set has doujin production values. The game gives players the option of 9 classes—all of which you’ve seen before—and 11 races. The races are human, drow, elf, dwarf, gnome, tindaruratti (a person with a dog head), giant, catperson, half-demon, half-vampire, and fairy. Some combinations of race and class are uncommon or not possible. Characters earn experience points and advance in level. The brown basic box set covers levels 1–5 and Treasure House also produced a black box set for levels 6–16 and a blue box set for levels 17–34. The game calls for the use of polyhedral dice: d10, d8, d6, and d4, which as far as I know were not included in the box set.

As the box set doesn’t include a scenario and there isn’t much in the way of an explanation of how to write or run one, this one doesn’t appear to be aimed at first time players. The end credits include an illustration of the Treasure House staff hard at work on their Macintosh computer. And wearing their cat ears.

Box contents:
• saddle-stapled B5 rulebook, 60 pp.
• 10 character sheets
• double-sided reference sheet
• Treasure House survey card
• user registration slip with a serial number