Black Dragon Society

The **Black Dragon Society** (黒竜会, *Kokuryu-kai*) was the face of Japanese nationalism in World War II. The Black Dragons schemed and murdered their way across Japan, China, Korea and South East Asia in pursuit of Greater Japan, even infiltrating the United States in order to achieve their aims. The Dragons took their time to regroup after the war and started to implement Plan B. Instead of fading away, they became an organized conspiracy that has transcended Japan and the Far East and spread world-wide, settling around the pressure points of the modern financial, commercial and political world, while seeking harmony with the Mythos.

## History

The Black Dragon Society was the successor to the Black Ocean Society that became too notorious for its actions. Through the last half of the nineteenth century Japanese nationalists in politics, the military and society formed societies dedicated to Japanese nationalism or advancement. Membership often overlapped, and some societies such as the Black Ocean and the Black Dragon were not afraid to use force to achieve their political aims.

Following defeat in the Second World War, Japan went through a degree of re-education, though not to the same extent as Western Germany. Organizations such as the Black Dragons became embarrassing and were no longer talked about, even though they had had large memberships spanning society. The Black Dragons had 10,000 members at their height of popularity. Public nationalism moved on to other forms of expression.

In 1945, the Dragons shrank back into the shadows, giving up a few hot-headed scapegoats to the Allied War Crimes investigators and trading Unit 731's more mundane medical experiment results with the Americans in return for immunity from investigation and prosecution. The Dragons were able to make sure that the trust funds and fortunes of the zaibatsu, the pre-war merchant houses, were unaffected by war reparations. They encouraged the zaibatsu to modernize using American aid, so that they developed into the present day keiretsu.

Today, the term "Black Dragon" is a lazy journalist's label, like "Nazi"; applied to elderly or dodgy individuals for publicly known right-wing opinions or actions. Some politicians are willing to pray at Shinto shrines dedicated to the war dead, or accept campaign contributions and votes from the Yakuza, but the modern consensus is that other than the occasional doomsday cult, organized Japanese fascism on the scale of the Black Dragons either died at the end of the Second World War or has faded away every year with encroaching death or infirmity of those involved. Those who say this have not learned, or will not speak, the truth.

### The Order of the Green Dragon

Japanese nationalism has always been guided by shadowy forces preferring to remain in the background. The Black Ocean Society and other militarist secret societies were guided by these forces, as the Black Ocean later guided the Black Dragons. The shadowy force behind the secret societies, the politics and the power-plays since the nineteenth century is the Order of the Green Dragon. For much of their history the Green Dragons have been an obscure and ostensibly Buddhist monastic sect, rumoured to be great Zen masters with powers to see the future. The Order has guided Japanese expansion since the Americans forced Japan to open up to the outside world in 1854.

The monastic Order of the Green Dragon reputedly arrived in Japan from mainland Asia during the 8th century AD. The Order's influence and prestige developed during the Ashikaga period of the 13-16th centuries. Until the 1560s, the Order maintained a solitary monastery in the mountains of Kii Hanto. However, before Oda Nobunaga's campaign against the Buddhist monasteries during the 1570s and 1580s, the Order abandoned its monastery and retreated to Kyoto, where it escaped the worst of Oda's excesses by laying low.

Following the Westerners a Tibetan monk appeared at the Green Dragons temple in Kyoto and revealed the full extent of the Order of Green Mens' machinations. For over 900 years the monks of the Green Dragons have been in contact with a small group of Agarthan monks of the Left Hand Path located in Tibet, known as the Green Men, communicating astrally and co-operating with Tibetan monks to bring about the Tsan-Chan Empire in 3,000 years time.

Encouraged by physical contact with the Green Men, the Green Dragons quickly utilized nineteenth-century Japan's growing nationalism and anti-foreign feeling for their own ends, and used the secret societies to establish and develop intelligence networks throughout Korea and China to gather intelligence, recruit allies, cause unrest and strengthen Japan's position. As Japan became more powerful, annexing Korea, and extracting concessions and territory from ailing China, the Green Mens' grasp became tighter on the increasingly resentful and proud Dragons. The Inner Council of the Green Dragons decided that co-operation with the Green Men would only continue as long as it was in Japan's interest to do so.

The Green Men ordered the Green Dragons to co-operate with the Thule Gesellschaft in the 1920s and then the Karotechia during the 1930s. The relationship between the Dragons and the Karotechia was forced and uneasy. One of the last contacts Japan had with the Nazi Reich was a submarine voyage which evacuated several Karotechia personnel and a cargo of artefacts. It's unknown whether the submarine, its passengers or cargo reached the Dragons or Unit 831 in 1945.

The Green Dragons, functioning as an inner circle of the Black Dragon Society, are now at odds with the Green Men. Since 1959 the Green Dragons have pursued an openly pro-Japanese plan for the Tsan-Chan Empire. Contact with the Green Men ceased when Chinese Communists overran the Green Mens' monastery in Tibet, allowing the Dragons to proceed with their plans more easily. However, the seers didn't predict renewed contact with the Green Men in the 1990s. At this time, the Dragons were unsure of the Green Men's strength.

The Green Dragons are split along pro- and anti-Green Men lines. The majority of the Green Dragons are playing a game, co-operating with the Green Men but still trying to advance their own agenda. Though both want the Tsan-Chan Empire to come into existence, the Green Dragons' seers suggest that propitious intervention at key points in the development of the Tsan-Chan Empire can influence and shape the putative empire in the image that best suits the Green Dragons and Japan. The Aum Shinrikyo cult was led by former Green Dragons following orders from the Green Men as a higher priority, endangering Dragon objectives.

