Orochi Group

The Orochi Group is a non-playable faction whose presence can be seen throughout the game, from New England to Egypt continuing to Transylvania and finally in Tokyo. The Orochi Group wants power, regardless of the costs; they will provide missions to Secret Worlders.

Not to be confused with The Orochi Group Mission

Headquarters

The Orochi Group headquarters is located in Tokyo, Kaidan. The Group's nerve center is the biggest skyscraper called Orochi Tower. There has also been assumed presence in both the The Savage Coast and Egypt. They maintain a strong presence in the Kingsmouth Town airport as well as a nearby bridge.

Characters

Secret World Legends Gameplay 51 Lisa Hui - From Below - Pandora's Box - Primum Non Nocere

Kingsmouth Town: Ann Radcliffe and Harrison Blake (Hulk Smash. VA: Tim Russ; same as Tuvok from Voyager.)

Egypt (Prometheus Initiative): Lisa Hui

Divisions

All subsidiaries are featured in The Eight-Headed Serpent, Hostile Elements and The Room. There is a "Climbing" Action mission for each

Anansi Technologies

See Lore entry # 3 and 13

The map of The Ankh has the Anansi logo on it

Computer Technology and black hat hackers

Anansi is a trickster deity of the Akan people of Ghana who passed seamlessly from religion to African American myth as a folklore hero. Anansi can take the form of a spider; "Anansi" is the Akan word for spider. Anansi is in one of the early Season 1 episodes of "American Gods", exhorting fellow slaves to burn the ship abducting them to America; vengeance complete, his spider form hops off flotsam to the shore

Anansi Technologies on CryGaia

Faust Capital

See Lore entry # 14 and 15

Financial division; money laundering

• The Bank Heist
• Climbing Faust

Faust Capital on CryGaia

Manticore Research Group

See Lore entry #12

Arms manufacturing division and secret mercenary army

• Dead Air
• Climbing Manticore

Manticore Research Group on CryGaia

Plethron

See Lore entry # 16

Biotech; Genetically Modified Organisms. Any bioweapons in the game can be assumed to have something to do with them, and a lack thereof, to have been a purposeful omission

• Angels and Demons
• Climbing Plethron

Plethron on CryGaia

QBL Media

See Lore entry # 3 and 15

Media conglomerate. Propaganda and coverups. Claims, naturally, "balanced" coverage

• Silent Broadcast
• Climbing QBL

QBL Media on CryGaia

Sycoil

See Lore entry # 2 and 10

Energy division. Research into Anima, The Filth, and, with Váli, the Draug

• Climbing Sycoil

Sycoil on CryGaia

Váli

See Lore entry # 9 and 16

Biotech and pharmaceuticals. Cryptozoology research. Human experimentation.

Váli: mythical Norse creation of Odin. Given a wolf's strength and rage for the sake of vengeance, he instead kills the innocent and tortures the guilty.

• Men in Black Vans
• Primum Non Nocere
• The Third Law - possible reference to the biblical phrase "as a man sows, so shall he reap", which reflects the vengeance of the mythical Norse Váli.
• Climbing Váli

CryGaia has it that Transylvanian Orochi missions may be Váli. They could be studying werewolves there.

Váli on CryGaia

Zagan

See Lore entry # 2 and 11

Food industry. GMOs, health food, lab meat. Chemical mind control. Suspected by the Templars of using The Filth as an additive.

• Taste Testing
• Climbing Zagan

Zagan, a demon in the Lesser Keys of Solomon and in the Pseudomonarchia Daeomonum, a shape changing transmuter turning eg oil into blood or blood into wine and vice versa

Zagan on CryGaia

Orochi Tower

Headquarters, located on an island just off the coast of Kaidan, Tokyo. Customers and executives helicopter to the main entrance and penthouse suite; employees use the subway system through The Orochi Underground.

Manufactory

TSW "The Manufactory" opening cinematic (Orochi Tower dungeon)

Manufactory dungeon and Manufactory Elite

Many players express confusion at the three Factions' declaration that The Dragon won in Tokyo. While there remains no explanation of how the Dragon gained control and what sort of control they gained, Daimon Kiyota does present a very strong claim of how they removed opposition - with the Subway Filth explosion itself. Whether we believe him or not is another matter; see the video for his statement.

Missions

Solomon Island missions with Anne Radcliffe and Harrison Blake

Egypt missions with Lisa Hui

Samael Chandra surveils and contacts the Secret Worlder in The Filth Amendment and Win win

Assault on Orochi Tower

The Eight-Headed Serpent

Confrontations and Revelations

Fallen Allies

Hostile Elements

The Room

Portability

The offices of each of the companies in Orochi Tower are the setting for their own missions. Each company has an Alpha, Beta and Omega mission, for 24 missions in total.

