SILVER PATH

HISTORY

The Silver Path (or Chemin d'Argent as it is known in San Monique) is a Voudun sect that equates the spirit world with cyberspace and mixes advanced technology with traditional voodoo rites. The Silver Path is funded by criminal activities, most notably drug trade.

The Silver Path has been based on the Caribbean island of San Monique for centuries. They controlled the drug trade derived from the plantations of opium poppies on the island nation and used voodoo magic to increase their power. By the mid-twentieth century the Silver Path had all but eliminated all the rival voodun sects and through intimidation and fear they controlled the entire island. Control of San Monique was all the Path's leaders felt they needed, it let them become wealthy on the drug profits and kept them safe from international reprisal. Their contentment with the status quo left the sect's leaders unprepared for Julian LaCroix.

LaCroix was the illegitimate son of one of the Silver Path's mambo's and the former French ambassador to San Monique. When he was thirteen Julian stowed away on a freighter bound for France to meet his father. When he arrived in France, his father denied that Julian was his son. Trapped in France with no passport, Julian fell in with the criminal underworld. He discovered he had a knack for the criminal enterprise and soon rose to a position of power in the French underworld. With the formation of the European Union, Julian's fortunes took a turn for the worse and he fled France with the authorities and rival criminal organizations on his tail. Julian quickly made his way back home to San Monique

It turned out that LaCroix had returned home at an opportune time. One of the members of a Haitian branch of the Silver Path, Jean-Louis Droo, had been ejected for what the others saw as heresy, he sought to combine traditional voodoo magic with technology. Droo took his initial successes and began a criminal career as Houngan, a member of the new Brotherhood of Evil. When his experiments proved successful, there was dissent amongst the Path's members, who regarded the leaders of the sect as fools for rejecting this new technology.

A new group of houngans, under the leadership of LaCroix, took control of the Silver Path and began actively exploring new applications of voodoo practices using modern technology. When they learned of the American scientist Dr. Marie Ste. Claire's theories on Droo's technology, they covertly gave her financial backing. Having been rejected and ridiculed by most of the scientific community, she did not look too closely at the new source of funding. With the Silver Path's resources at her disposal Marie was able to create the prototypes for the techno-voodoo cybernetic and computer technology. The breakthrough came when Marie made contact with something on the 'Net claiming to be the voodoo Loa Legba, guardian of the gates. After contact had been made with Legba, the technology advanced quickly, perhaps Legba himself was helping. Other Loa were discovered on the 'Net and soon a means was found to allow the Loa to mount a person equipped with special cybernetic implants. Other technologies followed: brainwiping, zombification, and finally the In-betweeners. With the new technology in their hands, the Silver Path began a massive expansion of their criminal empire. When Marie learned of the true nature of the Path, she tried to escape, but the houngans of the Silver Path stopped her. She was brainwiped and became the test subject for the prototype of the next generation of cheval implants. When it was done, she was a zombi cheval under the control of the Bokor.

Marie later mysteriously regained her free will and fled to America, where the Path's operations had come to the attention of the heroes Renegade and ArcAngel. Marie joined with the heroes and together they thwarted one of the Silver Path's major drug smuggling operations. The Silver Path vowed vengeance on the heroes and swore that Renegade's home of Superior City would pay the price. In response Renegade, ArcAngel, and Marie (calling herself Mystère), formed the new Enforcers of Justice to present a united opposition to whatever the Silver Path was planning for Superior City.

To implement the Silver Path's revenge, LaCroix turned to some of his underworld connections and made contact with the organization called the Crime Cartel. The Cartel made LaCroix an offer. If the Path supplied the funding, the Cartel would organize a bounty on Superior City. The deal was that any so-called "super-villain" who could prove to the Cartel that they successfully committed a crime in Superior City would get paid a bonus equal to 10% of the value of whatever they stole in Superior. In addition to organizing the bounty, the Cartel also requested that the Silver Path allow them to use San Monique as a safe haven for Cartel members who needed a place to hide and as a site for the Cartel to set up computer data havens for their hackers to use. LaCroix readily agreed, knowing the association with the Cartel would grant the Silver Path more power and bring them onto the world stage.

As the bounty took its toll on Superior City, with super-human crime rising dramatically, LaCroix and the Silver Path began planning their next major move. They stepped up heroin production and prepared the infrastructure to capture the market for the drug in America. Meanwhile the Path's houngans had finished the next generation of cybernetic vévés, and LaCroix had them implanted in himself. These new vévés allowed LaCroix to gain the powers of the Loa without having to surrender control to them. When the Path was ready to implement their plan they took steps to prevent the Enforcers of Justice from interfering. First they kidnapped Marie, bringing her back to San Monique to witness their triumph, then they dispatched a group of In-betweeners to kill the rest of the Enforcers.

