The Floating World The Wan Kuei do not walk the world alone. The dark corners of the Middle Kingdom teem with
shen, and there are more topics for an aspiring mandarin to master than mere religious politics. Extreme creatures, the Devil-Tigers have extreme interactions with the world around them. The attitudes that follow are, as always, that of the fictional “average” Devil-Tiger. Individuals have unique backgrounds, personalities and habits that may cause them to act strongly at odds with Dharmic stereotype.
Spectres, Banes and Bakemono To understand the Dharma’s attitude toward Banes and Spectres, it is important to remember that the Devil-Tigers do not see themselves as
acting like devils, they see themselves
as devils. The Devils of Heaven believe themselves to be just that — divinely ordained agents of the Celestial Bureaucracy. As a result, the Heavenly Devils’ attitude toward wicked spirits is not one of fear or hatred, but of command and authority.
Though lesser evils can be dangerous or destructive to the Heavenly Order when in the command of the Yama Kings or some other unrighteous being, the Devil-Tigers believe that such forces of wickedness are essential to the turning of the Ages — provided they are controlled properly. By the estimation of the Devil-Tigers, they are the beings best suited to provide this control.
Just as the Bone Flowers traffic with the spirits of the Yin world and the Thrashing Dragons with the spirits of Yang, so the Devil-Tigers make their way among the spirits of darkness. To put none too fine a point on it, many members of the Devil-Tiger Dharma are casual demonologists. While bargaining with one’s soul or acknowledging a wicked spirit as master is cause for a Moment of Blindness as well as a capital offense, to command or demand obedience is no sin at all: It is the Kuei-jin’s right by the Mandate of Hell.
Rare indeed is the Devil-Tiger jina or mandarin whose home and person are not protected by bakemono, and who does not have wicked spirits at her beck and call. The practice is hazardous, for wicked spirits are often quite fierce or bound to the service of unrighteous evils like the Yama Kings or their western counterparts, the Onceborn and Maeljin Incarna. Existence without peril is not existence at all, however, and to enforce their mandate the Devil-Tigers have developed what may be the World of Darkness’ largest store of demonological information unrelated to the worship of dark powers.
Among the
shen, only the Lightning People can rival the Devil-Tiger’s knowledge and command of evil spirits. While this claim does nothing to endear the Devils of Heaven to hengeyokai and
hsien, who have difficulty distinguishing Devil-Tigers from
akuma, most vampires of more than a few years of age are as accustomed to this traffic with dark powers as we are to electricity. However wondrous or frightening it may be to the outside observer, demonology has been the unvarying custom of the Devils of Heaven since the Five Emperors period, and it is considered in no way out of the ordinary.
Mortals The Devil-Tigers divide mortals into two types: Those who are righteous, and those who are sinners. For the Devils of Heaven, just as for mortals, the line between sin and righteousness is a fine one, and one that is often difficult to locate. Few Tigers find this vagueness to be a paralyzing problem, however. Unlike the Resplendent Cranes, most vampires of this Dharma view sin and iniquity as inescapable components of the human condition. The tenets of the Devil-Tiger Dharma recognize explicitly the essentially banal character of most evil. “Even if the Celestial Devils murdered a sinner at the moment of his first transgression,” these Kuei-jin say, “new sinners would spring up instantly to take his place.”
As a result, most Devil-Tigers see themselves as groundskeepers in the garden of iniquity. Their mission is not to monitor the progress of each individual leaf and flower. The beauty of the world is in its natural vibrancy, and such careful tending would inevitably spoil the effect. Instead, the Devil-Tigers trim the bushes and pull the weeds that endanger the garden as a whole. By lopping off the most egregiously malformed branches, the Heavenly Devils protect the entire tree from its own weight.
This is not to say that the Tigers have not devised exhaustive catalogs of sins and their prescribed punishments. Such literature is actually quite common among followers of the Dharma, but most of it is of a strictly academic character. Not only are there few Devil-Tigers and many sinners, it is demeaning and far below the station of an agent of the Celestial Bureaucracy for these Kuei-jin to go about excruciating adulterers.
