Masaki Keiko


　One of the most brilliant and disturbing performance artists in Japan (a land which has produced more than its share of disturbing performance art) Masaki Keiko has managed to conceal her identity as a Devil-Tiger for over a decade. Keiko was torn to pieces in late 1987 by hungry dogs in the basement of her warehouse in Kobe’s industrial district, as part of suicidal piece of escape artistry and video art that was designed to commemorate the futility of human struggle.

　Before the dogs had finished their meal, the Devil-Tigers arrived to collect the urn. On the way out, they collected the videotapes of the event (there was no live audience) and turned out the lights. Everything else, they left as it was. She would be needing it soon enough, they reasoned. They were not disappointed.

　In life, Keiko was a talented but disturbed young woman, the sort of warehouse-dwelling post-industrial artist who would arrange to have her grisly suicide by dog attack videotaped from several angles without weighing concerns other than the artistic. In death, she has recovered somewhat, and she carries herself with the characteristic Devil-Tiger poise. Masaki’s art has benefited greatly not only from the discipline of the Road Back, but also from her membership in the Temple-Haunting Spirits Righteousness Society, whose Infant Devil Civilizing arm took her urn and tutored her through the Fire and Water Test. The Temple-Haunting Spirits include both Yoshida Ozaki and Tetsuo Shirow, Hakari’s yojimbo.

　With the Society’s backing and her own undeniable talent, Masaki Keiko has expanded and diversified her already successful art career into an international phenomenon. With regular installations, exhibitions and performances in Paris, London, New York and Tokyo, Masaki has recently signed a contract to compose and direct a major opera. She has also been approached on several occasions about work as a cinematographer and set-designer.

　Keiko’s strange nocturnal habits and insistence on subterranean accommodations don’t really surprise the sort of people who hire her. If anything, they’ve improved her reputation in the international art scene. Of particular note is an incident where she was accidentally booked into a glass-ceiling penthouse in Paris, and she spray-painted the entire ceiling of the room with several layers of black primer. When early-rising guests on other floors complained about the smell, several hotel employees who had come to investigate were overcome by the fumes before Keiko was found sitting cross-legged on her bed and reading the latest issue of Elle. She was escorted triumphantly to the hotel’s basement, where she spent the day asleep in a laundry hamper.


The Mengs


　It seems as if, in every run-down neighborhood, there is a shabby house where the unwashed and possibly feral elderly inhabitants live furtively in squalor and decay. Mostly, they’re just unwholesome people, ignorant and fallen into degeneracy from poverty and old age. Sometimes they aren’t, though. Sometimes they’re the Mengs.

　The Mengs originally lived in a Saigon slum in the early days of the French mandate over Indochina. They were never punished for their crimes in life, which included the murder of two young children, five transients, eleven dogs and innumerable cats during their quarter-century of residence. These crimes had no impetus other than the malice bred of a long, long lifetime of qualified success.

　The Mengs died together in their sleep of asphyxiation while their house burned down around them one night. A neighbor whose child had gone missing put a torch through the Meng’s window, and the tiny bones that were found in the ashes told the arsonist that he’d done the right thing. The Mengs’ bones were found there, too, and other, less identifiable things.

　Despite the authorities’ best efforts to keep evil spirits from rising out of the mass grave the unidentifiable bones — including the Meng’s — had been dumped into, the monstrous couple returned to earth in a terrifyingly short time. In three months as chih-mei, the Mengs wrought more havoc than they did in 25 years of married life. Their fame, if it can be called that, spread far and wide.

　A Devil-Tiger hunting group came all the way from the temple in Wuhan to put a stop to the couple’s career as chih-mei. After much training, the couple went through its Fire and Water Test. Shortly thereafter, the Mengs settled down to a life similar to the one they had led before their trip to Yomi and began doing their greatest service to the Devils of Heaven. They began adopting what they call their “children.”

