Tang Clan

Faction Data

"Fuck your mother!!"

The Foremost Hidden-Weapon Masters Under Heaven, seated in Shu, Sichuan, famed throughout the land for their unique hidden weapons and their twin mastery of medicine and poison. Coin Darts in the pouch, arrows up the sleeve, Cow-Hair Needles in the hair, Crane-Crest Red in the flask. Every inch of a Tang Clan member is a lethal weapon.

They train their Internal Skill by no ordinary rule but a path of their own. Once past the first stage they do not toil at it, but rely on medicinal meals, steeping their Internal Breath day and night in Pepper Powder Poison. Truly, their whole bodies are poison.

Their manner is neither haughty nor humble, neither wholly righteous nor wholly wicked. Once they were praised as the backbone of the Wulin, and also cursed for their poisons and hidden weapons. Both the righteous and the wicked hold them in Restraint, and even the Imperial Court is displeased with these stiff-necked folk.

For all their former glory, after many calamities their numbers have dwindled. The texts handed down by their forebears went up in flames, and later generations gathered the surviving pages into the Hidden Weapon General Principles, the Poison Classic, and the - and the Pharmacopoeia too was lost when passed away.

Sect Leader Tang Zhongling is a singular figure of his age, fierce of Temperament. In his youth he beat all comers under heaven and offended countless people. Had the not risen in those years, the Tang Clan would surely have become the Public Enemy of the Wulin.

They are hereditary foes of the Diancang Sect, and have fought them in at least several dozen clashes great and small.

Tang Clan Panorama

The background shown when you choose to visit facilities during free action at the Tang Clan. It also appears in the opening scenes of the story. There are two images, day and night.

Origins

The original Tang Clan was merely a household named Tang, living alone in the mountains.

During the An Lushan Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty, the Central Plains suffered a catastrophe without parallel, fields of the starved dead, the people in constant terror. The Patriarch could not bear the suffering of the world, so he scattered his fortune, buying Righteous Fields and giving out gruel to relieve the victims, and taught them fists and kicks to defend themselves, so that the Commoners would not be preyed on by roving bandits.

He also led the people to occupy the Outer Fort and openly defy the imperial decree, making war on Emperor Xuanzong, who had fled into Shu for refuge. For that foolish sovereign had ruined the people of the realm, and even fleeing into Shu he meant to tax the people to build a palace.

When the Patriarch and his family held the Outer Fort, they had already resolved to die. The body may be destroyed, the incense of a line may be snuffed out, but the will of the Tang Clan must be passed down forever.

Remember the Patriarch's dying teaching, the tenth of the family precepts:

Right and wrong live in one heart, not in the words of men.
Take up justice and dare to defy the great taboos of the world; hold to reason and contend with all under heaven.
Only let our hearts be open and clear - though a thousand men point their fingers, though ten thousand be my foes, I go smiling.

Inner Disciples and Outsiders

The Tang Clan's Disciples are divided into inner disciples and outsider disciples. Outsider disciples are forbidden to be taught the Mental Formula and techniques; inner disciples are forbidden to practice the martial arts of other sects.

An outsider disciple who joins the sect must perform labor and accumulate Merit, and in time may earn the favor of the teachers, convert and join as an inner disciple, take the Tang surname with the sect, and go on to learn the deep martial arts not taught outside.

But outsider disciples are not, after all, of the household named Tang. They need not stay forever in the Tang Family Compound; they have another heavy charge.

All who have received the Tang Clan's kindness and can stand on their own should carry the will of the Tang Clan and go forth to distant lands - just as in those days the Tang Clan's forebears defied the Emperor's wrath for the people's sake, fearing no man's words, never forgetting their proud, ringing bones. You should live your own life well, and one day give relief to those in want.

This is the true meaning of the outsider disciple. Those who convert and join as inner disciples are rather the orphans and widows with no home to go to; the Patriarch pitied their lot and took them as sworn sons and daughters. In truth, outsider and inner disciple were never divided into high and low, noble and base.