Other than as an intellectual exercise, there are two primary reasons the Devil-Tigers take interest in minor sinners. First, many Devil-Tigers have a compunction about feeding on the pure of heart. Sinners are the purview of the Heavenly Devils: Unlike the behavior of the stereotypical western devil, tempting the righteous to iniquity is of little or no interest to the average Crimson Tiger. Most followers of this Dharma are perfectly content to leave the blameless to their own devices. Thus, many of these Gui Ren find it important to rest assured that a potential vessel is under their jurisdiction before feeding.
The second reason is the need for practice. Young Devil-Tigers must learn their art somehow, and it would be terrible for an especially infamous sinner’s punishment to go awry because inexperience made his tormentor clumsy or unsure. While the Devils of Heaven can, of course, practice the strictly technical aspects of torture on one-another, a certain amount of practical training is necessary for a truly well-rounded education. Leaving aside details like the mortal propensity for heart failure when subjected to prolonged agony, torture of any sort is a profoundly psychological act, and that aspect cannot be simulated anywhere outside the field.
Accordingly, a certain number of the Middle Kingdom’s shabby con men, dishonest tax accountants and sleazy used furniture salesmen are utterly destroyed each year, or else they vanish without a trace. Presumably victims of poor fortune or on the run from creditors, these unfortunates serve as learning experiences for novice Devil-Tigers, or as dress rehearsals for the ruination or excruciation of particularly infamous sinners.
The Truly Wicked The deeply iniquitous, however, attract much closer scrutiny from the Devils of Heaven than the average mortal. Most obviously, punishing the wicked is part of the devilish vocation. Devil-Tigers see punishing sinners is a combination of sport and religious activity. Some pursue solo careers, while others join social societies similar to sports clubs and punish the wicked as a team effort. These clubs often specialize in particular sins, and there are national and international invitation-only organizations where the masters of the art congregate to refine their techniques and work together to bring about the downfall of the truly irredeemable.
Simple anguish and agony aren’t the only goals of the Devil-Tigers when walking among the unrighteous. In the same way that many Devils of Heaven are compelled to feed from only the immoral, a great portion of them likewise prefer to use the wicked and corrupt to build their power bases. The Celestial Devils do not acquire power simply to further their personal agendas and their wars against the Yama Kings. There are always the needs of tomorrow to plan for, and elegant evil is expensive. For the Devils of Heaven, evil and acquisitiveness typically go hand-in-hand, and many Devil-Tigers apply themselves diligently to the pursuit of wealth and influence as part of their Dharmic path.
As luck would have it, wealth and influence tend to congregate naturally in the hands of the wicked. Thus, through bribery, blackmail and intimidation, they channel the sins of the unrighteous toward the cause of Heaven — as embodied by its duly designated representatives, of course. Though the sins of the guilty may seem to go unpunished, serving a Devil-Tiger master for the remainder of one’s miserable existence is, in most cases, far greater punishment than any simple torture could ever be.
But bilking the wicked of their money and influence is not the only practical way the Heavenly Devils deal with them. Not every sinner is politically and financially adept. Much of society’s refuse is composed of nothing more than piggish, uncultured thugs. Devil-Tigers blackmail or buy some of these rapists, abusers and cold-blooded murderers for use as cheap muscle. More often, those servants whose intellectual and social integrity aren’t essential to performing their function are given special treatment — why should the Devils of Heaven use mere mortal servants when they can command bakemono?
More loyal than mere humans and considerably more resilient, bakemono are the Devil-Tigers’ menial servants of choice. While bakemono cannot usually compare to dhampyrs or Ban Ren Guei in terms of flexibility, there are some tasks for which one flavor of gibbering fiend is as good as another. Over the millennia, the Devil-Tigers have compiled a vast catalog of minor spirits and the bakemono which they create. While the Devil-Tigers cannot tailor their bakemono to particular circumstances, most of them have a fair assortment of possibilities at their disposal, provided that they can obtain the proper spirit and mortal host. Devil-Tigers call mortals capable of being made bakemono “little urns.”
Chih-Mei The Devil-Tigers have a paradoxical relationship with
chih-mei. Capturing
chih-mei and subjecting them to the Rite of Restoring the Dharmic Balance is known as “infant devil civilizing,” and is considered as much a sport as punishing sinners. Reports of a
chih-mei in the area bring Infant Devil Civilizing Societies from several districts away looking to get the prestige of the capture. Unrighteous persons whom the Heavenly Devils kill in the course of their duties are traditionally watched for three lunar months after their deaths in case they take the Second Breath. The
hin that result from successful applications of Restoring the Dharmic Balance are questioned and evaluated, their horoscopes drawn, their directions determined and their spiritual balance pondered.
