Tsoo

The Tsoo are one of the villain groups of the M.M.O., City of Heroes and it's sister game City of Villains. The Tsoo are a vast crime-network who to the Oriental black-market by storm and have set up a large presence in Paragon City to make contacts along the US east-coast. The Tsoo, while otherwise mainly focused on criminal activities, are very tradition oriented and use magical ink in their gang tattoos that allows them to commune with and channel the spiritual power of their ancestors.

Founding
The Tsoo were founded in the 1990s by the drug-lord Tub-Ci. Tub-Ci finished serving time in prison and claims to have come to spiritual enlightenment in prison that allowed him to commune with his ancestors. With his ancestors as his guides Tub-Ci began to under-take a task of uniting the Hmong people by creating a gang he called the Tsoo (Destroyers). Tub-Ci's first major goal for the Tsoo was to destroy the Triads, who frequently abused the Hmong people and had no ties to their ancestors. Tub-Ci was able to accomplish his goal with instruction from the spirit world on creation of Tsoo Ink. Tsoo Ink creates a fusion between body and soul, allowing those inscribed with it to instantly access their Chi for everything from increased physical abilities to command over the very weather, to teleportation to instantaneous healing. With Tsoo Ink, the gang quickly lived-up to their name-sake and destroyed the Triads. Tub-Ci was not solely concerned with protecting the Hmong, while the concern for his people was genuine, he sought to use them to not merely chase-off the Triads but take-over traditional Triad criminal activities. Upon coming into their own the Tsoo took over drug-trafficking between the Orient and the U.S.'s east-coast.

Paragon City was a capital for meta-human activities, so in order to properly branch-out from Rhode Island along the rest of the East-coast, the Tsoo began to focus on solidifying their influence in Paragon City. Tsoo activities range from the drug-trades to black-market artifacts, to money laundering. Unlike the Triads before them the Tsoo are firmly against human-trafficking/prostitution as many of the Hmong had been exploited through the practice, they however are not above taking hostages on case-by-case bases.

Presence
Their conquest of Paragon City was put on hold in 2004 when the extra-terrestrial invasion known as The Rikti War happened. The Rikti had superior technology and had genetically engineered themselves with a variety of extra-human traits, including psionics, radiation resistance and high-endurance. The Rikti had been colonizing different planets until Earth came to their attention and sent an armada to invade. Though the Rikti came from a society of superior science and technology magic was an unknown force to them and many of the magical heroes and villains turned the tide of the war. Though the Tsoo knew magics thanks to the connection the Tsoo ink forged with their ancestors they did not interfere with the Rikti War, instead laying low and waiting it out. The Tsoo knew the Rikti would wipe out the entire human race, so they planned for their only possible future to be one where Earth won the War, setting up trade connections for when/if humanity won. When the Rikti War ended the Tsoo took advantage of the weakened law-enforcment to spread through-out the city.

The Tsoo were not the only ones to take advantage of the Rikti and the ancient order of cultists known as The Banished Pantheon struck the neighborhood of Astoria, which promptly became known as Dark Astoria after the Banished Pantheon over-turned the mass grave-yard their to unleash a zombie army on the hapless suburb. The Tsoo ancestors spoke of the Banished Pantheon as a force of monumental evil that must be stopped. The Tsoo could not act in time to stop the zombies from killing all the residents, but they did move-in when officials closed Dark Astoria off from the rest the City to prevent the zombies from getting out. Tub-Ci decide to kill two-birds with one stone and while the Tsoo moved in to Dark Astoria to try to disrupt Banished Pantheon activities, they also used the newly haunted and zombie strewn streets as the base for their headquarters. An office building was converted to Tub-Ci's personal complex which he commanded his empire from. The building was re-dubbed "The Palace of Stone Leaves". Tub-Ci made the Palace of Stone Leaves a safe-haven for the ghosts of Dark Astoria, both those outrage their corpses were being raised as zombies and the scared specters of the murdered civilians. From the safety of his palace of stray souls hidden deep in a part of the city many had wished to block-off, Tub-Ci controlled his criminal empire.

