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 Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 8:45 am
We are the Dragons of Yang
We are the Laughing Rainbows
We spread joy, we worship life
We are the lovers of the Scarlet Queen
The cousins of the Ebon Dragon
We are the Thrashing Dragons
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 5:52 pm
Dharma Overview
Like trees, the Laughing Rainbows of the Thrashing Dragons Dharma rise out of the fertile ground and unite it with the raging sky. These vampires are as alive as the undead can be. Bursting with life-energy, the followers of the Green Way resemble the forces of nature - too powerful to be silenced, too vivid to be real.
Those forces inspired Xue to put down his staff and meditate. While a thunderstorm fed the rivers and the grass, the Arhat put aside his misery and took comfort in the rain.
Around his feet, ants crept; at his back, insects scurried. Shrouded by ten thousand leaves, birds called to one another.
Try as he might, Xue could not shut out the overwhelming pulse of life. At last the rains subsided and a rainbow curled across the sky. Xue laughed as the birds crossed through the colours, and that moment he awakened.
Moved by a life-force too potent to be caged, these Dragons thrash around like restless serpents. Their insights come through flesh-vigils and forest musing.
As far as they're concerned, creation is a rainbow - illusory, but too colourful to ignore. In its colours, they see the unity and symmetry of Heaven. The idea, as the Dragons see it, is to experience each of those colours as vividly as possible.
As lovers of the Scarlet Queen, they embody her life-force; as cousins of the Ebon Dragon, they beat him into submission or perish trying.
As a rule, Laughing Rainbows are messy and vulgar, indulging themselves with wild feasts and drunken orgies - celebrations that usually feature living "entertainment," too. Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia hide Rainbow temples so infamous that even vampires avoid them.
The Thrashing Dragon path isn't evil per se, but the Way's aggressive approach to life usually includes ******** it from every conceivable angle, willing or otherwise.
Naturally, these Kuei-jin do more than just copulate. Shunning society's restrictions, they explore life's lush infinities through martial arts and Tantrick practices. Since life assumes ten thousand forms, most Thrashing Dragons master shapeshifting arts. To run with the animals, you must become one first.
Study requires suitable subjects. While the remote Bone Flower drifts across her graveyard, the Thrashing Dragon capers in the cities, forests and seas. Their ferocity draws other creatures to their side, and many willingly join their dance.
Charismatic as a tiger, these vampires reveres their victims even as they drain their living blood. The vessel is divine to the Rainbow path -more divine than the Demon who consumes it.
When the feast is over, they perform a thanksgiving rite. It's important to honour the keepers of Yang, even as you escort them to the other side.
The Thrashing Dragon way is highly animistic. Looking deep into nature, each Rainbow sees the spirits beneath life's skin, and they honours them with thanks, gifts and rites. Truly skilled Dragons can move beyond the Wall and speak to the spirits in their own tongue; a younger one simply recognises the kami and grants them respect.
In their calmer moments, a Thrashing Dragon can be gentle and compassionate. Like wood, they grow tall and strong, yet bends before snapping. They nurture life, yet feed on it without remorse.
Their Way is to keep the Cycle fresh.
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 5:53 pm
Trivia
Virtue: Yang
Sobriquets: Thrashing Dragons, Laughing Rainbows, Green Devils
Affiliations
Wood, the number 3, the color green and the east direction
Auspicious Omens and Symbols
Rainbows, thunder storms, blooming flowers, blood, yoni and lingam symbols
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Training
Before their deaths, many Thrashing Dragons denied the flesh. All their repressions blow sky-high when the karmic debt comes due. Some ferociously carnal people do return to finish what they started in life, but most Laughing Rainbows learned only to laugh only after they died.
Tantrik postures feature prominently in Dragon rites.
By coupling with a living partner, the vampire shifts their energy to the other's, then refines it into potent Chi - the life-force many once denied.
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 6:41 pm
Weaknesses
As could be expected, Thrashing Dragons are shameless, impulsive, lusty and violent. Most go naked, or nearly so, and delight in smashing social customs.
Confrontation is enlightenment to these vampires, and they go out of their way to enlighten everyone in the vicinity.
