Peng Lai, where dreams come true, the Chancel of Kirin

Properties of Peng Lai

• Everyone has a purpose
• Destiny shapes all lives
• Doubt will destroy you

The Geography of Peng Lai

Peng Lai is a great mountain in a still, sun-set sea, with great clouds rumbling above its peak and a lazy, perpetual rain. It has a picaresque quality, like a fantastic painting brought to life. One can only arrive at Peng Lai by boat, which leads to a great gate and wall. One must pass the gate and then travel the 10,000 steps to reach the top of the great, craggy mountain, and only there, at the top, can one petition Kirin herself to grant your destiny. The path taken is called the Pilgrimage and one must necessarily encounter the whole of Kirin’s estates and Powers along the way in some fashion.

The Poison of Peng Lai

Something rots at the heart of Peng Lai. A great crack runs up the entirely of the mountain that has split the temple at the top itself. At first, it was barely perceptible, but it grows worse. Something blackens the plant life and the water, and sometimes, off the beaten path, terrible beasts roam. Not everyone sees these things, but they always flicker at the edges of your vision. This is the manifestation of the poison of Peng Lai, which Kirin claims is the result of some attack on her domain and her estates, perhaps the act of an Excrucian, or perhaps even treachery by Lord Entropy himself (for he is Dark and Kirin is Light). The poison can infect and wound those who stay in Peng Lai via numerous possible paths, but only one vector for infection is certain: If you give into your doubts about Peng Lai, you’ll be poisoned. This definitely includes a player asking if “Will this poison me?” Just asking such a question results in the poisoning of your character. The severity of poison depends on how deep one has traveled into Peng Lai, and manifests as a wound.
Other possible ways to become poisoned may include (or may not include!):

• Accepting food/help from strangers
• Suffering the scorn of others
• Drinking the water of Peng Lai
• Accepting a lie as truth
• Acting in a way contrary to your true dharma
  

XygXygl "Budd" Zardoz, the Repentent Destroyer, Baron of Immigration

Excrucians have launched wave after wave of attacks on Earth, but few were weirder than the time they brought aliens. First, they arranged for the death of Zeta Reticula, among other worlds, and then enslaved the desperate, homeless refugees and hurled them with excrucian-powered weaponry. Budd led one of these attacks, wielding one of Zeta Reticula’s most lethal weapons. Alas, Deirdre and Magnus combined forced to fend off this attack, the first working with the Power of Science (who wielded Occam’s Razor) to prove that the Zeta Reticulans really couldn’t be attacking, and then Magnus turned the engines of economy and hype to popularizing the attack. Through their efforts, mankind was saved and the Zeta Reticulans reduced to jokes and tchotchkies.

As Deirdre waded through his armada, her red blade glowing with disdain, Budd made sure to surrender to her. Deirdre brought her to Peng Lai and cast the war-criminal before Kirin’s throne for judgment. When she demanded to know why he shouldn’t be brought before the Locust Court for serving an Excrucian, Budd claimed he had only his race’s best interests in mind. Kirin understood this and judged that he should serve her as her power: He would save all of humanity by taking them away from this doomed world and to other, safer worlds, far from the threat of Excrucians. In exchange, she would allow him to move the refugees of dead worlds, including his own, to Earth. When humanity was safe, she would allow him to be free once more. He graciously accepted slavery as preferable to death, and gained the Estate of Immigration to better serve Kirin.

He works now to repair the harm his armada dealt to the fabric of Earth’s reality. His Reticulan Conspiracy works tirelessly to ferry people to and from the world. The conspiracy vanishes people from the world, bringing them to a safer world far from the Excrucian war. They also go to dead or dying worlds and brings the desperate back to Earth. Many of them congregate in refugee camps at the base of Peng Lai until they can find some secret nook and cranny on Earth into which they can secret themselves.


Despite his good works, the Powers and Imperators of Earth remember well that he once served an Excrucian and continue to question his motives. Can we really trust the aliens he brings with him? Have they been properly vetted? And are the people of Earth being safely taken care of? Kirin assures everyone that everything is fine, but many people are suspicious of Budd, despite his claims to be a true Earth-man now, having even taken an Earth name (borrowed from one of his abductees).

Budd serves the Song of the Wild; His flowers are the Wild Rose (The Key of Something Different) and Gorse (The Key of Something Enthralled).  His anchors are the Reticulan Conspiracy and his Interstellar Death Engine and flag ship of the Reticulan invasion, the Arc of Extinction.

