Basic Information
The Black Dragon Society(kokuryūkai) - also known as the Amur River Society (the Amur being also known as the Black Dragon River) was a Japanese ultra-nationalist society, focused on expanding Japan's "manifest destiny" in greater Asia and driving out Western influence … notably on driving Russia north of the Amur River (hence the name). The Black Dragons were an offshoot of the Gen'yosha (Black Ocean Society) - itself a Japanese reactionary and nationalist society - but, initially at least, without its ancestor's reputation for domestic terrorism and general criminality.
Founded in 1901 the society quickly recruited a select membership of extremely powerful and capable men, including some in the higher reaches of Japanese government and quickly came to wield power out of all proportion to its size, channelling assistance to all manner of pan-Asian groups thought to be open to Japanese domination. The Black Dragons became experts at infiltration, subversion and espionage and set up effective networks of agents and alliances with various groups of minorities and malcontents which allowed them a key role in the establishment of satellite states such as Manchukuo and Mengjiang and to organise a running sore of resistance against both the Russian and Chinese governments. Also, in the 1930s the Dragons expanded their networks beyond Asia, dabbling in operations in Europe (in which they achieved little) and the USA (where they had some success forming alliances with Black Racist organisations).
The society was officially dissolved in 1946 under the control of the Occupation Government in Japan … and presumably purged at least as effectively in Russian and Chinese controlled areas of the mainland … although rumours persist of survival and/or reformation since then, especially in connection with the Yakuza (much like the Gen'yosha).
In rumour and fiction, the Black Dragons are often depicted as dabbling in the occult - the historical society was no more spiritual than it needed to be, but is often depicted as an Asian version of the Thule Society or its Nazi offshoot.
Sources
Game and Story Use
- If you want a Weird-War 2 scenario set in Asia, these will be the guys to bring the weird.
- Expect collaboration with people like Unit 731.
- More prosaically, they make a good enemy for pulp era games in central Asia or China.
- Or modern Japanese domestic terrorists.
- Given the shape-shifting habits of Oriental dragons, actual dragons needn't be ruled out as members.
- The role of "government black ops agency which is heavily involved in organized crime" should not be unfamiliar either.