Shih Demon Hunters

The Shih or the Demon Hunters, is a loose organization whose purpose is to hunt down supernaturals (or shen) who overstep their place in the Celestial Order. They, along with the Japanese organization Task Force Zero were detailed in the Kindred of the East supplement Demon Hunter X.

From master to disciples, they had spread from their origins in China, and now can be found anywhere where the shen walk, though because of their close history with the Hungry Dead, their largest numbers will always be in Asia.

Unlike your run of the mill Hunter, the Shih aren't out to exterminate every Wan Kuei or member of the Beast Courts they find, and are content to let those who actually play nice with the Mortal World be. If the local Thrashing Dragon messily preys on one too many nightclub patrons in the red light district more than usual though, THEN there's a problem, and the Shih are often the solution.

The Origins

Yi and the Wan Xian

The Shih trace their origins and traditions to one man: Wan Kung Yi. Born into the nobility during the Shang Dynasty, Yi was an observant and thoughtful young man who just happened to be trained and GOOD at bashing in the heads of his enemies. Eventually his father sent him on a journey to collect taxes, to expose him to the truths of the world and help him mature into the leader that he had the potential to become.

Yi learned the truth alright, more than his father planned too. The young warrior had seen the things that went bump and ate people in the night, and was horrified to learn that many of these, particularly the Wan Kuei, had massive influence in the world of the living as well. When he returned and informed his father, he was shamed more to learn that his father already knew all of this, but did nothing.

Yi called his old man a coward. His father had him kicked out of the household in response, with nothing but his weapons, armor, and a rickety wagon's worth of supplies to his name.

For five years, the increasingly angry and despondent Yi wandered China, sometimes battling but never defeating the shen that he encountered. He eventually found a monastery besieged by monstrous kumo, but by this point he was beyond caring. Fully convinced that he would die, he threw himself into battle.

But something happened. Yi did not die, and while he didn't realize it, Heaven smiled on the warrior. The kumo were beaten back, but Yi himself was one Aggravated damage dice away from dying. The sages of the monastery found him and nursed him back to health, and as he healed, they talked shop. From this, Yi eventually saw that his father was right in playing ball with the Shen, as it saved his people.

He stayed with the sages for a year, and in that time learned how the supernatural beings had their place in the natural order, like the opposing seasons. But if that was the case, if the shen were as implacable as the seasons, how was he able to best the kumo? One of the elder monks posited that maybe, MAYBE it was because that because at that moment, because of his goodness and virtue, he became the perfect match to balance their depradations.

Yi stewed on this, then asked his host another question: If he was just one virtuous man, how can he serve as a balance to the supernatural? The monk told him to find other good people to help him battle the shen.

Yi asked the old monk one more time. But weren't they good and virtuous men?

Impressed by this UNO reverse play from Yi, the old sage and his followers agreed to help Yi in his training.

Shih Rising

In the decade that followed, Yi and what would become the Shih battled the Shen, and learned from their enemies after every encounter. For every one that fell, two willing recruits from survivors of shen attacks would replace them, and eventually more temples were established to train these demonhunters.

During this time, Yi met and fell in love with Heng-O, who was distantly related to the river spirits, and through her learned that, hey, not every shen was a bloodthirsty bastard. Differentiating which shen was benevolent and which one malevolent was another thing entirely, but these little concerns aside Yi asked Heng-O's dad for her hand in marriage, which the latter consented.

The marriage would produce three sons and two daughters, all of whom would grow up like dear old dad to be Demon Hunters.

Through all this, the shen tried to figure out what force was hunting them, to little effect, as even their mortal minions had little info to give regarding these mysterious demonhunters. The Wan Kuei in particular, with their bloated egos and influence on the Shang court, sent armies to smoke out their enemies, but to no avail.

Eventually even Yi felt homesick, and decided to check on his family. He and fifty other Shih left their temple, and in a loose caravan of pairs or trios dressed as pilgrims, followed Yi back to his ancestral lands. Yi walked alone most of the time, but at every stop "pilgrims" passing by would ask him questions, and he in turn would answer them.