Anansi Alpha	Anansi Beta	Anansi Omega
Faust Alpha	Faust Beta	Faust Omega
Manticore Alpha	Manticore Beta	Manticore Omega
Plethron Alpha	Plethron Beta	Plethron Omega
QBL Alpha	QBL Beta	QBL Omega
Sycoil Alpha	Sycoil Beta	Sycoil Omega
Vali Alpha	Vali Beta	Vali Omega
Zagan Alpha	Zagan Beta	Zagan Omega

Gallery

The Secret World Hulk Smash

Ann Radcliffe and Harrison Blake

The Secret World (Illuminati) S1.233 - Rock and a Hard Place & Little Drone that Could

Lisa Hui's topics including the Prometheus Inititiative

Penthouse

Lobby

Boardroom

Comic

Sycoil

QBL

Sycoil

Plethron Penthouse

Samael Chandra

Aka Samuel Chandra. CEO of the Orochi Group.

Voice actor: Dhafer L'Abidine

Lily Engel

Chairwoman of the Orochi Group. Secretly, founder of the Morninglight group. Lilith

Voice actor: Maria Darling

Lore

The Orochi Group is a major antagonist, through its agents, from the opening scenes.

Its lore is among the lengthiest in the game, partly due to the bifurcation of the content into two sometimes opposing sides, or viewpoints, or twofold nature. Tarot card readings give different meanings to upright cards than upside down cards, and the lore entries use this as a symbol of the somewhat ambiguous moral standing of Orochi (sometimes, in some ways, good). Samuel/Samael is paired with and against Lily/Lilith. He is himself both, a capitalist oppressor, and seeing himself as liberating humankind and saving Gaia. The dualities continue into spoiler country.

Orochi Tower was a defined end point of the game long before it could be reached, and Tokyo content was promised long before it could be delivered. Consequently, none of the lore for Orochi is found in Tokyo. All of it was used as teasers for Tokyo, and accessed in the previous zones. Orochi Group lore is presented as Tarot card mysticism, with its CEOs being the Major Arcana and the Orochi subsidiaries the Minor Arcana, and terminology of divination, card games and Tarot throughout. Part of the reason for this is the Renaissance styling of Tarot as an ancient Egyptian divination ritual, and a related misconception of the Romani people, nomadic folk who might work as fortune tellers, as Egyptian (Gypsies) or, slightly more accurately, as Bohemians. The Roma journeyed both near, around a circuit of habit, and far, along larger migration routes, and their road through the ages, from their ancestral homeland in northern India, was through the lands of the Persian Empire (themselves nomads who made their empire in Iran) and eastern Europe (including Transylvania)

Orochi, the dragon tyrant

In Japanese mythology, Yamata no Orochi is an eight-headed dragon, a despot who, each year, forced even spirits of the earth to sacrifice one of their daughters. Kushinada-Hime was the last daughter of two minor earth deities, threatened by the dragon. Susanoo, the Shinto God of Storms, saved Kushinada-Hime from Orochi. Savior god and saved mortal married.

1.

"Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see.

TRANSMIT - initiate Kushinada-Hime signal - RECEIVE - initiate eight-branch frequency - BUILDING A BETTER TOMORROW - initiate the seven-dead-daughters syntax - SEIZING THE FUTURE - initiate the Susanoo Proclamation - TRAGEDY STRUCK IN TOKYO TODAY - Flip the Ace of Industry - Witness the Orochi Group"

Kingsmouth, 386 × 999. Inside the control truck on the Orochi Bridge

2.

"Have you ever had the falling dream, sweetling?

Falling, always falling. You fall so far. You fall into the Unconquerable Sun. The stars go out. You can hear a star scream for aeons and aeons after it's died.

"Awake. In the dark. The flicker-glow of the TV. A reassuring commercial for Sycoil energy bleeds into the staccato ad for Diet Zagan Cola. An acrid aftertaste of carcinogen rapture. You reach for a can. Synthetic. No sugar. Weep for the false sweetness, pleasuring your tongue even as it eats your brain cells. You doze."

Savage Coast, 905 × 97. Kingsmouth Lighthouse, 2nd floor, underneath the stairs leading up

3.

"Have you ever had the eight-branched dream, sweetling?

