“Imagine a
person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare
and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the
true cat-green ... one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past
and present ... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr.
Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man.”
–Sax Rohmer, The
Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
Arch-villain of a long series of
thrilling novels by the British author Sax Rohmer, the ‘Devil Doctor’ is an
archetype of the sinister Triad leader and eminently suitable for Keepers to
establish as a nemesis for their Investigators. The name ‘Fu Manchu’ gives an
indication as to the character’s heritage and has been suggested to actually be
a title of honour, meaning ‘the Warlike Manchu’.
In the early novels Fu Manchu works as a
subordinate leader in a deadly secret society called the Hsi Fan. As the stories progress, he rises in rank until, ultimately,
he rules the tong completely and
commits their efforts to the expulsion of the Communists and the reinstatement
of the Ch’ing Dynasty. During the Boxer
Rebellion, Fu Manchu is tentatively identified as part of the Imperial
household and disappeared as the Dowager Empress fled Peking at the lifting of
the Siege.
Fu Manchu’s schemes are byzantine and
terrifying, slow to unwind but deadly in their effect. He spends much time
outside of China plotting to overthrow governments and to destabilize
economies. He targets his foes with a bewildering array of subtle weapons - "pythons and hamadryads... fungi and my
tiny allies, the bacilli; ... my black spiders" – and regularly
recruits such assassins as the Thugs and the Dacoits, along with his own tong minions. Notorious amongst his
arsenal are the ‘Zayat Kiss’ and the ‘Flower of Silence’ both of which reveal
his dominance over the arts of Chinese alchemy and herbalism. Fu Manchu is
supposedly one of very few practitioners to have unlocked the secrets of the
life-extending Chinese elixir vitae,
as revealed in the ancient texts.
Whether Investigators would encounter the
‘Devil Doctor’ himself in Shanghai is up to their Keeper; however, the
insidious presence of the Hsi Fan is
a constant threat hanging over the treaty port.
Great things about Fu Manchu!
Fu Manchu’s activities continue well into
the Twentieth Century by virtue of the fact that he has cracked the secret of
immortality contained in the ancient Chinese alchemical texts. Sax Rohmer’s
chronicles of the ‘Devil Doctor’ continue well into the ‘Fifties without a hint
that the ‘Warlike Manchu’ might have been slowing down (and this is true of
Nayland Smith and Petrie too, but with much less rationale). Keepers who wish
to use Fu Manchu as a nemesis for their Investigators should take note of the
following details.
Fu Manchu begins as a low grade leader in
the Si Fan, in a sub-branch known as the Order of the White Peacock; eventually
he breaks free of this organisation and strikes out on his own. By the end of
Rohmer’s narrative, he is a powerful figure in his own right, working to depose
the Communist control of China and restore the Manchu Dynasty. Some Keepers may
choose to describe the Si Fan as a shadowy organisation under the control of
Hastur in his avatar as the Emerald Lama (something of which Rohmer may have
strongly disapproved) and this is a suitable device to incorporate the Mythos
into an otherwise non-Lovecraftian trope.
Fu Manchu’s powers are less magical than
they are arcane: Nayland Smith and Petrie spend much time tearing down the mystery
of Fu Manchu’s powers and attempting to explain his abilities in prosaic terms.
The ‘Devil Doctor’s’ powers consist mainly of an exceedingly puissant type of
hypnotism, a broad knowledge of alchemy and chemistry, a solid understanding of
biology - especially in regard to poisonous invertebrates and snakes - and a
firm knowledge of herbalism. Fu Manchu is no stranger to showmanship either,
and enjoys dressing up his mayhem in the classic style of a James Bond villain.
Amongst his arsenal are the following treats:
Mimosa
Extract – this is a
distillation of this plant species which emits a heady and soporific perfume.
It is used to render victims unconscious in much the same manner as chloroform.
We are told however that the concoction doesn’t have the dangers and
after-effects associated with that other drug.
The
Lotus Gate – a poison
probably distilled from the Black Lotus or the Flower of Silence. Fu Manchu
uses it to spare his victims the rigours of his more abominable death traps. He
offered it to his own daughter to spare her the full horror of being burnt
alive after she betrayed him.
The
Porcelain Potion – by
means of this admixture, Fu Manchu can place a victim into a frozen state of
suspended animation. The victim becomes transfixed, pale and cold, exactly as
if they were sculpted from porcelain. This state can be maintained for up to
six months.