You'd think that there would been a slaughter of shen during this procession, but Yi himself only destroyed seven shen in total, and only because these were either gluttons or killed for the simple joy of killing. Despite his clemency, his legend grew, and soon disciples of disciples that had spread far from the procession began taking the battle to the shen directly. It was at this point that some shen, the Wan Kuei in particular, felt threatened by the Shih's rising power, and decided to work with the Yama Kings (which anyone would tell you is a BAD IDEA) to bring the Shih down before it became an existential threat.

Then Yi arrived home, and found it burned to the ground, his family massacred. His fathers had finally had enough, and had rebelled, and for his audacity the Wan Kuei brought down the hammer, HARD. The males had been slaughtered, and the women and children sacrified. Yi went mad, and no shen within striking distance knew peace.

Of course, no one expected a DRAGON to suddenly intervene, and not just any dragon, but the legendary Kung-Kung, who caused the Great Flood when he knocked down the Pillar of Heaven. Yi and the dragon spoke for hours, while Yi's followers shook in their boots. Eventually though the dragon flew off, with Yi riding in one of its open claws.

Ten Suns Over Cathay

The Wan Kuei of the Shang finally put their plans into action, and enacted a powerful ritual. Supercharged by the Yama Kings, and powered by the sacrifice of thousands of innocents, nine additional suns rose into the heavens over the lands of the Chou, the horse nomads of the north, and turned those plains into dry and dusty deserts.

The Chou, who were preparing for a showdown with the Shang anyway, saw this as a blatant attack, and finally made war with the Shang. As man battled man, shen also battled shen, as having ten shining suns in the sky put a damper on many of their usual activities. And through all this the Wan Kuei and the Yama Kings revelled in the suffering of everyone else.

Three months of this madness followed. This culminated in the forces of the Chou finally colliding with the Shang at Anyang, where the Chou general Wu Wang would cut down the bestial Shang emperor in his burning palace. And high above the chaos of battle, Yi returned riding on Kung Kung's back, storms and rain in the dragon's wake, armed with a bow carved from the Trees of Immortality, and arrows made out of white jade.

Yi took aim at the unnatural suns, and with each arrow snuffed them out, at the same time placing a curse on the Wan Kuei and their Yama King allies. Nine arrows were let loose, nine suns disappeared from the sky, and nine curses were placed. But the cost was high, as each arrow took a decade from Yi's life; by the time he alighted from Kung Kung's back, he looked positively ancient.

Though weakened, he lived to see the end of the war against the shen. As the people celebrated the ascension of the new emperor Wu Wang, Yi asked his followers close one last time, to follow and learn from his children, and bade them to continue to punish the Shen that would overstep their stations. Many swore blood oaths, and Yi used the spilled blood to cast one final curse upon the Wan Kuei before he passed on: the Hungry Dead would never be able to walk under the Sun ever again.

As for the Shih, some would become part of the Chou Dynasty's military for a time, who would grow fat and complacent as the Wan Kuei before them, but a great many others chose to become wanderers, and continued to follow Yi's teachings of only punishing the Shen who overstepped their bounds. The former would eventually die out when their fortress at Kun Lun was destroyed by unknown means (some point to the Yama Kings again to being the cause), but the latter see that the Shih spread beyond China.

In Modern Nights

Shih are by their natures lone wolves, and encounters between other Demonhunters extremely rare. However when two meet the local Shen start to worry, and if THREE are in an area working together, even the Fierce Peoples start quaking in their boots.

Shih techniques are usually passed down from a master to one or two disciples. These lessons have changed surprisingly little from Yi's time, and are shoved into their heads over the course of fifteen years of training. As they say, if it isn't broken, why change it?

Recently younger Shih have began to band together for mutual support and companionship, and while older and more experienced Demonhunters frown on this, this seems to serve practical purpose as they happen in places that are usually crawling with the Hungry Dead.

Becoming a Demonhunter

What does one give to take revenge? For the Shih, the answer is often everything.

Regular Hunters often have regular, mundane lives outside the Hunt. Shih don't, and often have to resort to thievery to support themselves. They will not only take cash from the wallets of the Shen, but even their victims if they're too dead to care. Being a Murderhobo is a lifestyle choice here, and diplomacy and good manners are for other people.

Shih don't actively seek out recruits. Often what happens is that they offer to help a victim of a shen's depradation with vengeance. Those who somehow want to have an active part in said vengeance, and are not put off by the harsh truths that the Shih give as retorts, more often than not become Shih disciples.