　Old Man Meng is a sadist so uncommunicative as to verge on autism, but an excellent ritualist. Mrs. Meng is nearly blind from cataracts as well as being morbidly obese, but she does possess a perfect knowledge of human iniquity. While they are both good Devil-Tigers (indeed, the two of them are mandarins, and well-respected throughout the Dharma as a whole) their real talent lies not in punishing sinners or battling the forces of Yomi, but in Infant Devil Civilizing. Over the last century, the Mengs have successfully passed 47 hin through their ré, more than any two other Infant Devil Civilizers put together. They sometimes even teach two or three students at a time. It is considered a great honor to have been trained in the Meng’s shabby abode (the location changes every decade or so, but the state of profound squalor does not), and many Devil-Tigers who wish to train chih mei study the couple’s methods to better their understanding of their art.


Chiu Bao


　This young son of a petty 17th century Chinese warlord was ambushed and left to die by his father’s servants. Chiu Bao took some time about it, finally dying of gas gangrene three weeks later. He returned from the Hell of Burrowing Maggots with a cold hate in his heart and killed his father and his retainers before the local Thousand Whispers came to collect him. Bao was pathless at that time but not chih-mei, and he migrated quickly to the Devil-Tigers. Among them, he completed his ré and took his Fire and Water Test.

　A talented young devil, Chiu Bao rose through the ranks quickly during the Toppling of the Manchu Dynasty, becoming an important official in the provisional Flame Court capital of Canton. In 1964, he was appointed First Oni of the Quincunx Extraordinary Council on the Rectification of Borders under Ancestress Elder Sister Plum.

　A vociferous moderate, Chiu Bao is the striking arm of the Fence Menders. One of the patrons of the Flatbush and Stockton Posse, Chiu Bao has kept himself close to home, mostly moving in the Blood Court and the disputed zones of the Flesh and Flame courts. He was instrumental in retaking Shanghai from the Japanese akuma and installing Ancestress Pai with the cooperation of the Silent Mandarins. He is currently in Beijing, helping to keep the Mao dynasty together and defending the Two-Fang Serpent Plan from Ash Plan extremists. Though he is young for his post, Chiu Bao is warlord of an organization treated as a Quincunx Court by the Revered Ancestor, and he performs that role quite effectively.


Yoshida Shimazu


　No relation to Yoshida Ozaki, Yoshida Shimazu was originally a minor warlord who died after a spectacularly protracted battle with bone cancer in the 16th century. Shimazu returned from Yomi as a Black Axis Scholar, and he spent the next several centuries tending to Devil-Tiger dragon nests, traveling the Spirit Worlds and mastering the black sorcery of the Dharma.

　In the late 19th century, two major events changed the direction of Shimazu’s work. The first was the Meiji Restoration and the resultant establishment of factories in Japan. The second was the introduction of chocolate and other Western sweets. In the first, Yoshida Shimazu saw a way to protect and even amplify the powers of defiled dragon nests through the judicious application of geomantic principles. In the other, he saw a chance to both make children happy, and to satisfy a sweet tooth that had endured even through the torments of Yomi.

　Shimazu established his first and only candy factory on a large Devil-Tiger holy site outside Utsunomiya in 1907.

　The factory was at first a scarlet screen, staffed mostly by local residents in search of part-time work. However, as Shimazu’s success grew, he began to employ bakemono and Ban Ren Guei. By the Second World War, the factory was a huge complex that extended into the Yang Mirrorlands in some places, and which was staffed not just by Goblins and Devil-Men, but by actual Bane-spirits as well. The dragon nest inside grew with the factory. By the time the US began bombing, the site’s black joss was easily powerful enough to protect it from the eyes of bombardiers and mission planners. The flow of chocolate and other treats was curtailed by the wartime shortages, but what candy did emerge was as delightful as ever.

　Today, the structure stands as an almost closed system, its great green glass roof shining in the sun. Quietly exempted from regulation or overlooked by health and safety inspectors, the factory and its staff of devils and goblins continue to grind out millions of tasty treats for the children of Japan. The factory also serves as the meeting place for the Five Threes, a powerful Righteousness Society, and it serves as the high holy ground for a large segment of Japan’s Devil-Tigers. The Snow Maiden Festival held there every midwinter rivals the Great Hokkaido Devil Festival in size, even attracting visitors from outside Japan to participate.