The Tsoo were able to build-up their criminal empire quickly with the help of a Mysterious Benefactor. Their benefactor had given Tub-Ci great amounts of money, money which Tub-Ci put traditional ninja training and armaments. Tub-Ci had his martial-arts instructor, Sun Xioung, brought into the states and made one of his main enforcers. Sun Xiong was the main martial-arts instructor for the Tsoo. With a connection to their ancestors, an expert martial-arts trainer, a palace of ghosts, seed money from a wealthy sponsor and the magical Tsoo Ink, the Tsoo were given a firm stance in the city before the forces of law-and-order had any time to acclimate after the Rikti War.

Inter-criminal dynamics
The Tsoo are sworn enemies of the Banished Pantheon due to the fears of their ancestors about the mad necromancers. The Tsoo have an on-and-off rivalry with the classical Greek theme smugglers known as The Warriors and the infamous ghost magi of The Circle of Thorns. The Warriors mainly move artifacts and weapons and as such they frequently compete with the Tsoo, however as the Warriors are more interested in selling magical artifacts than hoarding them more-often-than-not, the Tsoo may also end-up buying from their rivals. The Circle of Thorns do, not sell any magical artifacts, only buy them. The Tsoo often compete in bidding wars with The Circle of Thorns for artifacts fenced by the Warriors. The Circle of Thorn possess truly powerful ancient spells, mostly dwarfing the Banished Pantheon's mortal members, however the Tsoo ancestor insist that the God the Banished Pantheon try to unleash would easily overshadow the Circle of Thorns. In addition to the Banished Pantheon being the priority for the powers they have yet to unleash, the Circle of Thorns do no seek to interrupt Tsoo criminal activities, they do however frequently seek human sacrifice and ghosts to experiment on, and so the Tsoo still try to chase off Circle of Thorns cultist operating in overlapping territories - though the Circle of Thorn frequently are able to over-come Tsoo interference when encountered, only being slowed down most of the time. The Tsoo also compete with the Marcone Crime Family for less para-natural parts of their business. The Family firmly control areas such as Independence Port, The Tsoo, far from being scared off by the Family use the mass areas they control to set-up smaller back-ally deals to undermine Family operations within their own territory. Tsoo presence is greatest in Dark Astoria, Talos Island, Independence Port and Steel Canyon in Paragon City and St. Martial in the Rogue Isles. They do not firmly control any of the territories they operate in as the Family mainly control Independence Port, the Warriors control Talos Island, Dark Astoria is ripe with Banished Pantheon and The Circle of Thorns, and Steel Canyon a melting-pot of lesser criminals. St. Martial definitively an Arachnos territory, however Arachnos happily allows the Tsoo to operate in their territory for large sums of money from Tub-Ci, but the same offer is open to other criminals such as The Family. Though the Tsoo do no have the lead presence in any territory they operate in, their presence makes them a high second-stringer in nearly every mid-range area.

Tsoo Ink
Tsoo Ink is made of concentrated ectoplasm, ghosts willing give-up their ability to manifest in the physical world in order to phase-shift their very building-blocks into physical liquid, the liquid is used as tattoo ink and then inscribed on the Tsoo as gang markings/body art. Most Tsoo use their spiritual tattoos to function at peek human conditions, shrugging off traditional wounds, moving at high speeds and displaying strength beyond that of normal humans. A few Tsoo have devoted themselves entirely to harassing their Chi and have become sorcerers. Tsoo sorcerers have become adept enough at accessing their own Chi to use to conjure storms, teleport and heal their fellow gang-members when injured. Tsoo sorcerers are few compared to the rest of the gang, so they scatter, often one per-unit dispatched to function as support. Tsoo Ink has a drawback to it - those marked with it are overtaken by the unfinished business of the ghosts who gave up their ectoplasm to enchant their tattoos. Some Tsoo do act as willing vessels for their ancestors to act through and the Tsoo ancestors act in sync with their living descendants but ink from other ghosts such as the residents of Dark Astoria has no consciousness directing it - leading the Tsoo to become overcome with ill-will upon becoming mystically empowered. Tub-Ci himself has become mad on spiritual power, maintaining his own directives but overflowing with irrational hatred he can only direct at his enemies.