Some occult researchers have observed that the Order of the Green Men are probably related to the Cthulhu Cult, the Leng Monastics or the Kuen-Yuin. Interestingly these commentators are deceased or missing - often mysteriously or suddenly, sometimes after encountering swarthy matelots.

## Organization

The Dragons are very powerful in Japan, but have limited international reach, except through financial markets. The Keiretsu, powerful trading and manufacturing companies, have offices and manufacturing facilities all over the world which are utilized by the Dragons. *Doho*, overseas communities of ex-pat Japanese, may be persuaded to provide cover for Dragon activities. The Yakuza has always had close ties with nationalist secret societies, and much weaker international ties.

The Dragons are funded through the keiretsu, through the defense budget (one of the largest in the world on a per capita basis) and from tithes donated by worshipers of new religions organized or controlled by the Dragons.

The Dragons are ruled by their Council, the Inner Circle of the Dragons. Members of the Order who accept the green silk face mask never again leave the precincts of the Green Dragons' temple, nor do they show their faces again to anyone other than the Daemon Sultan who dwells at the centre of the Universe beyond Space and Time. It is not known what happens to the wearers of the face-masks. Their number is always constant.

## Philosophy

The Dragons expend great effort to be at harmony with the Mythos and understand their place in the Universe. The Mythos is perfectly natural; it is the human world-view that is unnatural and unordered. An adept's world view is adjusted towards this perspective by rigorous training, starting with Zen Buddhist techniques of meditation and martial arts. When ready, they move on to elements of rinzai and satori philosophies, and The Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan. These are first used to bring about an awareness of the True Nature of the Universe, and secondly an understanding and acceptance of that universe. Only by accepting mankind's place in the order of the universe can Man master his destiny. This understanding is enhanced by the use of koans, mondos and katsu. Sometimes the katsu can take the form of encountering minor elements of the Mythos. Black Lotus and the Liao Drug are sometimes used to accelerate training or open reluctant minds to infinite possibilities.

### Magic

Chakra, or aura, perception allows adepts trained as manipulators to suggest, influence, direct or blackmail targets by literally seeing their targets' weaknesses. Adepts are also trained to create, organize and develop cults; this includes infiltrating and subverting existing cults. Individuals with appropriate talents are trained to divine the future or see into the past. At higher levels of ability, seers often sacrifice a sense in order to amplify the remaining senses. Copious amounts of Liao and Lotus are consumed by the seers of the Dragons. Seers are at risk from entities like the Hounds of Tindalos, that live outside the perception of our reality. Valuable seers are guarded by adepts who can perceive and combat such threats.

### Objectives

The objectives of the modern Black Dragons are subtler than the crude geo-political ambitions of the Thirties. This time the Dragons are building the Tsan-Chan Empire, a cruel and world-wide dominion that the Green Dragons have prophesied will rule the earth in millennia to come. The Dragons are sure that the One Emperor and Dai Nippon will lead and guide the Tsan-Chan Empire, as is their destiny. Their current goals are:

* The expulsion of communist influence in China, Korea and elsewhere in Asia.
* Conceal duplicity from the Green Men, maintaining a cooperative facade.
* Condition and unify world opinion through the adoption of Eastern culture: business models, martial arts, religion, philosophy.
* Ultimately, usher in the Tsan-Chan Empire in the next age. This long-term goal requires the survival of the Order of Green Dragons for thousands of years, making them very cautious.

To meet these objectives, the Dragons may ally themselves with any Mythos force.

## NPCs

Dragon thug NPCs should have access to firearms, melee and unarmed combat skills. They follow orders as well as any fascist soldier, but are no more dangerous.

Agent provocateurs have good Theology, Psychology and Hypnosis skills; useful for wheedling out secrets and spotting human weaknesses at a glance, perhaps even some Astral Sight.

Full adepts are extremely dangerous, capable of amazing feats. Adepts should be Revenant characters because of their training and exposure to the Mythos. Adepts should have Occult, Mysticism, Cloud Mind and Cthulhu Mythos. An adept's other skills could include Dodge, Fleet-Footed, Nerves of Steel, Martial Arts and Meditation. An adept is trained in Fast Draw, Firearms, Melee and Exotic Weapons. They have access to bleeding-edge biomedical and military technology some five to ten years in advance of markets, due to their contacts with the keiretsu, or the fruits of divination.

## Relationships

Xianfeng and other fan-created organizations in this wiki reference the Black Dragon Society in their histories.

The 1993 Kong Hong SF comic *Chiu Shen Z* ("Cyber Weapon Z") by Andy Seto and Chris Lau transports martial arts hokum a thousand years into the future, with the Shaolin Temple re-imagined as a Eugenics project in a decadent world threatened by demonic attackers. This concept sounds like a possible source of some of the Green Dragons' powers.

## Credits

Adam Crossingham invented the Black Dragon Society and submitted a draft article about it, *The Kokuryu-kai (Black Dragon Society) and the Order of the Green Dragon*, for **Cthulhu Live: Delta Green** edited by Robert McLaughlin (Fantasy Flight Games, Roseville, MN, USA, 2001). This material is not Delta Green Partnership canon. There is a long-standing plan to address the organization more fully in *Our Darkest Hour*. Unit 831 will not be appearing in that volume, and its appearance in *Cthulhu Live: Delta Green* is based on a now out-of-date conversation between Crossingham and Adam Scott Glancy.

This wiki article has been heavily edited by Viktor Eikman.

1. ↑ “China” in the *Science Fiction Encyclopedia*, http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/china, 2011-10-08.