Christmas Tree by
FreeImages.com / Danka K.

Season’s Greetings!

Welcome to Campaign Mastery’s Great Character Giveaway, and Merry Christmas! This article is (hopefully) going to be posted a few seconds into Christmas Day (my time) so it seemed only appropriate that it contain a Christmas Gift.

In fact, it’s the first of such gifts that are going to be coming your way over the next month or so. Mondays, in the meanwhile, will continue with the usual articles. It’s also worth noting that this month’s Blog Carnival, now almost concluded, is on the subject of giving home-brewed holiday gifts in the form of gaming-ready creations to blogdom at large…

The characters that I am giving away are actual characters from the different campaigns that I’ve run over the last year or so. But more than simply being interesting characters who pose deep and meaningful questions for the PCs to ponder, they are also examples of how to integrate plotlines and research and NPCs, and how to think on your feet. In most cases, I won’t be including stats, because they aren’t really necessary – and so were never developed.

The first one that I have to share is a trio: the featured villain from the last Adventurer’s Club pulp adventure (“Prison Of Jade”). his Divine Mistress, and her Sister….

The First Hint

While on a completely unrelated adventure in Copenhagen, the PCs had a chance encounter with another guest who was staying at their Hotel and his flunkies. They did not get a good look at his face, or payed little attention, but because all four were Asian in a distinctly non-Asian country, in an era before tourism was really affordable, they suspected that the group may have been rivals after the same MacGuffin than they sought, so they investigated briefly and quietly. They learned that the leader was registered under the name Dr Than, and that his party were from many different nations who simply walked out of their previous lives without explanation. There was a police officer from Hong Kong, a fisherman from Australia, and a middle-aged businessman from California.

One of the PCs recognized the name “Lon Than” as belonging to a Chinese scientist/occultist/philosopher of dark reputation.

Notes from behind the curtain:

While (at the time) we weren’t completely sure of the detailed plotline in which Dr Than would feature, and had even less idea of who he was, this was simply a tease that we knew we would pay off down the track.

After establishing that Dr Than had nothing to do with their mission, the players promptly mentally filed him under “red herring” (as intended) and went about their business.

The Buildup

From that point on, we made sure to drop recurring mentions of Asian people disappearing, walking out of their lives, leaving behind family and friends without a word, and at the same time started dropping hints about well-to-do Asians who were acting strangely, “not themselves”. These were never even as central to any given plotline as Dr Than’s first appearance had been; it was simply a familiar piece of the plot “furniture”. A pattern slowly built up over the course of a number of years, a common element: many, if not all, of the people affected had just received a piece of Jade, whether that be a ceremonial bowl, a piece of jewelery, a statue, or even – in one case that the PCs didn’t notice – a jade camera lens-cap.

Notes from behind the curtain:

The PCs didn’t take the time to investigate any of these; if they had done so, they would have learned that those acting strangely but still going about their lives as usual were also withdrawing regular sums of money from their bank accounts (or stealing them from employers or businesses), and that the money was then simply vanishing. This would have been suggesting of Blackmail, another red herring.

Other plot developments also took place aimed at integrating this plot thread, which was slowly taking shape, with the campaign. Since any use you make of this plot will occur in a different setting, those aren’t particularly relevant here – so I won’t go into details.

Encounter with Kali

In the course of another completely unrelated adventure, the PCs received some unrequested assistance from Kali, inhabiting a statue of herself. During that roleplayed encounter, she told the PC having the encounter, “I am not your enemy unless you make me so.”

Notes from behind the curtain:

There was absolutely no hint that this was in any way related to the Jade plotline. It was simply something that happened, and was surrounded by other, unrelated encounters of a Divine nature, so nothing more was thought of it – exactly as intended.

Precipitous Beginning

The encounter that actually pushed all this to the forefront of the player’s attention was a raid on a suspected smuggling ring operating out of a warehouse in New York City’s docks region. Before the raid could actually begin, it was interrupted with a dramatic (and unrelated) action sequence that was the direct lead-in to another adventure about a Nazi Lunar Weapons Platform established using Amazon Technology. This tipped off the smuggler that something was going on; he began burning records and through himself out a 5th-floor window rather than face questioning. Faced with more immediate concerns, the players let the matter drop, sure that the decision was both right, and would come back to bite them before long.

