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In ①⑨⑥⑧ → 5 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay

Issue 1: "Wuxia of The West"
Accompanying Song: Cup of Solid Gold


TOP ROOF URBAN GARDENS
Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong
Late December, 1967

The great cycles of upheaval in the Celestial Empire always begin with conquest.

It began with Yu The Great succeeding the last of the Five Emperors and taming the great riverways. It began with the Xiongnu staging a grand invasion from infertile soil that only bred the strongest of warriors. It began with Mengde betraying the world, fracturing the Middle Kingdom in three. It began as bloodshed watered the steppes and cultivated Temüjin, who built a castle of skulls from those who did not yield. It began twice with the northern frontiers of inhospitable rock and ice uniting The Eight Banners of they who would become Jin and Qing. It began with the men of Rìběn showing that those same Manchu emperors have always been weak. Soon, it will begin again with the Red Chairman and his cronies thinking that we too are weak.

Yet, after all these cycles have end and started anew, we still stand. Men of The Persistent Way, it is time we strike first! No longer shall we be passive and suffer humiliation! For we shall let the dragon howl and bring the mortal realm to its knees. Behold, our secret weapon...

But first, how about we teach our unexpected guest that it's rude to eavesdrop?

THE AMERICANA HOTEL
New York City, New York
8:32PM, December 31st, 1967

"That concludes... recording sent with severed... cut off scream... informant gone missing." Surprisingly, it was only now on its fifth rerun that the audio tape started to wear out. Not exactly as good as the Reds with their recording bugs but he'll take cheaper equipment if it means he gets to keep on staying in first class accommodations. After all, what was the point in being an international saboteur if you didn't get to see the world in the style he was already accustomed to: a fine tuxedo that he could actually fight in, a luxury watched that doubled as a communicator, a cummerbund made out of bulletproof synthetically enhanced spidersilk, and a sturdy pair of non-slip dress shoes. He was dressed to impress and was heading out of his room to catch an elevator down to the bustling ballroom.

As he entered the lift, the young operating attendant was left mouth agape. "Y-you're..!" the bespectacled teen in an ill-fitting uniform one size larger than it ought have been struggled to push the words out of his mouth. "Dragon. Richard Dragon." Luckily for the attendant, the actor-turned-agent has already been in many similar situations before and took out a white handkerchief in order to sign it with an ink pen that doubled as a laser. Though, come to think of it, it has been awhile for someone to be as star struck as this boy. While it was a brief ride, the experience must have been quite the thrill for the attendant as he took off running once they reached the ground floor, yelling "I've gotta tell my friends!"

For Richard though, the New Year's eve party he was attending was unfortunately not for pleasure. Across the hotel lobby and past the double doors guarded by private security goons was a verifiable party of elites that just so happens to include an elusive target that he had been tracking for quite some time. Suspected of supplying stolen armaments to Communist-linked terror cells, the Dragon's mark was high up on the Interpol list.

As he entered into the room, an audible wave of jazz from the big band ensemble gave off a great party vibe but this would immediately be interrupted an all too familiar ally.

"Dragon, come in. Do you read me?" a muffled voice would state via the audio receiver ringing in Richard's right ear. How it could possibly drown out and overwhelm live music from a band no more than twenty feet away from him was the real mystery Richard needed to solve. Instead of verbally replying back, he would simply turn on his watch's outgoing frequency and *tap* *Tap* *TAP*

"Agh! Alright, I get it. Anyways, our field agents are sure that Guano Cravat's gonna show. If you see a pudgy fella' with a dame he shouldn't be with and a cadre of jamoke bodyguards wearing sunglasses indoors, that's your man. Ling out."

Exactly as Barney described, a rotund businessman with a scraggly beard and a receding hairline was at the center table surrounded by women, men, Champagne, and lobsters. It was quite the sight, enough to make Richard smirk at the blatant audacity of the display. For a man that was quite hard for MI6 to track, Cravat sure did party without a care in the world. Specifically for the suit he wore which was now covered in butter and seafood juice.

His objectives were simple enough. Get close to the illegal arms dealer, plant a small tracking device on him, find out where his hideout is, and report him to the Feds for extradition. He would observe from afar at first and try to gauge how many bodyguards he had posted. Based on the information he got from Barney, he counted five at most. As the clock struck nine, he would make his move.

The plan basically wrote itself, he thought as he started to swagger his way to the heart of the party while grabbing a glass of bubbling liqueur from a passing server with a two-bit moustache and thinning comb-over. As Richard approached, the crowd took notice of the karate celebrity.

"Hey, that's Richard Dragon! I loved him in the Temple of the Red Lotus remake!"


