10,000 SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN 1.81 — YOU ARE NOT A STAR. YOU ARE A SUPERNOVA.

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DESCRIPTION

Hello all! 1.8 here. Long devlog coming. Yes, this will be the last "big" update in a while (though it's mostly refinement of 1.73). Yes Fallen Ogre Machine is coming next (it'll be a Level 1-2 Dungeon now!). Everything starts off hella Lethal now but with more goodies and with cool new Art for the Cultivations!

Most importantly is some cool new Lore that I had to put in as we work on a VTT/Character Builder: INTERCESSOR OS. Patrons will get to try it out first!

The new Lore stuff itself points even more to the weirdo esoteric cosmic horror speculative fiction new weird stuff that I've been going for. Hingsajagra might be the corpse of a dead god that fled Immortals that hunted it down by quantum teleporting to the end of the Trichiliocosm. God Gates allow FTL. Heaven and Hells are planets and space stations (akasha stations) and unfolded dimensions... and so on.

Expect typos and need for clarifications as always, but this one is looking good. Good to run now. Shouldn't feel too extra hard too.

As a peace offering, the core manual now has a bunch of d66 tables for generating: Settlements, Contradictions, Dungeons and Ruins, and Occult Ecologies! PDF and more beneath the cut—

1.8 — A Refinement

The theme of 1.8 is Refinement. More than anything, the rules here mostly stay the same, and its a lot of changes in how things are bundled together to emphasize the themes of the game. Of dialectical materialism, capitalism, history, alienation, and brutal gritty kung fu.

Short Tangent: Remember Ultraviolence At The End Of Time?

DECAPITATE THE GODHEAD – @makapatag on Tumblr

UV@EOT was an indulgent violence RPG I was working on a few years ago. I think it’s pretty safe to say that what 10KSAH has turned (and is turning into) is more or less a maturation of the aimless anticapitalist ultraviolence of UV@EOT. So here’s some dialectics for you: 10KSAH is the occult xianxia negation of UV@EOT’s cyber-buddhapunk. And so we sublate them together.

That is to say: Ultraviolence At The End Of Time is now folded ultimately into 10,000 SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN! They’re not even that different, but it’ll be fun to synthesize the stuff I’ve made there into this one.

Here’s some ideas from UV@EOT that are making their way into 10KSAH (mostly lore stuff).

The “Fashion” System of UV@EOT comes to 10K SWORDS. Though ultimately the Fashion System is just the Attire System, the main difference is that most Fashion Pieces are associated or connected to a Brand (at least, in the core rulebook!)

This is important, as it incorporates a kind of commodity fetishism that is very common in our world, and it has the dual nature of letting me world-build through the very gear that you have to wear.

Deeper integration with Sects. The Sects are what Martial Communes were inevitably going to be. Death after passing a particular Sect rank means having your Consciousness re-awoken in a nearby Sect headquarters, a usage of collective resources.

This will also mean that each Sect, though still with reactionary and sometimes capitalistic tendencies, will all nominally be on the Communist’s side. All of them contirbuting to an International Communist Underground that supports Revolutionary Parties across the world.

Don’t think there won’t be the iconic leftist infighting though, unfortunately.

This won’t be true across all Sects. There will be Sects that are not Socialist/Communist aligned in the future, and the Wanderer can be from them. Those ideologies are just not the focus of the core theme of the game, and so are not emphasized in the Rules Manual.

However, to preserve the integral philosophy of Dialectical Materialism in the game, I will eventually include the attempted negations of these Sects.

Some foundational lore is revised: the “Lotus God That Became The Utter Islands” is instead “A God Turned Into A Planet” after being slain by an ancient Interakashic Conflict. The Lotus Throne was its control diode. The God used to have the shape of an Asura before being compacted.

Oil is Haunted not just because of its occult resonances but also because they’re all contaminated with the seething advanced post-death residual information of the Lotus God.

This does mean that the planet of Hingsajagra is more or less a giant spaceship. This allows for the huge subterranean cities of Devils to counterpose the Orbital Heavens of the Deities. This allows for things that “look like” underworlds from ancient myth to be material realities.

And who knows? The center of Hingsajagra might even be hollow.

Some earlier patrons clocked me when they mentioned two things: 10,000 Swords Against Heaven is high tech fantasy (technically yes) and it reminded them of Book of the New Sun (I consider this setting as my Urth… but not actually Earth).

Kill God Cultivation (the new name for Ultraviolent Cultivation) is going to be the Book of the New Sun of pulp battle shonen slop...