This voraciousness doesn't end with sex; the hunger takes a literal turn in the Thrashing Dragon philosophy. Greedy for Yang, these creatures often eat their prey raw (and usually alive).
Although it has been said that Laughing Rainbows are cannibalistic, they stop short of eating vampires. The average Dragon would find diablerie as repulsive as eating a bloated dead cat.
Beneath the revelry, however, many Dragons hate themselves. IN a way, their hunger is a denial of what they have become. By consuming life-force, they secretly hope to undo their curse; it doesn't work, but they keep trying.
Needless to say, these appetites have not made the sect any friends; Buddhist vampires find the Thrashing Dragons especially repulsive and often bar Laughing Rainbows from their courts.
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 6:42 pm
Tenets of The Dance of The Thrashing Dragon
1. — Attune yourself to life in all its forms
This tenet indicates that the maya itself is the subject of the Dharma's inquiry. The Dance of the Thrashing Dragon is an attempt to attain enlightenment by understanding the world and the place of its inhabitants in the natural cycle. Kuei-jin of this Dharma are seeking to comprehend the illusion of creation and learn the lessons illustrated by the grand phantasm of existence. Thousand Crane Mother was, and continues to be, adamant that vampires on the Dharma cannot lose themselves in bestial behaviour and still attain this understanding.
"A wolf or tiger cannot become a bodhisattva," she teaches. "As Chih-mei, we are as wolves and tigers. We live only in a world of instinct. From the outside, this is terrible. Nut from the inside, the Chih-Mei sees nothing wrong. If it is hungry, it eats. It finds a safe place to sleep. If it is challenged, it attacks. That is its way, and that is the way of wolves and of tigers as well. This state is the key to much wisdom, but not all wisdom.
"It is a state without speech or need for speech. it is a place of action and reaction and momentary sensation. There is no Road Back from there - only the Road Forward, into the next thoughtless moment. This is fine for beasts, and one could even see it as something like enlightenment. If you feel that way, I can say nothing to you. Hear it this way, and if you are not persuaded, I will not stop you.
"Just as life is important to the world, the maya is important to creation. Yet life is not the only thing in the world. There are also natural forces and the bedrock of the world. So the maya is not the only thing in creation. There are other forces in creation as well. Those souls and spirits involved in the maya live without the burden of thought or anxiety, and they are not punished for this, for that is their place.
"But that is not the place of man. The place of man is his spiritual betterment. When we were in the maya, we did not tend to our whole selves. Now, we have been placed outside the maya, separated from life. Will we once again retreat into the illusion like cowardly dogs? You are a dead thing. Masquerading as an animal will do you no good when the judges of the dead render Heaven's verdict on you. You are one of the Wan Kuei. If you wish to become as a fugitive from its schoolroom, you must become a student of the maya as a whole, rather than pretending to the limited existence of a single beast."
2. — Meditate upon passions; do not shut them out, but experience them, learn from them and encourage them in others.
This tenet justifies the two most well-known Thrashing Dragon traits: their tendency to indulge their corpses in physical sensation and their willingness to influence the lives of others. Though Thrashing Dragons eschew losing themselves in physical sensation, they appreciate the need to occasionally immerse themselves. This is not a Dharma for shut-away scholars and bookworms. it is a faith of people who act and go and do and experience. Thrashing Dragons recognise this as a critical part of their faith, and Dragons who are seen as becoming too meditative and withdrawn are often caught up in elaborate ploys by their fellows. These ploys are intended to make their lives more interesting and shock them back into really experiencing their existence. These often involve little practical jokes and challenges, but the pranks of mandarins have brought nations to war in the past.
Thrashing Dragons are also known for their willingness to involve others in their lives. Life is not a solitary game - it requires lovers and rivals and romance and danger, if it is to keep the Thrashing Dragon on edge and awake. Such an exciting life requires a strong cast of supporting characters, and Thrashing Dragons as a group are perfectly willing to entangle others in their affairs. Among Kuei-jin and other shen, they typically observe decorum, since giving offence might lead to a duel or hard feelings. When dealing with those who are not shen, they need not be so polite. Heaven has assigned them the penance of walking the Road Back and achieving enlightenment. Their Dharma requires that they indulge themselves in every sort of sensation, and it is their right within the natural order to do so.