The
Zayat Kiss – This is the
bite of a rare and deadly centipede (Scolopendra zayatii) cultivated by Fu
Manchu. The bite leaves an ugly red welt on the skin, similar to a lipstick
kiss. The centipede can target its victim by means of the application of a
particular perfume endemic to the orchids of the creature’s homeland.
Hamadryads – This is an archaic term for cobras of
all types. Fu Manchu specialises in the cultivation and use of the King Cobra,
the largest of the genus Elapidae.
Things not so good about Fu Manchu...
After reading a selection of these works,
the reader almost invariably begins to ask why did Sax Rohmer bother making Fu
Manchu Chinese? It’s obvious that Rohmer knows a lot about India and Burma and
almost equally obvious that he knows little about China or its inhabitants. The
books are littered with Kali-worshipping Thugs and Dacoits, Burmese
executioners, kris-wielding Orientals of indeterminate origin and Egyptian
slave girl temptresses; however, there is little to pin anything down as
quintessentially Chinese.
Of course, we must understand that Rohmer
was simply tapping into a broad vein of xenophobia prevalent amongst his
readers. At the time of his earliest novels, England was alive with tales of
white slavery and urban black witchcraft, neither of which could be
definitively substantiated by the authorities. Rohmer’s fans had grown up with
salacious stories such as Richard Marsh’s The Beetle, Stoker’s Dracula and
Meadows-Taylor’s Confessions Of A Thug and were thus primed for just the type
of mish-mashed pastiche of everything Oriental that Rohmer was ready to write.
Rohmer was tossing everything into the mix; he wasn’t the least bit concerned
with accuracy (which makes it kind of odd that he takes such pains to get the
Latin names of plants and animals correct).
This bigoted kind of depiction is nothing
new to readers of Lovecraft, whose distinct horror of ‘the Italian’ and ‘the
Jew’ crops up repeatedly in his tales. As we read this source material for our
games, we necessarily edit out these views from our enjoyment, as we do with
similar negative slurs in, say, an Agatha Christie thriller. In just such a
fashion it is possible to read the Fu Manchu canon and to pick and choose what
is useful and what can be discarded. It is well to remember also that Rohmer’s
own attitudes towards his characters softened over time and the racist tone
drops away almost completely in the later novels.
The only other thing which may cause a
momentary pause with these books is the sense of melodrama which sometimes
crosses the line into the realm of high camp. Many scenes end with Fu Manchu’s
minions throwing (poisoned) knives or darts as they flee into foggy back
alleys: these always miss their intended target – usually Nayland Smith – by an
inch or so. It happens so regularly as to beg the question as to why the Devil
Doctor doesn’t just hire a professional sniper. Dr Petrie is often so barely
sketched that he comes off as a non-existent cipher; Fu Manchu is always merely
suggested, or described at one remove, but invariably seems more realistic than
Nayland Smith, with his swag of abnormal tics and camp mannerisms.
Interestingly, Rohmer’s throw-away characters are the most sympathetic and
realistically drawn – whether they be the Devil Doctor’s Machiavellian
daughter, Fah Lo Suee, or a low-ranking constable making a grim discovery while
walking his rounds – but they are correspondingly the least capable or
effective participants in the stories.
So, caveat emptor is the advice for
anyone thinking of treading this path. These tales are pulpy, moody, noir-ish
and sensational, but they are in no way ‘high art’, neither are they an
accurate depiction of Chinese lifestyle, fashion or mores. There is a lot to be
taken from them in the sense of plot details, atmosphere and drama; however the
reader is warned to sift carefully...
*****
‘The
Flower of Silence’ (Jatropha curcas, var.)
‘Lost’
plate from the Dictionnaire
Iconographique des Orchidées by Cogniaux and Goossens, Belgium 1896 - 1907
“...On the bed a man lay writhing...His
eyes seemed starting from their sockets as he lay upon his back uttering
inarticulate sounds and plucking with skinny fingers at his lips...He continued
to babble, rolling his eyes from side to side hideously...and now, with his
index finger, pointed to his mouth.
‘He has lost the power of speech!’
whispered Smith.”
-Sax Rohmer, The
Si Fan Mysteries (1917)
Attempts to propagate the Black Lotus
outside the area of the Plateau of Leng have generally met with no success
outside of Tcho-tcho circles. However, the attempts have given rise to a
variety of unlooked-for successes. The Flower of Silence is a hybrid generated
from attempts to graft the ‘Lotus onto the poisonous ‘Physic Nut’, or tubatuba
bush, of the Philippines which grows in arid soil and can reach up to 5 metres
(15 feet) in height.