Despite the lack of a living criminal to interrogate, not everything was destroyed before the PCs intervened. They recovered a newspaper article listing the 100 most influential Asians in America, 2/3rds of which had been ticked off; a bunch of mailing tubes, about 20 of which were addressed to the last 20 names ticked on the list; 20 pieces of jade jewelery, some generic and some custom in nature; and the fact that the criminal was a printer of no known criminal record who had sold the family home out from under his wife and children in order to buy the warehouse without comment or explanation to them.

Notes from behind the curtain:

That was as much opportunity as the PCs got to determine what was going on; they regarded it simply as an escalation of the previous pattern, and went about the adventure that we had planned for them at this time, which had far greater urgency in their minds.

The Campaign Backstory

Okay, I was trying to avoid cluttering up this account with a lot of irrelevancies, but have realized that a brief snapshot of the campaign is the shortest distance between two points: where this narrative is at, and where it needs to go. So, in a nutshell:

• The PCs are members of a private organization, “The Adventurer’s Club”.
• One of the founding members is ‘Doc’ Storm, an inventor and adventurer – my co-GM’s Homage to Doc Savage.
• The Club library contains many rare (and often dangerous) manuscripts as well as blueprints for many inventions of Doc’s.
• A corrupt literary agent working for the library in Europe was skimming from the funds under his authority to buy rare books for himself. To replace and supplement those funds, when they weren’t enough, he started stealing books from the library which he considered over-valued and selling them on the black market. In time, this still wasn’t enough, so he stole some of Doc’s blueprints and filed documents, and placed them on the black market.
• The Copenhagen mission mentioned earlier was an attempt to retrieve one of the stolen blueprints which had been sold to the Nazis, and which detailed how to construct (following a 2-3 year program) a nuclear weapon, compiled by Heisenberg.
• The national-security implications of this and the other thefts (which included a heat ray that started a firestorm in Singapore) led the FBI to perform a “hostile takeover” of the club. Doc Storm left immediately for Washington and began to work to undo this development.
• The PCs went about other adventures, and slowly learned that the FBI agent placed in charge was a fan of the club and an OK guy. They then encountered details of a planned coup against the US government supposedly being led by General Smedley Butler, in the course of which, that ‘OK guy’ was blown up by the revolutionaries because he was getting too close to the truth. The wash-up left the club back under Doc’s control, but also left him badly rusty after 6 months of political games in Washington and no adventuring.

All caught up? Good!

The Confrontation Begins

While the PCs were off dealing with the Amazon problem, Doc decided to investigate the biggest problem that he could find that no-one was working on, made overconfident by his success and so eager to get back into the field that he refused to acknowledge how out-of-practice he was. He traced the shipment of jade jewelery etc that had been found in the warehouse to a freight agent in Chittagong, then part of India (these days, it’s part of Bangladesh, but in the 1930s there was no such country).

When the PCs returned, they were whisked away to a private meeting with his wife, Trish Storm, who told them that she was afraid Doc was going to get in over his head. She charged the PCs with helping him – without damaging his reputation or pride, which meant doing it without him even knowing they were around.

What’s more, because Doc would eventually (or very quickly) find out, the usual club resources would not be available to the PCs on this adventure – they would be on their own. So began “Prison of Jade.”

Before they left New York, they identified an unscrupulous Chinese Mystic – not someone on whom they would usually rely – and received a briefing on the mystic properties of Jade.

Yes, this really is Jade – just to demonstrate the wide range of colors it can come in!
Image by FreeImages.com / Tom Low

The Mystic Properties Of Jade

Jade is an ornamental mineral that comes in two primary varieties and many exotic variations. The two varieties are officially known as Nephrite and jadeite. Nephrite can be found in a creamy white form (known in China as “mutton fat” jade) as well as in a variety of green colors, whereas jadeite shows more color variations, including blue, lavender-mauve, black, pink, and emerald-green. Of the two, jadeite is rarer, documented in fewer than 12 places worldwide. Translucent emerald-green jadeite is the most prized variety, both historically and today. As “quetzal” jade, bright green jadeite from Guatemala was treasured by Mesoamerican cultures, and as “kingfisher” jade, vivid green rocks from Burma became the preferred stone of post-1800 Chinese imperial scholars and rulers.