You cry a name to the heaves, "Yamata no Orochi" - the Eight-Forked-Gargantuan-Serpent. Eight heads and eight tales, its length extends over eight hills and eight valleys, eyes red like winter-cherries. Every year it devours your daughters. You pull out your hair. You look to the clouds and pray for a storm god. You pray that His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness will come and slay the Eight-Way-Wyrm.

"Awake. The television. A commercial for video games by Anansi software. A commercial for Faust Capital. A movie channel, a news network, a children's cartoon station - all under the QBL Media banner. The signal distills divinity into two gods: Stimulus and Response. Wakefulness has its degrees.

Blue Mountain, 747 × 797. Inside a shipping container in the Orochi Research Base

4.

"Initiate data compiling. Cross-referencing. Distilling the data-stream down to an omni-dimensional Tarot deck. Each card has three sides. Initiate cartomancy. The universe can be viewed rightside up or upside down. Each reveals a truth. Every card can be dealt in the upright or reverse position. Initiate the hand. Deal three cards of the Major Arcana.

Scorched Desert, 261 × 765. Inside an open isolation unit in Dr Shirui's field tent above the The Ankh

5.

"Flip the Tower - The Eight-Branch Dragon - The Orochi Group.

THE UPRIGHT POSITION: The largest, most powerful corporation on the planet, the Orochi Group influences every aspect of modern science and innovation - striding forward as a lead player in economical, technological and political fields worldwide, since 1949. Established in Tokyo as an international investment group shortly after World War II, the young corporation attracted the brightest minds. The soil proved fertile, the growth exponential. A few years after conception, Orochi's eight subdivisions took to the global market. Today the enormous conglomerate hosts award ceremonies, donates billions to charities, and encourages youth programs.

THE REVERSE POSITION: There are doors and mainframes that regular Orochi employee security cards will not grant access to. The corporation casts a shadow, and that shadow answers to no outside agency. Rumours of occult research, technology twenty years ahead of its time, elevators that nosy employees enter but never exit - only the board of directors know for sure. The eight heads hold secrets."

Besieged Farmlands, 812 × 518. Abandoned Farm; accessed through a window

6.

"Flip the Devil - The Charismatic CEO - designation Samuel Chandra."

"THE UPRIGHT POSITION: A handsome face sits at the centre of the eight subdivisions, at Orochi HQ in Tokyo. He smiles from the glossy magazine covers, eyes following you across the room."

"THE REVERSE POSITION: He stands against the window, looking down from the apex of a skyscraper. Even this height does not dizzy him, but if he presses his face against the glass and bites his tongue, he tastes blood and feels the fleeting shudder and flutter of recollections that a great height precedes a fall."

London, 226 × 267. On a bench in Ealdwic Station

7.

"Flip the Priestess - the Chairwoman - designation Lily Engel.

THE UPRIGHT POSITION: She controls the board of directors, just behind Mr. Chandra - beautiful, brilliant, and upwardly mobile.

THE REVERSE POSITION: She does not appreciate the old names. We were there. We remember the monstrous nativity. Thereare tombs that are less haunted than some wombs."

New York, 294 × 286. Next to the entry way into the Illuminati Maze, beside a garbage container

8.

"A fourth card lays torn in half: The Lovers. Let us play some more, sweetling. Flip the three-faced cards! Initiate the hand. Deal eight from the Minor Arcana.

City of the Sun God, 226 ÷ 843. Near the Orochi Sniper

9.

"Flip the Ace of Pentacles - The Cyan Serpent Head - Váli.

THE UPRIGHT POSITION: A world leader in genetics, DNA research, and biotechnology, Váli produces pharmaceutical drugs that have helped millions overcome disease.

THE REVERSE POSITION: There are closed doors. There are research reports that contain words like "cryptozoology," "cryptobotany," and "paranormal." Their scientists know so much about bees, and so many fragments of the secret world sit on slides and in vials. In the corner of a laboratory, something rattles the bars of its cage while singing lullabies in dead languages."

City of the Sun God, 72 × 985. Inside the Orochi Camp

10

"Flip the Two of Pentacles - The Yellow Serpent Head - Sycoil.

THE UPRIGHT POSITION: A leading oil and power company, Sycoil revolutionised undersea drilling. Recent years see them experimenting in alternate energy solutions to supply the world's constantly growing energy demands.

THE REVERSE POSITION: Secret studies theorise on the use of anima to power technology. Gears and circuits him as they did in ages lost to your kind's memory. Look where that got them."

Savage Coast, 334 × 730. On the roof of the Sycoil Gas Station

11.

"Flip the Three of Pentacles - The Orange Serpent Head - Zagan.