"Bah! The '28 version was far superior. Dragon's cameo was the only saving grace of that bastardization by the Shaw Brothers company."

"Richard Dragon? I thought that guy died and they had his stunt double finish his last movie for him."


"I read on Starrstruck magazine that he caught a bullet with his bare hands on The Ed Sullivan show but the FCC wouldn't allow them to show it."

"You're going to overplay your hand, Dragon. Or should I call you Byakko?"


A chill rolled down his spine. Immediately losing his cool, Richard immediately snapped into a fighting stance and clenched his fists before turning around to see who had just whispered to him. The glass in his hand was crushed like it was paper, embedding shards unto his palm. Yet, he felt no pain for he knew that worse was just around the corner as she stood in front of him once more. Just like all those years ago on Lantau, the fighter who bested him on that faithful night was right in front of him. Fierce, tiger-like eyes. Hands adorned with black, bearskin gloves. Lips touched by onyx-coloured gloss. A silkvelvet cheongsam dress with the mark of twin, dark dragons entwined at the center.

"Lady Shiva... You haven't aged a day." Now, it was him who was awestruck. Moments passed that seemed like eternities. Richard did not know what exactly was going to happen next. However, without a doubt, no one in the room could have possibly expected that a martial arts melee was about to happen... In the particular way it was going to unfold.

A ruckus from outside the ballroom entrance had spilled over as a crowd of ruffians dressed in karate gi flooded on to the dance floor, causing panic among the crowd. Some of them were notably roughed up, most likely from fighting the security staff, but one of them stood out for he dressed in a black gi and had a red headband along with a red belt. His sideburns would put many a man's to shame, even Ringo's. Yet perhaps what was most outlandish were the obviously fake, prosthetic fangs that he had on.

"Rithard Dragon! My thtudent informed me of your prethenthe! How dare you encroath on the territory of the Poithon Fitht dojo! I, Marquith D'Maq, thhall punithh your intholenthe!"

Stunned. Completely and utterly dumbfounded. What even was this. But yet again history repeats itself as Lady Shiva strikes the Marquis square in the jaw with an open palm strike before Richard could even react. The foolish fighter's fangs flew for fifteen feet, a ferocious feat! As the Marquis dropped to the floor, the lift attendant from earlier immediately rushed to his aid and started fanning him with the same handkerchief Richard had handed him earlier in the night. So that's wh-

Wait, focus. Guano! The chaos and commotion had scared off the wanted criminal he was originally after who was now being escorted out through a fire exit.

"Your target is getting away." Shiva would state, fending off the third rate karate chumps who decided to attack her one by one. She wasn't breaking a sweat as she gracefully dodged and countered their oafish attempts at taking her down with lightning quick kicks and strikes.

With a simple nod of acknowledgement, the Dragon would leave his former ally behind once again as he chased his goal once more.
In ①⑨⑥⑧ → 5 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
I'm gonna jump on the trend and share my Richard Dragon playlist.

Promise I'm working on my post too



In ①⑨⑥⑧ → 5 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
@Cybermaxx Blame Uni, he made me. That's Richard Dragon.


<Snipped quote by DocTachyon>

I did, in fact, make him do that. Because Shang-Chi is Bruce Lee.


I love how I figured that out immediately after seeing the image but before reading these messages.
In ①⑨⑥⑧ → 5 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Richard Dragon
 45 Years Old, Born on October 1923
World-renowned Martial Arts Master and International Man of Mystery
Surviving since 1941


Character Concept

The man that would be Dragon was born a boy in the British colony of Hong Kong to a family of trade moguls and diplomats. The rough streets of the Fragrant Harbour treated the young Briton worse than your average Johnny Chinaman due to his limited ability to interact with the locals, having been tutored by a private instructor in the British curriculum which purposely excluded Cantonese and Mandarin. After an alarming rise of muggings by street gangs due to strained government resources, Richard's parents had reluctantly agreed to include a self-defence instructor for their son's studies though they couldn't even find a boxer fit to tie the shoes of an upstart Blackpool pugilist.

They had to settle for an Oriental practitioner but God help them if they used the same fighting style of the ill-repute Kowloon gangsters. Searching high and low, the family had found an Okinawan karate sensei that had just arrived in the city that needed work and housing, which they could easily provide. The Japanese were generally reputed to be the most superior in matters of war among the Asian races his parents reasoned and though they could hardly communicate, the teacher-student pair clicked instantly through a mutual admiration of kicks and grapples. He started slow as a tortoise but was just as determined as the one in Aesop's fables. The next few years showed how much of a prodigy Richard truly was, exceeding in most of the metrics expected of him. He wasn't limited to drills and dummies either as he would sneak out during certain nights to get in street brawls that saw his diplomatic immunity put in to good use. While his parents disapproved, this was clearly all the fault of that damned Easterner!