When a Shih becomes a mentor, they will quickly dispel a disciple's illusions; their life is hard AND dangerous, their enemies many and deadly, and often they'll live day to day on handouts, but hey. Vengeance, right?

Fun fact: half of prospective Shih recruits are orphans, often kids of shen victims.

Body and Soul of Steel

Needless to say, molding an iron will is one of the first things that a Shih tries to do with their students. This is very important, when most of what the Shih face can cause panic on demand. Meditation and old-fashioned exposure to the causes of fear help with this, though the mentor tries to make sure that their students are never in direct harms way during "training" missions.

It is also during this period where a mentor tries to channel a student's strong and often irrational anger against the Shen into something decidely less suicidal. No Leeroy Jenkinses allowed here, otherwise they wash out VERY quickly, and any Shih master is quick to wash their hands of students who don't get with the program.

Once the anger issues had been ironed out, a Shih trainee must then learn how to cultivate their Chi, as your average mortal has much fewer internal Chi reserves to draw upon compared to the most bottom-rung Kuei-jin (who could always just drink blood from someone for an easy Chi top-up). Once mastered however, this allows the Shih the ability to do almost superhuman feats, like move faster or hit harder, up to being able to tank attacks that would normally kill them... And sometimes, even return the favor.

Parallel to this is the physical training involved, which is in a word, harsh. Shih masters will put their students through the grinder, to prepare their bodies against what the shen could do. After the fifteen year Shih training period, the average "graduate" will be a mess of scars and wounds, but will also be ripped as hell and as tough as titanium, with fists that can punch through solid brick.

Those Who Fight Monsters

There is a cost to all this of course, and let's just say that the average Shih won't be a well-adjusted person. Knowing the truth of the World of Darkness will eventually wear at a person's psyche and humanity, despite all the mental training. The average Shih won't be honorable or even noble, and most will be embittered husks of men and women who sacrificed a lot for little to nothing in return from an ignorant world.

The physical toll will be more obvious, as a Demon Hunter might be in their twenties, the prime of their lives, and yet look twice their age. The overuse of their more esoteric abilities gradually eat into their vitality, and will outright KILL a Shih if they're not careful.

Then there are the more unspoken dangers. The more a Shih's soul gets worn out and jaded, and the more humanity they lose in the process, the more it gets weighed down by this darkness (more commonly known as P'o). If and when they finally meet their ends, all this accumulated angst might cause the dead Shih to return as the very thing they fought against: a gaki, or worse, turn them into a Wan Kuei themselves as their P'o claws its way out of Hell.

Thus each Shih walks on the razor's edge of damnation. But that's just the World of Darkness for you.

To Fight The Night

Ki Superpowers

The Shih primarily use the Quiao or "Bridges", which are ancient techniques of channeling Chi, to empower themselves and take the fight to the Shen. They are fueled with either Yin or Yang Chi, with the most powerful techniques requiring both to function.

The known Quiao are as follows:

• Quiao of the I Shen/Celestial Gods: Uses Yang Chi. The Shih creates paper prayer talismans to hinder or damage their supernatural enemies. The prayers have to be prepared in advance.

• Quiao of the Mo Kung/Devil Fighter: Uses Yang Chi plus some stat rolls. This allows the Shih to buff temporarily their physical capabilities in exchange for their vitality. The most powerful technique can theoretically raise all their stats to 9, but leave them unable to even move until they've rested for more than a full day.
• Quiao of the Yu An/Jade Harmony: Requires Jade. Techniques that give the Shih mental resistance to Shen mind control effects like Delirium. The most powerful ritual can allow a Shih to open an actual gate into the Spirit World.

• Quiao of the Feng/Phoenix: Mostly Willpower. Techiques that allow a Shih to Healbot. The most powerful available ritual hilariously can regenerate all damage done and yet KILL the Shih at the same time, resulting in a pristine and healthy looking but very dead PC.

• Quiao of the Shi/Serpent: Uses Yang Chi (mostly). Techniques that allow the Shih to turn their body into a living weapon. Using this a Shih can harden their skins to steel, while their strikes cut like a Power Sword through Power Armor.

• Quiao of the Chien/Mirror: Uses Yang Chi (mostly). Techniques to defend against life drain, and to steal the Chi of the Shen and use it against them.

