San Francisco, California. 1865.

Chinatown is booming. Between the Gold Rush and the Transcontinental Railroad, immigration is at an all-time high. "Celestials" flood San Francisco's labyrinthine streets, bringing Chinese culture and religion with them. However, America's streets are not paved in gold. Few prospectors earn more than empty pockets and broken backs. The rail barons treat their coolies (a slang term for unskilled laborers) as slaves. The government imposes racist taxes (like the Anti-Coolie Act of 1862) that drain away what little money they do make. For many, crime is the only path to success, but the Tongs are every bit as ruthless as the Law.

All things have their opposites, and the oppressive forces of the West are no exception. Taoist masters have also made the sojourn across the sea. They minister to their countrymen, defend those who can't defend themselves, and hunt down warlocks from both sides of the Pacific. They are called the Xian, the immortals.

This corner of the Wild West is an excellent setting for role-playing games. It mixes kung-fu, gunslinging, and mysticism into an exotic blend. Where else can cowboys and bandits rub elbows with Shaolin monks and Taoist adepts? Fans of "Kung-Fu: The Movie" already know what I'm talking about. See also the Jet Li film, "Once Upon a Time in China and America" or Jackie Chan's "Shanghai Noon." (Despite being set in the modern day, "Big Trouble in Little China" has its nuggets of wisdom to offer.)

Just within San Fran, there's plenty to explore. Chinatown will be your base of operations. Its tiled roofs and paper lanterns cut a colorful swath through the city. It hosts the infamous Street of Gamblers, where the Tongs rule over an illicit kingdom of cash, drugs, and sex. This isn't the friendly facade of the modern day, it's a xenophobic shard of an alien world, dark and cold to those who don't speak its language.

The bottom of the harbor is littered with ships. Many were scuttled when their passengers and crews jumped overboard to avoid search and seizure. Others were sunk during times of war, going as far back as the Spanish and Portuguese explorers of the colonial era. Depending on how weird you want to get, there could also be Chinese junkers, Aztec canoes, Polynesian outriggers, or eldritch vessels of alien origin hiding beneath those waves.

The city's notoriously steep and winding streets just beg for chase sequences, though your options are pretty much limited to foot races, horseback, and wagons. The trolleys are up and running by 1865, but they work better as mobile fight platforms. There are lighthouses, military forts, colonial ruins, and the buried relics of indigenous peoples long since gone from this earth.

Conflict abounds between the old and the new, the East and the West. Besides the racism and in-all-but-name slavery alluded to above, the Celestials bring their own wars with them from China. Social and professional groups tend to organize around regional and familial allegiances, some even reserve themselves for people with a specific surname. They clash over property, jobs, and rivalries so old that their causes are more myth than memory.

The underworld is ruled by a loose federation of gangs who call themselves the Tongs. They go to war over territory, business, honor, and blood. Most of the time, full-blown warfare is avoided by simple shows of force; hundreds of thugs will materialize on the streets to stare each other down while their leaders negotiate. When things do turn violent, fists and melee weapons are the preferred instruments. Lethal force is usually reserved for more surgical strikes.

Finally, there's the Hac Tao to content with. Literally translated as "Black Way," this term refers to a whole, big bag of Taoist tricks. There are Hac Tao spells for inflicting disease, divining the future, beguiling the senses, bestowing good luck, cursing one's enemies, and a thousand other petty applications. In the hands of an adept, the Hac Tao becomes a means of healing the sick and restoring harmony to nature. Unfortunately, there are far more petty, would-be sorcerers than enlightened Xian.

Immortal Sanctum

Taoists revere a group of eight Immortals, but the ranks of the Xian number in the hundreds. Immortality, or at least long life, is simply a natural result of living in harmony with the Tao. For these adepts, Sanctum is more a calling than an organization. Warlocks are a force of disharmony, walking hurricanes of malignant chi. Destroying them is just the right thing to do.

Kwong Xue

Dying far from one's home and family is a great tragedy, especially to the Chinese. Fortunately, enlightened masters know how to preserve and animate the dead so that they can return home for proper burial. These bizarre processions are easy to identify. Because the burial preparations include binding of the feat, the Chinese undead cannot walk... they hop.

Xue has performed this service for centuries, but now he takes it to new extremes. He has set up shop in San Francisco as a merchant of curios and antiquities, but his true calling is as a mortician. In the concealed basement of his shop, he gathers the bodies of coolies and prostitutes who have no family to care for them. He prepares their bodies and, once or twice a year, he raises one of the scuttled boats from the harbor and takes his wards back to China.

In the meantime, he attends to the spiritual health of Chinatown: destroying warlocks, recovering ancient relics, and teaching American-born Chinese about the Tao.

• Fully Stocked - Keeps all manner of arcane trinkets in his warehouse.
• Hac Tao - Knows a thousand spells for every occasions.
• Scholar - History, mythology, magic, art... he knows it all.
• Ancient - Has trouble with Western customs and technology.

Luo Qi

Injustice and suffering, like physical diseases, are symptoms of an imbalance in the Tao. Qi treats societal ills the same way he treats the body: he brings unity to opposites. As one of the city's most respected physicians, he fights to keep Chinatown free of the many plagues that fester in Western cities. As one of the city's most feared vigilantes, he fights to oppose the forces of tyranny and oppression that thrive in Western society.