Sins

"Our sect's elders have committed no end of sins - which particular one does Third Senior Brother mean?"

Jianghu folk love to fight face to face with blade and spear, and look down on hidden weapons and poisons. On top of that, the Tang Clan does everything by its own backbone, going its own way; hear a word they do not like and they dig in their heels and mean it in earnest, so their Reputation is half praise, half blame. But the Tang Clan has also produced no few demons and committed no few sins.

For every demon that appears, later generations must spend a full sixty years washing away the stain. In his youth Tang Zhongling went everywhere challenging men to martial contests for this very reason: whoever dared speak ill of the Tang Clan, he would fight. Thanks to him, Wulin folk no longer call the Tang Clan insidious and venomous - only ruthless and vicious.

The stain was washed away, but enemies sprang up in every corner of the land.

Purple Gold Hand

"Purple Gold Hand", a ruthless demon, a figure from before even the Old Demon Cult. He steeped his arm in Refined Poison until it was mottled in five colors, purple to shining, impervious to blade and spear. Each of his five fingers carried a different poison; dip them into tea and the poison was laid in a moment; in a fight, grab a handful of earth and the sand and mud became poisoned grit on the spot.

Before Purple Gold Hand there was the Myriad Poison Silkworm, and before that the Arsenic Doctor.

The Feud with the Diancang Sect

Once upon a time, a Heroic Couple of the Jianghu fell to quarreling. The husband and wife dragged in others to judge between them, and swept a Tang Clan Senior into the affair. Just then the Diancang Sect's Sword Saint passed by, playing the pig to eat the tiger, and insisted on meddling; when he was wronged he showed his true skill and stunned the crowd, so that all had to heed him.

The Tang Clan Senior flew into a rage and cried: "No matter what, reason stands above all. So what if your martial arts are high? Others may fawn on you, but the Tang Clan will not! We cannot beat you, but we will not listen to you!" And with that he took poison and died.

The Tang Clan Sect Leader was enraged when he heard of it, and so drugged and ambushed the Sword Saint, destroying his martial arts. The result was as one might expect: the two sects were bound in a deep and deadly hatred from that day on.

Candle Skull

The Three Great Families of the Jianghu were in fact once four; the one that vanished was the Yuwen Family.

Legend says the and Yuwen families were once as fire and water, and produced two prodigies - Nangong Liang and Yuwen Xin. A night meeting on a boat in Jiangnan, climbing Kunlun together to save an orphan, joining arts to break the Bandit King, sitting shoulder to shoulder on Emei's Golden Summit to watch the dawn. They should have ended as lovers at last... but a Tang Clan Senior of those days, "Candle Skull" Tang Zhu, did a wicked thing that turned the lovers back into foes. Bearing the bitter wishes of their families, in the end only one of them could live.

At the close of their fierce duel, the two faced each other palm to palm and strove with Internal Force. Yuwen Xin smiled serenely and secretly sent her Internal Force into Nangong Liang to heal his wounds, gladly dying under his palm. That soft, yin Internal Force lived on and on within Nangong Liang, blending with the Nangong family's true-born Internal Breath into one, like a wisp of fragrant soul guarding him to old age. This is the highest Realm of the Nangong Internal Method, the "Vow of Growing Old Together".

The Inner Demon of South Songshan

In his youth, Tang Zhongling once chased a lecherous young nobleman who had insulted his a thousand li, all the way to Southern Songshan Temple.

The Abbot Shi Ming, out of a moment's mercy, sheltered the criminal, which brought the Tang Clan demon to pound on the temple gate dozens of times. That night thunder and lightning raged; at every flash a man's shadow showed outside the window, like a devil. The monks all cried that evil spirits had come, and chanted the sutras in unison. Tang Zhongling, surly of Temperament but deeply reverent of monks and Buddhas, did not make a sound while the chanting went on, and left only at dawn.

