Pacific Lost ii

[makapatag]

cross disciplinary training in gubat banwa

so, gubat banwa is a big martial arts game of esoteric martial arts. of beatdown and bone breaking. bakbakan at suntukan, pangamot ug pagdaug. it focuses on martial arts and the culture that surrounds that. during ancient seasian times (the main foundation for this game), formal categorized schools didn't exist: participating in your culture was you learning its martial arts, or a random hermit in the sea cave could teach you a secret martial art, or your family could have its own secret martial art, etc. etc.

so martial arts classes (in gubat banwa they're called Disciplines) are expressions of culture and tradition. from a mechanical side, I knew I wanted to make Gubat Banwa a multiclassing-first game, a la Lancer, for multiple reasons

I like multiclassing, I almost always multiclass

You get access to more of the game and the game's lore (much of Gubat Banwa's lore is in the disciplines)

You get to write a plurality of classes that deal with a plurality of playstyles

It makes writing Disciplines easier--they become small packages of power instead of the long Narrative Playbooks that they are a la D&D 4e's classes. this also makes making Disciplines easier as you don't have to write one for a 12 Level long progression

it creates a more emergent character progression (a Mangangayaw learning Sword Saint techniques for example might be a raider who raided a Virbanwenyo settlement and got the resident martial artist to teach him a thing or two, or it could be that they started picking up how Virbanwenyo Penitents fought)

however, Disciplines were more than just classes, they're also martial arts in their own right. So as I deepened my understanding with the Martial Arts I also found further justifications for multiclassing [which we like to call crosstraining]). these are from my and GB's Art Director Dylan's experiences from Filipino Martial Arts:

to become a true grandmaster is to learn or observe a large variety of styles (see: Johnny Chiuten, Anciong Bacon, etc.)

most real grandmasters that began their own FMA schools are those that studied and learned techniques from a wide variety of martial arts (Anciong Bacon knew Boxing and Dumog, for example. Johnny Chiuten knew multiple Chinese Martial Arts and trained in Balintawak and Lapunti, GM Filemon Caburnay learned both the arts of blacksmithing and of multiple arnis styles as he traveled across Visayas and Mindanao, and learned Kung Fu from Johnny Chiuten, before going down the path of perfecting his own fighting style that became Lapunti Arnis de Abanico)

even my own master in Lapunti who started with Lapunti was exposed to other Arnis and Martial Art styles so he was able to build his own style around it, and was able to contribute his own moves into modern Lapunti. i can see a bit of Chinese Martial Art influence in his movements now, a bunch of balintawak progression

very often if you're a student of violence, you will be learning multiple combat arts both out of necessity and out of love for movement. a balintawak warrior might have their movements augmented with jiujitsu training, a lapunti could benefit from learning sikaran, etc. etc.

kadungganan are meant to be nascent grandmasters, especially those that reach legend 12, so this is the main justification for the multiclassing instead of just having 1 martial art that you perfect. in real life this doesn't really happen, especially if you want to perfect your own fighting style. the assemblage of multiple techniques from 12 Legends worth of progression is there to facilitate the fantasy of a Kadungganan perfecting their martial art style, like the grandmasters of old

i knew since the earliest stages of gubat banwa that i wasn't going to compromise the multiclassing aspect, i just find it very serendipitous that crosstraining fits so well into the martial arts fantasy. it makes me pretty satisfied and happy, and i'm glad i didn't bend to internal talking and thinking about making a "pure discipline" progression possible

[makapatag]

thoughts about a national "filipino" culture

this post is written after a bout of rereading fanon. this post is by no means a hikayat or persuasive piece but rather pure unfiltered thoughts, perhaps ya'll will find it interesting.

filipino culture is largely revolutionary. this is true of almost every colonized culture: as according to Fanon, National Culture is the Struggle for Liberation, and I largely agree with this. in a way, we are still struggling for liberation from outside forces. in many ways, the Philippines is still a colony (or, perhaps, a neocolony) of america. thus colonialism is still on going. thus, fanon's terminology of colonized/colonist dichotomy is still very effective when applied to modern filipino identity.

i've been pretty vocal about my perspective on filipino identity: it being mostly constructed during the american colonization of the philippines. even to this day, i believe that it is mostly a regurgitation of american culture, even seemingly activist perspectives. much of filipino culture is repurposed from american educational systems. much of filipino culture talks about filipinos, and ignores a vast majority of the other people in the isles. ask the general activist how a bisaya or mindanaowon revolutionary and they will balk.

fanon argues that national culture is just the culture of the struggle that arises from nationhood. after decolonization, both colonized and colonist die. what then, afterwards? he states that national culture is the best way to achieve international solidarity. smaller scale focuses of culture can create better and more authentic cultures instead of vague and generic eidolons. i largely agree for the most part, though we can definitely peer a lot deeper. fanon is also quick to argue that national consciousness (the consciousness to fight for liberation) is different from nationalism (that thing that very quickly leads to fascism).

in the case of the philippines, multiple different culture still exist in milieu with the rest of philippine culture. fanon's works talk alot about the importance of word and language in the colonized's world. so it is here: the filipino as a term is claimed from the colonizers (filipino used to mean spanish that lived in the isles). can it be redeemed and twisted into an empowering word for us, na nakatira dito? potentially (as with all things its mostly a percentage chance). unfortunately, larger is the chance that we completely assimilate into the term: we become spanish people that live in the isles, despite having an already multinational culture (the tagalogs, the bisayas, the bikolanos, etc. all only sharing culture through colonization, in the same way africa shares culture through colonization but have bespoke cultures in and of themselves). thus why there's a tendency for filipinos to be separate from the indigenous people of the philippines, despite tagalogs, bisaya, etc. being indigenous people of the philippines

