In the Gaslight era, the Shanghai
district is dominated by the Order of the
Black Fan, a cult organisation dedicated to the worship of Nyarlathotep in
his incarnation as the Bloated Woman. By the early 1920s this cult had been
wiped out in the city to be replaced by a successive organisation called the Order of the Bloated Woman. Needless to
say, this avatar of the Outer God is difficult to eliminate and each time it
revives itself, a cult following appears around it which is arguably no
different from the preceding one.
In Victorian times, the Cult was one of
the “Big Eight Gangs” – one of those factions which comprised the Green Circle
Gang, later the Green Gang which dominated all criminal activity in Shanghai.
The Black Fan Cult reveres the same texts
as its succeeding cabal and, like its successor, identifies its members by
means of a tattoo hidden in the left armpit of the adherent; its rituals and
other sanguinary practises are all likewise similar with the sole exception
that this cult idolises the symbol of the inky fan as an image of its deity.
Needless to say, the later cult abandoned this image as one which would lead knowing
investigators to unearthing the cult once more.
Like all of the local cults to this
excrescence, the members often interbreed with the Deep Ones prevalent along
China’s coastline. A high percentage of the cultists display the “Innsmouth
Look” and degenerate into fully-fledged Deep Ones in late adulthood. These
grotesque hybrids are often used as guards inside the Cult dwellings and are
kept hidden away from the general populace.
Like most secretive cults, the Black Fan
cultists try to blend in with their surroundings and keep exposure to an
absolute minimum. Membership comes from all levels and sectors of society and
thus the Cult can bring to bear a great variety of skills and resources. The
thing that will reveal any cultist is the presence of the tattoo, in their left
armpit, of the Chinese characters for “Black Fan”. Given that the cult passes
messages and instructions by means of inky fans, those in the know will be able
to detect the presence of the cult by this means also.
The preferred weapon of the Black Fan
Cult is another ritual object: the sickle. This is normally a farm implement
and fairly common throughout much of China; however, in the hands of the Black
Fan Cultists, it is a lethal and dangerous weapon. The Cultists have many
superstitions regarding sickles: breaking a sickle is taken as an omen of the
Goddess’ disfavour; a sickle lying in a roadway or on a doorstep is taken as a
sign that the way is barred to the adherent; dreaming of a sickle is a sign of
the Goddess’ blessing, while cutting oneself with one’s own sickle is a sign of
one’s own imminent death. It is also considered bad luck to pick up a sickle,
whose blade is pointing to the left, with the left hand; the reverse is also
true.
The Cult operates ‘smoke and flower
houses’ and fan-tan dens wherever it
emerges, in order to raise capital; where the Cult succeeds most, however, is
in its conduct of pirate activities along the coastline of China. This not only
provides the cult with a means of income and of sacrifices to its blasphemous
deity but also provides a cover for its presence: most authorities are prepared
to acknowledge the existence of pirates but not the activities of a murderous
cult with demonic fish creatures for allies.
Average
Black Fan Cultist
STR: 13
CON: 11
SIZ: 10
INT: 9
POW: 8
DEX: 13
Move: 8
SAN: 0
Damage
Bonus: +1D4
HP: 11
Weapons: Fist
55% (1D3+db); Kick 35% (1D6+db); Grapple 30% (special); Jo Stick 65% (1d6+1d4); Cult Sickle 50% (1d4+3+1d4)
Armour: None
Spells: None
Skills: Cthulhu
Mythos 08%; Dodge 65%; English 15%; Hide 60%; Jump 55% Listen 65%; Speak Chinese 60%; Martial Arts 40%; Sneak 55%; Spot Hidden
35%
SAN
Loss: It costs no SAN to
see a Black Fan Cultist
*****
Average
Half Deep One Black Fan Cultist
STR: 10-11
CON: 10-11
SIZ: 13
INT: 13
POW: 10-11
DEX: 10-11
APP: 6
Move: 8/8 Swimming
SAN: 0
Damage
Bonus: +0
HP: 11-12
Weapons: Fist
55% (1D3+db); Grapple 35% (special); Cult Sickle 35% (1d4+3); Small Club 50% (1d6); Harpoon 45% (1d8)
Armour: None
Spells: Those with a POW greater than 14
may know 1D4 spells connected to Cthulhu and its kin; otherwise, none
Skills: Boating
40%; Fishing 65%; Listen 45%; Spot Hidden 40%; Swim 90%
SAN
Loss: It costs no SAN to
see a Half Deep One Black Fan Cultist, unless knowing the nature of the
creature has some bearing on the story, which the Keeper wishes to exploit, in
which case 0/1D4
*****
The
Sacred Texts of the Black Fan Cult
Goddess of the Black Fan
“Behind
the Black Fan, the soul-twister simpers,
snake-armed
and slickened, inflated with blood fat.