That day not one monk in the temple escaped an Inner Demon; even Shi Ming could not rise above it. He returned the Abbot's cassock and staff and went out into the world to spread the Dharma, yet decades passed and he could not shake the nightmare. Instead, from the terror in his heart grew wicked thoughts, and he schemed with all his might to destroy the Tang Clan.

Storming the Execution Ground

Before Tang Zhongling took up the Sect Leader's seat, he once shared a pavilion out of the rain with Tang Sheng. Later Tang Sheng offended the powerful and was marked for death; as he was being taken to the execution ground to be beheaded before the crowd, Tang Zhongling came with the young Tang Buyi and Tang Zheng and saved him. Tang Zhongling denounced the Emperor's folly before the Commoners, and not a single Constable or guard dared say a word.

It was a fine tale of a righteous man saved from under the headsman's blade, but it also made the Tang Clan a thorn in the Imperial Court's eye for over a decade. Only because the local authorities dared not stroke the tiger's whiskers, and gave face to the Nangong Family, did they pay the Court's orders only lip service and refrain from marching troops to wipe out the Tang Clan. The farther east one goes, the nearer Lin'an, the less safe a Tang Clan Disciple's life.

Running Off with Lady Shi

One day the Flying Hero Tang Buyi went to probe the Flying Stone Gang's secrets, and happened on quarreling with Lady Shi. Lady Shi, in a fury, left home in a huff and meant to leap from a cliff. The Flying Hero hurried out, reasoned with her kindly, and arranged lodging for her. But Lady Shi's stubborn streak came out, and she would not go back.

When Gang Leader Shi came to his senses, he thought the Flying Hero had run off with Lady Shi, and a small family matter brewed into a feud between two factions.

Decline

In , the Tang Clan was gravely wounded and its numbers dwindled. swallowed poison to force his Power up, and was left with a chronic ailment; the Flying Swallow Meteor Feather became a thing of the past. Their former glory gone, the Tang Clan at once became a beaten dog that everyone chased.

Before long the Diancang Sect seized the chance to pick a quarrel and challenged the Sect Leader. The ailing Sect Leader, fearing death not at all, led his Disciples to meet them. The battle dragged on; the Sect Leader defeated , but the Tang Clan lost. Through the mediation of the Nangong Family Head, the Sect Leader spared the Sword Saint's life and only forced him to seal his sword and retire, in exchange for Diancang's withdrawal. In that time passed from the world, and the Sect Leader's grief drove the hidden ailment deep into his bones; to this day he suffers from it.

Afterward, , because of the Sect Leader's storming of the execution ground years before, came to hold the Tang Clan in Restraint. He ordered the Shangguan Family to weaken the Tang Clan in secret, and colluded with South Songshan's Shi Ming and the Tang Clan of Guangzhou to move against them together.

Tang Clan of Guangzhou

Founded by the traitor who fled down the mountain, "Buddha's Hand Fragrance" Tang Shouhong, with his Disciple Tang Shan.

The Tang Clan does not recognize this branch.

Panacea Oil

The Tang Clan's guardian medicine, whose true name is "Myriad-Method Spirit-Connecting Miracle Ointment". Legend says it can heal the dead and flesh the bones of the dead, cure every illness and neutralize every poison. Mixed with water it can be applied to the skin; taken internally it suppresses poison; a lick of it relieves summer heat and stops diarrhea; ground to powder and burned it drives off mosquitoes. Together with Pepper Powder Poison it is one of the Tang Clan's two great medicines. Alas, since the Tang Clan Pharmacopoeia was burned and passed away, the formula has long been lost.

In truth it is not truly all-curing. Its real use answers to Pepper Powder Poison: it rouses the body's hidden potential to devour the evil Qi itself. If the patient is a Guttering Lamp with no vital energy left, Panacea Oil is of no avail.

