The history of the Order of the Black Lotus, or simply the Black Lotus, is one shrouded in mystery and evasive of any immutable facts. Stories based on loose documentation place the birth of the Black Lotus sometime during the era of Ancient Greece.
Legend tells of a small group of some of the world’s first recorded super-powered men, living in Greece, banding together to form an elite order of assassins. The minute society of murderers followed in the command of one of their fellow members, who claimed to possess a supernatural ability allowing him to speak with otherworldly spirits who showed him imbalances in the world. Using their inborn superhuman abilities and aptitude for murder, the small group of assassins traveled the globe to eliminate those causing or threatening to cause imbalances in the world, as well as gaining riches by killing those they were hired to at a high enough price. This is how the Black Lotus was born.
Their mastery over their individual powers and abilities as well as expert prowess in stealth and combat quickly garnered the early members of the Black Lotus an illustrious reputation, granting them contracts to eliminate some of the world’s foremost leaders of their time. However, despite their eminence in the business of mercenary work and murder, the Black Lotus notably evaded any proof of existence, including the masking of all of their members’ identities as well as the removal of any formal documentation on their being.
This is how the order has remained since their formation; as an elite organization of super-powered assassins with no ties to history or personal identities. They have orchestrated the murders of countless renowned figures throughout their centuries of history, without their name ever becoming more than a whisper among the wisest of conspiracy theorists.
The Black Lotus - Modern Day
Family of Assassins
Lead by the Order’s present Patriarch or Matriarch, the Black Lotuses’ numbers have grown significantly since the organization’s founding, however its purpose has not shifted. They exist to create balance in the world as they see fit, eliminating any and all individuals who threaten to disrupt their form of global order as well as maintaining absolute secrecy.
Since the death of the Order’s original members, the Black Lotus receives its targets by means of the spirits of its deceased members, whose otherworldly knowledge is the guiding force behind the Order’s present members. It is said the living members of the Black Lotus possesses not only their own individual super-powered abilities, but mystic skills granted to them by their deceased members.
Home Sanctuary
The Temple
Since its birth in Ancient Greece, the home of the Black Lotus has moved to nearly every corner of the globe – Egypt, Africa, Italy, France, China, Thailand and several cities in North America are only some of the locations that the Black Lotus have called its headquarters. Today, the Black Lotus finds home in an ancient temple deep within the jungles of the Amazon.
The Black Lotus is a society heavily connected to nature and mysticism, causing them to often forgo the need for modern-day technology. This lifestyle is evident in their Amazonian base of operations.
Revitalizing an ancient stone temple deep within the jungles of the Amazon, the Black Lotus’ headquarters is equip with a number of living arrangements as well as advanced technology and magical defenses. The base includes a dining hall for the Black Lotus’ members, a training room armed with a technologically advanced combat simulator, as well as a library stocked with countless texts on the history of the Order’s past members as well as contracts. This library is accessible only to members of the Black Lotus, and its information has never left the secrecy of the Order.
The temple base also provides an outdoor courtyard, used by the Black Lotus as a ground for combat training as well as for other physical exercises. The courtyard connects to a small outdoor garden within the temple, where many of the Order’s members find a strong connection with nature.
Masked by a large waterfall, the entrance/exit to a large hangar holds the jet the Black Lotus uses to travel quickly around the world. The temple also has a garage to house the Order's other various vehicles including its members individual modes of transportation.
Defense
While the headquarters of the Order of the Black Lotus is equipped with countless defenses in the case of intrusion, this event is nearly impossible due to the temple’s virtually undetectable location. Not only is the temple’s location guarded from any form of being located via technology, the natural mysticism surrounding the temple and the jungle encompassing it make it untraceable through magical or psychic means. Should one attempt to traverse the jungle to locate the temple, the magic energies within the jungle would create an endless maze, eventually driving the wandering individual to insanity or death.