The
dragon-toothed feaster, gluts down grey lilies,
the gracious donation of children left
twitching...”
-Liu Chan-fang, Goddess of the Black Fan
This collection of obscene verse is
considered the most sacred text in the worship of Nyarlathotep in his avatar of
the Bloated Woman. The work is usually encountered in the form of a scroll and
contains 64 verses dedicated to the activities of the Bloated Woman. Needless
to say, the content is bloodthirsty and rhapsodic, given to purple descriptions
of the avatar’s most base activities.
At first sight the scroll appears to
conform to Taoist formulae, with the traditional 64 verses reminiscent of the I Ching and much of the less brutal
imagery concerned with traditional Taoist tropes. This is where the reader must
be on guard however: the suggestion of a hidden Taoist text within the poetry
is a ruse devised to lead the student to discover a formula for summoning
Nyarlathotep in his chosen Chinese form.
A comparative reading between this work
and the Tale of Priest Kwan – the
other text associated with the worship of this deity - reveals that one is a
commentary upon the other; the Tale
however is disguised as a work unto itself and its explicatory function is not
immediately obvious.
(Source: Masks of Nyarlathotep,
Larry DiTillio, Lynn Willis, et al.)
Chinese;
Liu Chan-fang; Warring States Period; Sanity Loss: 0/1d4; +5 percentiles to Cthulhu Mythos; average 14 weeks to
study and comprehend
Spells: (INTx5 on d100 roll to see if the spell
is detectable) Contact Nyarlathotep
The
Tale of Priest Kwan
“...A form most majestic appears before
proud Hun Tao – the Goddess Herself comes to humble him! Her graceful tentacles
embrace his mealy-fleshed followers. Her dragon fangs test the milksops’ shrieking
throats. Her sickles reap frantic limbs wherever She will! Her five mouths
chant victory, while Hun Tao weeps and shivers in his empty hall!”
-The Tale of Priest Kwan
This obscure work of poetry recounts the
adventures of the priest Kwan, who receives the wisdom of the ‘Pearl Empress’
(Nyarlathotep, as the Bloated Woman avatar) and who then sets out to convert
the world to her worship. There are rollicking sections detailing his encounter
and conversion of pirates and a long middle section which relates his meeting
with the rich nobleman Hun Tao whom he converts after a long and complex
discourse, proving his devotion to the cause. Sections of the poetry discuss
Deep Ones and their beliefs in regard to a ‘sleeping god’. For the most part
though, the work details and gives a rationale for the various cult practises
used by the Order of the Bloated Woman.
An infamous section involves a betting
match between Hun Tao and Kwan, where they wager on the sex of unborn babies
brought before them. The pregnant mothers are tied to poles and disembowelled
or thrown to the ground and cut open with axes to retrieve the foetuses. The
outcome of the match sees the loser, Hun Tao, having to grant Priest Kwan
another day in which to convince the nobleman of the potency of his Goddess.
A close reading of this text in
conjunction with the Goddess of the Black
Fan reveals that this work is actually a rigorous commentary on that other
text, albeit encoded within the appearance of a picaresque novel form.
(Source: Masks of Nyarlathotep,
Larry DiTillio, Lynn Willis, et al.)
