Three Worms 三尸: Sometimes translated as three corpses; a concept that exists in Daoism to explain human mortality. In Guardian, this shares attributes with the three poisons from Buddhism as the source of a human’s greed, wrath, and delusion.
Gonggong 共工: A god of water, son of Zhurong, descendant of the Flame Emperor. Gonggong fought Zhuanxu for power, and when he lost, rode atop the divine dragon and knocked over Buzhou Mountain in a rage.
Zhuanxu 颛顼: An emperor from Chinese mythology said to be the grandson of the Yellow Emperor. Zhuanxu fought Gonggong for power and won.
Buzhou Mountain 不周山: A mythical mountain formed from the handle of Pangu’s great axe. Said to be the path to the Heavens. After being knocked over by Gonggong and the Divine Dragon, the sky collapsed, causing endless calamity.
Kunlun Mountain 昆仑山: A mountain formed from the head of Pangu’s great axe. In Guardian, the very peak of Kunlun Mountain is the forbidden place of gods, where the Great Divine Tree grows.
Penglai Mountain 蓬莱山: A mythical mountain on an island to the east. In Guardian, Kunlun-jun raises it out of the ground as the earth flooded after Buzhou Mountain toppled.
Houtu 后土: The Queen of the Earth in traditional mythology. 土 (tu) can mean “earth” or “soil.” In Guardian, Houtu is the name Nüwa receives when she transforms into a layer of soil after dying, which separates the yin and yang, creating the Netherworld.
GENERAL CHINESE CULTURE
Birth chart 生辰八字: A series of eight characters assigned to a person based on the Sexagenary Cycle (Tian Gan Di Zhi/Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches). Two characters each are assigned according to their birth year, month, day, and hour, forming eight characters in total. It’s thought that one’s fate can be told from their birth chart. Usually, when one’s birth chart is “too light,” it means they have a hard life ahead, perhaps suffering illnesses or other traumatic events. And when one’s birth chart is “too hard,” one might cause other people who have “lighter” birth charts to die.
Chinese Calendar: The traditional Chinese calendar is a combination of the lunar and solar calendars. Nowadays, it is more common to use the Gregorian calendar to keep track of dates. The Chinese calendar is more often used for traditional holidays (Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn, etc.), and occasionally, people will keep track of their Chinese calendar birthday. Using the Chinese calendar is considered a little unusual—though perhaps more common with older people.
Cinnabar 朱砂: A red mineral pigment used for drawing paper talismans. A form of mercury sulfide, it’s traditionally thought to have mind-calming effects and is effective for dispelling evil.
Dageng 打更: In the times before clocks, this was the traditional system for telling time at night. A night watchman would walk around town with a gong or a woodblock, striking five times throughout the night, once every geng, or roughly every 2.4 hours.
Death rituals: After a person dies, their family will lay out food, burn incense, spirit money, and paper renditions of objects to help the dead in the Netherworld. There are specialty funeral stores that will sell various papier-mâché objects specifically for funerals. These offerings, especially spirit money, incense, and food, will be continuously offered after the deceased has died to pay respects.
Yin/yang energy 阴/阳气: Yin and yang is a concept in Chinese philosophy that describes the complementary interdependence of opposite/contrary forces. It can be applied to all forms of change and differences. Yang represents the sun, masculinity, and the living, while yin represents the shadows, femininity, and the dead, including spirits and ghosts. In fiction, imbalances between yin and yang energy in a person’s body can act as the driving force for malevolent spirits that are seeking to replenish themselves of whichever they lack. Those with strong yang energy (e.g., men) are considered effective at warding off yin-natured supernatural beings (e.g., ghosts).
MEASUREMENTS
Measurements have changed during different periods of Chinese history, but these are what they are generally accepted as today. They are often only used as approximations and not to be taken literally. For example, something described as “thousands of zhang” is just very large.
Cun 寸 - roughly 3 centimeters
Chi 尺 - roughly ⅓ meter
Zhang 丈 - roughly 3⅓ meters
Li 里 = roughly 500 meters
10 cun = 1 chi
10 chi = 1 zhang
180 zhang = 1 li
GUARDIAN-SPECIFIC TERMINOLOGY
Four Hallowed Artifacts of the Netherworld 幽冥四圣器: Within the fictional world of Guardian, these are four sacred artifacts that are said to be passed down since primordial times, related to a seal that affects the balance between yin and yang, reincarnation, and life and death. They include:
Reincarnation Dial 轮回晷: Made from pieces of the Three-Life Rock, with scales from a black fish from the Wangchuan River. One can use the Reincarnation Dial to give a portion of their life to an older person, thus shortening their own life.
Mountain-River Awl 山河锥: A large, octagonal pillar that pierces into the ground in the sacred place of the Hanga Tribe. Formed from the spirits of tens of thousands of mountains and rivers, it can absorb and imprison spirits of the dead.
Merit Brush 功德笔: A calligraphy brush made from a branch of the Ancient Merit Tree. It writes in both red and black ink. The red ink records merits and the black records sins. Using it, anyone is able to rewrite their merits and sins.
Soul-Guarding Lamp 镇魂灯: An oil lamp that calms souls and chases away evil. The wick was made of the blood from Kunlun-jun’s heart; the lamp itself was made from Kunlun-jun’s body.
The Great Seal 大封: Seals the gui inside the Place of Great Disrespect. It was first made by Fuxi, then fortified by Nüwa. After their deaths, Kunlun-jun was in charge of keeping watch over the Great Seal. After Kunlun-jun died, the responsibility fell to Shen Wei.
The Four Pillars 四柱: The Four Pillars hold up the sky and hold down the ground. The Four Hallowed Artifacts are used to seal and protect the Four Pillars. By destroying the Four Hallowed Artifacts, one could destroy the Four Pillars, and thus the world.
Place of Great Disrespect 大不敬之地: Thousands of zhang below the Huangquan River, where the gui are imprisoned. It holds all the impurities in the ground left behind from when the earth was first formed.
Great Divine Tree 大神木: The ancient tree that grows at the peak of Kunlun Mountain.
Ancient Merit Tree 功德古木: A tree that grew out of a branch of the Great Divine Tree that had been planted in the Place of Great Disrespect. It has no leaves, no flowers, and bears no fruit.
RACES
Wu 巫族: A race of beings that existed around the time of creation.
Yao 妖族: Animals or plants that have gained spiritual consciousness after years of absorbing the essences of Heaven and Earth from their surroundings. Especially high-level or long-lived yao are able to take on a human form after diligent cultivation. This concept is comparable to Japanese yokai, which is a loanword from the Chinese yao. Yao are not evil by nature but often come into conflict with humans for various reasons, one being that the modern world is not conducive to cultivating.
Humans 人族: Beings created by Nüwa in the likeness of the gods. For the most part, humans rarely successfully achieve anything from cultivation.
Gui 鬼族: Beings of great evil imprisoned in the Place of Great Disrespect. The more humanlike and beautiful they are, the more powerful. The two most powerful gui are Shen Wei and Ghost Face, the Kings of the Gui. Youchu, appearing in vaguely humanoid forms with festering pustules, are the lowest type of gui.
Gods 神: Powerful deities that existed before humans.