As Wan Kuei they are beyond human morality, and must walk their path back as it is laid out before them. Thrashing Dragons are hungry beasts, and they hunger for enlightenment. If they must tear a mortal into rags to find the enlightenment within, then that is what they shall do. If Heaven disapproved, Dragons would never find enlightenment.
3. — Use your powers as a farmer employs his threshing tools; break the stalks, gather the rice, scatter the seeds, help them grow
This tenet is the mandate for Dragons to do what they must to find enlightenment. To manipulate mortals, to perform savage acts and then carefully examine the outcome, to immerse themselves in life in its true and vibrant state - without morals or restraint. This is their road to enlightenment, and they are doing Heaven's will to follow it. They no more regret their actions than a devout mortal would regret holy prayers.
Yet this tenet is not purely a license to rapine. It also specifies that the Dragon has a responsibility to return to the cycle. The farmer does not eat all the rice he reaps: he saves seed rice, and cultivates the fields before planting, and so there is rice the next year as well. A Thrashing Dragon is a terrible force, draining the life out of the world around it to fuel its attempts to achieve enlightenment. This can cause immense damage in terms of physical carnage. No other predator kills so much and eats so little as the Hungry Dead seeking a meal of enlightenment.
Because they consume and do not naturally return byproducts to the natural cycle, conscientious Thrashing Dragons make sure not to damage creation unduly, and to minimise what damage they cannot prevent. After all, the respectful student does not track mud into her teacher's classroom. The relationship is still one of man to object, but it is a respected and necessary object, not to be casually damaged.
4. — Help all living things thrive. When something appears to be dying, consume it and send it back to the Cycle
As the Thrashing Dragons protect and learn from the maya, they also tend it and see to its well-being. Dragons find weakness abominable. Infirmity in old age, decrepit buildings and moldy old social structures are all loathsome, for they trap energy out of creation, holding it in stasis. The cycle and process of death and rebirth are vital to creation, and to cling to longevity for too long is to disrupt the flow of history. To remove such obstructions is the duty of the right-thinking Thrashing Dragon. It is the way of things that new growth pushes aside old, dead wood. In forests where this is not the case, terrible conditions reign, and all the trees rot and decay. Every storm brings more sick giants crashing down, until at least the forest is nothing more than rotting wood and bushes. In a forest where there are young saplings ready to leap forward and seize every scrap of sunlight, the passing of th giants would kill trees, but not the forest.
No system should have indispensable components. The past should not haunt the present. Those who time has elapsed should pass away swiftly and with grace. This keeps the world healthy and vigorous, much like pruning a fruit tree encourages the tree to produce more and better fruit. This way is true not only of plants, but also of organisations, religions and nations. Thrashing Dragons, particularly those of the eastern direction, often seek to destroy institutions they feel are burdens to society.
5. — Half-life is an abominable state. Be as alive as you can be
The condition of the Thrashing Dragon is a punishment. It is Heaven's curse levied on errant underlings. It is not a thing to be compromised with, or grown used to, or utilised for its maximum benefit. Thrashing Dragons do not deny that they are hungry ghosts, but they do not make it into a badge of perverse honour by developing Disciplines that take advantage of their corpse-form. Thrashing Dragons typically find the Bone and Blood Shintai to be repulsive, as those take specific advantage of the Kuei-jin's undead form. Many instead practise the Chi and Soul Disciplines, or carefully learn the other shintai.
This tenet is a philosophical reminder to Thrashing Dragons regardless of sect. This is not their goal. The half-existence of the Wan Kuei is a waiting place on the lip of the Mouth of Yomi, and the last carriage-house on the road to oblivion. There is nothing to be learned from it, other than how to leave it more quickly. Right-thinking Dragons become students of their inner nature and nature as a whole, not students of their own physical remains. To venerate the corpse-flesh is to pay homage to crimes that incurred the August Personage's curse, using cleverness to make Heaven's displeasure into a blessing.