Chinese:
The Tale of Priest Kwan; Anonymous;
China, no date but likely from the Yuan Dynasty; Sanity Loss: 1/1d6; +5
percentiles to Cthulhu Mythos;
average 18 weeks to study & comprehend
Spells: (Roll INTx1 for each spell to see if its
presence is detected within the convoluted verses) “Wisdom of the Pearl
Empress” (Contact Deity: Nyarlathotep in
his avatar of the Bloated Woman); any or all of the T’ai p’ing t’ao
Spells
Enchant
Fan
The Black Fan Cultists are able to embed
spells into appropriately-coloured (ie., black) fans which activate whenever
the device is spread open and waved at the intended target(s). Activating the
magic is possible by anyone wielding the fan and these devices are sometimes
given to Cult operatives to assist in specific tasks.
The creator of the fan spends a week
making the object and infusing it with 1 point of POW. Once created the form of
the spell to be embedded is written upon the black paper of the fan along with
invocations to the Bloated Woman: the caster offers up all the requisite POW
and SAN that a normal casting of the desired spell usually requires at this
point. The invocations to the Goddess take the place of the usual material
components of the spell (for example, the Elder Sign-carved stone normally
required for Summoning Nightgaunts). Once
completed, the fan is shut and may not be opened again until the spell which it
contains needs to be cast: if it is opened and not immediately waved at a
target, or if it is broken, the spell is lost.
Spells which normally operate through a
specific medium – Elder Sign, Baneful
Dust of Hermes Trismegistus, Red Sign of Shudde M’ell, Enchant Cane – will
not work using this method, as they require a specific object, focus, or
substance to operate upon, or about which the magic coalesces. Bind, Call, Contact, Dismiss and Summoning
spells, will work but only at a set rate depending upon how many Magic Points
the caster imbued the fan with at its creation.
Spells typically embedded into these fans
are as follows: Alter Weather; Attract
Fish; Bind Enemy; Black Binding; Blight/Bless Crop; Breath of the Deep; Bring
Haboob; Cause Blindness; Cause Disease; Charm Animal; Cloud Memory; Create Mist
of Releh; Dampen Light; Death Spell; Deflect Harm; Detect Enchantment;
Dominate; Enthrall Victim; Evil Eye; Find Gate; Flesh Ward; Heal; Healing;
Implant Fear; Lame Animal; Levitate; Mental Suggestion; Mesmerize; Mindblast; Nightmare;
Power Drain; Raise Night Fog; Sense Life; Shrivelling; Spectral Razor; the T’ai
p’ing t’ao; Unmask Demon; Wither Limb; and Wrack. Other spells will need to be considered by the Keeper on a
case-by-case basis.
The one who activates the Enchanted Fan must make a SAN Roll when
doing so, with a 1/1D4 penalty.
*****
Gambling
The Chinese are a gambling people and
they do it whole-heartedly. The westerners who encountered the Chinese
predilection for the wager were universally surprised by the intensity of the
speculation. The traditional form of gambling for the Chinese was mah-jongg, a complicated game with tiles
that plays much like gin rummy. Vast halls devoted to mah-jongg and its players were established, initially in the Old
Chinese Town in Shanghai but later throughout all parts of the city, and these
operated far into the night, raucous with the rattling of the ivory tiles. Many
mah-jongg hall operators combined
their activities with opium purveyors and sing-song girls to extend the range
of their services and these establishments operated around the clock.
But mah-jongg
was only one of a range of gambling opportunities for the Chinese. The
foreigners brought horse-racing, dog-racing and boxing into their lives. At
first, the Chinese had no conception as to why the white man was so obsessed
with horses and dogs, seeing these activities as games with no serious purpose.
Once the stadiums and racing fixtures had been built however, and the money began
to flow, the Chinese arrived in their thousands.
The International Settlement was the
first to build a race track followed by the French Concession shortly
afterwards; additionally the French built the Canidrome to race whippets.
Ultimately, the Chinese constructed their own race track in the Municipality
north of Hongkew and conducted their own race meets apart from the foreign
communities.
Boxing was another matter however. The
Chinese have a long tradition of martial arts and were less than impressed with
the western demonstrations which they were seeing. Nevertheless, they were
willing to bet on the outcomes. Fixed fights and thrown bouts were as common
here as they were anywhere at this time, but they were largely controlled by
foreign interests, albeit with some heavy pressure from the Shanghai
underworld. A more sinister form of gambling existed however, and its roots lay
deep in the tradition of secret societies for which the Chinese have ever had a
predilection – this was fan tan.
