3 kuei-jin bodhi caused a storm
Three of the oldest and most powerful Cathayans (known to their kind as Bodhisattvas) attacked the Antediluvian. One of them created a hurricane as both a weapon and a defense: The thick clouds blotted out the sunlight, allowing the vampires to fight through the day. The Bodhisattvas also used their powers to open rifts into strange, spiritual worlds unknown to most Western vampires. This tactic caused a second storm, a supernatural storm of colliding worlds. The battle echoed throughout all these worlds — the worlds of dreams, spirits, demons and the dead. The world’s largest and most powerful group of sorcerers also took part in the battle. These mages use magick in the form of technology to promote that technology and protect ordinary humans from the menace of the supernatural. The wizards’ superscience identified vampires as the most powerful entities in the hellstorm, so they tried using sunlight against the Kindred and Kuei-jin. When they could not part the clouds to reflect sunlight onto the battle, the sorcerers brought their most powerful weapons into the hellstorm: neutron bombs, built to project a radiation lethal to supernatural beings. They worked. The bombs destroyed all the supernatural creatures except the Antediluvian itself — but the bombs and a day and night of battle with the Bodhisattvas had weakened the Ancient enough that, when the storm clouds parted, the reflected sunlight destroyed the ancient Cainite in a fulfillment of God’s Biblical curse. At that moment, most of the Ravnos in the world went mad, driven into the clutches of the Beast by the sudden backlash of hatred that washed through the fallen Ancient’s lineage. It would seem that prophecy rang true — the Third Generation truly wanted to destroy its treacherous childer. Ravnos across the globe felt an insane, insatiable hunger for each other’s vitae. When the murderous madness passed several nights later, very few Ravnos remained — perhaps a hundred in all the world, with no powerful elders. At a stroke, the Ravnos were obliterated.
the storm caused this much damage
Lt. Roderick Crowe wished his scouts would return. He wished he was in his bomber again, high above the typhoon, instead of soaking and shivering underneath it. While he was at it, he wished the storm would just go away, and take with it whatever horror had set his spirit watchers screaming even thousands of miles away. As if these poor people don’t have enough problems, he thought. Between the rain and the storm surge, half of Bangladesh must be underwater. Thousands would die, even without a rampage of the goddamn Leeches. His air-spirit scouts appeared before him in little puffs of mist. Metal birds attack the clouds! Bad! one spirit said. Storm coming, exclaimed another of the excitable elementals. Go home? Home come here? Crowe soon learned what the spirit meant. A rippling green and yellow glow blossomed in the distance to shine faintly through the storm. He sniffed and even through the storm he could smell the sharp scent of overflowing life. Home come here! the little elemental announced. An eruption of the spirit world into this one? The shaman had thought he’d never live to see such a thing. His heart rose. The spirits would surely aid his pack against the deathly thing within the storm. Then his hackles rose, and he growled. Streaks of black shot through the storm. They reminded him somehow of black ice on a road, eager to claim the life of a careless driver. Something tapped him on the shoulder and fell into the streaming mud. A finger bone? He and his packmates stared at the rain of bones. The storm of life and death surged outward and swept over the small group of warriors.
Mujibur knelt with his family in the upper floor of the house at the outskirts of Khulna. Three other families knelt as well. Water six feet deep covered the ground floor. Together, they prayed that the gods would cool his wrath and let them live through the storm. The wail and roar of the typhoon almost masked the sound of the building next door collapsing into the flood. Mujibur knew his own shanty must be long gone. Three of the children cried, and their mothers could not comfort them. “There are ghosts out there,” one little girl sobbed. Her mother shushed her, telling her that it was just the wind. For a moment, Mujibur thought he saw a snarling face push from a corner of the room — no, of course it was just a trick of the light from their single, flickering oil lamp.
Schiavelli allowed himself a moment of quiet pride in himself and his squad. The symposium had judged the Bangladesh operation a complete success. The bombs had destroyed all the problems afflicting south-central Bangladesh. Investigations would continue as to whether the bombs themselves had done the trick, or whether the creatures’ own struggles had done this. In any case, the world was saved for another day, and the bomb fully vindicated. The death toll among the masses was regrettable, of course, with an estimated 1.3 million casualties. Most of these, the report said, were caused by the vampires and other beasts rampaging through the region (Schiavelli skipped over the statistical breakdown of deaths by direct assault, induced homicidal or suicidal mania, paraphysical contagion or collateral damage). The typhoon caused an estimated 115,600 deaths by purely natural means as it flooded Bangladesh. As they were designed to do, the bomb airbursts caused serious property damage and death only in the immediate vicinity of the blast, while still slaughtering the supernatural creatures many kilometers distant. Only 60,800 Bangladeshis had died from the explosions and radiation. Shielding the masses from knowledge of the battle would be difficult but not impossible if the group used its resources efficiently. Fortunately, Bangladesh had poor record-keeping and communications. The deaths from the typhoon would conceal the deaths from other causes. Enlightened operatives would quickly remove all physical evidence of unnatural death and adjust memories where necessary. Media operatives would ensure that no one in the rest of the world paid much attention. The cleanup would take no more than a month.