The Jain temple of Kolanpak in the Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh, India is home to a 5-foot (1.5 m) high sculpture of Mahavira that is carved entirely out of jade. It is the largest sculpture made from a single jade rock in the world. India is also noted for its craftsman tradition of using large amounts of green serpentine or false jade obtained primarily from Afghanistan in order to fashion jewelery and ornamental items such as sword hilts and dagger handles. However, true jade can be found in various parts of India, of varying quality. In Chinese and Buddhist faiths, the opaque stones (including most varieties of Jade) are symbolic of the body and mind, the translucent stones are symbolic of the soul and spirit.

Jade is attributed with many mystic properties.

It is sometimes known as the “Stone Of Heaven”, a name that derives from China and Burma, and as the Elixir Of Life. It blesses whatever it touches, and is valued in China for its beauty and powers of healing and protection. An endless variety of gems, vessels, incense burners, beads, burial items and statues have been wondrously carved from Jade, as well as musical instruments and pendants inscribed with poetry.

Jade is the ultimate “Dream Stone,” revered as the spiritual gateway through which to access the spiritual world, gain insight into ritualistic knowledge, encourage creativity, and the ability to dream-solve problems. It is cherished as a protective talisman, assuring long life and a peaceful death, and is considered a powerful healing stone. An amulet of good luck and friendship, Jade signifies wisdom gathered in tranquility, dispelling the negative and encouraging one to see oneself as they really are.

Jade is also the stone of calm in the midst of storm. Its action balances nerves and soothes cardiac rhythm. A piece of Jade kept in a pocket or on a pendant to stroke from time to time recharges energy, and traditionally guards against illness. Jade may also be used to temper the shock or fear of the very young or very old being cared for in the hospital or away from home and family.

Jade is also known to be excellent for healing feelings of guilt, and for extreme cases of defeatism. As a travel stone, Green Jade prevents illness while on holiday, is beneficial for those traveling alone, and protects children and pets from straying or being hurt while on a journey. Green Jade also fosters chi, or Life Force energies, and is excellent for hiking, gardening or relaxing out of doors.

In addition to those qualities:

• Green Jade is a crystal of love. It is supportive of new love, and increases trustworthiness and fidelity. It also inspires love later in life.
• Black Jade emanates strong, protective energies to ward off negative assault, physical or psychological, including self limitation.
• Blue Jade calms the mind, encouraging peace and reflection, and is valuable in promoting visions and dreams.
• Brown Jade is grounding. It connects to the earth and provides comfort and reliability.
• Lavender Jade alleviates emotional hurt and provides spiritual nourishment. Its energy is of the highest etherized spectrum.
• Orange Jade brings joy and teaches the interconnectedness of all beings. It is energetic and quietly stimulating.
• Purple Jade encourages mirth and happiness, and purifies one’s aura. It dispels the negative and increases one’s level of discernment.
• Red Jade is a stone of life-force energy, dispelling fear that holds one back, and urges one to action.
• White Jade filters distractions, pulls in relevant, constructive information and aids in decision making.
• Yellow Jade is cheerful and energetic, a stone of assimilation and discrimination.

Jade has been associated with many deities in many cultures:

• Bona Dea, the Roman Earth Goddess of Fertility and the Greek Goddess of Women. She protects women through all of their changes, and is a skilled healer, particularly with herbs.
• Chalchiuhtlicue, the Aztec Water Goddess and Protector of Children. Her name means “Jade Skirt” or “Lady of Precious Green.” She is the mother of lakes, streams, and rivers.
• Kuan-Yin, the Chinese Goddess of Mercy, Compassion, and Unconditional Love. She is the most beloved of the Chinese goddesses and is regarded by many as the protector of women and children, and champion of the unfortunate.
• Maat, the Egyptian Goddess of Justice. She represents the underlying holiness and unity of the Universe.
• The Moirae, the Three Goddesses of Fate in Ancient Greece. They appear three nights after a child’s birth to determine the course of the child’s life, each having a different part to play in divining his fate.
• Brigit, the Irish Goddess of Fertility.
• Coatlicue, the Aztec Goddess of Life, Death, and Rebirth.
• Dione, the Phoenician Earth Goddess.
• Hine-Nui-Te-Po, the Polynesian Goddess of the Night.
• Tara, the Buddhist “Savioress” Goddess.
• In some obscure Hindi legends, Jade is described as the doorway to Kali.

Notes from behind the curtain:

Ninety-nine percent of this information is absolutely genuine, compiled from three or four websites including Wikipedia. However, it also contains a few items carefully “salted” into the text for adventure purposes – specifically, the last item on the list of Deific associations, and a slight amendment to the “Stone Of Heaven” and “Dream Stone” paragraphs: “It blesses whatever it touches” has a double-meaning in the context of this villain, and acting as a “spiritual gateway” through which the wearer can “access the spiritual world” implies that the spiritual world can also access the wearer through that “gateway”.

