The Vital Victor Wong

 

“In the 1950s, while studying art under Mark Rothko, Victor Wong had his first art exhibition at the City Lights Bookstore. During this time, Wong befriended Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He illustrated Oranges, Dick McBride's first collection of poetry, which was handset and printed at the Bread and Wine Mission in 1960. He met Jack Kerouac in the early 1960s, who chronicled their meeting in his novel Big Sur (1962). In the novel, Wong is characterised as "Arthur Ma".” - from Victor Wong’s Wikipedia page.

Can you pick this man as the new focal point of your entire campaign?

Advisor to the Last Emperor of China. Poet to Chiang Kai-shek. Conferred with Nazis just before they fled the Communist takeover of Tibet. Was a spiritual trainer the “the chosen one”. Set in motion a movement to open mankind to the 6th Age. Guided the infiltration of Hell. Abetted the utter destruction of ghost demons from the 4th Age*. Set up an operation to deal with the psychic tremors of the assault on Hell. Created a lineage and trained his descendants to protect mankind using eon-old martial arts and magical masks. Are you GM enough to put this change-point hero in your game and confound your players?

Remember, the shortest guy here is the hero...

We are of course speaking of Egg Shen, hero of Big Trouble in Little China and his real life counterpart, Victor Wong. We will be viewing his legacy in film and life as one continuous life, mashed together, So let’s start at the beginning.

David Lo Pan was cursed with “no flesh” by the first Emperor of China, Huangdi**. Portuguese Jesuits have dated his rule to approximately 2697-2952 BCE, right on the cusp of the end of the 4Th Age. (Other scholars have put his ascension anywhere from 2700 BCE, to 3707 BCE, to 6078 BCE!) But by using the Jesuit claim (and their ties to the Order of New Jesuits) we can get close enough to the last age of magick to get this started. Was Egg Shen there? Has he been a guardian, looking to stop Lo Pan’s efforts for over 5,000 years? Was he tasked by the White Tiger of the West, or the Yellow Dragon of the East, aka Cheng Dai? If so, he is an immortal, but which one? One of the elves? A dragon? A drake? Something else?

“You never could beat me, Egg Shen.” - Lo Pan

No, he will outlast you, Lo-Pan...

Later, Egg Shen reappears in the records of men, this time as an advisor and the tutor to Puyi, the Last Emperor of China until 2058 and the ascension of Emperor Tianzi of Beijing. He did so under the nom de guerre Chen Pao Shen. Did he instruct the Emperor on methods to tame the Dragon Lines? Was the fragmentation of China a cover for Egg Shen’s movements and telesma gathering? Six-Demon Bags don’t make themselves! Did Egg Shen need the tears of China’s Emperor to create an alchemical potion to see things that can’t be seen?

Our next glimpse of Egg Shen is during the Second World War, in Tibet. Here he oversees the Chinese efforts to takeover Tibet. Is he trying to stop the Ahnenerbe’s efforts^ to assimilate ancient Tibetan mystic rites? Keep Austrian mountain climbers away from sleeping Dragons? Stop thefts of the sacred Kangyur?

Journalist, artist, poet, actor, millennia-old
mystic master with a singular purpose,
the creation of the 6th Age...

After his Tibetan activities, Egg Shen moves to America and adopts the name Victor Wong. Under this name he helps inspire the 50’s Beat culture. The early “mind expanding” activity of the Beat poets and artists start to seep into the American zeitgeist. This slowly paved the way for magick acceptance and counterrevolution. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” indeed. The death of Rothko, one of Wong’s teachers may have been the result of several of Wong’s “hidden works”, those he inlaid with mystic elements and telesma, to permeate San Francisco’s Chinatown. Could they have corrupted the flesh of mere mortals on viewing? Was this in reaction to the creation of the Wing Kong Exchange and the growth of the Wing Kong Triad and their various street gangs such the Lords of Death? Did Victor Wong’s various alchemistrical artworks spur the Chang Sing’s martial abilities? Are they still hidden? And if found, what power do they contain in 2080? Is the ultra rare, “Red” edition of Oranges a tome of spell formulae?

Next is the action of Big Trouble in Little China. We have already discussed this, so let’s jump forward a few months...

Only Eddy could be taken in by this cunning disguise...

While Egg Shen’s activities in BTiLC are well known, less is known of his return to Tibet, and the training of the “chosen one” Chandler Jarrell. Egg Shen, under the guise of “Old Goupa”, protects the Ajanti dagger, a weapon foci capable of banishing spirits from the Outer Metaplanes. After awakening Jarrell’s mystic abilities, Jarrell is able to send home a powerful spirit intent on devouring a “spike baby”, or more properly its Essence. The spirit has obviously been freed during the assault on Lo Pan. Did Egg Shen get any vacation at all, or was that an act for Jack Burton? Or has Egg Shen learned to bilocate? 

You look like this if your were in 2 places at the same time...

And what if there is a layer to BTiLC that the veiled eyes of Westerners missed? 

Egg Shen changes history, once again...

Under the Wing Kong Exchange are various hells, (the Chinese, famously, “have a lot of hells”) the Black Blood of the Earth, and the Bog of Dead Trees***. Did Egg Shen actually lead them through Diyu, Chinese Hell, to get to Lo Pan’s palace? Or was it a journey into Diyu? With the various creatures, spirits, and hells, the latter makes more sense. This also creates the repercussions for Egg Shen’s next appearance.  

A little Chinese black magick...

Led by Egg Shen, Wang Chi, Jack Burton,  and the Chang Sing “shake the pillars of heaven”. Did they actually shake the 8 pillars that support the earth and heavens? This may be why Egg Shen sets up shop (literally) in Perfection, Nevada, using the name of Walter Chang. Did all that “heavens shaking” wake the “Graboids”, as “Walter” names them? Is Chang’s Market a penance? Did Egg Shen set up a second family to protect mankind and assuage his guilt? Does one of his family still run it today in the PCC? Just how much telesma must it have? And are you willing to send your Crew into Ute territory to hunt/dodge giant shrieking sand worms for magickal worm scat?

Or fake his death. 3 families are enough for even an immortal...

Lastly, Egg Shen sets another family lineage into play. Knowing that “all Asians look alike”, Egg switches to being perceived as Japanese. He then trains his grandchildren in “ninjutsu”, but it is more likely an ancient combat style (similar to Sinanju) perhaps taught to him during the time of the Yellow Emperor. 

Stopping nuclear threats and defeating the spirit masks...

He creates a set of masks for his protégés, which are certainly imbued with magickal energies. Is this part of the “False Face” troubles****, 

Or both!

or an effort to stymy it? Has Egg Shen thought this far ahead all along? Has he created a school of White Tiger/Yellow Dragon operatives to oppose evil “outsiders” intent on destroying the world, armed with fighting techniques from the 4th Age, powered by alchemical potions and the wisdom of Cheng Dai, emboldened by hidden artworks of immense power, and armed with advanced foci?

“I’ve waited a long time for this Jack.” - Egg Shen

Perhaps he has…

*BTiLC. Lo Pan is a ghost and a demon, served by powerful free spirits of wind, water and electricity.

** We are playing a little loose with the timeline given in BTiLC. But doing so gives us the immortal Yellow Emperor, the first Emperor of China, and allows us to play with the 4th Age. Well worth it, Mr. Black thinks. For those who think otherwise, Egg Shen and Lo Pan may have been playing games with each other for 2,258 years ago, (272 BCE.)

^The Ahnenerbe went to Tibet to find proof of “Glacial Cosmogony” in part through “geology and earth magnetic”...

***To be discussed in a future post!

**** To also be discussed in a future post!