Those whom seem likely to become successful Devil-Tigers are either put through their
ré by their captors or shopped out to the Dharma’s extensive network of volunteer teachers. The Devil-Tigers normally exhibit a startlingly ecumenical streak when caring for their young charges. Those Kuei-jin who are obviously destined for another Dharmic paths are generally given to members of that Dharma for instruction. However, sectarian allegiance can and does play a role in the decision about tutoring. For example, the Searing Wind keeps the
hin that gets a hold of, regardless of each soul’s predilections. Likewise, Devil-Tigers from Chi Virtue-oriented sects like the Brilliant Coals and the Righteous Earth-Prison Smiting Fist tend to retain students positive to their Chi Virtue, even if a given student doesn’t exactly seem to fit the Devil-Tiger mold.
The Devil-Tigers show no sympathy to those
chih-mei who do not respond to Restoring the Dharmic Balance. These unfortunate creatures have incurred the ultimate wrath of Heaven: Torn from the Great Cycle, they are destined to live again as the feral hunting dogs of other vampires until they meet the Final Death and descend into the Mouth of Yomi. Just as the Devil-Tigers use bakemono and Ban Ren Guei impassively to serve their ends, they likewise accept without squeamishness their station as masters of these degenerate souls. Few non-Devil-Tiger Kuei-jin are so accepting of this fact, and so the duties of the court’s First
Oni usually include keeping the kennel for the court’s
chih-mei.
Dhampyrs and Ban Ren Guei Most Devil-Tigers are notably reluctant to create dhampyrs. Though they have no compunctions about coupling with humans, the Heavenly Devils find the offspring of such unions to be problematic, at least inasmuch as they are to be used as mortal underlings. Even the half-living offspring of the Gui Ren are born innocent — raising a dhampyr solely to participate in wickedness deeply offends many Devil-Tigers’ sense of propriety. As a result, few Devil-Tigers reproduce unless for some reason they genuinely wish to bear and raise offspring. It is a rare desire, but hardly unknown.
Inauspicious though it is, the practice of creating dhampyrs would probably thrive among the Devil-Tigers as it does among Kuei-jin of other Dharmas save for a simple fact: The Celestial Devils have access to something comparable in effectiveness to dhampyrs yet more in line with their Dharmic philosophy. This something is the Ban Ren Guei, the Half-Devil People. Born from the union of a succubus-like Bane-spirit and a sleeping mortal, the Ban Ren Guei are born into wickedness and predisposed to loyalty toward the master of the Sleeper-Seducing Bane that bore them.
Half-Devil People are born as bakemono, naturally loyal to the Devil-Tiger who caused them to be created and inherently evil. On the downside, the Ban Ren Guei have short lifespans compared to dhampyrs — a normal mortal lifespan, more or less. Because Ban Ren Guei are born as children (and because they mature at a normal rate), a Kuei-jin who chooses to rely on Half-Devil People as her daylight servants will spend nearly a quarter of the Half-Devil Person’s effective lifespan raising and training her. Also, while her bakemono gifts are powerful and naturally concealed inside a body superficially indistinguishable from a normal mortal’s, they are all the supernatural ability the Half-Devil Person will ever possess. Half-Devil People are not half-vampire, thus they cannot learn shintai, nor do they have Demon Chi unless it is one of their bakemono gifts.
Regardless of these weaknesses, the inherent loyalty and naturally malevolent disposition of the Ban Ren Guei make them attractive servants to Heavenly Devils in ways that normal dhampyrs can never be. Not only are they less morally repugnant to use, Ban Ren Guei may be created without resort to permanent Yang imbalance, mastery of the Equilibrium Discipline or a difficult and expensive fertility regimen on the part of the Devil-Tiger. Kuei-jin who
are permanently Yang imbalanced can even mate with a Sleeper-Seducing Bane themselves. While the resulting offspring is a normal Ban Ren Guei and not a dhampyr, the Sleeper-Seducing Bane gestates the child regardless of the partner’s sex. Among other things, this property allows female Kuei-jin to reproduce, after a fashion, without massively increased Chi intake or the inconvenience of actually carrying a child to term (or as close to term as is necessary). Many female Devil-Tigers who choose to bear dhampyrs cut the infant from their bodies early, trusting in the half-damned child’s supernatural resilience to keep it alive after only seven or eight months.
