The Monkey King was born out of rock, and hence is extremely strong and durable - in fact he is totally invulnerable. He is immortal, having gorged himself on the life-giving peaches of the Jade Emperor's sacred garden. He is also extremely smart - he learned all the magic tricks in the world from a master Taoist, so that he is now able to transform himself into seventy-two different images such as a tree, a bird, a beast of prey or a bug as small as a mosquito so as to sneak into an enemy's belly to fight him inside or out. He can employ clouds as vehicles allowing him to travel 180,000 miles in a single somersault. He uses a Wishing Staff he got from the Dragon Kings of the Oceans as his favorite weapon - it can expand or shrink at its owner's command (he normally stores it in his earlobe). He can turns clumps of his hair into any object he desires. His fiery eyes can see through most illusions. Being made of stone, he is uncomfortable underwater.History: "The Nature of Monkey was Irrepressible!!" Monkey was hatched from a magical egg on a mountain top, which had been weathered and fertilised by the elements over many centuries. Made of stone and virtually indestructible (although he still feels pain), he was crowned the Monkey King after he proved to be the only monkey on the Mountain of Fruit and Flowers to dare go through the Water Curtain and set up a kingdom on Earth. Upon realising that he was destined to die like everyone else, he made it his new goal to become immortal. He located a Taoist who taught him magic and alchemy (and how to fly on clouds).
After this he began a reign of unbelievable mischief. He bullied the Dragon Kings of the Oceans into giving him a Magic Wishing Staff, and the clothes to match it. He crossed off his name and the names of all his monkey subjects from the "Monkey File" in the Register of the Quick and the Dead, thus rendering all his original subjects immortal as well. When Heaven sent down people to punish him for these escapades he beat them up and sent them back. Emboldened by this success, he then went to Heaven himself and demanded the title "Great Sage - Equal of Heaven" - which he got (but with no salary to go with it) as it was decided the easiest way to contain his mischief was to trick him into staying in Heaven.
But even there he created chaos with his restless irreverence and irrepressible curiosity. Things came to a peak when he ate the peaches from the Jade Emperor's Sacred Peach Garden, making himself even more truly immortal. The Peaches were intended for the Peach Banquet, which he then totally disrupted by making a mess of the arrangements, drinking all the wine, eating up all the finger-food, and gobbling down the Elixir concocted by Lao Tsu for the Cinnabar Banquet. Following this debacle, he fled from Heaven, pursued by the hundred thousand soldiers of same. When they caught up with him, but he beat them up too. It was not until Lao Tsu threw down his Diamond Snare, hitting Monkey on the head, that the recalcitrant was captured.
He was sentenced to be cut up into small pieces, but the soldier trying to carry out the punishment found they couldn't injure him. So the spirits of the Fire Stars were sent in to burn him, but he didn't burn. The thunder spirits had even less success in trying to hurl thunderbolts at him. The combination of Monkey's Taoist skills, the Peaches of Immortality, the Wine of Heaven, the food and the five bowls full of the Elixir of Long Life he consumed, had made him truly indestructible. Even when Lao Tsu put him into his Crucible of the Eight Trigrams and heated him with alchemic fire for 49 days, the only effect it had was to make Monkey's eyes permanently red. Monkey escaped and then proceeded to run amok in Heaven in a rage, smashing everything and beating up everyone he encountered.
At this point the Buddha intervened. The Buddha made a wager with Monkey, betting him that he could not jump out of Buddha's hand. Should Monkey win, he demanded the Jade Emperor's job; should he lose, then he would be banished to Earth for centuries to learn some humility.
Monkey cloud-flew to the end of the universe, where he saw five pink pillars, which he took to be the end of the world. On the middle pillar he wrote "The Great Sage Equal of Heaven reached this place", to prove beyond any doubt he had reached this spot. Figuring it was a long trip back, and being the irrespresible individual he was, he also urinated at the base of the first pillar. Then he returned to face the Buddha. To his shock, the Buddha informed him he had never left Buddha's hand - and to prove it, showed Monkey the writing on his middle finger and the distinctive smell at the bottom of his smallest digit. Monkey tried to renege on the bet, but before he could escape, Buddha pushed him out of the Gate of Heaven, then Buddha changed his five fingers into the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire and earth). They became the five-peaked mountain under which Monkey was trapped, leaving only his head and hands exposed.
After 500 years he was granted a chance to redeem himself by accompanying holy man Tripitaka on a journey to the West as his companion and guard. In order to keep him under control, a band of metal was put on his head that Tripitaka could cause to tighten by muttering a chant - while this couldn't hurt the indestructible imp, it would cause him extreme pain.
Monkey King
Names and titles
(listed in the order that he first acquired them)
Měihóu Wáng (美猴王): Meaning "Handsome Monkey King".
His name Sūn (孫) is based on the Chinese word (Hóu sūn, 猢猻) which means monkey.
Wùkōng (悟空): Meaning "aware of emptiness". The name given to him by his first master, Subodhi.
Bimawen (弼馬溫): The title of the keeper of the Heavenly Horses, a punning of pimawen (辟馬瘟; lit. "removing the horses' plague"). A monkey was often put in a stable as people believe its presence can prevent the horses from catching illness. Sun Wukong was given this position by the Jade Emperor after his first intrusion into Heaven. After discovering it was one of the lowest titles in Heaven, he became angry and quit the job.
Qitiān Dasheng (齊天大聖): Meaning "great sage equal of Heaven". Sun Wukong demanded this title from the Jade Emperor and was eventually granted it.
Xingzhe (行者): Meaning "traveller", a common name for a travelling monk in the old days. The name given to him by Xuan Zang.
In addition to the names used in the novel, the Monkey King has other names in various parts of China:
Gou De Tien (猴齊天) in Taiwanese
Ma Lau Jing (馬騮精) in Cantonese : Meaning "Monkey Deity"
The Game
I have always liked Monkey. I, like many others, first met him in the Japanese TV series that was aired in Britain when I was much younger. I've since read the excellent transation of the book riginally written by Wu Cheng-en which is available from Penguin in their Classics series.Last year I bought the four films that Shaw Bros. made of his Journey to the West and at the beginning of this year (2006) I finally got around to buying the principle characters in 28mm made by MSB Toys
I plan to buy the rest of the figures in the series, they're beautiful sculpts, and it would be enough to just paint them up and look at them. They'll get used in a role-playing game at some point too I'm sure; but I'd like to do more with them.
The problem is that you can't just run a normal tabletop skirmish because Monkey is just too powerful. There isn't any point opposing him, he'll win. That's no fun for anybody. I need to find something different to do with him. Preferably something with a strong Chinese flavour and something where the strengths and powers of the characters are not the main part of the game.
I've been looking at various Chines board games like Chinese chess and Mah-Jongg to see if they can be adapted in some way to suit what I want to do. I'm not just going to make a Monkey chess set, that's not the idea at all.
I want to end up with a fun, payable, balanced game with a strong Chinese flavour that uses the Journey to the West characters. How hard can that be?