In Chittagong

The PCs had various encounters, most aimed at Doc (and which clearly demonstrated both his years of experience, his innate expertise, and how badly unfit for field work he was). Several times they had to act to save his bacon, while walking the tightrope of discovery. Doc traced the shipment through various hands and discovered that the Jade was coming from far upriver, the tiny village of Dambuk in the most north-eastern state in India.

Their contact in New York had also warned that most documented versions of the Hindu faith available to Westerners and those influenced by them had been assembled piecemeal from corrupted forms of the true doctrines, and were not to be relied on. Interpretations and content often varied from village to village and region to region, and no-one knew anymore what was truth, what was half-truth, and what was fiction.

Going Upriver

More encounters followed as Doc made his way upriver, with the PCs in another vessel not far behind. Along the way, they had another encounter with Kali, who invited them to Afternoon Tea through a Herald. When they accepted the invitation, sure that Kali could have forced the issue if she really wanted to, they were escorted into the palace, where they found Kali standing before a golden throne of skulls, bathed in night on one side and bright sunlight on the other. “We meet again, Captain,” she began, addressing Captain Ferguson (one of the PCs). [Pause for reaction]

“Past assistance notwithstanding, you have no reason to entrust yourselves to my goodwill or honesty. Therefore I tell you nothing and give you no instruction, make no demand, but simply suggest that you may be enlightened on your quest if you seek out Mahatma Sharma in the village of Chapar. Have no doubt that if required by Karma to do so, I will act to destroy you and the world that surrounds you, but I should regret the necessity. I am not, by choice, your enemy.”

Social niceties such as refreshments and small talk followed, but Kali refused to speak further regarding these statements. She hinted that events were even more serious than the PCs realized, and got the sense that the need to “act to destroy you and the world that surrounds you” was not some remote event but immediately at hand if the PCs were not successful.

The adventure

Suffice it to say that the PCs succeeded on all counts and the game world didn’t end, thanks (in part) to the instruction they received from Mahatma Sharma. Doc attempted to disguise himself using a piece of Jade and fell under the power of Lon Than, but the PCs realized that this had taken place and were able to free both him and the others under the villain’s control (either through blackmail, coercion, or mystic power), and he took care of the rest. At the end of the Adventure, the villain was seemingly killed, but the body was carried away down a waterfall and never recovered – so Lon Than may be back if we come up with another suitable plot.

Behind The Scenes

Creating the adventure was a slightly complicated in that the simplest way to proceed was as follows:

• Work out what the Villain had done in order to get the Jade to New York;
• Work out how Doc would trace the above from the other end;
• Work out what the Villain and his henchmen would do when they discovered Doc’s efforts;
• Work out what the PCs could do about these actions;
• Work out what the Villain and his henchmen would do about the PCs;
• Insert encounters for the PCs designed to establish plot points, eg Doc being rusty, Doc being taken over;
• Work out what information the PCs would need to find a solution to the problems posed;
• Insert encounters for the PCs to put that information into their hands – not necessarily all that obviously.
• Populate the adventure with interesting, colorful, and believable NPCs and miscellaneous encounters.
• Check the continuity of events from the Villain’s point of view; check the continuity of events from Doc’s point of view; check the continuity of events from the PCs’ point of view. Make sure that what everyone is doing (or are expected to be doing, in the case of the PCs) at any given point in time makes rational sense in light of what they know, how they are interpreting that information, and their personalities.

Ultimately, this was an adventure about the interplay of those three layers – the villain, the hero past his use-by date, and the PCs trying to keep him just barely safe without revealing their presence. In general, while we had lots of encounters seeded, and certain products of such encounters that we wanted to eventuate, the course of the adventure was chosen by the players in response to the events taking place around them, and the need to maintain secrecy help keep them from departing too far from what we had planned.

And so, with the background and preamble established, to the main points of interest to others: the characters. This information will be conveyed in the sequence that is clearest to the reader, and not in the sequence that things were learned by the PCs.

Dr Lon Than

Dr Lon Than is an expert in Hindu theology and holds several doctorates in Philosophy. Like many others, he foresees the coming Global Conflict and – based on the events of World War I – is utterly horrified by the prospect and willing to do almost anything to stop it. Dr. Than believes that World War One proved that mankind cannot be trusted to guide itself.

