When Tangents Attack: The Tale of the Five Fortunes!

(originally posted 30th November, 2016)

PROLOGUE: At one point, I was involved in a very long-running superhero role-playing campaign. One of the things we used to do was what we referred to as “Meanwhiles...” For a story arc, you’d switch locales. It was the same game-world, but some players would take on new characters, while others would keep their regular ones, and we’d switch up GMs. This allowed the GM to take a break, for players to try out new and different characters, and for everyone to be able to explore different locales or sub-genres. In one of these, “Meanwhile, in Hong Kong...” several members of the super team encountered the vengeful gangster-killer Black Ghost Fox. But she was only the tip of an iceberg stretching back for over a century...

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(L to R: Black Ghost Tiger, Great Thunder Ox, Jade Star Fairy, Master Iron Shirt, Typhoon Kelly)

The tale begins at the dawning of the 20th Century with the appearance of a mystery man calling himself Master Iron Shirt. For decades, there had been rumours of an old man with prodigious martial arts skill who, through focus alone, was able to make himself immune to all injury. Blades would bend and shatter against his skin, he would walk unscathed through blazing fires, and shrug of poisons with almost no effort at all. For years, he battled vicious warlords, criminal gangs, and corrupt government officials, but as foreign influence on China increased, he soon turned his attention to them, seemingly appearing at will out of nowhere to strike a powerful blow against injustice, only to vanish without a trace. As the decades rolled on, he became a sort of urban legend and a rallying cry for the Chinese People against their oppressors.

As the years rolled on, he was soon joined by other Extraordinary Heroes.

The masked man known as Black Ghost Tiger appeared battling gangsters on the streets of Hong Kong. Like his namesake, he was as capable of stealth and cunning as he was of tremendous force and ferocity. He possessed supernatural athletic ability, was able to make incredible leaps, run up the sides of buildings, or strike with uncanny swiftness, and astounding destructive power capable of tearing metal as though it was paper. It was rumoured that he had some connection to former bodyguard and mob enforcer Zhao Qi (sometimes known as John Zhao), but nothing was ever conclusively proven.

At the same time, in the streets of Shanghai, rumours began to spread about a mysterious supernatural figure who exacted revenge for victims of violence, especially women and children. Known amongst the city’s very poor as the Jade Star Fairy, she was described as being able to fly, to vanish at will and reappear without traveling the distance between, and to pass through walls. She was adept at uncovering secrets, especially the secrets the rich and powerful wanted kept hidden. No door could bar her way, and no vault could keep her out. Her vengeance usually took the form of humiliating pranks, revealing the secrets of the powerful, or stealing their wealth and redistributing it amongst the needy. Many corrupt individuals felt her sting, as evidence of their crimes appeared in public for all to see. She was as dreaded by the powerful and villainous as she was beloved by the poor and needy.

In the countryside, a man, identified as traveling musician and itinerant farm labourer Cheung Po but calling himself Great Thunder Ox was also striking a blow against bullies. As he told it, he had encountered two fellow musicians at a roadside inn and, having no instruments but what he could improvise and his own, not inconsiderable voice, entered into a contest with them. The contest lasted for the better part of the evening and, at its conclusion, the two musicians had declared him the winner. The first granted him ‘perfected musical harmony’, and the second ‘perfected bodily power’. With his second gift, he had the strength of a hundred men, could shake the earth with a stomp of his foot, or bring his hands together with a crash like roaring thunder! But his first gift was his truest treasure. He could flawlessly duplicate any sound, bring his voice to the softest whisper, the highest whistle, the loudest bellow or the deepest rumble. His voice could carry the sweetest melody, or ring out like a massive bell, punishing all in his path with terrifying waves of sound. He would go on to use these abilities to champion common people against corrupt landowners or government officials, or against gangs of bullies and toughs.

The final, and only non-Chinese, member was the notorious pirate-fighter ‘Typhoon’ Kelly, famed across the South Seas for his mighty strength and strange ability to expand his chest and create powerful gale-force winds from his mighty lungs. The rough-and-tumble sailor shared with his comrades an intense hatred of bullies, and a desire to help ordinary people oppressed or victimised by more powerful opponents, but he also had a weakness for a good scrap, especially when the odds were very much against him.

All five had had cause to oppose Japanese forces in the area over the years, but with the full-fledged invasion in 1937, they found common cause with one another. The circumstances of their first meeting are unclear, with all members remaining tight-lipped with details, except for Great Thunder Ox, whose details were known to change with each telling.

For almost a decade, the team’s exploits were legendary. Appearing seemingly at will, they almost exclusively confined their work to Chinese territory, but had several notable adventures across the Pacific Region. They harried Japanese Forces across the regions, and struck substantial blows against collaborators and gangsters looking to take advantage of the chaos.

Scant months before the war’s end, they had their one casualty as team leader, Master Iron Shirt perished while rescuing factory workers from a devastating gas attack. Several times, he helped bring people out of the toxic, caustic cloud only to return immediately for more until finally collapsing. Some mystery remains over this event, as he had previously been able to resist the effects of gas attacks in the past, and had often demonstrated the ability to go for extended periods without needing to breathe at all. A common rumour is that he was the victim of some external power which interfered with his abilities, enabling the gas to take effect, but as for what this power could have been, no one can say.

Following the war’s end, most of the Five Fortunes vanished into obscurity. Rumours amongst the poor and vulnerable in Shanghai continued to circulate about the Jade Star Fairy, but she made no further confirmed public appearances, Typhoon Kelly vanished into obscurity, almost certainly finding some out-of-the-way hidey-hole somewhere in the South Seas to spend his final years drinking and reminiscing over his past glories, and Great Thunder Ox retired to a humble home in the country. Every so often, he would appear to perform as a musician under an assumed name, but he firmly resisted any exhortations to capitalize on his fame. He was, he insisted, a humble man who only sought to help, but that now he was an old man and all he wanted to do was spend his time eating and drinking and enjoying his retirement. He was always a strange contradition, a larger-than-life man, with a passion for fine food and plentiful drink, far less secretive than his colleagues and with a penchant for exaggerated storytelling, but also deeply humble, and with very few truly trusted friends. Black Ghost Tiger lasted longest, continuing to battle gangsters and other criminals in Hong Kong for over a decade before vanishing. In the mid-to-late 1960’s, a female hero simply calling herself Tiger and dressed in a similar costume, appeared in San Francisco, partnered with the masked crimefighter, The Hooded Hawk. But any connection between her and Black Ghost Tiger is unknown.

Almost half a century later, Black Ghost Fox appeared but again, conclusive evidence of a connection has yet to be revealed.