Relationships - The Shén

The Shén have important, formalized working relationships with the Devá and Kami. The South and East Asian pantheons share a non-discriminating attitude towards the simultaneous practice of multiple religions, as well as an aggressive stance towards Titans (though there’s some disagreement as to what to do with the Titans after you knock them out). They don’t have the same long history and close ties with the Òrìshà, but they respect the Yorùbá attitudes towards ancestor worship, religious openness, and efficient bureaucracy.

The Shén have a peculiarly bipolar attitude towards Titans, whom they generally call “gui” — a term that can refer to ghosts, devils, or monsters of any species, glossed here as “demon.” On the one hand, subduing demons with extreme prejudice propelled many Shén to fame and divinity. Nearly every well-established Shén has famously beat the hell out of at least a few fearsome monsters during their time. On the other hand, the celestial bureaucracy employs thousands of spirits who identify themselves, or are identified by others as, demons. When the Monkey King made his legendary Journey to the West, most of the monsters he subdued with the help of (the ex-demons) Pigsy and Sandy did not die, but instead converted to Buddhism and got themselves jobs in the pantheon — or else returned to jobs from which they had turned truant! The Devá and Æsir, who have drafted the occasional asura or frost giant into their ranks, understand the value of a redeemed foe, but the breadth of the Shén’s mercy towards even repeat practitioners of Titanomachy is baffling to them at best, evidence of treachery at worst. The easiest way to sum up the Shén attitude towards Titans is, as with many Shén foibles, by analogy with mortal China: “gui” is to “Shén” as “barbarian” is to “Chinese.”

GREATEST WEAKNESS

The Shén’s greatest weakness is that there are too goddamn many of them. China’s billions of human inhabitants frequently become tutelary or ancestral Shén upon their death. Maintaining the chain of command and communication between literally billions of Shén is a nightmare even for the World’s oldest and most experienced bureaucracy. Setbacks other bureaucracies would find unconscionable — such as previously subjugated Titans, or entire disgruntled administrative departments, going rogue and becoming cannibal chieftains on some mountain or other — are an everyday kind of problem around here. Shén Scions expect to be regularly drafted into solving any number of problems considered “beneath Heaven’s notice” (read: someone fucked up somewhere and they’re trying to play it like they planned it this way).

PANTHEON PATH OF THE SHEN

Path Skills: Academics, Leadership
Virtues: Yin and Yang. Traditional Chinese thought models the World and the powers which move within it in terms of cyclical forces in constant tension, complement, and balance. The Supreme Ultimate cosmogram, or taijitu, illustrates this cycle with the circle of unity at the top, followed by the layer of black-and-white duality, followed by the five elements, followed by the eight trigrams of the Classic of Changes, followed by unity once again. Each cosmographic element is one complete model of the system of the World; but it is the cosmogram’s second segment, better known in English as the yin-yang, that interests us right now.

We have come to illustrate this cycle with two interlocked comma shapes, one black and one white, each with an eye of the opposing color. Yin is feminine, receptive, dark, expansive, and sinister. Yang is masculine, active, bright, focused, and positive. But in its eye, each energy carries its opposite’s seed. Their complementary waxing and waning is the motion of the sine wave, the circuit of the moon and sun, the rotation of the earth and the cycle of time.

A Yin-aspected individual is subtle, gentle, and patient. Yin is the therapist’s question, the joint lock that counters the punch, the poem uninterpreted, the sea at night. Yin is associated with the elements of metal and water. At best, yin is sensitive, caring, and adaptable. At worst, yin is sinister, dishonest, and ruthless.

A Yang-aspected individual is bold, powerful, and charismatic. Yang is the leaping flame, the demagogue’s oratory, the painted emblem on the shield. Yang is associated with the elements of wood and fire. At best, yang is strong, hopeful, and vibrant. At worst, yang is inflexible, loud, and angry.

In the old days, each Shén occupied a specific place on the spectrum of yin to yang. The Yellow Emperor, for example, represented the earth element, the center, the axis, a balance between the two forces. You stayed in your lane, you performed your duties as handed down to you, and the seasons kept turning. Scions, though, have it harder. You live in the World amongst the Ten Thousand Things, the complex manifestation of that seemingly simple interplay between light and dark. Every action you take is deep with meaning in both yin and yang tendencies, and you yourself probably sway naturally from one side to the other. Yet your superiors expect you to bring balance to heaven and earth.

Signature Purview: Tianming. The Shén order heaven, hell, and the World through a great celestial bureaucracy. At its head is the Jade Emperor, and from him all power flows downward in the form of positions and titles, privileges and responsibilities: the tianming, or mandate of heaven. This Purview holds sway over the hierarchy of the heavens as well as all mortal bureaucracies, which are seen as Worldly extensions or reflections of the celestial model.