　Other than shen, no visitors have penetrated past the outer wall of the factory in decades.


Eight Thunders Sage


　Eight Thunders Sage was one of the eldest of the Devil-Tiger bodhisattvas not yet to have entered dâh. A virtual arhat, the Sage was a survivor of the Burning of the Books and one of the most respected of the August Devils. He was also the most vocal advocate of maintaining the Mao Dynasty until the coming of the Age of Sorrow.

　This summer, shortly after the sighting of the red star (which is known as the Eye of the Demon Emperor and which only shen may see), many Devil-Tigers dreamt nightly of the 10-headed Yama King Ravana. In their dreams, Ravana split the mountain that imprisoned him and sent evil dreams to chase his children. He then battled a Crane, a Dragon and a Tiger until the sun rose and ended the dream. Scholars interpreted the dream as representing a great evil awakening in the world, perhaps not Ravana himself but rather a precursor to the Sixth Age schooled in the Yama King’s arts of deceit and illusion.

　Shortly after the dreams began, Eight Thunders Sage left his mountain fastness and traveled to the Infinite Thunders Court on unstated business. It is believed by many enlightened Devil-Tigers that the Eight Thunders Sage was in fact the tiger who battled the dark prince, and who died in so doing. Certainly, the dreams have ended, and the August Body has indicated that it is considering potential replacements for the now-missing Sage. On the other hand, this turn of events has caused many Devil-Tigers to redouble their efforts to prepare for the coming Sixth Age.

　With the destruction of the Eight Thunders Sage, the Mao Dynasty has lost one of its greatest advocates, and the Yama Kings one of their greatest foes. These signs of the turning of the Age are greeted by the Righteousness Societies all across the Middle Kingdom with redoubled efforts to prepare for the Age of Sorrow, which surely is nigh.


No-Shadow Raven


　No-Shadow Raven is one of the two or three active Devil-Tiger bodhisattvas. While there are over a dozen such beings who spend their time in various states of repose and meditation, No-Shadow Raven refuses to let the dignity of her station interfere with the way she carries out her duty. Said to have been a successful courtesan and woman of influence during her life (at least up until her torture and execution) she continued to expand her range of interests after her return from Yomi.

　No-Shadow Raven is the sole party responsible for the theft of 600 tons of chemical warfare agent known as “Yellow Rain” from a Vietnamese ammunition dump in Cambodia. She is also the leading financial consultant for the Electric Money Wickedness Club, helping direct both their economic warfare against the Yama Kings and the money-laundering operations that feed that war. As such, she is regularly involved with Devil-Tigers far below her station, much to the disapproval of the mandarins.

　While No-Shadow Raven is not a member of the August Body, she became a Perfected August Devil some time ago. However, she has let her degree lapse into honorary status over the last 50 years, as things have been far too busy to study. As a result, Raven has some holes in her knowledge base about things like modern scientific advances and technology, and she uses assistants to compensate for these shortcomings.

Devil-Tigers in the West

　Kindred of the East comes part and parcel with Vampire, and that means that crossovers are inevitable. While interaction of Kin-jin and Kuei-jin through conflict was covered extensively in Kindred of the East and the Kindred of the East Companion, there’s more to do with the games than just pitch combat. Active and inquisitive, Devil-Tigers have been going here and there among the Sunset People for centuries, and they are natural choices for such a game. But how does one go about making up a Devil-Tiger suitable for play in the West? The following are some guidelines on how to cross Devil-Tigers into a Kin-jin game.


Leave “Kill Whitey” to the Resplendent Cranes

　Individual Devil-Tigers, particularly the Quincunx jina and young mandarins who took the Second Breath during the West’s partitioning of China, bear the Sunset People and Western shen some serious grudges. These are personal grudges, however. Quincunx Devil-Tigers, particularly those younger or older than the Opium War veterans, tend to have neutral feelings on the matter. Those outside China are even more prone to indifference. The Crimson Tigers are devils, after all. Had the shoe been on the other foot, they would have stuck it to the Westerners just as hard and twice as vigorously.