The Flower is peloric and has three
stamens, two of which function as normal sexual organs; the third hardens into
a hollow thorn, hidden within the petals and which constantly drips with the
sap of the plant. This liquid is highly toxic (POT 18) and can be administered
intravenously if the Flower is roughly handled. The sap can also be fatal if it
comes into contact with the skin, by bruising the petals or stems of the
Flower. The toxin is destroyed if it comes into contact with a sufficiently hot
liquid.
The sap or oil of the hybrid plant
contains a powerful neurotoxin that paralyses its victims in short order.
Initial signs of poisoning include a slow failure of motor control and an
inability to speak; within minutes this process spreads to include basic motor
functions, such as breathing and heartbeat, and the victim soon succumbs.
Within some Buddhist locales where use of the Flower is prevalent, it is
believed that saying the words ‘Sâkya Mûni’ (another name for the Buddha) will
negate the effects of the Flower; in actual fact, these words – or any form of
tongue-twister - are simply a test to see if the subject is poisoned or not.
There is no known antidote for this toxin.
*****
Centipede,
Giant (Scolopendra gigantea)
The ‘Peruvian Giant Yellow-leg Centipede’
or ‘Amazonian Giant Centipede’ is the largest member of the genus Scolopendra capable of reaching lengths
of up to 30 cms (12 inches). They originate from the northern and western areas
of South America as well as the islands of Trinidad and Jamaica. They are
highly carnivorous, capable of eating lizards, frogs, mice and bats. A giant
centipede can completely disembowel a mouse in just a few minutes. They share
territories with tarantulas, with which they compete savagely, eating them when
they defeat them in combat. Females of the species are highly protective of their
young and will aggressively attack to defend their nests
The giant centipede has a body composed
of 21 to 23 chitinous segments, coppery red or maroon in colour, each with its
own pair of yellow legs. They can move incredibly quickly even through dense
undergrowth. Their front two legs have evolved into venom-injecting claws
called forcipules with which they can grip onto and poison their victims. The
poison is extremely potent (POT 6), containing acetylcholine, histamine and
serotonin and causes severe swelling, chills, fever and weakness. It is toxic
to humans, however bites are rarely fatal due to the relatively low amount of
venom delivered in a single bite. Giant centipedes should be handled very
carefully as trace amounts of venom can cause a poisonous allergic reaction
(20%) if it comes in contact with the handler’s skin.
Giant centipedes live in cool dark
places, preferring vegetation in which to hide. They usually attack with
surprise as they are small enough to be rarely noticed in the undergrowth (roll
Spot Hidden to detect). Giant
centipedes can easily be killed by stepping on them or swatting them with a
stick or some other handy implement. A successful attack always kills a giant
centipede.
Centipede,
Giant Burmese (Scolopendra zayatii)
“It was an insect, full six inches long,
and of a vivid venomous red colour! It had something of the appearance of a
great ant, with its long, quivering antennae and its febrile, horrible
vitality; but it was proportionately longer of body and smaller of head, and
had numerous rapidly moving legs. In short, it was a giant centipede,
apparently of the scolopendra group, but of a form quite new to me.”
-Sax Rohmer, The
Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu (1913)
Like other types of giant centipede, the
Giant Burmese Centipede is aggressive and dwells in the damp undergrowth of
dense rainforests. It is readily identified by its vivid red colouring and
larger antennae. Like Scolopendra gigantea, it is capable of reaching lengths of up to a foot long.
S. zayatii is much more
venomous than its South American counterpart, stemming largely from its more
aggressive nature. It has larger forcipules and tends to hold on tenaciously to
anything it bites: those bitten must pit their CON against a POT 10 poison on
the Resistance Table. The bite mark of S. zayatii leaves a vicious red weal on the victim, rather resembling the
impression of a lipstick kiss. The Giant Burmese Centipede is attracted to the
perfumes of certain pale green orchids which predominate in its nesting areas;
individuals will home in on this perfume from great distances. Certain
unscrupulous tribespeople have been known to cultivate both the orchids and the
centipedes in tandem, in order to assassinate unwanted enemies. Washing with a
dilute solution of ammonia will completely remove the traces of the perfume.
Like other giant centipedes, a successful
hit upon S. zayatii will always kill
it.
No comments:
Post a Comment