The Yama kings The Wan Xian were charged to protect the Middle Kingdom from the depredations of the Yama Kings, and it was the blandishments of the Lords of Yomi that led the Ten Thousand Immortals down the path of decadence and disgrace. These facts alone have earned the Yama Kings the enmity, not just of the Devils of Heaven, but also of all right-thinking Wan Kuei.
Yet the Celestial Devils bear the Yama Kings an especial hatred. In their quest for spiritual power, the Yama Kings have abandoned their Heaven-mandated position as punishers of the wicked and the unrighteous. The Devil-Tigers feel themselves to have inherited this position. Thus, not only do they bear the Yama Kings enmity for the downfall of the Wan Xian, most Devil-Tigers consider it their spiritual duty to see to the punishment of their indisputably wicked and unrighteous predecessors.
The degree to which the Devil-Tigers should devote themselves to holy war against the Yama Kings and the method by which the war should be carried out is one of the main divisive forces in Devil-Tiger society. Doubtless, this fact amuses the Lords of Yomi Wan, but the Devils of Heaven take it very seriously. There are a number of important Devil-Tiger sects whose beliefs are defined primarily by their outlook on the war against the Yama Kings. These apparently irreconcilable doctrinal questions caused great strife in the early Five Emperors period, until the Emperors decreed that the Devil-Tigers should not form large organized religious bodies or make war on one-another over their methods for combating the Demon Emperor.
Today the primary sects of the Devil-Tiger faith are defined by their belief that each Devil-Tiger must choose his own path in determining where his devilish duty lies. While proscribed sects thrive on the edges of Kuei-jin society, the prohibition on compulsion has become institutionalized in most courts. Sectarian aggression among the Celestial Devils is generally punished severely by the mandarins in an attempt to preserve the peace. Demotion, transfer, public shaming and severe excruciation are all common punishments, and overzealous Devil-Tigers have been known to Meet the Eye of Heaven for their sins.
Perversely, this strict individuality has aided the efforts of the Devil-Tigers, forcing the Yama Kings to deal with warfare on a thousand fronts and forestalling ill-advised attempts to storm the gates of Hell
en masse. Radical decentralization has also spared the Devils of Heaven the brutal rivalry between sects and temples that seemingly wracks the Resplendent Cranes and the more organized sects of the other Dharmas.
Akuma Devil-Tigers may hate the Yama Kings, but they reserve their uttermost abhorrence for those
shen who become the slaves of Yomi. The Devils of Heaven have arrested their downward slide and turned away from the decadence that caused the fall of the Wan Xian. To the eyes of the Devil-Tigers, there is no greater abomination than willingly choosing to continue the spiral into Yomi. To destroy an
akuma, the Black Iron Talons say, is to do the degenerate soul a great favor. It is better to end an existence of shame and indignity with a plunge into the Mouth of Yomi than to continue on, bound in chains of spiritual slavery to the Yama Kings.
Every Heavenly Devil is expected to seek out and destroy
akuma wherever they occur.
Akuma hunting is as much a Dharmic tradition as Infant Devil Civilizing or the torturing of sinners. Some Devil-Tigers are particularly devoted to this practice, however. The Black Iron Talons, perhaps one of the Dharma’s most exotic sects, specialize in this practice. Of particular interest to the Talons are former Devil-Tigers in the service of the Yama Kings. Kuei-jin of other Dharmas who succumb to the blandishments of the Yama Kings are seen as having committed an unforgivable but understandable sin. Tiger
akuma, however, are seen as having fallen from the True Path, and Black Iron Talons hunt these renegades with particular fervor.
Though the Talons are not the only Kuei-jin who hunt the devil-eaten, they are indubitably the best-connected, with ties to the Wu Lung and Shih demon hunters and rumored alliances with the Tengu and the
hsien society known as the Yü. The proscribed Devil-Tiger cult known as the Searing Wind also boasts a division — the Righteous Apostles of Extraordinary Valor — that hunts
akuma. Whispered by some to have unofficial ties with the Black Iron Talons, the Righteous Apostles take advantage of their strictly illegal nature to hunt servants of the Yama Kings too politically powerful for more legitimate demon hunters to investigate. A victim of the Apostles is left covered in white lotuses and red pepper, with a prayer strip affixed to his forehead commending the August Personage to show mercy on his unworthy soul.