Refined from the dregs at the bottom of the jar into a pill, it becomes the famous "Panacea Pill", rich in potency yet mild and long-lasting, fit to be called the king of Human Pills. It fights poison with poison, slaying every evil thing in the organs. But taken by one who is not poisoned, it does harm. Shangguan Sun took a Panacea Pill in his youth, and afterward no poison could touch him.

Because the art is lost, the only true Panacea Pills left are the ones gave to carry. has made a trial batch of Panacea Oil, and on journeys mixes it with water to bring Zhao Huo's fever down. On Ye Yunshang's route, after Tang Shouhong is captured, the formula can be obtained in trade.

The name is thought to be a play on Tiger Balm and Hundred Spirit Oil.

Flying Swallow Meteor Feather

"Feathers? Have you gone mad, hitting me with those? Hahaha! Feathers can hurt a man? Unless - unless..."

The Tang Clan's ancestral Divine Skill was once the Ghost Arrow and the King of Hell Talisman; today it is Tang Zhongling's own creation, the Flying Swallow Meteor Feather. In his youth the Sect Leader roamed the Jianghu by this Signature Skill and never met his match; at present only the Sect Leader and have learned it.

That feathers can wound is no laughing matter: where Internal Force reaches, flying flowers and plucked leaves can wound too. But this move is too heavy in killing intent; unless one's Power has reached perfection, it is very hard to hold back against a foe. The Ghost Arrow and King of Hell Talisman, by contrast, do not harm bystanders.

When Tan Badao was caught, loosed a single move and cut the whole painted pleasure boat to pieces and sank it. Tan Badao's lungs, spleen, and stomach were pierced through, the tendon of his right leg severed, four fingers of his right hand cut off; he nearly died. Its power is truly shocking to the world.

When the Flying Hero returns, if he faces Nangong Shen's Phoenix Treasure Robe, the feathers even cut through steel, the joints and rivets snapping apart and the robe destroyed on the spot, to the horror of all the Wulin Heroes.

Though it does not happen in the game, Zhao Huo is set up as possibly able to learn the Flying Swallow Meteor Feather - but it would surely differ from both the Eldest Senior Brother's and the Sect Leader's. For the Flying Swallow Meteor Feather is a kind of consummation of the Chapter on Forgetting Form.^[1]

The Forbidden Ground

The Tang Family Compound sits on a lone peak with valleys on three sides and a cliff at its back. This valley is called "the Bottom of the Tang Clan's Valley". It was here that Tang Lu threw herself from the cliff, and Tang Moling, missing her mother, drops Paper Cranes into the valley every night. At the bottom one can pick up an Heirloom Small Sword, rusted for perhaps a hundred years, and a string of pure gold prayer beads carved with the words "The falcon comes from the eastern sea, chasing the deer of the western hills".

Deep in the valley lies the Tang Clan's forbidden ground. In Yunshang's Bond, after Zhao Huo and Ye Yunshang fall to the valley floor, someone treats Zhao Huo with Tang Clan Cow-Hair Needles and leaves a note on his back: "Dive the lake, out through the cave." The person's identity is never revealed. Following the note, the two dive into an underground lake and pass through the cliff into another valley. A stone corridor rings the valley, tool marks visible everywhere, and beside the path stands a stone gate built by the Tang Clan's ancestors. The gate will not push open; whether a tomb lies behind it, or something taboo that should never see the light, is unknown. Crossing the valley stream, they come to the bottom of the old well in the Tang Family Compound and escape by it. When Tang Fang hears the tale, she says softly to Tang Sheng: "Acting Sect Leader, they've found the Tang Clan's forbidden ground."

Yu Zhu, told to repair the well while cleaning the Training Ground, found something strange at its bottom, but no one cared. She could only swallow her curiosity, quietly fix the well, and add a Mechanism cover that catches the rain and closes the well mouth on its own.

