Peace Of Mind

Peace of Mind

The Sorrow-Song Swordsman fought as he wept, wept as he sang, sang as he fought.

The tears would leak from sleepless eyes and fall into shadow and fire, dissolving in the chords of throats-cut-screaming by a blade that is a nail strumming strings.

Burning blood makes iron, and it takes more than iron to forge cutting-steel.

But a spoken word cuts deeper still.

When your words are blades, and your blade can sing, and your songs stain all your words with blood- can you find solace in your mind?

Where does a slayer find peace?

-- Slowly reposting art from my Twitter account and taking full advantage of the more relaxed text limits. This one was for a Kadungganan whose singing words could cut, from an old Gubat Banwa TTRPG campaign- esteemed warrior-braves battling across the isles inspired by classical/early colonial Southeast Asia, perpetuating a river of blood and violence, asking themselves why they fight.

-- Blade design is based on a particularly long Lumad kris, which I've been told are made from the deconstructed blades of their defeated enemies, repurposed for their own use.

okay here's how you design a fantasy weapon pls like and subscribe follow me for more tips-

Kidding- but this was sent to me by Dyl just a while ago and I just had to.

I do actually love seeing these wild designs, there's more imagination in them than you can beat out of a roomful of AI "artists".

Art by Peter Andrew Jones if I'm not mistaken.

I do wish there were more of them around, just over-the-top bullshit that doesn't take itself too seriously.

This one's from The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982). It's a sword with THREE blades. Two of them shoot out of the hilt as projectiles- I love it. I would never use it.

I set out posting my art online initially to design "practical fantasy weapons", and while I haven't abandoned the "practical" part myself, going nuts on weapon designs is still just really fun to do.

Saradomin Godsword from OldSchool Runescape and the newfangled RS3 version.

Doesn't have to be "practical". Depending on the context, the looks can be more important than the functionality.

Sanderson depicts shardblades in The Stormlight Archive as being ultralight to justify their size. Fun middleground, but not always necessary.

Art by Alex Allen.

There are weapons that will forever be iconic BECAUSE they went nuts with 'em.

Of course they also went nuts with the people using them, so there's internal consistency, but the point stands.

Guts' Dragonslayer, Berserk (1989-2021) by Kentaro Miura.

Cloud Strife's Buster Sword, Final Fantasy 7 (1997) by Square Enix, image from the 2020 Remake

Moonlight Greatsword, in one of its many iterations, this time as Ludwig's Holy Blade from Bloodborne (2015) in The Old Hunters DLC by From Software

Kratos' Blades of Chaos, God of War (2005), image from their iteration in God of War (2018) by Sony's Santa Monica Studio.

Just- don't pretend you could ever use them in the real world, yourself.

Actual martial artists can already hurt themselves using tried-and-tested weapons from history (i.e. there is someone to learn how they use them from), let alone the average untrained gamer with something out of fantasy.

Doesn't stop people from trying. Baltimore Knife and Sword are among the many blacksmiths who routinely produce real world versions of fictional weaponry (look up Man at Arms: Reforged on YouTube) and recently Digitally Twisted Outlaws (also on YouTube) started training with one such giant replica Dragonslayer, and dubbed their weapon-style the "Colossus Sword Form".

Bottom line, just have fun with it. Don't get too bogged down by what's consistent with real world usage, especially when the context is fictional.

Forgive me a moment of kahilas, but let me tell you why you'd want to play Gubat Banwa for your next Tabletop RPG Fantasy campaign (or kandu, as we call it!) instead of the other prospects out there! Long post ahead~

1: You want a fantasy setting that doesn't have a foundation in modern and western paradigms. This one is the easiest one to pitch. This is not just for those that are tired of European Medieval Fantasy: this is for those that want to look at the fantasy genre through new lens

It's one that doesn't have "adventurers" as an inherent fact of the setting. It doesn't accept "defaults". It doesn't romanticize monarchism. It is built from the ground up for tactical fights and the complicated contexts that surrounds those fights. "Combat as storytelling"

It centers us, in the Southeast Asia. So there are some things that might not be as common as in the West:

- oversea and river travel is much more common (and let's be honest, easier) than pure overland travel.

- Honor and Debt are huge parts of the game's social systems (and if you do some reading on medieval societies, aren't even unique to Southeast Asia at all!)

- There's no single dominating culture or empire: it's very diverse, and we don't use any one culture as the default

- You can adapt any Fantasy style campaign you have really, though it is a paradigmatic shift! You'll have to let go of fantasy defaults and imagine a wilder and more vibrant world

- There are no elves or orcs or whatnot--for us those are chaining things, binding things. Gubat Banwa is the wind. In fact, the closest thing we have to "humans" are strange bamboo people - Anything in normal fantasy has a fresh take: Knights wear moonstone armor and ride upon omen bird steeds, "berserkers" are holy martyrs ready to die for Goddess, sorcerers are mantra and mudra masters and utterers who have an enlightened will sharpened into a blade, archers are zen-daoists who have suffused into their surroundings and achieved minor enlightenment

2: You want a game that's specifically built around war drama and martial arts combat and the kinds of stories that entails. There's a section in the book that covers "What kinds of stories you can tell" with the GB System

These genres are the kinds of stories i love to partake in and consume: stories of wandering martial heroes, or of complicated political warring, or of grand gods and sorceries a la Ramayana, or of small stories of warriors protecting their community

dungeon delving is not even inherently against the feel of this game, though of course sacking a grave is looked down upon by most religions in the isles. they are functionally replaced by "Raids" which is much more widely applicable! You can even Raid Heaven and Hell!