1.8’s Revisions

On Ontological Horizontality

One of the core ideas and philosophies for 10,000 Swords Against Heaven is a sort of ontological horizontality, or a horizontal ontology of being. That is to say, the goal has always been to make as symmetrical or horizontal as possible the experience and ruleset of the PC and NPC. In a sense, there should be as little as a divide as possible between the PC and NPC.

This is achieved by NPCs, or World Beings, being made in the same way as Wanderers.

Challenge: On Gameability

The problem with such a principle of course is how gameable it is. Despite what we might want to do, the basis for much of RPGs is still its gameability.

In truth, all gameability is still arrested by one’s Design Goal or Principles. If you wanted a truly subversive, bleeding-edge game that strengthens fidelity to its themes and choices then you might end up with a very compelling game that might not be fun to play—and that might even be the point. I want to make that game some time in the future.

Unfortunately, that is not the point of 10,000 SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN.

Instead, the game-feel was meant to be a tabletop homage to Stick Fight Animations, Shonen Manga, Character Action Games, Kung Fu Movies, Dead Fantasy and RWBY, and the fantastical combat found in books like Malazan, Journey To The West, Cradle, The Scar and Perdido Street Station.

When it came to the game experience, I wanted to write an Action game. And so I needed to design the experience of this horizontality with action in mind.

Much of Action demands an exceptional, power-fantasy main hero. So I looked to kung fu movies like The Raid or Police Story to look for a hero that seemed more proletarian than others. A worker who looks fragile and is fragile but is exceptionally lucky or held some hidden Skill that let them scrape by, survive, barely. This was the first tenet: The Wanderers are not Heroes, they are Lucky.

Anyone can be lucky. And that luck can expire at any time as well. This is the basis of the ontological horizontality of the Action experience.

Now, since anyone can be lucky and no one is inherently or innately exceptional, we can design around that. The second thing that creates an action hero is Skill, whether hidden or not. It is already serendipitous that expediency or skillful means is one of the main tenets of Mahayana Buddhism, which is one of the major principles of the genre as well.

Skill creates the possibility for Cultivation. Cultivation creates the possibility for high-flying combat. Therefore, the baseline is a gritty reality, but Wanderers with their Cultivation Wombs opened have the possibility and capacity of playing with the most hidden aspects of reality through their Cultivation Wombs.

Rule Revision: Wanderer Discovery

Actually, this mostly stays the same. The main “revision” is that each Wanderer now has to choose one from 12 starting “Job.” These are more like Origins that situate a Wanderer in the World. One of these “Jobs” is “Wretched of the Earth”. Being a Wretch is the “Custom Job” option, wherein you can choose your own Cultivation Spread, Starting Trait, and Starting Esoteric Art. The drawback is that you start with the bare minimum of Equipments and Items.

Do these Jobs introduce new things? No: they’re simply starting packages that expedite the Wanderer Discovery process much more quickly.

“But this makes Wanderers start off much more same-y and non-unique!” Yes. That’s what the next idea is for.

On Alienation

One of the most influential of Marx’s theories onto my work is the Theory of Alienation. Particularly, about how essentially every Person is Alienated from their Life Activity, from top to bottom, due to how the process of Capital works.

In the game, this is exacerbated with the following revisions:

The First Sutra is about finding out your Name, Culture, Truth, and Alignment.

Consider, if a game is happening in a single soil, having everyone come from the same Culture if they all were born or lived there.

The Second Sutra is about Finding Out What Your Job Was.

That means you don’t start with a Sect or an Art: you must play the game first to gain those. The only two Arts you start with are the two Divine Empowerments: Bolster and Lightness.

To join a Sect and get your first Art requires you playing through the game and being contacted by a Sect. Remaining Sectless means you do not get their Attainment Benefits every Stage Up, as well as Revival means, and you are not Organized in the fight to puncture heaven.

Don’t worry: the Sects have their Hypersensor Arrays always ready. They will know someone that goes through the Antinomian Rite.

Sect Changes

Sects give Quests and Missions now in-fiction and in-setting. Doing 3 Quests and Missions gives you a Spiritual Treasure (was once Attainments).

These solidify our move into the

Progression Revisions

Here’s one of my favorite revisions so far.

Starting Cultivations

Starting Cultivations all now start at 0, with each Job having 2 points to spread at the beginning.

Levels now work like this:

Level Up

Whenever you attain (1000 x [Current Level + Next Level] + 500)Mag, you can meditate to refine that Mag into accumulation and ascend.

When You Level Up, Gain The Following…

[ ] 2 points to spread across Cultivations, raising their Base.

[ ] Gain a new Trait

[ ] Open a Meridian. Level 6 opens a Gnosis Meridian.

