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[posted 13 Dec 2002; updated 14 Dec 2002]
I've divided this up according to the sections in the stories. You can jump back and forth from the story, or you can just read it all at once, if you prefer.
Like the Year of the Dragon story, I didn't put dates in the sections like Robin did in the Operation Killdeer story. Check the Year of the Dragon notes to see why.
Gao Zhang controls the Emperor by sending a demon to visit his dreams. Gao then prepares the special sleeping draught that only he can prepare (it's just spiced wine), and reigns in the demon as the Emperor drinks the potion. Of course, the Emperor has become dependent on Gao. (for more details, see the Feng Shui supplement Thorns of the Lotus).
This section sets the time of the flashback to some point prior to Flashpoint, where the Architects tried to plant a second Arcanotower in the modern juncture.
Fo Shen is a Lotus agent assigned to cultivate the Purists in the 2056 juncture. The Purists first appeared in Flashpoint, and are described in the Shadowfist Players' Guide from Daedalus, but they don't appear at all in the Feng Shui RPG. I'm implying here that the Lotus wanted to plant information about the Arcanotower where someone else (i.e., the Dragons, or specifically Dirk Wisely in Flashpoint) could find it and then take action against the tower. The Lotus knew the Dragons would immediately move against the Architects and save them the trouble.
Celeste Carter is working on incantations related to forced evolution of animals; they've been told about the Ascended and the Secret War by Fo Shen.
Gao needs time to replace the Emperor with another puppet, so he uses a shapechanging demon (the Demon Emperor) to replace him temporarily. Oliver Chen, a pledged agent inside the Imperial Palace, discovers this ruse, and he begins to bait the demon to expose him.
Kenji Fukuda is Timewalker Primary, a position described in the Shadowfist Players' Guide vol.1. He's the senior Architects guy for planning operations in other junctures, and is responsible for the Arcanotower Now project in Flashpoint. No one is expected to actually get this reference, but if you recognized it without scouring the Players' Guide, count yourself a master of Shadowfist storyline trivia :)
Tu Shih is a Hand
agent in the Imperial Palace. He also discovers that Gao has replaced the Emperor.
Quan Lo decides to try a bold move to oust the Lotus and put the Hand in control
in 69 A.D. Incidentally, Tu Shih was intended to appear as a card in Throne
War, but he was pulled near the end of playtest - his ability hadn't quite gelled,
and more importantly, he was saddled with massive nickname problems from day
1 :)
Leung Mui leads a large operation in 69 A.D. based around recruiting disaffected people to eventually rise up against the eunuchs. She calls herself 'The Black Flag'. Her operation is described in the Feng Shui supplement Blood of the Valiant. Quan Lo needs her to rally her forces and begin moving toward the capital while he arranges for reinforcements from the 1850s juncture.
Celeste's efforts at forced magical evolution turn out to be more effective than she intended, and Subject Twelve gains some very odd, and very destructive, powers. These first manifest under stress, when Fo Shen threatens his mate (Subject Eleven).
After Twelve demonstrates his powers, Fo Shen decides to terminate him. The Lotus truly despise the Jammers (according to the Feng Shui supplement Thorns of the Lotus), so Fo Shen is acting on his own here, without orders from home. Fo Shen kills his mate, but the rage allows Twelve to break free of the binding before Fo Shen can kill him. Fo Shen runs for the Netherworld, and Twelve pursues him. Celeste's lab is trashed in the process.
back to story (4) back to story (5) back to story (6)
Twelve gets lost in the Netherworld while pursuing Fo Shen. He wanders until he happens across the Jammer's headquarters. The Monkey House is described in the Feng Shui supplement Elevator to the Netherworld.
The basics of succession in Imperial China are described in the Feng Shui supplement Thorns of the Lotus. The Emperor would normally choose the eldest son of the Empress, although it could be more complicated than that. In this case, Jui Szu was the previous Empress, but she suspected something odd going on with Gao Zhang and accused him of sorcery (a capital crime). Zhang moved against her and deflected the charges onto her son instead, and got Jui Szu banished from the Palace as well.
Now Zhang needs the Emperor to choose another successor, someone he believes will be a useful tool. He finds such a tool in Xin Kai Sheng, a descendant of the Xin family that ruled China prior to the current dynasty. Kai Sheng is also a sorcerer, but he has kept his powers well hidden until now. Gao does not know the extent of Kai Sheng's power, but is sufficiently arrogant to believe that he can control Kai Sheng regardless.
Lo-yang is the name of the Chinese capital city, and the place where the Imperial Palace is located. Gao Zhang and the Lotus are concentrated there. Read more about it in the Feng Shui supplement Thorns of the Lotus.
Oliver Chen has kidnapped the true Emperor; that's the reference to "losing a body" in this piece. Gao Zhang doesn't know if the Emperor is alive or dead, but he needs someone to play his part and transfer political power to Xin Kai Sheng in some semblance of order. So he finds a substitute, and uses magic to compel him.
The TacOps information intercepted by the Purists details the plans for a Jammer strike against Lo-yang. Fo Shen panics when he sees the description of Subject Twelve, and realizes that the assault may be at least partly personal. This is the news he tries to tell Gao Zhang in the Year of the Dragon story, but never quite gets to do so.
If you correctly
understood Dr. John's reference to the Taoists, you're probably an old-school
player :) In the original Throne War set, Daedalus had plans to release a few
cards in a new faction called the Taoists, people who had foundation-level access
to both 
and 
.
There were only a couple of foundations plus about a half-dozen hitters, but
they all had very odd (and some quite strong) abilities. The story background
was that the Taoists were enlisted by the Dragons to help during the turmoil.
Since they didn't get printed, obviously they decided not to help :)
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