Immigrants

Budd brings a variety of important races with him into Earth as part of Kirin’s exchange program of hope and redemption. They’re not technically anchors, but they often serve Budd’s purpose. Among others, these include:

Gnomes

From a dying world full of rich greenery, giant bugs, mushroom houses and colorful, twee deciduous trees, Gnomes have escaped the dread hand of the Excrucians to make their way to Earth. Budd often holds them up as an example of model immigrants, as they’ve integrated fairly well with humanity. They’ve found a place in the gardens of mankind and employment in the banks of Zurich. Often, when humans discuss gnomes, they universally imply that gnomes are jewish. This is a stereotype! Most gnomes might be jewish, but there’s quite some Buddhist and LeVayan Satanist minorities among the gnomish populations
Rules of Gnomes:

• Bond: Gnomes are adorable +1
  
• Bond: Gnomes are very good with money +1
  
• Affliction: Gnomes turn to stone while a human looks at them 2
  

Steampunks

Not all aliens from other worlds aren’t human! Steampunks come from a world that’s dying of airship piracy. Starvation, war and general collapse have turned the world into a vast ruin of decaying monuments, badlands and deserts full of lost cities and toxic smogs that hide the land. They came to Earth recently, and have mostly settled into the Pacific Northwest. Some have mistaken their technology and style as a fashion trend and begun aping Steampunks, which the Steampunks consider offensive cultural appropriation.

Rules of Steampunks:

• Bond: Steampunks look great +1
  
• Bond: Steampunk technology is beautiful, wholesome and impractical +2
  

Zeta Reticulans

Hailing from Zeta Reticuli, they mounted an ill-fated invasion in the early 20^th century, under the threat of Excrucian extinction, who employed robotic inquisitors to ensure that the Zeta Reticulans obeyed his will. Since the failed war, wiped from humanity’s memory, which remains only as audio-recorded thought records that some have mistaken for a radio play, the Zeta Reticulans have taken up residency in the world, where they serve in Budd’s conspiracy, helping to transport humans off world, often leaving duplicates or tracking devices in the humans that remain. They also work closely with the governments of the world to give them new technology (and, it must be said, those governments often use Zeta Reticulan assistance to maintain power)

Rules of Zeta Reticulans:

• Bond: Zeta Reticulans are small, weak and ugly +2
  
• Bond: Zeta Reticulans are smarter than humans +1
  
• Bond: Zeta Reticulans experiment on others +1
  
• Bond: Zeta Reticulan technology is dangerous, frightening and powerful +2
  

Abigail Ng, Saintess of Tea

Ah, here she is, the tragic Abigail Ng.  Who is she?  Where did she come from?  What happened to her?

This post has no spoilers, not even after the jump, because she's too central to offer any information on.  She's on par with a few other figures who won't even get a post at all.  But I can tell you a few things about her.

Background

British archeaologist Matilda Carter believed that a secretive “tea blossom cult” existed in on some lost island off the coast of China, and that this cult had a direct line to God. Her obsessive pursuit of it put her in the cross hairs of the guardians of the cult, the Five Divine-Beasts. One, the accomplished and handsome Ng Sin-Feng fell for her wit and beauty and sought to bring her into the cult. Another, the sinister Li Xuan, saw a danger in her and demanded her destruction. Kirin whispered her judgment and spoke of the destiny of Matilda Carter, that she and Ng would bear her a child that would become her heart and saintess. Li Xuan declared “This must not be,” and was exiled from Peng Lai by Kirin.

To fulfill Kirin’s command, Matilda and Ng married and moved back to Britain to raise the child.
Abigail was born beneath an auspicious sign of the pheonix and enjoyed a well-heeled British life, thanks to her mother’s lingering fortunes and her father’s mysterious wealth. Her father raised her in the ways of the tea ceremony, and her mother raised her as a proper British lady. While they journeyed off to China to prepare her entrance into the cult, Abigail was left in a boarding school, dreaming of a new life for herself where she could decide for herself what she wanted to be, rather than being forced to live up to her parents’ legacy.

On her 16^th birthday, the time of her sacrifice came and she journeyed with her parents to China to become the saintess of the Tea Blossom Cult.

Unwittingly ascending to godhood didn’t set well with Abigail. She understood it. She felt as though it had always been there, but she found it unduly interfered with her life. And so, in a fit of teenage pique, she left England when she turned 18 and chose to study journalism in the University of British Colombia. She remained duty bound to serve Kirin, though, and so Kirin shifted Peng Lai to connect to Vancouver, embedding Sun Yat Sen’s garden throughout Vancouver’s history.

She was found killed in an abandoned warehouse by an unknown assailant.