His initial attempts were founded on the notion of world domination in order to steer it on a new course either directly or indirectly. In the course of these failures, he acquired a reputation for “Plots and Plans that seem to come out of left-field and be almost trivial until they snowball into something world-shaking.” His failures left him desperate, sensing that he was running out of time.

Through his professional association with the University Of Beijing, he came into possession of a statue of Kalika carved from a piece of Jade and recognized its significance. Kalika, sensing a spirit sympathetic to her role in existence, began to instruct him in what needed to be done to release and unleash her from the fetters that constrain her from acting. As his tutelage progressed, she was able to grant him the powers he needed.

In particular, he acquired knowledge of how to prepare Jade to make the possessor an active convert to Kalika’s cause.

A mystic ceremony is followed by a bath in two different metallic salt solutions. The jade is then subjected to an electrical arc, and finally the mystic ceremony is completed by binding the jade to his will by means of a drop of his blood. The process combines alchemy, sorcery, and science and is effectively unduplicable by anyone else.

Once a prepared piece of jade is worn, even in a brooch or other setting, they are subject to The Prison Of Jade. Lon Than can take control of the person at will, see through their eyes, etc, provided they are wearing the jade. The person being controlled believes that what they are being told to do is entirely their own idea or is that of the God(s) that they worship, and will bring their full faculties to whatever task they are instructed to perform – even at the cost of their own lives. They will continue to work wholeheartedly and with all their faculties even if Lon Than ceases direct supervision of the prisoner’s mind for a time, and will simply go about their normal lives once any instructions have been carried out.

This is not the traditional mind control; those affected devote their full abilities, resources, and faculties, and even their lives, to achieving the goal of “awakening” Kalika in the belief that a period of violence in which 95% of mankind are wiped out is preferable to the threat of mankind wiping itself out completely.

Because of their “special affinity” with Jade, the process is most effective against those of Asian descent, less effective against those of Western Descent, and controlling individuals of exceptional ability takes his full capacities, leaving almost all his network of servants and assistants on “autopilot”, i.e. no longer under his direct and conscious control and supervision.

With his knowledge, he traveled to Dambuk and began to create a network of willing servants to further his cause.

Lon Than’s Network

Dr. Than is now controlling the richest Asian peoples in the world, as well as various well-connected and useful individuals, because these are the people who can most plausibly distribute small gifts of his “special” jade. When he reaches a critical mass of people, he will have effective control over all Asians, at which point he will direct his followers to worship Kalika, initiating an orgy of mass destruction.

He has subjects in New York, London, San Francisco, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Peking, Stockholm, Sydney, Melbourne, East Indies, Delhi, Batavia, and many other locations: 3-400 important people and 50 minions scattered around the world. Dr Lon Than has control over some of the men and women of the village of Dambuk, who have kidnapped the children of the village to force the rest of the village to work as slaves on his behalf. Only the elderly and infirm are left to survive as best they can. The story of how Lon Than created his network of servants was told to the PCs by one of those elderly residents, from the standpoint of the theology of the village:

“We have always been gifted with treasure from the mountain. We have traded it when we found it for many things. Food, Iron, Tools. Many have come here in the past in search of the mountain’s gift, but none found it. We became accustomed to a new stranger arriving, all excited and eager, every year or two; all left disappointed. Late the summer before last, another came, and this one was different. His eyes carried the darkness of a very deep cave within, and he spoke with a voice that enthralled those who heard it for as long as he deigned to speak. He hired two of our young men with gifts of the heavenly stone, the first who had brought a gift of the mountain back to its home rather than seeking to plunder, and the three set out to explore the region.

“When the dawn came, he went with the others up to perform the Mountain’s bidding.”

* Doc Storm
** Doc is a world-class surgeon, his hands never twitch, and the PCs knew it. From this information, they deduced that he was still fighting for control.

The Immediate Future

At the time of the PCs reaching Dambuk, Lon Than is about 25 days away from a massive shipment of mind-controlling Jade. This shipment will take something like three months to distribute. At the same time that the shipment is dispatched, his servants in various theological centers in India and elsewhere in Asia will begin a ‘reformation’ movement aimed at converting 75% of Indian Hindus to a pro-Kalika doctrine within a year, using predictions about the future that his existing servants will ensure are accurate, in a vast global conspiracy. The delivery of that final mass-shipment of Jade is aimed at controlling individuals who have been carefully put in place in various countries who will almost simultaneously manufacture provocations throughout the world, instigating global war. The necessary instructions for achieving this are being embedded in the Jade; touching it will be sufficient to achieve the goal with no further intervention from Lon Than.

