Lang Shan is a member of the Bone Web wu of Hong Kong. She resides for the most part on her ship, the Golden Serpent, in Hong Kong Harbour.
Biography[]
Lang Shan was once one of the fiercest pirates on the South China Sea. She cost the British much in good vessels and opium. The British sent fleets of ships determined to stop her. During one battle on the open sea, the British flagship rammed the pirate ship and British soldiers poured on the deck of Lang Shan’s ship. Superior numbers of the British swayed the battle and Lang Shan’s crew was captured. Her first mate and lover refused to be taken alive and cast himself into the sea. Lang Shan herself was taken prisoner and brought back to Hong Kong for a trial.
It was during her trial that it was fully revealed that the pirate who had given the British Navy such a rout was a woman, one barely out of her teens. Lang Shan refused to talk, not during her imprisonment nor her trial. And when her sentence was handed out – death by hanging – she kept silent. Many fortunes were lost and made at her hanging, but still she uttered no sound. Just looked out to the sea as the floor dropped out below her.
Lang Shan’s spirit flew into the Yomi world where she relived her last battle. She watched as Da Nan, her first mate and lover, flung himself into the sea and it was his name that she spoke that erupted her soul back into the Middle Kingdom. She was found by Ghost-Killer, Hong Kong’s Ancestor, and charged with the duty of keeping the South China Sea at peace.
Lang Shan couldn’t bear to bring herself to work with the same foreigners who killed her and took away her love. She refused Ghost-Killer’s edict, declared herself heimin and took off onto the high sea. Ghost-Killer believed that Lang Shan would one day beg to be allowed into Kuei-jin society, let her go with not a word. She was found by Gan Shuo who offered her sanctuary. Informing her that Ghost-Killer would seek her out and kill her and that Robert Pedder, the Ventrue prince of the city, wanted her out of the way for his own reasons, Gan Shao offered her sanctuary. All she had to do in good faith was to transfer cargo from Hong Kong to other parts along the Chinese coast.
Lang Shan accepted at first. She was eager to be out at sea and she didn’t see the difference between piracy and smuggling. It wasn’t until she found out that her cargo was not just drugs or weapons but men, women, and even children. She was complicit in human trafficking. She protested but Gan Shuo reminded her of the “favour” she owed him. She has no other choice but to cooperate.
Lang Shan has hardened herself against the hardship and suffering of her cargo over the years. Her comfort comes with the determination to find any trace of her first mate and lover Da Nan.
Character Sheet[]
Gallery[]
References[]
- WOD: World of Darkness: Hong Kong, p. 68-69
