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 Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 8:36 am
The Asian World of Darkness is referred to as the Middle Kingdom by its supernatural denizens, and in many ways it is truly a world unto iself.
On the surface, the Middle Kingdom resembles the rest of the World of Darkness. The same ambiance of decay and gloom shrouds it, highlighting its most sinister aspects. The major cities are overcrowded hives choked with faceless, impersonal skyscrapers, anonymous hordes of frantic workers, vice tongs, and teeming disease-infested slums. In the countryside, rural folk hack a subsistence living - if that - frp, trackless jungles and defoliant-saturated craters, all the while praying for protection from the monsters and spirits they know exist just out of sigh. In the Middle Kingdom, it is all too easy to step around the nearest corner of the next bend in the road, then simply...vanish.
In many areas, dictators grind their subjects to paste under gun butts and tank treads. Every year, thousands of people simply disappear, never to be heard from again. Government "facilities" and political prisons are veritable abattoirs; once interned, no one emerges to tell tales. Ancient families and secret societies manipulate entire economies from behind screens of honor and propriety, while family vendettas from the days of emperors and samurai are settled into boardrooms and back alleys alie. Most people are ingrained simply to look the other way, and thus, even legitimate investigations often beomd fruitless endeavors, punctuated by noncommittal shrugs and blank stares.
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Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 8:40 am
Shen Like the Western World of Darkness, the Middle Kingdom is haunted by a variety of supernatural beings, remnants of page Ages of the world. Vampires prowl the cities and shantytowns, while the jungles and mountains are home to the shapeshifting hengeyokai. Wily sorcerers weave their spells in suspiciously nondescript curio shops, ghosts avenge unhallowed deaths or guard their mortal families, and faeries curse those who fail to honor the ancient ways. Although often at odds with one other, these beings differ from their Western counterparts, for they see themselves as part of a greater family of spirit beings. Collectively, supernatural beings are known by many names, but often refer to themselves by the Chinese word "shen". Unlike supernaturals in the West, shen take relatively fewer precautions against discovery. The supernatural here has less need of Masquerades and Veils, for it is unobtrusive enough to mind its manners. Conversely, the Middle Kingdom's mortals, as a rule, have learned to ask fewer questions. Let the Night People walk their road, the amahs say, and they will let you walk yours -- unless joss frowns on you.
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Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 8:47 am
The Yin and Yang Worlds Beyond the Middle Kingdoms, separated from it by a psychic Wall, lie entire worlds of gods, spirits and demons. Those Westerners who are knowledgeable in such matters speak of the Umbra, the Underworld of the Dreaming. Shen, however know that they interact with the dualistic Worlds of Yin and Yang. Although invisible to mortal eyes, the Yin and Yang Worlds lie just over the threshold of human consciousness, and sensitive mortals often detect "eerie" auras in places where the barriers are weak. The Yin World is a gloomy place, the source of passive, negative energy. Many mortals pass into the Yin World when they die, and some become restless ghosts. Eerie spirits and phantoms of all descriptions haunt the Yin World, and its central realm is the terrifying Dark Kingdom of Jade. By contrast, the Yang World is a patchwork of wild, turbulent realms, the source of active, positive energy. Spirits of nature and the elements dwell there, as do those entities revered by the shapeshifting hengeyokai. Some mortals, particularly those from Shinto or animist traditions, pass to the Yang World upon their deaths. Shapeshifters and fae, in particular, are attuned to the Yang World. In the First Age of the world, matter and spirit were one, as was the design of creation's embodiment, the August Personage of Jade. As the Ages passed, though, the Yin and Yang Worlds separated from the Middle Kingdom. Now, a Wall separates the Middle Kingdom from the spirit worlds, and travel between the two is an arduous, and often hazardous, precess. The forces of Yin and Yang find it more and more difficult to turn the Great Cycle of Being, and thus, the Middle Kingdom's essential spiritual energies grow more and more dissipated. The resulting discord and imbalance can surely be seen in the current state of the Middle Kingdom and in the misery of its denizens.