THE UPRIGHT POSITION: A major producer of packaged foods and drinks, Zagan has released a new line of healthy, genetically enhanced, bioengineered products. Research includes vat-grown meat products which could eliminate the need for animals raised for slaughter.

THE REVERSE POSITION: Board members discuss psychochemical drugs in food as a behavioural modification. In a rain forest, zombie ants shamble up the branches, mind-controlled by the aggressive fungus soon to burst from their bodies. Get the joke?"

Kingsmouth, 384 × 316. On top of Susie's Diner

12.

"Flip the Four of Pentacles - The Steel Blue Serpent Head - Manticore Research Group

THE UPRIGHT POSITION: A multinational aerospace manufacturer, global security, and advanced technology company, Manticore develops weapons and defence equipment, satellites, and rockets. Their civilian tech subsidiary builds passenger jets, engines, and turbines.

THE REVERSE POSITION: Anima is gathered to power weapons in secret test facilities. Accidental fatality margins run high, but the cost of company funded funerals and life insurance payouts fall under acceptable expense parameters.

Kingsmouth, 698 × 909. In the autopsy room under the tarmac, where you have to sound the alarm to empty the room of Orochi scientists, in the Orochi Camp at the Kingsmouth Municipal Airport

13.

"Flip the Five of Pentacles - The Teal Serpent Head - Anansi Technologies

THE UPRIGHT POSITION: Anansi is a high profile computer software and hardware company. Their flashy retail stores, sleek operating systems, game consoles, mobile phones, and multimedia players are found across the globe.

THE REVERSE POSITION: Conspiracy theorist websites and newsletters claim that Anansi is storing information and tracking users through their hyper-modern mobile phones and laptops and conditioning the minds of the masses through games and subliminal control. Anansi's PR department ignores the allegations. The newsletters abruptly cease and the websites close down."

Blue Mountain, 656 × 744. During The Orochi Group mission, in the Orochi Research Base, in the Science Lab. The mission, from Marianne Chen, unlocks the door

14.

"Flip the Six of Pentacles - The Tyrian Serpent Head - Faust Capital.

THE UPRIGHT POSITION: The largest multinational financial institution in the world, Faust Capital covers investment, personal banking, insurance, and stock market trading. In the last six decades, they have uncannily dodged every crash and financial crisis.

THE REVERSE POSITION: Did you hear the news story about a top Faust executive, who was found dead, having leapt from his office window, with charts outlining geomancy and the mystical flow of fortune tattooed to his chest? No. Of course you didn't."

London, 160 × 364. Inside the Bartleby and Daughters Bank

15.

"Flip the Seven of Pentacles - The Red Serpent Head - QBL Media.

"THE UPRIGHT POSITION: QBL is a media behemoth, owning TV channels in all major markets, a Hollywood movie studio, television and

movie production companies, animation and special effects studios, record labels, book publishers, newspapers, magazines, and handful of theme parks.

THE REVERSE POSITION: Critics claim their ubiquitous presence controls the outcome of presidential elections, directs wars, and sways public opinion. In a digital mass grave of killed data, the story of a certain Faust Capital executive's suicide lies buried."

Blue Mountain, 687 × 400. Ledge above the trail

16.

"Flip the Eight of Pentacles: The Green Serpent Head Plethron

THE UPRIGHT POSITION: Closely tied to Váli, Plethron is an agricultural biotechnology company. It uses genetic research to advance farming and pesticides in order to massively increase crop yield, particularly in the third world.

THE REVERSE POSITION: Controversies over their genetically modified food products hover and buzz like blow flies. What are Plethron's intentions? ADD spreads like an epidemic, and it becomes harder to concentrate on such questions with every bite."

Scorched Desert, 647 × 328. Building with Plethron / Orochi billboard, on the roof

17.

"Satellites hover over the world like angels, singing to one another in a secret language. The game goes on, sweetling. More cards flip. A tragedy erupts in Tokyo, scattering the deck with nuclear winds. What happened? Perhaps you should ask the Eight-Way-Wyrm.

Carpathian Fangs, 409 × 408. Inside the large tent of the Orochi Outpost

Lore Achievements

• These also qualify for Light Reading, In the Footsteps of Herodotus, and Bibliophile

• Getting all 17 is required for The Buzz achievement

• Getting all 17 is required for Digging Deep

• This lore is required for the following Museum Display in the British Museum of the Occult

• • Orochi Cyborg

• • Orochi Security Guard

Links

• TVtropes

• Orochi Group on CryGaia