The Enforcers defeated the In-betweeners and set out for San Monique to rescue Mystère and stop whatever the Path was planning. They arrived too late to save Mystère, who had been killed by LaCroix, but they did implant a computer virus designed by Marie into the Path's computers. The virus destroyed all of the technology based on Marie's designed. In an instant all of the Path's chevals lost their ability to channel the Loa, even LaCroix lost his abilities, and the In-betweeners all shut down. With their main offensive power eliminated the Silver Path was no match for the Enforcers of Justice who decimated the organization, capturing or destroying most of the heroin that was destined for the U.S. and capturing LaCroix and turning him over to American authorities.

Without their leader or technology the Silver Path has fallen into disarray. Their agents in the U.S. have all gone into hiding or have started forming their own gangs to survive. Back in San Monique many of the rival sects the Path had driven away a half-century ago have begun to emerge to seek vengeance on the Silver Path. The chaos in San Monique will likely not last, as the Crime Cartel has begun to move in to protect their investments on the island.

ORGANIZATION & TECHNOLOGY

The Silver Path is controlled by a council whose members include the top houngans and mambos and top-ranking members of San Monique's government, military, and business community. Other than Julian LaCroix, who was in overall charge, membership in the leadership council is determined by the Loa, based on divination rites. LaCroix himself was also a member of the San Monique government, the Minister for Security, until his arrest.

Here is a summary of the organization and its tools. Many of the terms are from traditional voodoo and are used to describe their technological equivalent in the Silver Path.