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Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 4:31 pm
The Wheel of Ages Even the spirits of the Yin and Yang Worlds must conform to the inexorable progression of the cosmos, which most shen dub the Wheel of Ages or the Great Cycle. Unlike their Western counterparts, few shen speak of an ultimate beginning or final ending. For them, the universer is a series of Ages revolving endlessly. Much of the Middle Kingdom's sadness is the byproducts of the current Ages -- the Fifth Age of the Great Cycle, or the Age of Darkness. The ancient sutras spoke of this Age, saying that it would be an anxious and unruly time, when monstrous portents would trouble the people, when the dragons would shift restlessly in their beds and disharmony would spread across the land. And indeed, the omens of the Fifth Age are occuring, one by one. Have the Five Directions not been overrun with devils from the West? Did these devils not corrupt the soul with Yellow Winds and trick the people into imbibing poisonous elixirs? Did not the Shadow Dragon breathe plague-fires over Hiroshima, and the Ghost Phoenix blossom into life over Nagasaki days later? And did not the Thousand Scarlet Devils rudely cease to acknowledge the Great Cycle itself, mockingly renaming the Age "Year Zero"? A bad time, indeed. But the worse lies ahead. Soon, the shen know, the Wheel will turn yet again, and the world will reach the nadir of the Great Cycle -- the Sixth Age, or the Age of Sorrow. All know of the Sixth Age's imminence, even the ignorant devils from the West, though they refer to it as "Gehenna" or "Apocalypse." During the Sixth Age, the wheels of matter and spirit will cease any semblance of alignment. The August Personage of Jade, already estranged from the Ten Thousand Things of creation, will leave its throne. In the August Personage's place will rice the Demon Emperor, to reign supreme over the Sixth Age as the August Personage rule over the First. An age of war and terror will take hold throughout the Middle Kingdom and beyond. Heaven will have its revenge against the impious, and ten thousand devils will be loosed upon the world. But just as the Sixth Age is prophesied to come, it is prophesied to pass. The struggle will cease, and there will be a great stillness, and those few creatures left alive will emerge from hidden places. Then will arrive a Seventh Age, a little better than the Sixth; and an Eigth, a little better still, and so the Cycle will once more turn until it reaches the 12th Age, which is also the First Age, and the Ten Thousand Things of matter and spirit will become one once more. Or so the sutras say. Few, in this Age, have sufficient hope to believe.
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Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 4:37 pm
Chi This Wheel of Ages is turned by the interactions of Yin and Yang, represented by the divine Ebon Dragon and Scarlet Queen. Even in the Fifth Age, energies of creation permeate the world, flowing to and from the Yin and Yang Worlds. Called Chi, this energy flows through and among all the Ten Thousand Things. Chi is found in mortals; it is what allows them to act and to rest. In this more concentrated form, Chi is found in shapeshifters, who call it Gnosis; in mages, who call it Quintessence; in fae who call it Yugen or Glamour; and (in the dark Yin aspect) in wraiths, who call it Pathos. Shen see this energy as consisting of two types. There is Yin Chi, the dark energy of chaos, or repose and ultimately of oblivion. There is also Yang Chi, the dynamic energy of direction, of motion, of life and growth. The denizens of the spirit worlds are typically made of one of the other type of Chi, while beings in the Middle Kingdom store and use both to remain in balance. Chi is a fundamental part of all things, because all things are part of the Great Cycle. One type of shen, however, makes no Chi of its own. It must sustain itself by stealing the Chi of other creatures, just as a vampire steals blood. This creature has been known by many names over the centuries; Western Kindred, who fear it, name it "Cathayan," after Europeans' ancient name for China. Cathaya: a descriptive, utilitarian name, like "Cappadocian" or "Setite." In this manner, the Kindred rationalize, the inscrutable Cathayan becomes just another vampire: an exotic bloodline, certainly, far removed from the ancestral tree, but a child a child of Caine nonetheless. Again they are wrong.
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