By Carl L. Congdon.
(aka The Twilight Timers, The Wild Boyz, The Bizzaro Bunch, "those f*@&ing psychopaths", etc.)
Since Robin Laws wrote for both Feng Shui and Over the Edge, I had an idea for a conspiracy group that was guarranteed to send every party in the Secret War into a screaming fit. Here goes:
In the late 1950s/early 1960s, a group of desperately subversive coffeehouse thinkers began to wonder about the nature of reality around them, and why every attempt at making fundamental, beneficial changes in society seemed to go to shit. Fueled by too much philosophy, caffeine (and other illegal chemicals), and lack of both sleep and proper nutrition, they hit on the theory that more than simple human inertia was responsible: there had to be an active conspiracy at the fundamental level of reality itself to prevent everyone from reaching their maximum potential.
This would have amounted to absolutely nothing, except for two things: 1) somehow, without realizing it, they attuned themselves to the coffeehouse (which was a feng shui site in San Francisco), and 2) when they figured out what happened, they began using the knowledge to spark a "consciousness revolution", which made for some impressive happenings (think Summer of Love), but also got them in hot water with the Ascended. This is how they found out about the Secret War. They would have been quickly extinguished, but they began drawing from the disaffected (and the slightly deranged) of the major players. Thus, the up-to-date version of the group draws it's ranks from Discordians, Subgeni, hackers and phone phreaks, sorcerors with "interesting" methods of casting magic, burnt-out arcanowave warriors, Taoist dissidents on the run from the Guiding Hand, Cthulhu worshippers, supernatural creatures who like to party as much as terrorize, and a few genuine crackpots and armed whackos.
Their organization makes the Jammers look like the Guiding Hand, but it has been precisely this lack of centralization that makes them effective and threatening to all sides. The only thing that unites them is their belief that each and every living thing should be given an appropriate share of chi flow to mold his/her/its reality to whatever they so desire. Reality must be made more representative of the individual. Control Phreax (anyone daring to impose a one-size-fits-all reality on powerless and uninformed individuals) are a constant threat and must be thwarted wherever and whenever possible. Needless to say, this philosophy has not endeared them to the major players in the Secret War (see below). Other things that have not endeared them to the other players are their penchant for attuning the criminally insane to feng shui sites (some of whom become just functional enough to be truly dangerous), designing a feng shui site in an insane asylum, which had the unfortunate side-effect of broadcasting the inmates' derangements to the nearby public and the local reality, promotion of mind-altering chemicals and information on how to make home-made explosives, and extreme violence with no concern whatsoever for innocent civilians. ("F*&$ 'em if they can't take a joke! They'll be back soon enough anyway! Better dead than living in a world that's just a glorified prison!")
Symbol: A smiley face with a third eye in the top center of the forehead.
Architects: "Cool toys, but the whole fascist-dystopia-Bauhaus-architecture-1984-killhappy thing has got to crash, and crash hard!"
Ascended: "A bunch of Animal Farm pigs who define the essence of Control Phreak. Raise the chi levels and let's reduce them to the arrogant beasts that they are!"
Dragons: "Damn respectable bunch who helped us out as much as we helped them out! But they only fight against tyranny when it becomes unbearable, not before when it's innocuous and easy to fight. If they tried to liberate reality, and not just the people in it, they'd be us!"
Eaters of the Lotus: "High voiced little Fuhrers who are gonna lose a lot more than their equipment when we get through with them! Boot to the head, Lo Pan!"
Four Monarchs: "Aw, give up and die already! You had it, you lost it, now go find a new hobby or something!"
Guiding Hand: "Buncha grasshoppers who made mental constipation a way of life! Now, if they'd just go leave the rest of us alone, instead of playing the militant missionary, we'd get along just fine!"
Jammers: "If they succeed with their plan to blow up chi sites, not only would we die, but we'd lose the ability to do cool things! That would truly suck. So, we're enemies. Reluctant enemies, but enemies nonetheless."
Needless to say, the groups mentioned above have nasty things to say about The Legion as well...
Blk'sx-Frrrz'N: A sorceror who uses cut-and-paste, tantric sex, and hard drugs to fuel his magics. Was one of the founding members of the Legion. Unstable and extremely dangerous, but cool to talk philosophy with.
The Hyp-gnotic: Drunken Master and Taoist philosopher. One of the saner members of the Legion.
Al-Ex 501: A monster-hunter from the Buro whose arcanowave mutations have affected his mind. Traumatic flashbacks and hallucinations of hideous things coming to get him are signs that he's having one of his better days. Recently, he's taken up knitting and chess.
Q'otaa: A creature from the Netherworld who appears to be an 8' 4" walking cartoon smiley-face on steroids. Speaks several languages fluently, can give and take enormous amounts of damage, loves anime, art-house films, and small children (as playmates, not as food. I felt I should clarify that.)
The Subliminal Man: One-man spy ring for the Legion. Details about him are sketchy, at best. He is a master infiltrator with impressive combat skills. Extremely difficult to trace. Proud of the fact that he's only found when he wants to be found.
Last modified: September 10th, 1997; please send comments to durrell@innocence.com.