Notes from behind the curtain:

Lon Than is an interesting character. Clearly very intelligent and capable of subtle and sophisticated planning, he is a scientist driven by a variant theology that is ‘primitive’ in the sense of 20th century society. His overall objective is one that the PCs support and have worked to achieve in the past, by doing what they can to oppose the forces leading to war; there is a sense that it would have taken only a gentle nudge for the PCs to have ended in his shoes (except that none of them are Asian). The major difference between Lon Than and the PCs is that he has given up trying to forestall war and ’embraced the madness’.

The PCs never broached the mailing center, though they deduced its location, and so never learned just how narrowly Total Global War was avoided.

Kali and Kalika

The following is a deliberate distortion of abridged elements of Hindu belief for story/game purposes. No offense is intended to any who follow that, or any other, faith. We have made it deliberately difficult to find where doctrine ends and our ‘reinventions’ begin in order to ensure plausibility of narrative, but assert that everything below is either fiction or severely compromised, and should not be the foundations of anyone’s understanding of Hinduism.

I wish you could see the illustration that I did of Kalika. It’s gorgeous, probably the best digital painting that I’ve ever done – turning the skin of a portrait of Kali green and adding “Jade effects”. But because it was derived directly from another artist’s work, I can’t display it publicly or make it publicly available.

Kali, also known as Kalika, is the Hindu goddess associated with empowerment, or shakti. She is the fierce aspect of the goddess Durga. The name Kali comes from Kala, which means black, time, death, lord of death: Shiva. Since Shiva is called Kala — the eternal time — the name of Kali, his consort, also means “Time” or “Death” (as in “time has come”). Hence, Kali is the Goddess of Time, Change, Power and Destruction.

Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilation of evil forces still has some influence. Various Shakta Hindu cosmologies, as well as Sh?kta Tantric beliefs, worship her as the ultimate reality or Brahman. Comparatively recent devotional movements largely conceive Kali as a benevolent mother goddess. She is often portrayed standing or dancing on her husband, the god Shiva, who lies prostrate beneath her. Worshiped throughout India but particularly in Kashmir, South India, Maharashtra, Bengal, and Assam.

The figure of Kali conveys death, destruction, and the consuming aspects of reality. As such, she is also a “forbidden thing”, or even death itself. The Karpuradi-stotra clearly indicates that Kali is more than a terrible, vicious, slayer of demons who serves Durga or Shiva. Here, she is identified as the supreme mistress of the universe, associated with the five elements. In union with Lord Shiva, she creates and destroys worlds. Her appearance also takes a different turn, befitting her role as ruler of the world and object of meditation. In contrast to her terrible aspects, she takes on hints of a more benign dimension. She is described as young and beautiful, has a gentle smile, and makes gestures with her two right hands to dispel any fear and offer boons. The more positive features exposed offer the distillation of divine wrath into a goddess of salvation, who rids the sadhaka of fear. Here, Kali appears as a symbol of triumph over death.

In Kali’s most famous legend, Devi Durga and her assistants, the Matrikas, wound the demon Raktabija in various ways and with a variety of weapons in an attempt to destroy him. They soon find that they have worsened the situation for with every drop of blood that is dripped from Raktabija he creates a duplicate of himself. The battlefield becomes increasingly filled with these simalcra. Durga, in need of help, summons Kali to combat the demons; in some versions, Durga actually assumes the form of Goddess Kali. Kali destroys Raktabija by sucking the blood from his body and putting the many Raktabija duplicates in her gaping mouth. Pleased with her victory, Kali then dances on the field of battle, stepping on the corpses of the slain, releasing them to the judgment of heaven.

Some accounts note the similarity between Kali and Raktabija, asserting that Kali is herself a demon who has been seduced to higher cause by her love of Shiva. There are several suggestions that theirs is a forbidden love, but that Durga granted the pair an exception to the Divine Law. However, the forbidden nature of their love persists, her every touch poisoning Shiva and threatening his life; a burden that they bear in the name of Love. Kali is therefore symbolic of all love that is difficult or denied by fate, and is frequently invoked when choosing to defy that fate regardless of the potential cost, ie total destruction.