Notes

Abigail's flowers were the Alyssym (the Key of Something Spiritual) and the Gorse (the Key of Something in Thrall).  She had the Cult of the Tea Blossom (with both Sin-Feng and Xuan) as her (known) anchors.  She followed the Song of Heaven, for Abigail sought to make the world a better place.

Ng Sin-Feng

Li Xuan

Deirdre Brooks, Bodhisattva of Education

Dierdre Brooks worked very hard to earn her PhD (in Education, with a thesis on “Epistymology and Education: On knowing when something has been taught” and when something has been learned) and it launched her from the world of mere mortals into the magnificent world of academics, where she had always yearned to be. Only there, she discovered that she was locked in an endless wheel of dissertation, publication, argumentation and lecture. She realized that she learned nothing and knew nothing. So, she abandoned her lofty position and wandered the world.

She studied in the secret laboratories beneath the Rocky Mountains she found data without context. She sought knowledge in the sacred libraries of the vatican and found only dust. She meditated with mystics in India and found empty babbling. She journeyed further east until she found her path blocked by endless ocean, and a single island, and upon the island, a deer. She sailed to the island and clambered the winding paths of its mountain, always following the strange deer. Finally, the deer stopped by a fountain in a cave, and bowed its head.

“You may drink,” it said “But you will forever be burdened with wisdom.”
Suddenly, all became clear: the context behind the data, the meaning of the dusty books, the truth in the babbling, and the purpose of the fountain. “I know what I came to know.” She said, and the deer became a kirin and bowed its head

“Then you should teach me.”


And thus, was Deirdre enlightened. Kirin became her student and offered the Estate of Education as her payment. Deirdre came back down from the mountain bearing a new great work: The Eightfold Path to Smarter Living: the Art of Self-Engagement, a wondrous treatise that laid out the steps necessary to improving ones life. But though the wisdom contained unparalleled wisdom, those who followed its precepts needed a teacher, and Deirdre became that teacher, for she had transcended her professorship and became something greater: a life-coach.

Dierdre follows the Song of Light, and her flowers are the Vervain (the Key of Something Powerful) and the Alyssym (the Key of Destiny Fulfilled).

Kirin, the Koi Goddess, the Light Magister of Tea, Immigration, Education, Etiquette, Koi Fish and Rain

The Chinese Unicorn, the k’i-lin, is one of the four animals of good omen; 

the others are the dragon, the phoenix, and the tortoise. 

The Unicorn is foremost of all the 360 creatures that live on land... 

Its appearance foretells the birth of an upright ruler. 

To wound the Chinese Unicorn or to come across its dead body is unlucky. 

The span of this animal’s natural life is a thousand years. 

-Jorge Luis Borges, the Book of Imaginary Beings

No Imperator is more beloved of Vancouver (and perhaps the world) than the beautiful Koi Goddess, Kirin. She is your dreams made flesh. She descended from her Island that Isn’t, the Mountain of Dreams, Peng Lai, and brought with her the promise of a better life. Her passage makes turns peasants into kings. A wish in one of her ponds can give you the most loving of wives. Invoking her name can substantially improve your efforts to find the cure to dangerous diseases. She has been worshiped throughout the world in a thousand small cults, by those who would be kings, or who would fall in love, or simply those who wanted a better life. Even so, the goddess of Rain struggles with a tragic existence. Peng Lai has been poisoned and cracked by saboteurs unseen, and now her precious Abigail Ng has been taken from her. Torment is often visited upon her, and she makes no secret that she believes this comes from her opposition to many of Lord Entropy’s Laws:

• The Windflower Law: We must all learn to love
  
• The Chestnut Law: We must learn to forgive
  
• The Rule of Man: Humanity deserves our respect.
  
• The Rule of War: Why must we make war on the Excrucians? Has none tried to understand their grievance?
  
• The Crowfoot Law: Makes us all complicit in Entropy’s tyranny.
  
• The Code for Humanity: Let humanity be as they would be.
  

Thus far, she merely voices her objections, but she has begun to grumble that Lord Entropy seeks to destroy her.

She has three powers.

• Abigail Ng, the Power of Tea, who was always destined to be Kirin’s power, who brought solace to the the tormented Koi Goddess. She’s taking Abigail’s death pretty hard.
  
• Bob, the Power of Immigration, a Zeta Reticulan who has forged a pact with Kirin to evacuate doomed humans from this world and resettle them elsewhere. In exchange, she allows him to smuggle aliens onto Earth.
  
• Deirdre Brooks, PhD and the Power of Education, a Bodhisattva who transcended both life and academics to become Kirin’s most potent power.
  

Her Flowers are the Lotus (the Key of the Descending Angel) and the Star of Bethlehem (the Key of Something, Changed Forever)