The Sixth Age The Devil-Tigers look forward to the coming Sixth Age with a breathless expectation. For the Heavenly Devils, the coming Age of Sorrow will be their finest hour. With the August Personage in self-imposed exile and the Demon Emperor enthroned, the chains of propriety that have held the Heavenly Devils back for so long will be shattered and they will stride the world unleashed and unfettered.
Glorious in their brilliance, the Devils of Heaven will show the Yama Kings their true face; that of wickedness without bound, the grinning mask of a hatred so great that it can only be depicted in caricature. Where there is order, the Devil-Tigers will sow chaos. Where there is harmony, the Crimson Tigers will perpetuate discord. Where one stone stands atop another, the Heavenly Devils will knock it down, and where the minions of the Demon Emperor are greeted with bowed neck, the Devil-Tigers will wield the headsman’s axe.
The Devil-Tigers plan to make a blaze so great that the very pillars of Heaven will burn down and the sky will fall. The Earth will be razed and the spirit worlds left barren. The rule of the Demon Emperor will be troubled and unsure, and when that great evil finally falls before the burning claws of the Heavenly Devils, there will be nothing but the cold ashes of a great fire left to greet the morning of the Seventh Age.
That the Devil-Tigers will perish in their war is assured. A hatred as great as the one the Heavenly Devils hold in their hearts cannot fail to encompass the one who does the hating. It may even be that the Devil-Tiger’s war is ultimately futile, and that they will be crushed beneath the iron heel of the Demon Emperor in the coming Age. To the Celestial Devils, it matters not. In the Age of Sorrow, the Devil-Tigers will once again unfurl the battle-banners of the Wan Xian and enter the affray as the emissaries of Heaven.
The flame burns brightest just before it winks out. The Sixth Age, the Devil-Tigers say, shall be the Gui Ren’s brilliant moment of redemption before the blackness of the Mouth of Yomi. The Wan Xian failed — the Wan Kuei shall not. They will burn the palace of the Demon Emperor down around his ears, and then walk into the blaze themselves. From the ashes of the blaze shall spring new life. “What,” the bodhisattvas ask, “could comprise a more auspicious occasion?”
Hengeyokai Individual Devil-Tigers and hengeyokai get along poorly as a rule, though constant diplomacy between the courts of the Emerald Mother and the Kuei-Jin courts allows the hengeyokai and Kuei-jin to coexist in relative peace. Some Kitsune and Tengu even have ties with the Black Iron Talons. But diplomats aside, the average skin-changer wants nothing to do with a Devil-Tiger. The Devils of Heaven reek of the Centipede, and it is their professed intention to destroy the Emerald Mother in the coming age.
Though wise heads may say that the fire opens up the forest for new growth, Rage and the high ideals of youth make conflict inevitable. Hengeyokai exist to fight menaces to the Emerald Mother and Devil-Tigers are unmistakably such a menace in need of fighting. While pressure from above holds younger hengeyokai back from a general conflict, scattered outbreaks of violence are a constant backdrop to relations in locations where Devil-Tigers and skin-changers are forced into close proximity. Even those hengeyokai who consider the Celestial Devils to be minions of the Harmoniously Annihilating Centipede, rather than mere undead servants of the Universe Trampling Centipede, often find the Devil-Tigers difficult to bear. Masters of Bane-spirits and unrepentantly evil, the Devil-Tigers can be painful for even the wisest of the Middle Dragons to keep company with.
Hsien Compared to the Crimson Tigers’ relationship with the
hsien, the Devil-Tigers and the hengeyokai are great friends.
Hsien power their magics with a form of unified Chi derived from answered prayers. This rarefied substance, called Yugen, is very similar to the purified Chi that once flowed through the bodies of the Wan Xian. To the Gui Ren, ingesting Yugen is a heady and highly addictive experience. Needless to say, the behavior of Yugen-addicted Kuei-jin has bred some serious ill feelings, particularly in areas — like much of the Golden Courts — where such behavior is seen as shameful or offensive only if one is caught.