Fan tan
Fan
tan means ‘constantly
spreading out’; it is played by revealing a pile of randomly selected coins and
removing them in groups of four until a number of coins, four or less, remain.
The players bet upon what they believe the outcome will be. The game is run by
a consortium of leaders who front the money to establish the ‘house’; often
this group is linked to an existing tong
or triad society and has the same or similar ‘officers’ in attendance. These
operations are incredibly lucrative and often form the capital-raising wing of
groups like the Cult of the Black Fan.
The elements of the fan tan game are as
follows: on the floor of the room is an eighteen-inch square of metal, either
tin or brass, with each side numbered from 1 to 4. This is called the t’an ching, or ‘spreading out square’.
In poorer establishments this square is simply inked onto the floor or onto a
mat. Two men are required to run the game and these two are normally the
stakeholders in the fan tan venture.
The first is called the t’an kun or
‘ruler of the spreading out’. To initiate the game he takes a handful of coins
from a receptacle nearby and places them in a shallow bowl called the t’an k’oi, or ‘spreading out cover’;
this he overturns near the square, keeping the coins within covered. The
players then place their bets: the aim is to decide if, after the coins are
systematically removed by a ritual process, there will be 1, 2, 3 or 4 coins
left.
Players place their money alongside the
square according to their bets. If the gambler chooses a single number as the
outcome, he places his coins against the number selected, placed upon a red
card called the kau li, or ‘dog’s
tongue’. This is called mai fan, or
‘buying a single number’ and, if it wins, pays back four times the original
stake. The player can place their money on a number without the red card: this
is called mai ch’ing t’au, or ‘buying
the front of the square’. In this case, he wins double his money back if the
number which his money is on is the result, or regains his stake if either of
the two side numbers wins. A third option is mai kok, or ‘buying the corner’, wherein he places his bet on the
corner between two numbers: if either number wins, the player wins double his
money; if any other number is the result, he loses. Finally, there is mai nip, or ‘buying a twist’: in this
scenario, the gambler places his bet towards the corner, rather than the
centre, of a side and places the kau li
on top of his stake. He wins double if his number, or the number opposite,
eventuates, but loses with any other result.
The t’an
kun proceeds to remove the coins: to do this he has a long tapering rod
called the t’an pong (‘spreading out
rod’) and he eliminates the coins four at a time until there are only four or
less coins left. Once the result is determined, the second administrator, the ho k’un or cashier, pays out to the
winners or takes their money.
There is a great deal of tradition and
superstition in the running of fan tan
and it is all reminiscent of the tong
societies. The coins that are used are ritually washed and polished, rubbed
with vinegar and dried in a jar filled with moist sawdust; the room in which
the game is played is traditionally painted white, the colour of mourning and
which signifies loss of money, designed to favour the house odds; scraps of
orange peel are kept in the box with the coins to bring the house good fortune.
The officers resemble the ‘Incense Master’ and the ‘White Paper Fan’ of
traditional tongs and there is often
an enforcer (not unlike the ‘Red Pole’) who simultaneously guards the door of
the betting place and alerts passers-by of its presence.
After the evening’s events, it is traditional
to arrange a meal for the participants. This feast is conducted in near
silence, most talk – especially concerning gambling – being strenuously
avoided. The presence of a good cook was thought mandatory and did much to
avert the gaze of the authorities; however, the gamblers would leave
immediately if someone joined their feast after they had started to dine.
Particularly repugnant was the word for ‘book’ or shu which, in Chinese, is very similar to the word ‘to lose’:
players abstained from reading before attending sessions of fan tan and would even forgo their
evening’s betting if they were jostled, or if a cart or other barrier, crossed
their way en route to the fan tan rooms.
The officials of the fan tan gatherings
were paid according to their participation. They usually received a stipend of
about 25 US dollars a month in return for their services plus a percentage of
each evening’s take; given that this amounted to about a half an hour’s work an
evening, this was good money. In the event that the house lost overall, the
winners were given free rent of the establishment for an evening to capitalise
upon their gains.
Occasionally the fan tan rooms opened up independently of the tongs or triads; in these cases the local groups made sure to claim
protection money from the consortium, in an amicable arrangement ... or
otherwise.
