The Xian Cabal is more urban myth than definitive reality - an accepted part of the Shanghai Landscape which is ephemeral at best when under scrutiny, omnipresent when spreading its tenebrous tentacles across the cityscape...
The first tales of the Xian Cabal are literally centuries old, originating in a time when China was the most powerful nation on earth. If one believes the old stories literally, the Xian Cabal is China's version of the Illuminati - a shadowy organization with goals toward dominating the nation and, from there, the world. The near-mythical leader of the organization is a man called Fu'Xian. Fu is either a succession of leaders bearing the same ceremonial name, or (according to some of the darkest whispers) a being as old as the city - perhaps as old as China - itself.
Rarely glimpsed except by those to whom he wishes to make himself known, Fu is austensibly Asian, of average height, with a distinctive curled moustache and eyes that burn with an insidious intellect. His servants, through the centuries, have been from every rung and strata of Chinese civilization - from the Imperial elite, to the most desperate of peasants, and many who might not even qualify as human.
The Xian Cabal has been accused of a variety of machinations over the centuries. It is Fu'Xian who is blamed, at various times, for the fall of the Manchu Dynasty, the Opium Wars, the Sino-Japanese War, and the Taiping Rebellion. The Boxer Rebellion is said to have been an outward expression of a long simmering war between Fu'Xian on one side, and the Dowager Empress on the other...
...and these are only the accusations that have sprung up in the past century...
In Shanghai, the Xian cabal runs a sort of protection racket. Neighborhoods controlled by the Xian cabal are generally free of many of the problems that plague other sectors of the city. Foreign agents go missing. Gangsters do not suceed in establishing influence. Opium dens dissapear in a fortnight. And yet, for all the benefits of loyalty to the Cabal, there are whispers of cultists, gnawing fear, and an insidious, wasting corruption that seems to spread every time the Xian Cabal has set its sites on new territory.
The Xian Cabal is bravely resisted both by the Shanghai Municipal Police and those men of the Concession's Genderme who have not been tainted by corruption, but it seems to be a losing battle. The Nationalist Chinese refuse to aknowledge the existence of anything more than a troublesome local crime family, while concrete evidence for the prosecution, let alone identification, of members of the Cabal, seems to be impossible to obtain.
Only one man in Shanghai seems to be feared by Fu'Xian, an ancient inhabitant of the Bund known to both Chinese and Foreigners alike as "Grandfather." Fu seems to consciously avoid interfering with Grandfather's little antique shop, and no activity attributed to the Xian Cabal in the region of Grandfather's home has ever come to fruition... The relationship between Grandfather and Fu'Xian remains a mystery that not even Doc Twilight seems able to uncover...
This range will cover the Xian Cabal, its leadership, and its minions (both earthly and otherwise.)