When wearing his black mask, Qi's greatest enemies are the rail barons who exploit, enslave, and execute Chinese immigrants by the thousands. He slips into their homes and leaves calling cards, just so they know they are vulnerable. He disarms the thugs and strikebreakers they hire to 'handle labor relations." He steals from the state and federal authorities who tax the immigrants unfairly, then he redistributes the wealth among his people.

They call him the Sun Wukong (aka. the Monkey King) after the famous trickster of Chinese myth.

• Ninjitsu - Does whatever a ninja can (sneak, fight, etc.)
• Unity of Opposites - Manipulates chi to fly, hit, and heal.
• Respected - Can even get a table at whites-only restaurants.
• Wears a Mask - Would rather get revenge later than get caught now.

Liang Yong

Yong used to be a very bad man. He was the Tong's iron fist; his pistols were the law among the lawless. Action without consequence was his only credo. As long as the price was right, he'd maim or murder anyone. Then, some street punk got lucky and put a bullet in Yong's back. On the bridge between this world and the next, his ancestors revealed to him the full tapestry of his life. They showed him how his actions had affected others, spiraled outward to destroy more lives than he could count. Then, they brought him back to life.

Now, Yong uses his pistols to balance the equation. He sets his destructive talents in opposition to anyone who has profited from his crimes: Tong bosses who paid his blood money, thugs who used him to eliminate their rivals, greedy relatives who swindled the widows he left in his wake. He knows them all by name, because his ancestors whisper in his ear. His aim is always true, because his ancestors guide his hand.

• Gun-Fu Master - John Woo style, Old West action!
• Dead Whispers - Knows things about his victims and enemies.
• Feared - "Does being a good guy make me any less dangerous?"
• White Hat - No longer harms the innocent. Period.

Yaomo

To Taoists, a warlock is just a human being with terminally imbalanced chi. Demons and souls don't even enter into it. Since no one has ever found a way to restore their internal balance, the only solution is to destroy the warlock before they can unbalance the people and places around them.

However, not all Chinese subscribe to the Taoist point of view. At many times throughout history, warlocks have been yoked by the clever, the rich, and the powerful. Some serve the military, as long as it sates their bloodlust. Others rise to positions of influence by serving their own greed. Most are homicidal lunatics, completely out of control.

The Fu Dog

This aged warlock considers himself the Celestial Bureaucracy's repo department. He has served dozens of emperors in his secret office, retrieving anything that China has lost: treasure, relics, kidnap victims, imprisoned soldiers, anything at all. He can feel the pulse of the Earth and track people or objects by their feng shui alone. It's a talent that would turn a bloodhound green with envy.

His connection to China is also what keeps him enslaved; unlike most warlocks, he perceives himself as part of the natural order. As long as the emperor upholds the Mandate of Heaven, that means he's a part of the empire. However, he has no trouble traveling abroad and his powers work just as well in the West as in the East. In recent years, his hunts have been taking him to England and America with increasing frequency.

• Geomancy - Senses the earth and everything on it.
• Angry Dog Style - Master of many martial arts.
• Imperial Mandate - Acts in the emperor's name.

The Hungry Ghost

This ravenous predator forgot his name during the six months he spent at sea, locked in a cargo hold with two hundred other immigrants. Stormy seas blew them off course and, when supplies ran low, the crew simply stopped feeding their "livestock." To be honest, they fully expected the survivors to resort to cannibalism, but no one could have expected the horrors that would follow.

There was only one survivor. His hunger became a cavernous abyss that swallowed his soul and freed his demons. Over the course of a month, he devoured every last man in the hold. Then, he began consuming the ship. The Gaki, as he knows thinks of himself, can eat anything. Literally and figuratively. He took control of the ship by eating the crew's free will. Now, he's loose in San Francisco and he craves the blood of the rail barons who lured him to this accursed land with promises of wealth and plenty...

• Glutton - Eats everything from steel to self-esteem.
• Ravenous - Fights with the manic fury of the insane.
• Ghost - Vanishes into the faceless, Chinatown crowd.

Qu-Jiang-Wang

In the Hell of Sword Forest, every leaf is a blade. The souls of the lustful are sent there naked, where they find beautiful women atop every tree. Driven by their base desires, they to climb up... and cut themselves to bloody ribbons. The Tong warlock who calls himself Qu-Jiang-Wang always liked that story. He runs brothels along the Street of Gamblers and inflicts terrible retribution on customers who mistreat his girls, don't pay their tabs, or just plain tick him off.

He also serves as a Tong enforcer on occasion, because his powers make him very dangerous at certain times and places. Inspired by the Hell of Sword Forest, his demons have given him telekinetic control over leaves of all kinds. He can make them as hard as steel and as sharp as obsidian. One pressed leaf always adorns his vest, but San Francisco is full of trees, and each one can become a hailstorm of blood in the blink of an eye.

• Affinity: Leaves - Not bad with flower petals, either.
• Bad Rep - Everyone on the street fears his name.
• Connected - The Tongs have vast reserves of money and muscle.

Next Stop: The brutal back alleys of the 1980's, where They Live!