pictured above—the character sheet of all swords across heaven. inspired by the likes of daoist diagrams. buddhist chakra charts. mad eschatonic scribblings. mystical life-tree-kundalini schemas. buddha-from-the-womb images. thangkas of internal alchemies. models of tummo.
begin.
the world spirit is the room with everyone in it.
first. a metaphysics.
the world spirit is empty. it is the interpenetrating web. crisscross infinitely.
it is all things that has ever existed and all the things that will ever exist.
that is to say—it is everything everywhere all at once. you. me. you and me.
second. a philosophy.
i believe in this. the world spirit is the sign of the times. yet something ancient yet slumbers.
ancient tales. stories. repeating narratives. the will of the people. the song of the masses.
humanity’s spirit—the shared weal and woe of all. extinguishment of the self.
let me tap it. let me unleash from the depths. from the storehouses of the earth.
let the world spirit—that is, infinity—flow through me. let me bring about the next world.
third. the revision.
another revision. now.
hingsajagra is now but another name. formed from cultural symbol and milieu.
so is pakgara. so is wandering.
but now i wish to use wandering. that is a word this world knows.
sundang langit is now but another name. the sword of heaven.
why just one sword? the revelation of the people is this:
not one. not two. but all swords against heaven.
sundang langit—the dark fantasy esoteric wuxia roleplaying game—is now known
as all swords against heaven.
fourth. an apology.
for the constant name changing.
the world evolves. it is fire. we must change along with it.
from tathagatas to ultimas.
from buddhas to supreme enlightened ones.
from bodhisattvas to enlightenment beings.
from myoos to wisdom kings.
from hingsajagra to wandering.
from sundang langit to all swords against heaven.
fifth. a promise.
work on all swords against heaven continues apace. its the final revision before public playtesting.
during playtesting—
i will test the systems if they bring about the right vibe.
i will test violence and social systems in the game.
i will test the modules being written.
it must be known. asah is going to be a rules-medium game.
the majority of its content comes from modules—
templecrawls. islandcrawls. points of interest. dungeons. raids.
more world items than adventure items.
sixth. a babbling. about the game.
i must needs write the next chapter of god obliterating vajra as i tap this out.
after the last bout of recollections and revisions, i returned even further to my roots to see what i can dig up. or maybe not dig up. maybe its more of like returning to a hometown shrine to see what the trees would say this time.
i was looking to make an osr/nsr ruleset that hearkened to disco elysium’s systems. i wanted to…
keep it rules-lite-ish.
immersion-focused.
world first.
lethal.
but
facilitate blorbo play.
blorbos are original characters. you make a character and they are one of the most important individuals. i refuse this. however, i also reject the idea that this style of play is inherently bourgeois ideology. just like with everything else, we the masses and the wretched can cannibalize it for our own gain.
so in all swords against heaven, i have made it so that the PC you make starts as commonfolk. even if they start somehow from a different social class or caste, they will ultimately still be ordinary.
specialness comes later. this is what the text says. become powerful through play. become extraordinary by becoming entangled in the world’s web.
entanglement means becoming inextricably linked, until you are the same.
there is no self. remember this. the supreme teaching of the ultimas. i is a lie. it is the consequence of being the world.
so blorbo play is still the target with asah. make characters that you fall in love with. make characters you want to play as for a long time. but don’t expect the world to bend to you. there are no narrative rules that make your PC exceptional. become exceptional by accepting the world.
enlightenment is not the destination. it is the road.
reject “narrative.”
story games and narrative games are great and to many, the superior type of play. i’ve made multiple games in this vein. so for this one, i go the opposite end.
this is a non-narrative game.
this is not a game that tries to tell a story.
story comes afterward. it is the waste after the hurricane. this is what the text says.
survive. live. love. interact. immerse with the world. the stories are the sublime perfections that arise from this interaction.
this emergence that comes from play. different from narrative generation.
i like to call all swords across heaven a “low powered exalted retroclone.”
some of the greatest fun i’ve had was playing exalted without exalted. through the heroic mortal rules. the game felt brutal. gritty. the mechanics chained me to the world. us to the world. as a heroic mortal, i can no longer ignore what weapon i wielded. or what items i carried with me. i do not have the narrative-generating charms that the mighty exalted have. those great ubermensch. those liberal-individualist fantasies.
i like to call all swords across heaven “osr by the way of old-school exalted and world of darkness.”
the gameplay lightly models a world.
world of darkness games say they are narrative story games but they are anything but! they are traditional system-as-world games. but just light enough so that they felt narrative. it was perfect!
to me, my play experience with exalted and world of darkness was true blorbo play. multiple player options, all to make your player unique. special. interesting.
in vampire the masquerade all npcs are made the same way pcs are. the same is done in exalted. design-wise it was mad. play-wise… oh how interesting the stories that arose from my table.
i like to call all swords across heaven “a world-first game.”
not fiction-first. a potentially poisoned word. i do not want to infer any form of narrative.
the game must work through the Real instead of Symbolic Order.
world-first means—follow the rules established by the world. follow the rules agreed upon by the world through play. it is the ultimate sublimation of fiction into diegesis. all mechanics arise from the world.
finally—what’s next?
i work on asah tirelessly. in the midst of work. it is grueling, but fulfilling. it will be released soon.
for free. but paid patrons get it first. a public discord might be made. perhaps a reddit.
then the stilshrine of miriam will be released. it will not be free. it will be ten dollars.
paid patrons get it free. of course.
then the fallen yakkamakina will be revised to fit the newer rules. it will cost the same.
paid patrons get it free. of course.
i will be moving to a dual patron tier model. one at $3 (all benefits of the $10 go to $3). one at $20. those on the higher tier retain the same privileges. i can write their blorbos into work, if they so wish. or i can make fiction for them. as i’ve always done.
afterwards, i will work on more modules at a slower pace. i return full force to writing the web serial. the written text calls me back. raxri’s trauma must be navigated.
prithee, accept my grateful thanks for joining me on the ride.
may you achieve ultimacy.
may you rip through all obstacles.
until all the hells are empty.
until all beings are free.