Rebirth Embryo Rite

At any point, as a favor or as a reward, you can ask for a Death Embryo Rite from your Sect. You take a “snapshot” of your current Wanderer state.

When you die, you revive as a being from that Embryo. How different or how the same this new being is is up to you. Also, often, this will bring about a new Perversion to the new body.

Refineries

You can only refine in places where you can meditate or engage in labor activity to strengthen yourself called Refineries. Out in dungeons these tend to be campsites, shrines, altars, or cauldrons. Refineries allow you to turn magnetite that you have into Training Points through Labor.

The Microcosmic Orbit

For this version, to accommodate the buildcrafting goal I have with this game, I needed to put a limiting factor. This was actually pretty easy to do, as xianxia fiction already had this trope: the Meridians and the Microcosmic Orbit.

The Microcosmic Orbit is the spinning of the self-Wheel. It is the flow of the Trichiliocosm’s Sidhi through you, starting from the perineum, exploding into at the crown, and then sinking deep into your liver. It is to channel esoteric energy through the entire cycle of your Cultivation Womb.

As a wanderer cultivates, long-lost Meridians open. These are psychophysical circuits like capillaries that connect the muscles and nervous system to the Cultivation Womb. There are three layers of Meridians:

The Rivers And Lakes Meridians are the Network that opens once a Cultivation Womb has been awakened. This allows for base amounts of Sidhic Manipulation, and more importantly, allows for Cultivation of the body itself.

The Star Meridians are the Network that opens that allows for psychically advanced Esoteric Arts to be embedded into them.

Wanderers begin with 1 Star Meridian open. They open another Star Meridian every Level Up, except for Level 6, where they open a Gnosis Meridian instead.

The Gnosis Meridians are the Meridian Cores that allow for a Violent Enlightenment or Esoteric Exaltation to be embedded. A Desire Realm Body can only handle 1 Gnosis Meridian open.

Realm Gameplay Explanation

All 12 Levels and all 6 Stages are the 12 Levels and 6 Stages of the Desire Realm. That’s right: Realm 1.

What this means is that the Rules Manual (which will be renamed the Wanderer’s Manual) deals with Realm 1 adventures. Desire Realm adventures are mostly earthbound, with perhaps a bit of hell/heaven/dimension hopping at the tail end.

The next Manual, the Cultivator’s Manual, deals with Realm 2 Adventures. Your Wanderers will have leveled up to becoming real Cultivators. Now the fight is taken to the Heavens: specifically, the Near Heavens of the Hi System. Hi being the Sun. The nine planets of the Hi System are all inhabited by their own beings, terraformed by ancient civilizations. This brings the combat to an almost interplanetary swashbuckling vibe, but deals with an grand conspiracy-of interplanetary bourgeoisie that continues to exploit the Hi System and is the reason why the people of Hingsajagra are made unable to leave their planet.

The last Manual, the Immortals’ Manual, deals with Realm 3 or Formless Realm Adventures. The Wanderers at Realm 3 will be considered true Immortals. Adventures at this level are intergalactic, taking place between star systems and dimensions, maneuvered through by Akashic Barges and the greatest of the ancient artifact technologies: The God Gates, which allow for entanglement-teleportation, bypassing the need for FTL Travel completely in established civilizations.

Here one finds a horrible Capitalism that has evolved to an almost intergalactic scale. One that wants to seize and capitalize on the energy brought about by the End Of The Universe. But intergalactic revolution brews, and the Final Sword of Communism is about to be unsheathed as the Contradictions become immutable, and the material technology to sustain intergalactic communism is developed…

This is a turn inspired by both D&D 4e’s three tiers of play and Scion’s more obvious three God-Levels of Play (Hero, Demigod, God). I think it’s a perfect way to do Xianxia gameplay without front loading all that information.

However the majority of adventures will most probably be written for Wanderers, for the following reasons:

Statistically, not a lot of people reach High Level Play anyway

The dangers of Wanderer play echo the most popular dangers in more common TTRPGs

Wanderer level play is mechanically easier to handle (you don’t lose much when going from Realm 1 to Realm 2).

While rising in Levels in Realm 1 is not too difficult, being 1,000 x next Level, Realm 2 is a lot more difficult, needing (Next Level x 10,000] x 1,000,000) magnetite and Realm 3 being nigh impossible, needing ([Next Level x 1,000,000] x 1,000,000) mag.

Average Desire Realm Adventures

Level 0 is the beginning. Many die at this level, but those that survive start Cultivating. At Level 1-4, they’re dealing with local threats. At Level 5-8, they’re dealing with “National” threats—threats that threaten a whole region. At Level 9-12, they’re dealing with “International Situations.”