Blood Jade

The token of the Tang Clan's Family Head, ranked alongside the Sect Leader's Token. Each generation it is passed down with the Sect Leader's Token and the Heirloom Small Sword to the new Sect Leader, and it is steeped in deadly poison. Tang Zheng had Tang Zhongling take the Corpse Heart Pill, seized the Blood Jade, said he would present it with his own hands when he met the Dharma King, and left the Tang Clan at once. This Dharma King is the Mud Cult's Dharma King of the Human Path, Lady Wen, who sent Tang Zheng to infiltrate the Tang Clan - but whether the Blood Jade ever reached Lady Wen's hands, the game does not say.

The Thousand Lantern Tower's Scheme

By Yu Xiaomei's own account, legend holds that the Blood Jade is the key that opens the Tang Clan's forbidden ground (the secret realm). Xiaomei was sent by the Thousand Lantern Tower to infiltrate the Tang Clan and seize the Blood Jade at the right moment to open the forbidden ground.

While at the Tang Clan, Xiaomei once pressed Fire Lightning: "You fly in the sky and can see farther than I can. If the Tang Clan really had some secret, some forbidden ground, you'd have found it long ago, wouldn't you?" She even brought out a Jiang's Meat Bun to share with it, but Fire Lightning knocked the bun into the valley with a wing (after the dice roll in the Alchemy Room in Sect Leader Meeting). She also met Ye Yunshang and wished they had met sooner, and formed the "Meishan Expedition" to probe the Tang Clan's secrets - only to lament that it failed at the first hurdle: storming the Alchemy Room, the whole party was wiped out, and they could only sacrifice Zhao Huo to hold the rear while the expedition disbanded on the spot.

In the end, Xiaomei never found the forbidden ground, nor knew where it was or what it held. Patriarch Wuxiang had three guesses as to what the forbidden ground contains; one is the "True Classic of Taowu" from the "Four Fiends' Books", the least of the three threats to Western Xia. The Patriarch's reasoning: legend says Taowu was "arrogant, cruel, and flaunting of virtue, throwing the heavenly order into chaos", and in the Jianghu today no sect but the Tang Clan fits that description. The contents of the other two guesses are not mentioned.

In Early Dec Year 3, when visiting Xiaomei at Decision of the Crowd, Zhao Huo asks: "Is it because the Tang Clan hides one of the Four Fiends' Books?" Xiaomei answers: "That is a guess at best, a chasing of shadows - hardly worth the Tower Master's great trouble." She says the reason the Thousand Lantern Tower holds the Tang Clan in Restraint is that only the Tang Clan can be mentioned in the same breath as the Tower: if the Tang Clan were to follow the Tower's example, break into parts, move from light into dark, scatter and lurk in every place, they would be the most terrible assassin organization in the world.

In Early Feb Year 3, when Xiaomei left the Tang Clan, she admitted she was "ordered by the Tower Master to probe the Tang Clan's secret treasure". Tang Sheng replied: "The Thousand Lantern Tower is truly far-reaching, to know even our sect's unspoken secrets. A pity - that is news decades old; I fear you will return empty-handed."

What lies in the forbidden ground the game does not reveal. In an interview, Bird Bear mentioned a deleted side story, "Corpse Brother", about a Tang Clan Disciple who was killed by Zhao Huo and pushed into the valley, miraculously survived, and came back for revenge; he would open the Tang Clan's secret realm and obtain the secret treasure. The secret treasure of the Tang Clan's secret realm has not yet been made public.^[2]

Slogans

Words Tang Zhongling spoke to the former Wulin Alliance Leader Long Yuan.

I am but a commoner of the mountains, who bows to no king's law, ever a rebel against the way, the most contrary of men.
When the whim takes me, I throw open my robes for joy. I reckon myself true to chivalry, at peace with my conscience.
Right and wrong live in me; let my name be judged by you all.
Forgive the Tang Clan for not joining your counsel - not from stubborn pride, but because the Tang Clan's fire has burned from ancient times to now.

The slogan Zhao Huo leads his brothers and sisters in shouting at the Wulin Assembly on Fengyu Mountain.