Despite the temple’s archaic appearance, the vast wealth the Black Lotus’ has collected due to their costly contracts has allowed them to endow their base of operations with the best defensive systems money can buy. This includes cameras covering every corner of the temple that can capture not only visual intruders, but detect body heat as well as DNA signatures of any intruders under the guise of invisibility or any other physical illusions.
Masters of Murder
Should an intruder manage to gain access to the temple without invitation from a member of the Black Lotus, a number of machine gun-powered turrets as well as more mystical offenses are in place to decommission intruders of the Order’s home. Loss of senses, intense psychic trauma, and even the paralysis of major organs such as the heart or lungs are all some of the mystical defenses known to affect those attempting to invade the Black Lotus’ home.
In addition to the temple’s automatic defenses, there are always dozens of Black Lotus members found within the temple at all times. These members are trained with unique combat styles unlike any found outside the Black Lotus, making them extremely lethal opponents in both hand-to-hand combat as well as having mastery over nearly all forms of weaponry. Their connection to innate natural mysticism as well as the spirits of past members of the Order allow them to perform strange feats beyond natural capabilities, such as controlling their own bodily function (heart rate, blood flow, etc.) as well as other abilities including invisibility, teleportation, or heightened physical attributes (speed, strength, agility, reflexes, etc.). The majority of the Black Lotus’ members also possesses their own individual super-human powers, which they are capable of using in unison with their martial arts.
Rules
PM Kalinda if you want to be a member of the Black Lotus
No mass destruction without permission
The temple is virtually impossible to find, so ask before if you want to visit
Sell the temple's defenses and members of the Black Lotus
The temple fanes rose above the vibrant emerald of the forest, spires of granite and limestone, like an ivory spear piercing a viridescent beast. A silver moon stared across the great void of the sky, silent in its frigid wisdom.
She came from the horrors of the Strigidae death-cult. Savaged souled and steel hearted. A cloak of ruby silk fluttered as tattooed hands hummed along the ninety nine strikes of the four armed Ul'Uoddut.
Naked feet danced through sultry air, clammy with the damp of the deepest jungle. Eight toes flashed through crimson robes, finding purchase, panther-like, upon slimy moss and dew-slick stone.
Her breath came in ragged gasps over the buzz of insects by the time her alien kata ended. Sweat dripped from her nose and soaked her ebony eyebrows. Molten fire ran through quivering shoulders and legs of lead staggered to a halt.
Poised, taciturn footsteps guided him forward, his onyx-clad frame tamely weaving past the encompassing branches and leaves, fading in and out of their cast calignosity with spellbinding swagger. The audible notes of the fervent human heart buoyantly levitated alongside the distinct buzzes and chirping of indigenous insects, his curiosity piqued by the prospect of observing the revered skill of a fellow concomitant of the Order of the Black Lotus. Subtly brushing his left hand's fingertips against the weathering bark of a neighboring tree's robust trunk with insouciant flair, his tall, superlatively sculpted frame emerging from the jungle's darkness with enrapturing mystique, his mesmeric, sapphire eyes coolly resting on the sight of the training Strigidae, the sharp, viper-like edge of beguiling danger, the flair of an apex predator, forever present in his gaze.
Folding both arms behind his back in a moment of instinctive, highborn haughtiness, the corners of his lips subtly edged upwards, curling a tame, debonair smirk of mystifying panache upon his exotic, comely features, the 23rd Strigidae's martial wizardry was as the rumors had so furiously suggested, undisputed.
Rays of yellow sunlight beamed down through sporadic breaks in the thick jungle canopy, casting a subtle golden glow to the verdant clearing. She had always thought the jungle was at its most beautiful in the earliest hours of the morning, when the sunlight was soft and the dew from the night before still glistened in its heavenly light.