Sidhi Revisions

Inner Sidhi is Health is the measure of your health, vitality, wellbeing, and energy. Equal to at 3 + Body + Level.

Outer Sidhi is Ardor: the measure of your usable, cultivated Sidhi, used for performing Esoteric Arts. Equal to 2 + Level.

Secret Sidhi is your baseline Cultivation Level. The strength of your cultivation womb. Starts at 0, and goes up to 12. 12 is the height of the Desire Realm.

Interrupt Revisions

Now if more than one person Interrupts at a time, instead of trying to say “Interrupt!” first, we roll off.

“If who Interrupts first is ever in doubt, gamble and roll off with a d6 all those that want to Interrupt. The highest one gets to have the 2nd Interrupt, and the second highest one gets to have the 1st Interrupt.”

Damage Revisions

Damage now is no longer by named tiers. I decided that the lookup needed for damage dealing added an extra layer that didn’t justify the gametime it took to learn it. So we’re back to just numerical versions. Specifically, they have tiers built in based on how good your Attack Check is, and damage itself has been pressed down to reduce arithmetics.

2d6 + Weapon Cultivation (usually Body, Skill, or Wits) vs the target’s Guard or Dodge (they choose). Choose which of your two readied weapons you are using to attack.

If you roll equal to or higher than their Defense, you Hit. Deal 1 Damage. Each point of Damage reduces Health.

If you beat the target’s chosen Defense by 3+ (e.g., 12 on a 9 Guard target), that’s a Solid Hit: deal 2 Damage.

If you beat it by 5+, that’s a Critical Hit: deal 3 Damage.

If you roll lower than the target’s Defense, you Whiff. The target Guards, Dodges, or stands Resolute. Rolling double-1s is always a Whiff.

It is recommended that you don’t just swing and strike. You can try to shape your Assaults through descriptions to try and get additional effects, such as pushing, grabbing, tossing, sliding, inflicting Conditions (daze, stun, stagger, and so on) as long as the explanation is strong enough. When in doubt, the Intercessor can force a -1 on the Check to represent its difficulty.

Weapon Upgrades: +1 Damage per Weapon Upgrade level (an Immortal Bludgeon with Body 6 would be doing 9 damage per Weapon Level)

Attack Types

There are then six kinds of Damage Types.

Physical. Physical refers to damage that causes direct, tangible, destruction or deterioration on a physical field. This includes things like Fire, Extreme Cold, and so on, alongside ripping bullets, cleaving swords, and head-splitting axe-strikes.

Esoteric. Esoteric refers to attacks that come from esoteric causes and sidhic energies. All Esoteric Damage ignores Armor, but is reduced instead by Resist. The three kinds:

Fulguric damage refers to esoteric application of electromagnetism, activity, charges, and movement. The world in its natural state of flux. Both light and electromagnetism.

Fulguric Damage always inflicts Electrocuted.

Akashic damage refers to the esoteric impermanence, the fundamental force of entropy. It is darkness, cold, passivity, and immovability.

Akashic Damage always inflicts Cold.

Nuclear damage refers to esoteric thermonuclear application. The ability to wield the furnace that are the Stars to create explosive heat and photon ablations.

Nuclear Damage always inflicts Burning.

Ego. Attacks that assault directly the consciousness and will. Unfortunately, Consciousness is a material force when used to cow and deter violent agents. Ego ignores Armor, but contends with Resist. Ego Damage always inflicts Dazed.

Vajra. The Vajra is the adamantine hammer-lightning of the gods, that annihilates. Vajra Attacks or Ultima damage is damage that is pure antimaterial force. Eradicating at a quantum level, it eradicates matter and nuclear forces at the basest real level. It ignores all Armor and Resist.

Armor & Resist

Armor acts as a shield against Physical Violence. When a being suffers Physical Damage, they reduce it according to their Armor.

Resist is a shield against Esoteric and Ego Damage. When a being suffers Esoteric or Ego Damage, they reduce it according to their Resist.

Esoteric Arts

Similar to Magicks, Technicks no longer need to be gained in order. More importantly, even Violent Enlightenments and Esoteric Exaltations don’t have this limit either: when you open a Gnosis Meridian, you can immediately gain one from any Martial or Mystic Art, as long as you know at least 1 Technick or Magick from that Martial or Mystic Art.

In the lore, Esoteric Arts have a psychic weight: to learn them requires interfacing with one’s Meridians.

You can learn any number of Arts now, but you can only internalize a number of Esoteric Arts at a time. Each Esoteric Art must be internalized into one of your open Meridians. You can change what Arts you have Internalized during a Rest.