Tang Clan Disciples - a terror to hear!
When the whim takes us - rob the rich and aid the poor!
The Sect Leader's beating - stubborn and unrepentant.
Charge into the stronghold - for wealth and for lives!
Seated in Shu - peerless and proud!
Whoever dares provoke us - Fuck your mother!!

Secret Manuals

• Hidden Weapon General Principles
• Ascending Cloud Step · Moon Gazing
• Tang Clan Pharmacopoeia
• Mandarin Duck Fist and Sword Manual
• Same-Boat Sword Manual
• Eight Immortals Finger

Notes

• Bird Bear's FB introduction: link
• Also known as the Sugar Clan
• Besides poison, the Tang Clan's laxative is also wondrously effective.Book of Life and Death No.7
• The Tang Clan pays its taxes on time.
• The Tang Clan's hidden weapon verse: "Under heaven there is no finger, and without a finger nothing can be called a weapon. Without the finger, under heaven there is no weapon - can it be called a finger? He who fingers a weapon makes it a weapon; under heaven there is nothing that is not a weapon."
• The Tang Clan has no uniform dress; they are in fact quite casual, and poor, so they patch and remake their clothes wherever they tear.^[3]
• Tang Clan Disciples are called the Blue Devil by the Jianghu; only Li Fugui insists they are the Cyan Devil.
• The Pepper Powder the Tang Clan uses is not the Pepper Powder we know, but a poison unique to the Tang Clan.^[4]
• Housing in the Outer Fort is very cheap, and there is no fixed price at all; one can even pay rent in pickled vegetables.^[5]
• Some of the Outer Fort's tenants do business there; others simply live there as cheap lodging while making their living elsewhere.^[4:1]
• Before the Western Wulin Assembly the Outer Fort's residents are evacuated; if is present, he tricks them into going sightseeing, quells their anger, and even turns a profit.
• The Outer Fort's residents are somewhat prepared in their hearts for the mess after the Western Wulin Assembly. They too have long sheltered under the Tang Clan's shade, and know such a day was unavoidable.^[5:1]
• Those the Tang Clan takes in for a time, and the wives who marry into the Tang Clan, cannot learn Tang Clan martial arts or techniques, but may eat poison meals to improve their constitution.^[5:2]
• Poison meals usually taste numbing and spicy, and are delicious; no one is forced if they cannot get used to them.^[5:3]
• The Kitchen cannot seat many people; unless it is a special occasion, everyone sits outside and eats as they please.^[5:4]
• Compared with Jinxiang Palace, they are less insistent on training martial arts for health, but one must work honestly.^[6]
• In the current version, apart from the Training Tower, there are no other facilities that have not appeared.^[6:1]
• Though people celebrate festivals, the Tang Clan's finances are such that they may wish to celebrate but lack the strength.^[7]
• The Kitchen and the chores have duty rosters and class schedules, a little more flexible than a university timetable; no one punishes skipping, and one may freely swap shifts if a replacement is found. Zhao Huo, though even less supervised, is often talked into taking shifts.^[7:1]
• The Tang Clan's Training Tower was originally a Buddhist pagoda on Meishan, abandoned by monks fleeing the war, and afterward taken over by the Tang Clan.^[2:1]
• Tang Clan Disciples preparing for a child must stop taking poison, mind their diet, and if need be temporarily or permanently disperse their inner strength.^[2:2]

Gallery

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1. Q&A Collection 2024-10-25 ↩︎

2. Interview with Bird Bear Mouse Bug, 129 Questions, Part 5 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

3. Bird Bear FB comment: link ↩︎

4. Bahamut - RE: [Info] Bird Bear Q&A ↩︎ ↩︎

5. PTT C Chat - [Legend of Mortal] Long Xiang and Strange Trivia P4 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

6. PTT C Chat - [Legend of Mortal] Long Xiang and Strange Trivia P5 ↩︎ ↩︎

7. Bahamut - RE: [Info] Bird Bear Q&A (Updated 11/2 Second Wave + Private Questions) ↩︎ ↩︎