While they are, by no means, the sole offenders, Devil-Tigers are definitely the Kuei-jin most likely to prey on the Little Gods. Individual Heavenly Devils may have quite serious qualms about the morality of such actions, but the Crimson Tigers as a Dharma are no more reluctant to drain
hsien of their Yugen than they are to devour souls. Many Devil-Tigers see feeding on these “lesser” spirit beings as similar to commanding Banes — just another privilege of high station.
The
hsien object quite strongly to being preyed on by walking corpses clinging to a long-vanished station as Princes of the Earth. This feeling is particularly strong since the fall of the Wan Xian led more or less directly to the
hsien’s own current predicament. Over the centuries, the Household Gods have made quite clear — often through action by the Yü, their chamber militant — the totally unacceptable nature of attacking
hsien for their Yugen. In most courts, it is at least theoretically illegal to harass the
hsien, and in most civilized areas, offenders can expect to be actually punished.
Still, even in the best areas there are Running Monkeys who have not yet learned their manners and older deviants who use cunning and high station to protect themselves. Many of these unrighteous individuals are Devil-Tigers, and those who aren’t often claim allegiance to the Dharma to muddy investigations of their misdeeds. For the own part, Devil-Tiger responses tend to run in the vein of “kill your assailant next time to teach other hooligans a lesson, or at least maim her so she can be more easily identified.” However, Devil-Tigers who take the capabilities of the Little Gods lightly often find themselves suffering as emphatically as they would have at the hands of the most skilled member of their own Dharma. The
hsien are not to be trifled with, and the typical Devil-Tiger combination of predatory wickedness and thoughtless arrogance can rouse fierce responses.
Wise ancestors seat
hsien and Crimson Tiger delegations a prudent distance from one another, preferably with someone between them able to keep the peace. Better yet is to never force the two groups into the same space, since a delegation of Khan warriors is difficult to come by and inappropriate for many events.
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Eating Yugen
Kuei-jin wouldn’t risk censure and murder at the hands of the Kuan-Yü if there weren’t a good reason to consume Yugen. What cannot be portrayed in mechanics is the fact that the unified Chi of the hsien is immensely euphoric to the Gui Ren — similar to the best parts of both cannabis and cocaine, but combined with a sense of spiritual elevation that no mortal drug can match. As might be imagined, Yugen is almost instantly addictive.
Mechanically, Yugen is handy to have. Yugen is quite concentrated, circulating around the heart as an opalescent gas, or concentrating in the fissures of the brain as quicksilver. A Kuei-jin with Yugen in her body should note the amount somewhere, as it takes up none of the space the vampire normally uses to store Chi.
Yugen may be spent as either Yin or Yang Chi to power Disciplines, but most addicts consider doing so a waste. More often, Yugen is spent to aspect the corpse. In this case, it animates the Kuei-jin’s body for 10 days as if it were Yin Chi while providing all the benefits of scarlet cycling. More importantly, a Kuei-jin who has fed on Yugen is a subject to the previously mentioned euphoric effects for the entire period that the substance is used to animate his body. Ancient kaja texts relate that this state is similar to day-to-day existence as one of the Wan Xian. Certainly, it is conducive to spiritual enlightenment. While a Kuei-jin is Gold Cycled (as addicts call it), the maximum cap of her Dharma score lifts, and Auspicious Occasions become much easier, as if she were ranks below her actual rating. Moments of Blindness are not made more common by Yugen abuse.
Nevertheless, there are some drawbacks. First, the Gold Cycled Kuei-jin tends to be manic, and he often becomes aggressive and overconfident. All difficulties when rolling for Fire Soul increase by two, and the Storyteller should consider inflicting one or more derangements (like mania or megalomania) for those on a long-term high. Also, being euphoric for every waking hour of 10 days is immensely addictive. A Kuei-jin who comes off a Gold Cycle needs a successful Willpower roll (difficulty 8) to avoid either Gold Cycling himself immediately or (if he is out of Yugen) finding a hsien to feed from. The player must make this roll every time the Kuei-jin awakens or is presented with the opportunity to feed from a hsien for 10 times as many days as he was Gold Cycled.