Kali is also viewed as a protector of humanity from enemies both within and without. Some accounts describe her as without mercy, others contradict this characterization or confine it in some manner. Kali is an ender of suffering, and bringer of mercy, in many accounts, including some in which she can never experience this quality herself. At least one version of Kali’s story states that she could choose to be merciful and hence perfect, but that she continually bestows this mercy on the suffering of others, sacrificing her own progress through existence for their benefit.

Some accounts suggest that Kali is also the bearer of souls to judgment, and of souls who have been judged to their next stage of life. She is thus destruction and creation in one.

Another popular legend states that after her victory over Raktabija, Kali became drunk on the blood, and lost all self-control, dancing on the battlefield in a destructive frenzy that laid waste to the very populace that she had rescued from the Demon. She was about to destroy the universe when, urged by all the gods, Shiva lay down in her way to stop her. In her fury and exultation, she failed to see the body of Shiva lying amongst the corpses on the battlefield and stepped upon his chest. Realizing only then Shiva lies apparently dead beneath her feet, her anger is pacified and she calms her fury, becoming suffused with remorse. Shamed at the prospect of keeping her husband beneath her feet, she stuck her tongue out in shame and submission, releasing her consort, who stood up and took his place beside her. Realizing that his ‘death” was a symbolic depiction of what she was about to do, she ended her dance – until the next time she is overwhelmed with bloodlust and victory on the battlefield, even if that bloodlust and victory is not hers, but only viscerally experienced through the acts of man. This Buddhist belief contends that any form of battle or violence risks awakening the destructive side of Kali’s nature, a fate that can only be avoided by a gesture of peace and surrender to fate.

Kali is usually depicted as having blue skin, as are all the gods, symbolic of the purity of the sky, but a few rare depictions show her with Green Skin, the color of demons.

Kali’s role is not one of destruction per se, but of the destruction of evil. She is the spiritual vessel into which all man’s violent impulses are delivered and is only able to maintain purity of purpose through the self-sacrifice of her twin sister Kalika, who siphons off all the malevolent intents and embodies them on behalf of the pair. This difference in their natures causes the two siblings to be eternally at odds, with Kali usually holding the dominant position. From time to time, however, man’s lust for destruction rises above his better instincts and Kalika becomes dominant.

Kalika’s philosophy is best summed up in two western phrases: “Giving them enough rope” and “He who lives by the sword”. She encourages an orgy of violence from the shadows, and in the name of her sister, which ultimately burns itself out and restores the karmic balance of mankind – and gives her sister a bad reputation at the same time. Kali knows full well that her good works as a protector of mankind from the Demons and Devils that seek to overpower it are only possible because of the role her sibling plays, giving the two a complex relationship. Kali seeks to permit mankind to evolve and progress spiritually at its own pace and in its own direction; Kalika functions as a fail-safe for when mankind chooses the wrong direction.

Kalika is not an evil force per se, though she performs acts that others might declare evil; her philosophy is more about “clearing the path” for new growth and “cleansing the earth”. She embodies the western phrase, “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.”

Notes from behind the curtain:

In roleplaying the pair – we prepared to roleplay Kalika though that prep was never called upon – I found that keeping the different attitudes toward the PCs firmly in mind helped frame modes of expression and tone of voice. For Kali, that was calmness, placidity, and friendship tinged with either regret or hope, depending on what she was saying. In fact, think Tweety without the speech impediment.

For Kalika, it was angry schoolteacher – “You’ll be sorry if you make me do this,” – tinged with Bugs Bunny, and a touch of Daffy Duck’s somewhat excitable nature – “…I’m quite looking forward to it!”

Wrap-up

So, there you have it: Dr Lon Than and supporting infrastructure. Did he survive? It’s arguable that the PCs, acting as Agents Of Kali against her sister’s machinations, have proved that hope is not yet dead – from an obsessed Hindu fatalist’s point of view. But that was then, and if Lon Than survived, this will be ‘now’, and many things may have changed…

It would be easy to adapt Lon Than to derive from a Fantasy genre, deriving from any death/vengeance deity. The scope might change – destroying the Kingdom before it destroys all its neighbors or something like that. The main elements are to preserve the ambivalent nature of the characters, who are both villains from one point of view, but with a nobility of purpose. And that’s the real danger of obsession: it doesn’t matter what your ends are, the mechanisms that you are willing to use taint everything that you do. Who needs an anti-paladin when there are Paladins around willing to do the job?