Notes for The Jade Paramour

From Torg Adventure

Revision as of 04:21, 4 April 2010

Chinese Steampunk

a female jade sex automaton, she starts cold, but she warms up to you.

Steampunk China is filled with wonders of Chinese ingenuity, including magical marvels. The Chinese use mysticism/alchemy to combat British technology.

It's also the China of opium dens, press gangs, and European domination of Hong Kong and Macau.

Chinese History

Qing Dynasty

1644 to 1912

Also called the Manchus.

First Opium War

1839 to 1842 - British pushed opium on Chinese, Chinese government didn't want it.

Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864)

Brought on by 1st Opium War. Bloody civil war between Chinese heterodox Christians and the Qing government. Perhaps 25 million died.

Second Opium War

1860

Hong Kong History

• 1839 - British occupy Hong Kong
• 1860 - British occupy Kowloon
• 1898 - Treaty giving Britain a 100-year lease on HK

Plot Ideas

A negotiator for the 1898 Treaty or the 1860 sessation of Kowloon or trade delegation is treated to a night with the Jade Paramour.

British have clockwork/steam automatons as bodyguards. Cartridge guns.

Chinese bureaucrat wants to study and maybe replicate bodyguard, so he entices the trader with the Jade Paramour, an alchemical sex golem.

Research

• 19th century China
• Chinese alchemy
• Trade negotiations in China in 19th century

Chinese Alchemy

The pursuit of immortality by elixirs.

Waidan

Outer Alchemy -- potions, elixirs made from things outside the body, base metals to gold, cinnabar

Neidan

Inner Alchemy -- positions, breathing, meditation from inside the body, yoga, Qigong

Characters

Basil Bonewright III, poor aristocracy turned rich trader Wo-Li Pow, Chinese Confucian bureaucrat