There is no crash like a Yugen crash. A Kuei-jin is listless, enervated (unable to spend temporary Willpower for automatic success) and he suffers a difficulty penalty of two on all actions, not including his P’o’s rolls for soul states, for as many days after he comes down as he was Gold Cycled. Note that becoming Gold Cycled again simply puts off the inevitable crash. Keep a running total of the vampire’s days of withdrawal and addiction remaining. They just keep adding up until the Kuei-jin goes cold-turkey through the withdrawal and beats the habit.
Also, the synthetic enlightenment gained by a Kuei-jin while Gold Cycled evaporates instantly when he comes down. Note the vampire’s Dharma at the moment he becomes Gold Cycled. That is the Dharma he returns to the moment he ceases to be Gold Cycled, even if he spent several centuries high on Yugen and became a bodhisattva in the meanwhile.
When the euphoria goes, the concomitant cosmic understanding dissipates with it. Even if the Kuei-jin becomes Gold Cycled again, he must regain the knowledge from the ground up. As one might expect, the suicide rate among so-called “gold mandarins” forced to kick the habit is extremely high, and many Kuei-jin who rise quickly to high station either use Yugen, or they are rumored to have done so by their enemies.
The Yama Kings are known to have stores of synthetic Yugen synthesized from mortal bodhisattvas they’ve forcibly restrained from passage into the next incarnation. Some Yama Kings, particularly Mikaboshi, supply addicts with their fix via Iris Bulb Commerce. Others break the chains of addiction for a fee. Of course, all the Lords of Yomi provide for their favored servants, the greater akuma, and Yugen addiction has led to the fall of many a distinguished young mandarin.
The Dead As cousin to the Restless Dead and frequent travelers of the spirit worlds, the Kuei-jin are no strangers to the Yellow Springs. Typically, Kuei-jin interact with ghosts in a high-handed fashion. While they are
shen, ghosts have no place in the Celestial Bureaucracy, and young ones are fairly weak compared to the Wan Kuei. Theoretically, with the exception of
kuei and other Spectral menaces, the Kuei-jin have been forbidden by treaty since the Five Emperors periods from feeding on the Restless Dead of the Yellow Springs. In reality, there are Kuei-jin who feed from ghosts. The Kuei-jin can bribe officials with jade, which is trivially easy for the vampires to obtain and precious beyond accounting to the dead.
Those Cathayans who are too poor or antisocial to pay for the privilege can simply terrorize a region. As long as their depredations are not excessive, local magistrates cover up the losses rather than risk poor performance reports. In addition, some Kuei-jin work for the Imperial government as part of the Protectorate of the Prosperous Realm, and many others serve in a volunteer or irregular fashion at all levels. When in the Occupied Territories, these vampires often feed from ghosts. However, the Kuei-jin is expected to make up the cost for destroying any of the barbarians that make up the Emperor’s possessions. As might be imagined, for every wrong the Chinese Kuei-jin can cite as perpetrated by invading
ketsuki, Japanese vampires can name another committed on nihonjin ancestor spirits by Quincunx Kuei-jin.
While sects like the Knightly Ghost-Tigers and the Righteous Earth-Prison Smiting Fist walk among the dead, they do not do so in nearly the same numbers as the Bone Flowers and the Resplendent Cranes. For the Devil-Tigers, the Restless Dead are neither objects of enlightenment (as for the Bone Flowers) nor political allies (as for the Resplendent Cranes). They are just another facet of unlife in the Middle Kingdom, and one that is at least superficially opposed to the Heavenly Devil’s Dharmic path. There are those Devil-Tigers who do interact with the Restless Dead a great deal, but most of these Kuei-jin reside in the West, marching with Yu Huang’s troops against the Emperor of Stygia.
Chi’n Ta Like all the Wan Kuei, the Devil-Tigers dislike the Lightning People. If the Gui Ren are as they name themselves — bureaucrats — then the Namebreakers are imperial princes, or eunuchs with access to the ear of the August Personage. The Miracle Walkers sprint where the Devil Tigers must walk with trembling care, and some accomplish in mere lifetimes deeds that require centuries from the Gui Ren. Yet Heaven often frowns on these prodigal children, and these expressions of Heavenly displeasure make the Moments of Blindness seem genuinely pleasant.