• Oungan: The oungans (or houngans) are the techno-priests of the Silver Path. They build and manage the computer systems that summon the Loa. They are responsible for creating, dispatching, and monitoring the chevals. Female oungans are known as mambos.
• Bokor: The bokor are traditionally black magicians. In the Silver Path the bokor are responsible for brain-wipes, creating and controlling the zombis, and creating/summoning and monitoring the Baka.
• Cheval: Chevals are cyborg operatives with the vévé circuitry that allows them to download the Loa. Most have modular cybernetics that the Loa reconfigure to suit their own needs. Many are sent undercover to further the goals of the Silver Path. Most of the cybernetic vévés used by the Chevals are static; they may only be used to summon one particular Loa. Some Chevals have two sets of vévés implanted allowing them to be mounted by different Loa. The exceptions are Mystère, her vévés are software configurable, and LaCroix, who could gain the power of a Loa without surrendering control of his body to it.
• Zombi: The zombis are individuals who have been brain-wiped and are implanted with a special control circuit (inserted at the base of the victim's skull). The control circuit allows a bokor to guide a zombi remotely. Captured enemies of the Path are often turned into zombis to make them useful. Zombis also form the bulk of the "foot soldiers" of the Silver Path.
• In-Betweeners: In-betweeners, also called Baka, are special types of modular cyborgs. In legend, they are spirit creatures that can manifest themselves on the physical plane. The Baka of the Silver Path are "born" when a bokor creates a special In-betweener cyborg shell, and the shell is then inhabited by a mysterious force. The force appears to be similar to the Loa programs that inhabit cyberspace, but of a more malevolent nature. Some theorize they are evolved from the insidious computer viruses that roam the 'Net. Specific forms of Baka are:
  • Loup-garou: Similar to traditional werewolves, these creatures can appear human, but their cybernetics allow them to transform into cyborg werewolf-like creatures.
  • Cat People: Another type of shape-shifting cyborg, the cat people are not as vicious as the loup-garou. Cat people tend to have a more sadistic bent, deriving pleasure from the pain of others. They are often present with the drug enforcers of the Silver Path. Cat people can appear human but can shift into half-man, half-cat cyborg form.
  • Bird People: The bird people cyborgs are savage and bloodthirsty. They are often used for assassinations when the Silver Path needs to send a message to their enemies. As with the others, the bird-people can appear human or shift to a winged-humanoid configuration.
  • Snake People: The snake-men are sadistic manipulators and tempters. The Silver Path often uses them to recruit others. Snake people have more variable configuration cyborg bodies, able to shift from human form through several degrees of snake-man forms, culminating in a body with the upper-half of a scaled, fanged humanoid and the lower half of a snake.
  • Skin Changers: Skin Changers are the most insidious of the In-betweeners. They are cyborg skeletons with organic outer coverings. The main body is a highly configurable cybernetic "skeleton" which can be covered by a number of "skins". The Skin Changer cyborgs usually have several with them, stored in special containers. The skins can be anything from generic humans and animals to skins that allow them to disguise themselves as a specific person. Skin Changers are often used to infiltrate enemy organizations.
• Vévés: Vévé is the name of the special neural cybernetics that allow a Loa to mount (take control of) a cheval.
• Tit-bon-ange: In traditional voudun this term refers to the portion of the soul that determines character and individuality. In the Silver Path, it also refers to the copies of brainwipe victims' memories that are stored in the Path's computer systems.
• Hounsi: The hounsi are the apprentice oungans.
• Hounfort: This is a generic term for any of the Silver Paths bases of operation that has sufficient technical resources to perform some if not all of the techno-rituals.
• Loa: No one is sure exactly what the Loa the Silver Path summon are. They may be the actual Loa of voodoo canon, or strange artificial intelligences that roam cyberspace. Whatever they are, they have taken on the names and aspects of the voodoo pantheon. The technology developed by Marie Ste. Claire allows the chevals of the Silver Path to summon the Loa from cyberspace. The Loa possess, or mount, the chevals and take control of their bodies. In the case of most of the chevals, their bodies have been cybernetically enhanced to allow the possessing Loa to re-configure the body to duplicate the Loa's abilities. This is a list of the Loa that the Silver Path has been able to summon so far. The list mentions the name, description, and what powers a cheval manifests when channeling the listed Loa.
  • Legba: Legba was the first of the Loa contacted via computer. He is also best known and most worshipped of all the voudun Loa. He is the god of the gate and communication. Depicted as an old man walking with a crutch, he also personifies the voudun mysteries. Every ritual for any reason is preceded by an invocation to Legba; without his agreement to "open the gate" between the spirit plane and the material one, no other Loa would be able to pass down to Earth. Therefore, no communication between god and worshipper can take place without Legba's approval. No other deity may join a voudun ceremony unless Legba has been invoked, and no Loa may act without Legba's permission. This makes Legba the most powerful of all the Loa. As another incarnation, Mâitre Carrefour, he guards the crossroads and is the patron of sorcery. Legba's chevals manifest several powers related to transportation, including the ability to create warps to cross great distances.
  • Damballah: Damballah is a serpent god, and god of the sun, sky and of knowledge. He and his wife Aida-Wedo are the protectors of mankind and are the leaders of the voodoo pantheon. When a cheval is mounted by Damballah his body becomes snakelike, it grows fangs and claws and becomes malleable. The cheval is also able to use fire blasts of solar radiation from its eyes, and has extensive knowledge of the occult.
  • Aida-Wedo: She is the wife of Damballah and also a snake god. Often represented as a rainbow serpent, she is a protector and sky god. Her chevals can form shields and fire blasts of rainbow energy.
  • Ogou: The Loa of war and metals, Ogou (or Oggun) is a vicious warrior. Ogou's chevals have extensive combat skills. Since Oggun is also a machine god, his chevals can take control of mechanical objects. Oggun is also a healer who combats disease and injury. His chevals possess some healing powers. They often carry a special sword with them that represents the Khu-ba-sa, Ogou's weapon.
  • Baron Samedi: Samedi is the most feared of the Petro loa. He is the god of death and the trickster. He is a hedonist, dressed in a black top hat and enjoys all manner of vices (smoking and drinking most prominent). Samedi's chevals exhibit similar behavior when mounted. They also gain the ability to make inanimate objects move on their own, and can cause organic substances to rot and inorganic material to disintegrate or burn as if sprayed with acid.
  • Erzulie: Erzulie is a female goddess with multiple aspects. She is goddess of both beauty and vengeance, her appearance being either a beautiful young woman or a cruel old hag depending on the aspect invoked. Erzulie's chevals are expert seductresses and are always female. They can cause others to be overcome with feelings of lust and desire. This is the usual manifestation. As the vengeful crone, the chevals take on a fierce expression and can cause great pain to an enemy.
  • Shango: Another warrior Loa like Ogou, Shango is also god of fire and lightning. His chevals can fire blasts of fire and lightning and control the weather.
  • Grans Bwa: He is the Loa of the forest and a guardian of nature. Grans Bwa's chevals can communicate with and control plants.
  • Guédé: The Guédé are more often seen as a group of similar Loa. Samedi is often seen as one of them. Guedé's primary mission is to expose and reveal secrets. Guedé's chevals are primary intelligence operatives of the Silver Path. They can even have a limited ability to see into the past and future.

  Theoretically there are many more Loa in the 'Net, but the oungans of the Silver Path were never able to successfully create the cybernetic vévés needed to summon them before Mystère's virus destroyed the technology.