• Quiao of the Long Ling/Dragon Ruler: Powerful psychological techniques that use the force of Will of the Shih against the Shen. The most powerful ritual allows a Shih to create an effect similar to Delirium that affects the supernatural.

• Quiao of the Meng/Dream: Techniques to heal the mind. The most powerful ability actually tamps down on the P'o through force of will.

• Quiao of the Zhu Mao/Resilient Cat: Mind over matter abilities, mostly related to movement or travel. The most powerful ability is essentially a Jedi Force Push that does damage depending on the target's momentum.

In Modern Nights, no Shih may have more than five dots in any of the Quiao, and many of the more powerful techniques are lost to time. Likewise, unlike the Kuei-jin, even the most powerful Demonhunter maxes out at 5 Yin and 5 Yang Chi, so they REALLY have to manage its use.

HOWEVER these Ten-dot Quiao become available in the Time of Judgement scenarios, which essentially turn the Shih into mini-Exalted, especially since they gain the ability to draw from ambient Chi in the environment (which is an ability for Bodhisattva-level Kuei-jin), getting rid of the pesky Chi limitation.

Let's Kung Fu Fighting

The Shih by their very natures, are very good at throwing down hands against the Shen and living to tell the tale. They have special maneuvers dedicated to taking down specific supernaturals, and any Shih with a two dots in Martial Arts or Melee will know one special technique, and five dots maxes one out a 4 techniques.

• Snout Strike: Useful against shapeshifters, and targets their sensitive spots. Deals normal damage plus reduces a Dice Pool by 1, but too much may cause them to Frenzy. Often used as a first strike to even the odds.

• Chi Breaker: Tailored against Wan Kuei. A successful hit leaves a Kuei-jin unable to channel their Chi, regardless of whether damage is soaked or not, and lasts one turn per success.

• Hundred Star Shower: Uses Yin Chi and throwing daggers or shuriken. Each projectile deals Aggravated damage, though Kuei-jin may use Yin mantle to avoid the damage.

• Jaw Hammer: Shatters the jawbones and fangs of enemies, disabling bite attacks. The damage cannot be soaked, but a successful strike leaves the Shih unable to dodge for a turn. A high-risk attack.

• Fading Light Strike: Steals power from enemies, in this case Rage, Chi, or Quintessence. The attack causes no physical damage, but requires a weapon with reach to do.

• Chain Snake: Needs a chain-based weapon. Use the chain to avoid a strike, entangle an opponent's arm, and strike back at the target. Using a short chain weapon like a nunchaku only binds the enemy, and allows no strikeback.

• Twisting Thrust: Use a bladed weapon to impale a foe, and then follow up with a body throw.

• Prone Attacks: Shih are perfectly capable of using all their attacks while prone, and suffer no penalties, while their enemies have difficulties hitting them back.

• Dagger Claw: Useful against the Leaping Claw attack of Werewolves and the like, but also against flying kicks. The Shih's fingers are like daggers and flay and cut through their foes easily.

Important NPCs

• God Slayer: A figure of reverence and mystery that has often showed up during the Shih's greatest battles against the Shen, all they know is that the God Slayer is a) powerful and armed to the teeth, b) utterly silent, and c) has a third eye on his forehead. Many think that he's a repentant Wan Kuei, others Yi himself returned, or even a Barbarossa-style King in the Mountain, sleeping in an unknown tomb awaiting the day the Sixth Age rolls in.

• • The Time of Judgement scenario Trumpet of Mount Meru show that he's utter cheese, with several 10-dot Quiao in his toolkit, on top of having 9s in his Physical Traits.

• Mister Komodo: A venerable Japanese Shih, who often hangs around airports waiting to gank Wizards, though he seems to get along with other shen. No one seems to question the arsenal of weapons he carries around, and seems to know almost everyone he meets, down to their family... Which bothers most Shih, as they somehow could never remember ever meeting him.

• Chen Chih: The Judge of Dust is supposedly dead, but surprisingly gets around for a dead man. Most of the time he is content to hunt Wan Kuei, and actually eats them once he's defeated them. As such he's not respected by shen, but outright feared, and many other Shih who've encountered him find him unnerving.

Meta

Exalted Versus World of Darkness refers to the Shih as possible sources for fighting styles that can replace the super-powered Martial Arts no longer available to modern Exalts.