Hmmm…anyone care to take a crack at explaining the artwork on Xiang Fang’s card? It looks like she went shopping and the cashier stapled the receipt to her forehead.
Happy to help! She is most likely a version of the legendary Chinese “jumping ghost,” or Jiangshi.
The receipts are in fact ‘seals’ intended to prevent her from spontaneously rising up and going zombie-berserk. There are versions of this idea in both Japanese and Chinese religious traditions. You’ll see the seals in almost any Chinese or Japanese film/comic/whatever that deals with the supernatural.
There was a Jiangshi in the original Doomtown CCG, in the Maze Rats faction, but I’m having a hard time locating the image just now. I’ll scan it later if nobody else is able to find it first.
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yeah, she seems to be an abomination that He Fang controls with blessed seals. Apparently the 108 use her as an exhibit when she’s not… active? I suppose.
She’s not an exhibit, she’s carrying loot. They just kind of… hang bags off her arms, since she can’t bend them.
Ahh, see, it was the flavor text that threw me off, since she’s not being used as a hat rack anymore it looked like the speaker was just implying they hung -other- things on her.
I mean, they did, clearly, but that she was still stationary like a hat rack.
Here’s the classic Doomtown version of Jiangshi/Gyonshee - it seems I am not allowed to upload here, so I hope this link works:
http://postimg.org/image/9vlxl4b7t/
The mechanics are similar- somebody has to be there to take off the seal, and then the zombie with a receipt stapled to his/her head is unleashed.
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Awesome…Thanks for the info…makes the card much cooler now that I understand what going on.
I don’t think you get what’s going on yet! And I am going to 'splain because it is super cool.
Take another look at He Fang’s art and flavor – he’s not a foul necromancer making weapons, he’s carrying out his actions with respect and reverence, and he talks about death taking you home.
See, the origin of the myth of the jiang shi was that they were a service provided by Taoist priests, like He Fang is. It was very important in old China to be buried in your ancestral crypt, or at least in your hometown, because otherwise your ghost would get homesick. So the families of people who died far from home would pay Taoist priests to reanimate the dead guy and teach him to “hop” the way home.
That’s what He Fang does.
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Ohhhhhh now I get it… He Fang is like Uber- for the dead.
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