3: You like complex buildcrafting, tactical combat, and martial art fiction. Instead of the classic "Hey we're a bunch of scrappy mercenaries that wield a sword out of necessity", you play as Kadungganan who inflict violence by choice, philosophy and will

"Martial Arts" here is every kind of way of inflicting violence, or of perfecting one's self. Elementalist sorcery? Combat healing? Pugilism? Mantra utterances? All martial arts in Gubat Banwa's purview.

This feeds into the buildcrafting: you start with a "Discipline" (a martial art), and each Discipline has a number of Techniques within it. Whenever your Legend Grows (level up) you gain 2 Techniques from ANY DISCIPLINE, keeping in mind prerequisites

This has led to some genuinely flavorful builds: like a priest from beyond the dead crocodile rider, a sniper that launches stolen demon seeds, a folk healer who practices flower necromancy and swordmancy, and even a Knight-Monk that is constantly dancing between stances

All of this is built upon a tactical combat system that (similarly to PF2e!) has three actions as a base, and you can do anything with those three "Beats", lending to the martial arts fiction being invoked

And you start off with pretty limited options, so most of your build is pretty emergent: creating a Kadungganan is easy, since you can't choose from a huge pool of options, but advancement is exponential

It's all on a tactical grid too that has important considerations such as Elevation, Terrain, and even Weather! All to create slick wuxia-esque scenes!

4: You want an endlessly iterative setting. Gubat Banwa is a trichiliocosm, which means it has three-billion worlds. Each one might have your table's version of the Sword Isles. The Sword Isles is a gigantic archipelago, too many islands too count, too many kingdoms to track.

Everything you can think of will fit into the islands of the Sword Isles, just know that it centers Southeast Asian paradigms. A wandering adventurer from a far off land will be the exception, the norm. But endlessly interesting cultures and campaigns can arise from the Isles

And so much more. If you're already interested, take a gander at our itch page:

itch.io

Gubat Banwa First Edition by makapatag

Martial arts fantasy in the islands of revel and beauty.

Also we have a discord where i run games back to back like a goblin: https://discord.gg/8h7ZrU6353

Hello tumblr. Call me R-, I'm a Filipino martial artist and mechanical engineer who designs weapons (usually). Recently washed up on these shores from Twitter and I'm a little bit lost, please bear with me as I figure this out.

WEAPON COMMISIONS OPEN

Weapon design commissions by a martial artist and engineer! I make blueprints and weapon designs to arm you and your OCs respectively. Ever wanted to hold a sword of your own? If you live in the Philippines, I can also help you connect with local blacksmiths who can help bring your ideas to life. If you live elsewhere, you can commision me for a blueprint that you can bring to a forge near you. From the deepest reaches of untouched seas,

To the searing light of burning skies,

To the muted glow of stars beyond,

And- perhaps-

To the palm of your hand?

Your next legendary weapon awaits.

Contact me for samples and terms of service at kathang.tawen@gmail.com

Indeed it is!

I feel like I should add a little context for those unfamiliar.

The Bakunawa (or Bakonawa or however the spelling varies) is a giant serpent-dragon shared across several cultures in the Philippines, particularly in the Visayas area and those with whom they share close cultural ties.

It is one of several moon-eaters (alongside other giants such as the blade-feathered Minokawa of the Bagobo peoples stories), whose attempts to eat the moon have been pointed out in folklore and mythology as the cause of eclipses.

I can't say too much with confidence; I am by no means an expert on these stories, nor do I belong to the cultures that sing them. Filipino culture is anything but a monolith- it is in fact an enormous mosaic of often intersecting and overlapping cultureS (plural) that only appear to be all the same color if you're not looking closely enough. As it happens, the moon-eaters I mention here belong to cultures far away from where I can claim my own ancestry; we have stories of our own where I come from.

What I can say is that the Bakunawa tends to make an appearance on figural hilts on Philippine blades. I placed an example of a tenegre hilt in the original post, and added here some more examples of Bakunawa hilts on kampilan swords.

It may be that the figural hilts were originally meant to depict something else, or were known by other names, but blade collectors, smiths, and enthusiasts frequently refer to them as Bakunawa hilts in the present day.

Moonhammer

No pretentious loretext this time. I designed this meteor-hammer belt thing a while back based on the Bakunawa, the moon-eater serpent. The look of the maw is based in part on Visayan tenegre hilts, and the moon and star are based on my uh- Idk what to call it, a brand logo I guess?

I was going to get it made for myself, then I remembered I'm not actually trained to use a meteor hammer, so-