*****
The House of
the Black Fan
This is the
headquarters of the Black Fan Cult circa 1895. It is a fan tan joint, which also operates as an opium den. Following
tradition, the House also acts as a restaurant for its patrons – no decent fan tan outfit would be caught dead
without a fully-equipped kitchen and a competent chef.
The House
stands at the corner of two streets within the Hongkew maze north of the Bund
in the old American Concession; the walls are whitewashed brick render,
featureless and white, without windows. The front door of the House is at the
corner of the crossroads - a pair of heavy, iron-bound wooden valves atop two
semi-circular steps and surmounted by an open black fan, perched on a small
shelf above: at all times, there is an obviously well-armed guard on duty here,
vetting all those trying to enter.
Each room in
the House contains a listed number of occupants. In addition, there is a 20%
chance that the room contains an additional 1D2 individuals.
1 – Fan Tan
Room
The room
beyond these doors is a typical fan tan
room. The walls are whitewashed and, in the centre of the floor, is a square made
of strips of tin nailed to the wood; the numbers 1 to 4 in Chinese characters,
are drawn around this square. The floor is littered by squares of red paper:
these are kau li (“dogs’ tongues”)
used to bet in fan tan. There are two
tables here: one bearing a long tapered rod and a covered bowl filled with
coins and orange-peel strips, next to which is a stool; the other has a chair
and carries a cash box (empty) and a pile of the kau li.
2 - Corridor
There is a
single door out of this room (STR 12) and it will require some bashing or a Lockpick or Mechanical Repair roll to bypass it if the visitors are uninvited.
The door leads to a long winding corridor: to the south is a heavy curtain;
across the corridor is another door (again, STR 12); to the north the corridor
turns to the east.
From the
south, the curtain conceals a set of stairs and a locked door to the street
outside (this can easily be unlocked from here); the door opposite, leads to
area 3 and is locked, requiring specialised rolls or brute force to kick it in;
to the north, the corridor turns to the east and leads past a shuttered and
barred window; beyond this is a door leading to another set of stairs and a small
foyer leading to the outside. In this entryway are many small, lidded buckets,
forming a hazard to hastily progressing characters (DEX x 5 to avoiding
tripping on them, if hurrying through here). These are full of human excrement
and are representative of the standard toilet facilities of such an organisation
in Shanghai: these “honey-pots” would normally be placed outside at close of
business and would be emptied by the night-soil man the following morning.
Another
hazard here is the loophole in the wall opposite the door: this allows the
guard in the room beyond to see who is using this exit and to take steps to
prevent them if necessary. The guard has a Spot
Hidden roll of 45% and a Rifle
skill of 35%; he will detain and shoot at anyone passing through, should he see
them, if he feels they are acting suspiciously. The door leading to the street
outside is locked but can easily be disabled.
3 - Opium Den
Beyond this
door is a fully-functioning opium den. Several cots are arrayed along the
northern wall while, to the south is a table with a chair, on which is an
abacus, a candle, a box of matches, a collection of pipes and a box, which
holds pellets of opium and a handful of pipe-cleaners; there is also a sizable
amount of Mexican Silver Dollars inside. To the south, a beaded curtain
obscures the kitchen beyond and a locked door (STR 12) bars progress to the
west. There are several opium addicts here - oblivious to everything going on
around them - lying on the cots.
4 - Kitchen
Every fan tan joint worth the name has a
fully-equipped kitchen and the House of the Black Fan is no exception: this is
a kitchen in full swing, with all the cleavers and woks full of hot oil the
Keeper could hope for. Here are a head cook and two kitchenhands ready to
defend themselves with their knives and pepper-pots and chilli-oil. Let the
chips (as it were) fall where they may.
Enterprising
intruders may notice (Spot Hidden
roll) that the cooking range is powered by gas and they may well decide to use
this in defeating the menace before them. Otherwise, there is a locked door
here (easily disabled from within) which leads to the noisome alley outside and
thence to the street.
