New Fiction: Raking Dragons

In AEG’s site, as usual

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Now I can’t wait to see bionic kung-fu and turkish kung-fu…

So, Hamshanks is an ogre. In the previous fiction, Chief Seven-Eagles referred to him as hellspawn. What are ogres and how common are they in the Deadlands universe?

There was a Chinese Ogre card in classic, and was a pretty good card by the way.

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He’s a Chinese Ogre. They aren’t common, but some of the Chinese gangs in California who have access to magic have been known to summon them to act as muscle.

I can’t wait to see the new dudes mentioned in this story. Not long now 'til the rest of us get hold of the new factions…

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Summon? So they are, like, demons?

I’m at work, so don’t have my Deadlands books to hand to check, but yeah, they’re some sort of magical creature or demon (hence the Abomination keyword).

Do chinese demons speak english?

Ricardo Rullo continues to impress and amaze with this evocative artwork.

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He is a hellspawn – just not the Hell you are thinking of.

Chinese Ogres are from one of the various bureaucratic Hells in Chinese Buddhist myth. They do most of the grunt work for the Ten Kings of Hell, and most of THAT consists of tormenting sinners, beating the sin out of them to purify them for reincarnation. Some of them escaped Hell in the Reckoning, and others get summoned by sorcerors; they go up to the human world because most of them just enjoy tormenting those weaker than them more than they enjoy following all those Hell rules.

What Hamshanks is doing on his card art should tell you how well he fit in with all the rest of those violent, gluttonous, bullying ogres.

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Thanks, that’s interesting!

I’m looking forward to more of the story tied to this box. Especially if they’re going to do more of these lecture stories. I want to learn all I can about Longwei.

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Found it kind of interesting 2 of the students are not characters we’ve seen cards for yet, unless I’m missing something in the card art from IOUF, but we’ve got a man with a mechanical arm and a hairy man in a fez. Hamshanks is named and Daomei Wang is obvious as the ‘drunkard from shanghai’. Looking forward to seeing the 108 fleshed out more (and the Eagle Wardens, certainly!)

As for the fiction itself, made me giggle :slight_smile:

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To be fair in Deadlands most any “outsider” is going to be from the Hunting Grounds and some version of a Manitou, just flavored differently based on culture and region.

California and the Maze are exceptionally weird. There are full on old testament demons running around in Lost Angels, Oni and Hopping Vampires in Shan Fan, Wendigo in the north, and Aztec mummies running around in the south.

And Gamorra is basically sitting in between all of it.

Um, as a real-life resident of this area - the whole ‘outsider’ and ‘exceptionally weird’ things are pretty much spot on :stuck_out_tongue:

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Seconded.

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Hey now. For one, Oni are Japanese ogres, and this guy is a Chinese ogre. He wouldn’t be able to tell the difference because a Japanese ogre would still probably punch him and take his lunch money, but we should.

For two, I think King Yan would probably yell at you for suggesting that his purview is just “the Hunting grounds” and his minions “some version of a manitou”. Don’t get King Yan mad at you!

He can be mad all he wants. Hell is Hell in deadlands, just different parts of it.

:stuck_out_tongue:

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True, but I’d say not necessarily. The Reckoners are the Big Bad in Deadlands, but the sourcebooks have stated that there are ancient things that exist even apart from them (I’d reckon that the Cackler is tied to something like that).

As has been stated, most of the monsters/abominations in Deadlands are a product of the Reckoners, feeding off of people’s fears to create new things to make people afraid. A local legend tells that there is a monster living in a nearby cave that eats children … people fear the cave. In an effort to keep up the fear supply, the Reckoners create a monster to live in that cave that eats children. NOW the monster is real and it’s everything that the people feared all along, BUT it doesn’t mean that the monster that they feared has been there all along.

That being said … if a Chinese demon is a real thing living in some corner of the spirit world (Hunting Grounds or otherwise), then that’s one thing. But if a group of Chinese immigrants fear that a Chinese demon is tracking them down, there’s nothing stopping a Reckoner from creating something that walks/talks/smells like the real thing to continue messing with them … but it’s not necessarily a demon from Chinese myth and legend.

In other words … In Deadlands, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and smells like a duck, it may just be a horrible abomination created by the Reckoners to strike fear into the hearts of people everywhere that just happens resemble a duck.

As the same time, real ducks do exist … and it’s certainly possible that some of the stranger myths and legends from other cultures are tied to real things that have nothing to do with the Reckoners.

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Oh definitely. Things like the Cackler, Mohave Rattlers, and the Aliens in redacted prove that… and whatever is being held under the anti-ghost rock under the supernatural prison in HoE.

However, they are all still beings that if considered to be supernaturally evil, either derive their powers from the hunting grounds or the Manitous therein.