The tenet is not an injunction to Yang Imbalance, though some interpret it as such. Most Thrashing Dragons differentiate between life and Yang suffusion. To many members of the Dharma, particularly the penangallan, permanent Yang imbalance is aw ay of life. Its hunger and ferocity brings about a way of seeing the world that they find conducive to Dharmic advancement. other vampires find reproduction a necessity on their Dharmic quest, and are forced into permanent Yang imbalance as a result. Yet it is the outlook or fecundity of that state that members of the Dharma seek, not the state itself. They are lively corpses, but corpses nevertheless.
6. — Guide the sun up each morning. Sleep when it is risen
Thrashing Dragons have an undying respect and admiration for the sun and the sunlit world, and they cultivate this feeling within themselves. This tenet reinforces the Dharma's concept of the corpse-flesh, and of the Gui Ren state as a punishment from heaven. The Thrashing Dragons ask, if a man is upside down, how long until he begins to believe that it is the world that is wrongly-oriented? The Wan Kuei are creatures of the night - with the coming of the day, they must sleep in dark places or retreat across the Wall to lurk powerlessly on the borders of the spirit world. Their ancient hubris in summoning the Nine Suns trapped them away from the day-lit world.
As an exile from the realm of the living, the Thrashing Dragons maintain, it is too easy to hate the living. It is too easy to seize the night and call it home, to seize wickedness and pull it close, too easy by far to turn one's face away from the sun and become a Devil-Tiger, Bone Flower or worse. The Dance of the Thrashing Dragon is the dance of the living world, not of the dead one. The diligent dancer always keeps that in mind.
7. — Laugh often and help others to see the humorous shadows
This tenet is not an injunction to be a humorous trickster, though many Thrashing Dragons are It is instead an admonition from the Thousand Crane Mother to avoid becoming humourless scholars. Thrashing Dragons are students of life and Yang. Yet scholarship - watching and learning and studying and writing commentaries - is a profoundly Yin act and scholars tend to be bookish, retiring and unfamiliar with the world outside their studies. Such a life is antithetical to a right-thinking Thrashing Dragon. In order to dance this Dharmic dance, a vampire must become a natural scholar. Like a Taoist priest, she must be at home in the world she studies. This is not a matter of taste - Yin energies colour and transform the experience. While some cooling and tempering of experience is necessary, excessive Yin influences on a vampire's Dharmic thinking can decrease the impact of her studies, depriving her of the dên she seeks.
A Thrashing Dragon is cut off from the maya, but she need not be distant from it. Her studies should be active, immersing her directly in the life she studies. She must learn to be a part of things while still absorbing something from the experience. The Dance of the Thrashing Dragon is like all dances: meaningless to those without rhythm.
8. — Protect the spirits. Without them, the life-dance stops
The Thrashing Dragons are the students, guardians and gardeners of the maya. And it cannot really be disputed that spirits in some way personify different parts of the Tapestry. Sicken the place, sicken the spirit. Sicken the spirit, sicken the place. Thus, spirits are in one of creation's most fragile links, for they are susceptible to direct corruption and assault.
Originally, this tenet was felt to mean that the Thrashing Dragons should tend to and cultivate the spirit world, as they tended to and cultivated the Middle Kingdom. later, as the menace of the Yama Kings grew, it became apparent that the Thrashing Dragons would need to become the watchdogs at the gates of the Yang World. The spirits did not need cultivation, they needed vigilant guardianship. They were not the only protectors of the spirit world - there were also the hengeyokai beast-folk. Yet there were areas these shape-changing mystics would not explore - urban regions that their attunement to the force of the natural world made dead to them. Here, the Thrashing Dragons patrolled the night, hunting black spirits of corruption and unnatural disease. thanks to this dutiful service, Thrashing Dragons have enjoyed an easy relationship with city spirits.
Thrashing Dragons are respectful of spirits, but not unduly deferential. Spirits are beings of supernatural power, like themselves, and not deities worthy of worship. A Thrashing Dragon never hesitates to guard the Yang World against a threat from Yomi. It is important to remember, however, that they venerate only spirits of the Yang World. They find ghosts distasteful, Yin spirits disturbing and demons worthy of combat without honour. Most Thrashing Dragons enter the Yellow Springs only in the direst of circumstances.
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:00 pm
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:02 pm
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:05 pm
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:05 pm
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:05 pm
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:05 pm
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