For Richard though, it was basically a boyhood fantasy come true - fighting bad guys at night and being a bourgeoisie dandy by day. This idyllic dream, however, would be abruptly interrupted by the horrors of war as the Marco Polo bridge incident in the north east of China saw the Middle Kingdom be attacked by the belligerent Empire of the Rising Sun. Days after his 15th birthday, the Canton Operation had successfully given the invading Imperial soldiers a base in Guangzhou, which caused a major wave of refugees to flee to Hong Kong. Though the war was limited to China and Japan at this time, everyone could see the writing on the wall and braced themselves for the worst. Stubbornly, Richard's family had decided to stay in the city to protect their assets but they could no longer harbor the sensei that Richard had come to consider family. Hastily expelled, the Okinawan karate sensei had vanished into the night without a trace. Bitterness and anger had gripped the young Dragon's heart though he could not explain exactly why - was it because he could not save his sensei from expulsion or because he could but did nothing?

Three years later on Christmas day, Hong Kong had fallen to the Japanese Imperial Army. However, the occupying garrison soon found that the city would not be easily subjugated.



Richard had become part of an underground resistance cell that slipped into the sullied streets' shadows, hid in hollow house walls, and concealed their crews in the crevices of Canton's coves. His own reputation grew as the resistance grew bolder. Richard had dug deep into the psyche of the invaders with his brutal ambush methods which left his targets hacked to bloody bits and viscera. They began to call him a monster, a demon but his favourite was byakko - the White Tiger.

Yet, instead of giving in to fear, the Japanese occupiers simply got angrier as the attacks continued. Civilians would be publicly executed and displayed in market squares every time after the resistance struck, usually fifty for every one soldier killed. This arms race of bloodshed was horrifying but both sides stuck to their ideals - with the average citizen not being able to do anything but suffer. With no end to the brutality in sight, Richard grew weary of the extreme approaches he had initially taken and resolved to lead his small faction of fighters among the cell to more subtle subterfuge such as stealing supplies and damaging infrastructure so that retaliatory killings would be less common. Though he could not do much, what he did was done with careful precision.

Four years of senseless death would pass before peace would grace the land. Yet, it is always darkest before the dawn. Frustrated by the perceived betrayal by their civil government's surrender, the vengeful garrison soldiers took it upon themselves to do one last massacre before their surrender treaty would take effect. Three hundred villagers had been captured and taken to the Silver Mine district of Lantau island in order to be tortured and executed. Word quickly reached the resistance's ears; it was a race to rescue the soul of Hong Kong. While he himself was still adverse to direct conflict, all of Richard's comrades had thrown caution to the wind and supported a direct attack.

On a gamble, Richard had devised a plan to kidnap the commander of the garrison from his headquarters in order to force the soldiers to stand down. Well, it wasn't a plan per se as it was an impulse that he followed on a whim. To his surprise security at the headquarters was quite light due to their imminent defeat or, worse, because those soldiers were already at Lantau. Met with little resistance, Richard was quick to knockout the guards who had remained behind and hogtie the commander with the same ease as one would have when wrapping a bow around a present. As he carried him to a fishing boat in the nearby Victoria Harbor, the commander simply told him it was too late. Richard refuted, telling him that there was no way they could kill hundreds of villagers in a few hours.

"Not too late for death. Too late to reason."


Those words stay with Richard even to this day. The cold splashes of water on his hands every time he rowed the oars, the scent of fish guts tucked away in the corners of the dingy dinghy, and the racing beat of his heart. All of these he can never forget.

As he landed in Lantau's shores, a wildfire illuminated the nearby underbrush. What little light was on the island was enough to show that it truly was a massacre. Men, women, children... And his comrades and the enemy soldiers. Much to his surprise a shadowy figure with long hair had emerged from the direction of the flames, followed by a few men that he recognized as part of the resistance cell and finally around twenty civilians. That figure was undoubtedly that of their leader - the greatest fighter among their ranks - and that figure now beckoned Richard to hand over the garrison commander.

He recalls objecting to do so on that night many moons ago. He doubts his words were understood but what followed was clear to anyone as their leader got into a fighting stance. Initially reluctant to defend the man that was his enemy, Dragon was caught offguard as his opponent rushed him and knocked him down with a single open palm strike to his chest. Before he knew it, Richard would be knocked out cold as a follow-up foot stomp landed on his face.