5 - Temple Entrance
The next
corridor is very different from the others: for starters, the walls are a dark
red colour, instead of whitewashed white. At the northern end of this hall is a
small table on top of which are a flower arrangement and a carved dragon-lion
made of soapstone; there is also a three-legged brass urn full of sand, studded
with joss-sticks, which emit a heavy perfume. From here the corridor kicks
right: the northern wall is a barrier of wooden pierce-work – like a rood
screen – behind which is a heavy brocade curtain hiding what lies beyond from
sight; along the southern wall are two heavily-lacquered coffers and a large
bronze Buddha on a teak stand: in the coffers can be found copies, in scroll
form, of the Tale of Priest Kwan and
the blasphemous Goddess of the Black Fan.
Occasional chanting is heard from beyond the curtains.
At the
eastern end of the corridor is a heavy door with a peephole: this door is
locked (STR 20).
6 - Strong Room
This room is
the strong room for the temple of the Black
Fan Cult. If interlopers are attacked outside of this location, they will
find the door locked and the inhabitants ready. There are (at least) two cult
members defending the area: they are armed with sickles and are not shy about
using them. Defeating the guardians will reveal that there are several bags of
opium here along with two boxes of Mexican Silver Dollars. These are hidden
behind a Chinese screen at the far end of the room. The players may also notice
a 4-foot tall chimney in this room, blocked off at the top by a metal grille:
from below they can hear ghastly cries and sounds of inhuman savagery,
emanating from a lower level within the building (ie. the Horrible Basement).
7 - The Room of the Presence
The first
thing to be wary of with this room is the act of rushing in: there is a
trap-door just inside that will drop invaders down into the Horrible Basement,
unless they make a DEX x 5 (or Dodge)
roll to bypass it.
If the
players avoid this peril, they will encounter a refined and beautiful Chinese
woman who speaks their language and appears, to all intents and purposes, to be
on their side. This is of course, the Bloated Woman herself, using the power of
the Black Fan to manipulate the
senses of her enemies.
Nyarlathotep,
in his form as the Bloated Woman, is the threat confronting the party here. She
is able to manipulate the minds of those who oppose her, using their weaknesses
to induce them. Along with her here are the Red Pole and the White Paper Fan,
executives in the Bloated Woman’s elite, who will eagerly die in her defence.
According to
the needs of the Keeper’s story, the Bloated Woman might well be currently weak
and in need of sustenance: she will await an opportunity to feast upon the
first victim she can find. This will be either the Red Pole or the White Paper Fan if she cannot get any of the party
members to submit to her hypnotic whims (NB: that she cannot feed without
dropping her illusory disguise). Players who see her fulfil her gruesome
appetites will have to make Sanity Rolls
to oppose her vile schemes.
This
encounter should ideally devolve upon the issues developed by the alien entity;
the party is up against an ancient deity with untold power: their strength
should lie in their ability to stay the course towards their chosen ends, in
this case freedom, clear of the Bloated Woman’s interference. In the next room
are 10 cultists who will come to their goddess’s defence if requested.
8 - The Room of Chanting
Beyond the
pierce-work wooden barrier and curtain that conceals the horrible excrescence
that is the Bloated Woman, is the
area where her more mundane worshippers pray. 10 of these fellows are chanting
here but will break their devotions to come to their Goddess’ aid.
9 - Armoury
This is the
Armoury of the Temple. In here are any number of sickles and three rifles which
are used to guard the two loopholes monitoring the temple and its approaches.
There are at least two cultists here at all times.
10-The Horrible Basement
In the
basement below are 20 degraded humans, bereft of Sanity and clothing, and
wallowing in the “refuse of human occupation” (SAN roll: 1d3/1d10). All of
these captives mutter vaguely the words of various blasphemous poems from the Tale of Priest Kwan and are incapable of
identifying themselves; they all reverently await the opportunity to feed the
dragon-toothed goddess, and are completely out of their minds.
*****
THE BLOATED WOMAN, Avatar
of Nyarlathotep
This avatar of Nyarlathotep takes the
form of a 600-pound, seven-foot-tall vaguely female horror. It has two ropey
tentacles instead of arms and many lesser tentacles sprouting from its rolls of
sickly yellow-grey flesh; another tentacle sprouts from below its eyes. The head
has five lumpy chins each supporting a ruby-lipped, fanged mouth. This
monstrous bulk is swathed in yellow and black silk, with a girdle from which
hang several sickles and the infamous Black Fan.