The Devil-Tigers can at least tolerate the Wu Lung. Traditionalists and well-ordered, the Dragon Wizards understand the manner in which matters are to be transacted between devils and sorcerers. Though they may be arrogant, they obey the forms and leave the Devils of Heaven to their tasks. The Tigers see the Akashic Brotherhood, however, as self-righteous fools, always willing to leap in where they don’t belong and trouble a Devil’s existence. Pity the Akashic nephandus whose fallen status becomes known to the Black Iron Talons. For their own part, the Akashics reciprocate their feeling, and meetings between the groups are never dull.
As for the Five Metal Dragons, they have learned to tread widely around the Devils of Heaven. The Crimson Tigers have a “push back harder when disturbed” reflex, and so, a quiet but tense truce has come into existence between the Stone People and the Kuei-jin after a few unfortunate incidents. It may be that the
zaibatsu will make a concerted effort to wipe the Crimson Tigers from the Middle Kingdom some day, but that day is unlikely to come very soon.
Witch-Hunters Devil-Tigers have an interesting relationship with human witch-hunters. While they are easily the most common target of amateur witch-hunters like police and holy men, the Shih rarely find quarrel with the Heavenly Devils. The Shih hunt
shen who have overstepped the bounds Heaven set for them. The Devil-Tigers hunt mortals who have overstepped those boundaries.
Unlike many Kuei-jin, the Devil-Tigers have long since forgiven the Shih for the Burning of the Books. Both sides had overstepped their boundaries, and both sides were punished for their transgressions. The Black Iron Talons and the Shih are known to pass information back and forth and even to work together on occasion. Many Heavenly Devils, regardless of sect, pass money and assistance to the Shih when they can, either openly or covertly, seeing them as fellow Warriors of Righteousness down on their luck.
However good their relations are with the Shih, the Devil-Tigers learn to deal with witch-hunters as a part of the basic training. Sooner or later, every Devil-Tiger will have to face an intolerant holy man, a vice cop who won’t take his bribe and go home or the vengeful family and associates of a sinner or former business rival. They train for that day, because they know it’s going to come. As a result, the Heavenly Devils are a lot more clever in dealing with witch-hunters than many would expect.
While some hunters can be subverted or frightened and shooed away, others are more determined, and the compunction many Devil-Tigers hold for harming the innocent often makes for troublesome situations. The approach varies from Devil-Tiger to Devil-Tiger, but most of the Heavenly Devils have a good idea of when to cut their losses and move on.
Kin-Jin To understand exactly why the Kuei-jin are intolerant of the Kin-jin, it’s important to remember that they don’t see them as “fellow vampires.” The Wan Kuei are proud descendants of the Ten Thousand Immortals, and though they may be ruined and disgraced, they still hold station in the Celestial Bureaucracy. The Children of Caine are degenerate creatures, freakish parasites cursed by the legacy of a homicidal farmer. To say that they’re the “same thing” is to call a dog and a person the “same thing” because they both have four limbs and hair.
However, other than finding them distasteful, most Devil-Tigers could care less about the Kin-jin. They are monsters in a world full of monsters, different from the Kumo or hengeyokai only in that they come from a foreign land where they occupy the same supernatural ecological niche as the Gui Ren of the Middle Kingdom. Where they oppose the Devil-Tiger’s goals, they are dealt with through force or guile, as with any other competition.
This feeling has led many Quincunx Devil-Tigers into opposition of the Great Leap Outward. While securing the borders of the Middle Kingdom against Cainite infestation is critical, this crusade to cleanse foreign lands in the name of righteousness is coming a bit late in the day. The Young Turk extremists among the Cranes can launch all the crusades they want once the Demon Emperor has been defeated. Until then, most Devil-Tigers see the Leap as a misguided waste of resources, the equivalent of weeding the garden while your house is on fire. Devil-Tigers and Crane moderates have together formed a party called the Harmonious Menders of Broken Fences to advocate the so-called “Two-Fang Serpent Plan.”
This plan has two goals, or fangs. The first is to secure the Middle Kingdom against Cainite invasion and reclaim the lost capitals of the Flesh and Flame Courts. The second is a concession to extremists, and it involves the establishment of a court in a single foreign city as a test case for the plausibility of a larger campaign. So far, the Fence-Menders have been successful in this first goal, reclaiming the Flesh Court and bringing the Silent Mandarins back under the Quincunx’s wing. Now, all eyes are cast toward Los Angeles, where events rush nightly closer to the climax of the political battle between the moderate and extremists factions of the Quincunx.