　For older Kuei-jin, the coming of barbarian shen is just another invasion in China’s long history of invasion. For younger vampires, the West is the land of Nikes and Big Macs, not opium and colonial domination. Devil-Tigers aren’t here to whack Kin-jin and spout Confucian rhetoric, they’re here to make money, torture sinners and advance whatever plans the vampire happens to support. Play your character like a person with real motivations, not a walking political slogan.


Don’t Preach to the Barbarians

　Whatever your feelings toward the barbarian vampires, telling someone how much they suck is a poor negotiating strategy. Kin-jin are not Gui Ren, they aren’t walking the Road Back, and they’ve never been to Yomi. The Sunset People aren’t going to learn anything from you explaining your Dharma except maybe a way to stick it to you. Don’t drag the game toward Kindred of the East. You’re on the Kin-jins’ turf, so they’re probably going to be the focus point.

　Playing in this setting may mean that your character doesn’t explore her Dharma a great deal. As a crossover character, you are naturally coming into a situation in which you are peripherally involved. If your role is to provide an inhuman foil against which the Cainites struggle for their Humanity, so be it. It’s better for the game if you accept that a neat character often has a secondary role than for you to get in a tug-of-war with the Storyteller and/ or the other players about which topics the chronicle will focus on. If you really must play Kindred of the East, then go play Kindred of the East, and let the clans of the Kindred have their own fun.


Minimize Spirit Travel

　Kuei-jin spirit travel. Kin-jin don’t. This difference is a big, big deal, because jina and mandarin Kuei-jin tend to do it a lot. The degree to which you force this facet of Cathayan existence to the foreground is the degree to which the Storyteller must run two games: you in the spirit realms and everyone else in the material world.

　Also, crossing the Wall is a Kuei-jin’s big ace in the hole, and he almost certainly knows it. Through Imbuing the Jade, the Kuei-jin can survive without a Haven by fading into the spirit worlds during the day, and he can gain access to areas that are otherwise inaccessible. This ability is almost certainly poorly understood by the Kin-jin, and there’s no reason for the Easterners to clarify things.

　To whatever degree possible, try to abstract away travel in the spirit worlds. Don’t gobble up entire sessions with spirit quests, and don’t totally disempower the group by habitually using spirit travel to spy on them or by always be the first one in a place. If you do so, the Storyteller will be forced to either shortchange the other players to keep things moving or put obstacles in your path, which diverts attention to you and away from the game’s center of focus.


Make Sure You Can Play

　Kuei-jin have an astonishing assortment of ways to do aggravated damage. Don’t necessarily feel compelled to get as many of them as possible during character creation. If your character has a dot of Demon Shintai and two dots of Black Wind, the typical Vampire coterie is going to prop you up in a corner until the time comes for fighting. If at all possible, start the game with things that give you at least some chance to move socially among Kin-jin. Yang Prana’s Yang Mantle, Obligation’s Evaluate and Soul Bridge and Cultivation’s Scrutinize are all good ways to give yourself a little social power. Kin-jin are social animals, and if you can’t keep up, they will plow you under.

　Likewise, Kin-jin are sneaky bastards. Having some stealth capabilities of your own isn’t a bad idea. Bone Shintai’s White Tiger Corpse is highly effective, and it also grants Corpse Skin, the Kuei-jin’s premier defense. Yin Prana is less effective, but also less expensive. Again, the idea is to give yourself a way to participate in the session without causing the game to veer wildly off into “mandatory crossover character time.” If the only thing your character can do is kill things, the Storyteller is either going to let you sit there like a lump on a log, or the game is going to gain a huge combat element — much to the chagrin of players who don’t have combat-oriented characters. Remember that your character is part of the game, not the game’s focus. If you accept that, you’re doing yourself and your fellow players a favor. Fail to see that and sooner or later you’re either going to wreck the game or find yourself evicted from it.