The next time he woke up, Richard had found himself in a makeshift hospital staffed by Commonwealth soldiers. He was informed that the locals had brought his unconscious body from a drifting fishing boat out on the harbour. A broken nose, bruised ribs, malnutrition, and a whole slew of minor lacerations had plagued his body. He would spend the next two weeks in the company of the British Navy's nurse corp before reuniting with his family. Though thinner and more wrinkled, his parents were indeed as spirited as they were before the war. Their home was bombed out by air raids along with some parts of the city but they were determined to rebuild.

US president Truman's announcement of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki came as a surprise to Richard. The Japanese surely must have known that such a weapon was in development yet even in the face of total annihilation, his enemies still chose to fight to the death. Such fanaticism was the true revolutionary weapon developed in this war and there was no sealing it away.

It was now late 1945. While peace had come to Hong Kong, the Chinese civil war raged on across the border as the remnants of the Communist PLA and the Nationalist KMT battle for the future of the Middle Kingdom. A letter arrives at the Dragon estate addressed to Richard. It simply reads "Nanda Parbat" along with a set of coordinates. The letter is signed by one O-Sensei. Like his master before him, Richard Dragon disappears into the night without a trace.

It was now late 1952. The Land of the Azure Hills is bathed crimson as United Nations and Comintern forces clash in the 38th parallel for the future of the Hermit Kingdom. A Douglas C47 has landed with a batch of Commonwealth special forces on the tarmac of Daegu Gukje Gonghang military airport. Among them is a man with a fiery mane as majestic as that of the mythical phoenix's feathers. No visible rank could be seen on his person though a piece of vibrant jade could be seen hanging next to his dog tag. Immediately, he would be shipped to the front and placed under the command of Lieutenant Edmund Dorrance and his artillery corp. While his marital prowess was on limited display due to peace talks already underway, the man known as Dragon had impressed many soldiers from his first to last day. Just like the amazing Captain America before him, Dragon was quick to jump into danger and subdue his enemies with near superhuman reflexes. While he was merely one of many heroes in the front, wartime journalists attended many of his fighting exhibitions and his peers expressed to the press how amazed they were by his swiftness and skill.

A ready made celebrity by the time the war had ended, Richard Dragon entered the public consciousness as an inspiring master of the martial arts and struck big as he entered into the British and American film industries as the go to actor for the wise eastern teacher trope. With his new found fame Richard Dragon had become not only a war hero but also a sought after trainer to all those interested in - and could afford - his skills. Oddly enough, wherever the Dragon goes gangsters always seem to turn themselves in to the local police. Often with blackeyes and bruises, sometimes handcuffed to a street lamp outside the station.

As the 50s ended, he would steadily lose relevance in the public consciousness but this did not stop his true purpose. Richard Dragon's public persona was merely a cover for his activities as a largely autonomous intelligence agent under an MI6 and Republic of China joint-sponsored organization based out of Hong Kong - The Guomindang Organization for Order and Defense. Now, just as before, he travels the globe as an agent of Scotland Yard in their struggle against the changing tide of the times.




Songs Of The Dragon


A new take on Richard Dragon that hopefully does him more justice than the New 52, this version of the character sees a young Hong Kong Briton who grew up in the tough streets of Kowloon bring his mastery of martial arts to the global stage. Richard Dragon stories are few and far between but with a late 60s setting, I intend to create new ones that are themed around the issues of decolonization and proxy wars but flaired with elements of martial arts and spy thrillers.

Key Notes







References / Sample Post

For your consideration, DCU:Genesis - Justice For All's Animal Man

#1.01: Meat and Greet
#1.02: The Crimson Room
#1.03: Skullduggery
In The Digital Expanse → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Interest Checks
For your consideration, Luso and friends.



In Looking for players → 5 yrs ago Forum: General Interest Checks
So I actually found this thread while listening to the cast version of Butterfly.

As a big fan of MMBN and a casual fan of Digimon, I think I'm obligated to join if you still have room.
In ①⑨⑥⑧ → 6 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Iron Fist, Shang-Chi, announced interest in Richard Dragon... everybody truly is Kung Fu Fighting...


I'm definitely ready for some kung fu antics.



In ①⑨⑥⑧ — a DC/Marvel Pitch → 6 yrs ago Forum: General Interest Checks
I mentioned my interest on Discord but I might as well post it here too. I just finished watching that new Batman animated movie and while that was set in the 70s, it did spark my interest in writing some Richard Dragon plots which should fit in a late 60s setting.
In Once Upon A Kingdom → 6 yrs ago Forum: Nation Roleplay


In Once Upon A Kingdom → 6 yrs ago Forum: Nation Roleplay


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