If destroyed in this form, Nyarlathotep
collapses into a heap of reflexively twitching tentacles which burrow quickly
into the earth and disintegrate. The Bloated Woman rises once more from this
wreckage in 1d6+2 months.
Cult
This avatar is worshipped almost
exclusively in China with Shanghai as its major cult centre. Sacrifices to the
Bloated Woman take the form of mutilations and dismemberments by a sacred cult
sickle, in a process reminiscent of the ‘Death of A Thousand Cuts’.
The cult has been purged a number of
times in the past but, given the ability of this creature to regenerate, it has
re-emerged as many times. The cult has adopted many pseudonyms over the years
–‘The Cult of the Bloated Woman’, ‘The Cult of the Black Fan’, ‘The Golden
Crescent Tong’ – and has managed to survive most attempts at persecution. An
attempt was made in the 1920s to establish a cult centre in Paris; however,
this manifestation was successfully negated by persons unknown.
In ancient times the cult was generally
small and secretive, occasionally emerging as part of the ritual practises of
scattered chiu chao organisations,
especially amongst the pirate tribes of Fukien province. Recently however, the
cult has blossomed and is growing ever stronger with a centralised organisation
emerging in Shanghai.
Members of the cult can be identified by
the cognoscenti in a number of ways:
firstly, they usually have the characters which identify their deity tattooed
in their left armpit; secondly, they tend to arm themselves with sickles and.
for preference, choose to hack off the limbs of their targets and retreat,
watching their victims bleed to death; finally, they tend to pass messages
amongst their ranks by means of black paper fans, upon which secret, encoded
missives have been written. The priests of the Order all wear black and yellow silk
robes in emulation of their deity.
Due to the coastal focus of the cult, it
has forged strong links with the Deep One communities of the eastern seaboard
of China. This has led to the fact that many cult members are Deep Ones, or
Deep One hybrids themselves.
Attacks
& Special Effects
The avatar can attack twice in each round
with its major tentacles. When first grabbed by one of these appendages, the
victim takes 3d3 points of damage. On subsequent rounds, the victim is gripped
and mouthed by one of the revolting maws: this ‘Kiss of the Bloated Woman’
drains INT at a rate of 1d6 permanently from the victim. As long as the victim
has INT left, they can try to escape by pitting their STR against the ‘Woman’s
on the Resistance Table. When the victim has no INT left, their skull bursts
open and the avatar gulps down the still-living brains.
The Outer God has a number of smaller
tentacles which can attack, wielding sickles. 1d6 of these limbs can attack
opponents in a single round.
THE
BLOATED WOMAN, Goddess of the Black Fan
STR: 31
CON: 44
SIZ: 26
INT: 86
POW: 100
DEX: 19
Move: 12
SAN: n/a
Damage
Bonus: +3D6
HP: 35
Weapons: Arm Tentacle 85%, damage: 3d3+hold for “Kiss”; Sickle 50%, damage: 1d4+3+db; “Kiss of the Bloated Woman” automatic when Grappled, damage: destroys 1d6 INT
Armour: None
Spells: The Bloated Woman knows all Mythos
spells
Skills: As the Keeper desires
SAN
Loss: It costs 1d8/1d10
Sanity points to see the Bloated Woman in her true form, undisguised by the
Black Fan
The Black Fan
Exclusively the province of that avatar
of Nyarlathotep known as the Bloated Woman, this artefact has the ability, in
the hands of that creature, of concealing its blasphemous bulk and giving it
the appearance of a beautiful Chinese courtesan. Some sources say that the ‘Fan
must be kept opened before the face of this creature in order to confer its
benefits; however the Tale of Priest Kwan
mentions that the ‘Fan must merely be kept open and moving about the person of
the ‘Woman in order to work. More research is obviously required.
Regardless of the exclusivity of this
artefact, it must be pointed out that members of the cult to this obscene
presence use similar fans in their magic casting and other rituals. Triad
spells to deflect harm, as well as others from the t’ai p’ing t’ao, are often inscribed upon such inky fans, along
with other, less usual blessings from their ‘goddess’. The fans are also useful
in identifying the cult members to each other, as well as the cognoscenti, and are often used to relay
hidden messages.
*****
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