By Kevin Lowe.
The PCs are 3-5 cops. Any archetype you can squeeze into a uniform is okay, but no supernatural powers or non-humans. Offhand, Maverick Cop, Karate Cop, Big Bruiser, Martial Artist, Ex-Special Forces and Everyday Hero would be likely archetypes.
The Lotus is making big moves in Hong Kong, and the cops are powerless to stop them. (Insert cut scenes of chinese punks riding fleets of black motorcycles with martial arts weapons and submachineguns riding around disrupting traffic, doing drive-bys on local crime figures and anyone else who stands up to them, riding bikes through the glass windows of the Bai-Bai-Shei bank and shooting the place up, taking all the money and leaving bundles of sputtering dynamite behind them, that sort of thing. Lawless, ruthless banditry in the heart of HK).
The Ascended's organised crime families are being wiped out and the police are crying out for special powers to deal with the crime wave. Five of the HKPD's best men are put on a Special Investigations Unit to deal with the reign of terror. Their orders are to find out who's behind the trouble and put a stop to it. Carnival of Carnage is highly recommended, if not mandatory.
So they do investigation things, and they somehow find out that the Thorns of the Lotus are going to be launching a big attack on the mansion of The Big Boss, the most important triad leader on the island. In the process, their faces become known to the Lotus. Either before or during the attack (before if they're good coppers), they bust the bad guys. I'd base this scene on the really big gunfight in the big garage in Hard Boiled. If they wait, it's a siege in the Triad's mansion as the PC's hold off hordes of mooks riding motorcycles through windows and up staircases, machineguns blazing.
Two sequences of jumping and dodging and shooting and explosions later, Supernatural Evil rears its ugly head and some of the bad guys turn into Demons and fight like apes before being gunned down. Players go "Aha!" (Cancel that, one of them should probably make an Inevitable Comeback at the end.)
Evidence from the site of the massacre shows that the figure behind it all is probably (Incredibly Rich and Reclusive Chinese Guy). However, a mysterious guy in a suit (Ascended) takes all the evidence away and has the Special Investigations Unit disbanded. (To annoy the cops, and to encourage them to take the law into their own hands). Meanwhile, the Lotus torture/rape/kill family members of the cops whose faces were reported.
The PCs go apeshit, lock and load and go after IRaRCG. I dunno what happens then. Probably there's a whole lotta evil Chinese demon action, but I feel that more is needed. I'd look for some way of getting the PCs into the lair of the evildoer seperately, so they can mooch around for a while, rather than making it a sustained slugfest with the whole party together. I know, I'd put him on a privately owned island off the coast of HK (not the demon-island, it's overpowered and silly). I'd give it patrol choppers and attack dogs and things.
(Kevin blithely skips over all details of staging the last 2/3 of the story).
In the end, probably the good guys shoot all the bad guys, but are (of course) wanted for more murders than the viewers can count. Alternatively the players could get let off (nudge nudge wink wink don't mention it lads, must have been terrorists), but I feel that's the weak ending. No one wins a war.
I'd beef that up a bit, add PC-specific subplots, and run it over 2 or 3 sessions. How's that do you?
Last modified: December 22, 1996; please send comments to durrell@innocence.com.