The Neon Labyrinth

The Neon Labyrinth:

A World of Darkness game using the rules of the HERO System.
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Tokyo, flawed jewel of Asia

Tokyo, the heart and soul of Japan, is home to 12 million people living in 850 square miles of urban sprawl. In Tokyo, the ancient history and traditions of the shoguns blend with the ultra-modern consumer culture of the West. Bullet-train rails, high-tech skyscrapers tarted up with eye-searing neon, and sidewalks swarming with people on their way to somewhere quickly all exist side-by-side with quiet streets adorned by wooden houses, neighborhood shrines, and stunning gardens. A process of Westernization that is less than 150 years old has resulted in a cultural mix that is bewildering and alien to the outsider.

Even as modern Tokyo has rushed to embrace technology and progress, a hidden world of spirits, ghosts, magic, demons, and a myriad of other monsters still exists in and under its streets. All the folk tales and whispered legends are true, at least in part. The Western scientific world-view has yet to completely undo the influence of thousands of years of Buddhism, Taoism, and Shinto on the Japanese consciousness. The average Tokyo citizen is still a little superstitious and predisposed to accept the supernatural at face value, rather than explain it away. As a consequence, supernatural creatures find Tokyo to be a bit more hospitable than the typical Western city.

Just as East clashes with West, so do the supernaturals of Tokyo fight with each other. Yet on occasion, alliances are formed among enemies as circumstances cause their interests to coincide. The current difficulties in Japan have created such circumstances.

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Economic Disruption, Social Chaos, and the Flow of Chi

The Japanese economy has suffered from a series of debilitating recessions since 1998. Not only has the persistent economic downturn affected the world of mortals, but it has impacted the long-term schemes of those in the supernatural world. Typical Western solutions have failed to reverse the crumbling of the Japanese economic monolith.

With the economic disruption has come an increase in social chaos in Tokyo. Gangs of disaffected youth wearing white hoods and bearing bats and two-by-fours (bosozoku) race through the streets on revved-up motorcycles. Fanatic doomsday cults proliferate, and some of them (Aum Shinrikyo, for example) condone and encourage violent behavior. Ultra-nationalists (uyoku) who dream of a restored Japanese Empire drive through neighborhoods in vans with speakers trumpeting ultra-right wing slogans and occasionally assault prominent public figures.

Contemporary Western thought has no solution for these problems because it doesn’t acknowledge their cause. The business and government leaders in Tokyo have made bad decision after bad decision, and Japanese fiscal and domestic policy have suffered as a result. It has finally dawned on those who know about such things that the confusion and bad decision-making among Tokyo’s ruling class can be directly attributed to disruptions in the flow of chi in Tokyo. Some blame the chi disturbances for the social chaos as well. These disruptions can only be the consequence of the actions of some of Tokyo’s supernaturals. Somewhere in Tokyo, something or someone is perturbing the natural flows of chi, bending them in unwholesome directions and causing them to spiral out of control.

A wide cross-section of Tokyo’s supernaturals, regardless of their differing agendas and motivations, are in agreement on this point: Those to blame for disturbances in the chi flows must be found and stopped.

For much more information about Tokyo, seeWikipedia's Tokyo entry (external link)