Weapon Class Identity

The 12 Weapon Patterns can now be given a bit more identity. The way I’m writing it, each Weapon is essentially its own Combat Class, with its own passive class combat specialty.

✦ Empty Hands are the most versatile. Empty Hand attacks use Body or Skill and no penalties on attempts to trip, grapple, disarm, and so on.

✦ Daggers are inherently Concealable and use Skill or Wits. Surprise Attacks with Daggers are Piercing.

✦ Swords are the most balanced, and with the most Properties that can be attached to them as fictionally possible. Their major benefit is their versatility: Swords use either either Body or Skill for their Attack Check.

✦ Sabers are cutting weapons that trade away the balancedness of a two-edged sword for strength: they use Body-1 for Attacks. On Hit, they deal +1 Damage.

✦ Bludgeons are powerful striking weapons that use Body for Attacks and have an inherent Crushing property.

✦ Polearms are known for being able to strike from afar, having an inherent 2hx range. Uses Body for Attacks.

✦ Cleavers are heavy, cutting weapons such as axes, scythes, and sword-axes that have the potential to deal huge amounts of damage, at the cost of accuracy. Cleavers use Skill and score Critical Hits on a natural 11+

✦ Whips are faraway wounding tools that offer unconventional striking vectors. Similar to polearms, they have an inherent 2hx far reach and use Skill.

✦ Bows are long-ranged missile launchers that need Arrows for ammunition. They have an inherent 20hx range. Uses Skill, but requires a Body of 1+ to even wield.

✦ Crossbows are long-ranged bolt action launchers that can puncture from afar but are stronger closer up. They have an inherent 10hx range. Every attack also needs an Action to reload as well. Uses Skill.

✦ Launchers are far throwing weaponry such as slings, ribbons, slingshots, blowguns, and so on. They have an inherent 6hx range. Uses Skill.

✦ Guns are far-ranged missile launchers that have an inherent 25hx range. Uses Wits to attack. Requires Reload upon firing as well, as an Action. Always has an inherent Thundering property.

Weapon Property Changes

Weapons can have the following Properties:

✦ Artifact The weapon is an ancient relic or of spiritual significance. +1 Attacks and +1 Damage.

✦ Blaze The weapon is alight with mystic fire. Deals Nuclear Damage.

✦ Brutal +1 Damage, -2 Attack

✦ Colossal Takes 2 Actions to attack with. -4 Attack Check. On-hit, +2 Damage and Stun. Needs both hands. After attack, must spend Action to ready again. Cannot be Great.

✦ Concealable Weapon can be folded smaller and hidden away.

✦ Crushing Damage from this weapon requires 2 Armor to cancel out.

✦ Disarming +1 on all attempts to disarm a target.

✦ Doublehand Requires both weapon slots to wield. -1 Skill while wielded.

✦ Electric The weapon crackles with electricity. Deals Fulguric Damage.

✦ Ferocious Lower Critical Attack threshold of this weapon by 1 (Natural 12 becomes Natural 11. If somehow already Natural 11, Critical Attacks on a Natural 10). Ferocious cannot bring Critical Attack threshold below 9.

✦ Focus Can be used in place of mudras.

✦ Holy Deals +1 damage and Vajra Damage against Spirits.

✦ Frost The weapon chills with mystic frost. Deals Akashic Damage.

✦ Great -2 Attack Check. On-hit, +1 Violence, needs both hands. Cannot be Colossal.

✦ Lacerating The weapon inflicts Bleeding on hit (1 damage every Action end).

✦ Piercing Ignores Armor.

✦ Unblockable. Attacks cannot be Guarded.

✦ Undodgeable. Attacks cannot be Dodged.

✦ Reach Usually only for melee weapons. +1 Range.

✦ Ritual Weapon is used to call deities and ritual. +1 to all ritual-based and prayer-based checks.

✦ Shield While wielded in one hand, +1 Guard, and can Guard ranged attacks.

✦ Thundering Makes a very loud noise. Up to 50hx.

✦ Worn Weapon is worn, part of clothing, or put on. Cannot be disarmed.

Weapon Affinities

Affinity-crafting is an esoteric science that changes the molecular resonances of the weapons. Affinities change what Cultivation the weapon uses for both Attacks and Damage. They take up a Property Slot.

✦ Strong changes the Cultivations to Body. ✦ Adept changes the Cultivations to Skill.✦ Noetic changes the Cultivations to Mind. ✦ Keen changes the Cultivations to Wits. ✦ Lyric changes the Cultivations to Speech. ✦ Occult changes the Cultivations to Psyche.