She had abandoned her shoes before taking a step forward and letting the cool feeling of the earth beneath her feet run through her body. Closing her eyes, she listened only to the sound of the rushing river beside her; felt only the subtle dance of a soft breeze between her raven hair. She remained like this, motionless and tranquil, for several moments, before in a single abrupt but grace movement, she thrust a single foot into the air, keeping her other foot planted firmly on the ground. From the end of her bare foot, her toes flexed toward her, a single jet of flames erupted, the fire evaporating into the air before reaching any of the jungle's plants.
Continuing the movement with graceful fluidity, she brought her foot back down with enough force to whip her other leg up and around in a circular movement, her entire body leaving the ground as she followed in the momentum of her extended leg. From where her foot had once been planted, a moderate chunk of earth raised from the ground, which arced through the air following in the circular movement her of her leg before shooting away from her just before both her feet landed softly back on the ground. The rock raced straight toward the massive tree trunk she had been aiming for before shattering on impact against the solid wall of bark.
Without breaking the string of movements, her arms began dancing through the air with the free-flowing grace of running water, and, as they did, the water in the river beside her began to follow. Raising from the flowing stream, the liquid followed the graceful movements of her arms as she pushed and pulled it through the air. Spinning around completely, she kept the water carefully in control as it followed around her in a circle before she shot it forward in the form of a powerful stream back into the river.
Finally, her red-clad figure leapt into the air, soaring with supernatural litheness to land on one of the rainforest's many tree branches. From there she flew through the thick forestation, jumping and somersaulting from tree to tree as though she were nothing more than a leaf in the wind and appearing simply as a blur of crimson amid the dark shadows of the jungle. Her feet seemed to never land as she continued to race through the jungle until, suddenly, she burst through the trees, her supple silhouette performing one last back layout before landing with the gentleness of a feather against the ground leading to the Temple.
@lena_dante: It's definitely a very different experience than writing Val or Amora. I hope that all made sense, I'm still getting used to trying to detail body movements lol.
Poised, taciturn footsteps guided him forward, his onyx-clad frame tamely weaving past the encompassing branches and leaves, fading in and out of their cast calignosity with spellbinding swagger. The audible notes of the fervent human heart buoyantly levitated alongside the distinct buzzes and chirping of indigenous insects, his curiosity piqued by the prospect of observing the revered skill of a fellow concomitant of the Order of the Black Lotus. Subtly brushing his left hand's fingertips against the weathering bark of a neighboring tree's robust trunk with insouciant flair, his tall, superlatively sculpted frame emerging from the jungle's darkness with enrapturing mystique, his mesmeric, sapphire eyes coolly resting on the sight of the training Strigidae, the sharp, viper-like edge of beguiling danger, the flair of an apex predator, forever present in his gaze.
Folding both arms behind his back in a moment of instinctive, highborn haughtiness, the corners of his lips subtly edged upwards, curling a tame, debonair smirk of mystifying panache upon his exotic, comely features, the 23rd Strigidae's martial wizardry was as the rumors had so furiously suggested, undisputed.
Once more her hands flashed through the ninety nine strikes. Red robes rolled and flowed around her the hissing blur of tattooed hands. Her sleeves snapped and cracked and the buzzing, howling, growling jungle rang with bangs.
Then through the perfect control of the Na-au she reached into her bones and blood. The tension of muscle and tendon changed, just so. For heartbeat a four chamber heart pulsed and throbbed like an alien, six-chambered heart. A network of synapes flashed to life, imitating the unknowable thoughts of a distant life-form. For just a heartbeat Ivana imitated the inhuman.
And she struck the one hundredth strike of theUl'Uoddut.
Silence fell like the nightfall of all sound. Into the vast void of noise came a pittering, a pattering, like the sprinkle of fat spring raindrops.
It was dead flies. Fat-bodied, bloated spiders tumbled from their webs. Junebugs and weevils and katydids and jewel-bodied beetles. Nymphs and tree-hoppers and caterpillars and all the little life rained down until the ziggurat was a prismatic, gleaming carpet of glistening polychrome carapace and insect ichor.
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