"but waks, bitch boy, you can't compare the ph to the africa and whatnot they're too big!" witness the philippines' true size in comparison to mainland seasia

multiple empires can fit within the philippines in size, so that's a fraught argument.

anyway, as i reread fanon i'm realizing too many leftist spaces (at least, mainstream ones in the PH) are currently ascribing to the first kind of culture that fanon spoke about (regurgitation of white culture): looking for pieces of culture to turn into "filipino identity", reinforcing fragments of filipino identity, conveniently forgetting other cultures in the ph (and some even being outright hostile against the idea) when it doesn't benefit their movement (which is annoying, because as real marxists we should be including them under a single revolutionary solidarity). increasingly it's beginning to feel like Mass Organizations are becoming just larger college orgs

however, i'm not saying that won't change--i feel like these orgs will evolve past anyway. and harnessing the power of guilt-ridden petty boojwazee instilled with the fervor of national consciousness is pretty potent in mobilizing large movements, even if they end up burning out by the end of it

so at the end of it i accept filipino as a geographical and revolutionary description, but not as a cultural nationalistic descriptor (as that would end up with us redoing the colonizer's culture). it is a stepping stone. and perhaps we might need to rejigger our definition of the filipino: maybe change its name to pilipinhon (coming from the philippines) from bisaya. or barring that, look at it differently, refuse the colonized intellectual urge to make it a culture like our colonizer's, and accept the culture as it is, of struggle and of liberation.

and then accept that there are multiple cultures underneath it--that there are tagalog cultures and bisaya cultures and lumad cultures and bikolano cultures etc. etc. hell, if the spanish didn't hand us over to the americans, who's to say that the philippines wouldn't have split into multiple different nations (a bisaya nation, a tagalog republic, etc.) it almost happened multiple times in the past. the only thing stopping us was colonialism :)

[makapatag]

Tactical Combat, Violence Dice and Missing Your Attacks in Gubat Banwa

In this post I talk about game feel and decision points when it comes to the "To-Hit Roll" and the "Damage Roll" in relation to Gubat Banwa's design, the Violence Die.

Let's lay down some groundwork: this post assumes that the reader is familiar and has played with the D&D style of wargame combat common nowadays in TTRPGs, brought about no doubt by the market dominance of a game like D&D. It situates its arguments within that context, because much of new-school design makes these things mostly non-problems. (See: the paradigmatic shift required to play a Powered by the Apocalypse game, that completely changes how combat mechanics are interpreted).

With that done, let's specify even more: D&D 5e and 4e are the forerunners of this kind of game--the tactical grid game that prefers a battlemat. 5e's absolute dominance means that there's a 90% chance that you have played the kind of combat I'll be referring to in this post. The one where you roll a d20, add the relevant modifiers, and try to roll equal to or higher than a Target Number to actually hit. Then when you do hit, you roll dice to deal damage. This has been the way of things since OD&D, and has been a staple of many TTRPG combat systems. It's easy to grasp, and has behemoth cultural momentum. Each 1 on a d20 is a 5% chance, so you can essentially do a d100 with smaller increments and thus easier math (smaller numbers are easier to math than larger numbers, generally).

This is how LANCER works, this is how ICON works, this is how SHADOW OF THE DEMON LORD works, this is how TRESPASSER works, this is how WYRDWOOD WAND works, this is how VALIANT QUEST works, etc. etc. It's a tried and true formula, every D&D player has a d20, it's emblematic of the hobby.

There's been a lot more critical discussion lately on D&D's conventions, especially due to the OGL. Many past D&D only people are branching out of the bubble and into the rest of the TTRPG hobby. It's not a new phenomenon--it's happened before. Back in the 2010s, when Apocalypse World came out while D&D was in its 4th Edition, grappling with Pathfinder. Grappling with its stringent GSL License (funny how circular this all is).

Anyway, all of that is just to put in the groundwork. My problem with D&D Violence (particularly, of the 3e, 4e, and 5e version) is that it's a violence that arises from "default fantasy". Default Fantasy is what comes to mind when you say fantasy: dragons, kings, medieval castles, knights, goblins, trolls. It's that fantasy cultivated by people who's played D&D and thus informs D&D. There is much to be said about the majority of this being an American Samsaric Cycle, and it being tied to the greater commodification agenda of Capitalism, but we won't go into that right now. Anyway, D&D Violence is boring. It thinks of fights in HITS and MISSES and DAMAGE PER SECOND.

I believe this is because it stems from D&D still having one foot in the "grungy dungeon crawler" genre it wants to be and the "combat encounter balance MMO" it also wants to be. What ends up happening is that players play it like an immersive sim, finding ways to "cheese" encounters with spells, instead of interacting with the game as the fiction intended. This is exemplified in something like Baldur's Gate 3, for example: a lot of the strats that people love about it includes cheesing, shooting things before they have the chance to react, instead of doing an in-fiction brawl or fight to the death. It's a pragmatist way of approaching the game, and the mechanics of the game kind of reinforce it. People enjoy that approach, so that's good. I don't. Wuxia and Asian Martial Dramas aren't like that, for the most part.

It must be said that this is my paradigm: that the rules and mechanics of the game is what makes the fiction (that shared collective imagination that binds us, penetrates us) arise. A fiction that arises from a set of mechanics is dependent on those mechanics. There is no fiction that arises independently. This is why I commonly say that the mechanics are the narrative. Even if you try to play a game that completely ignores the rules--as is the case in many OSR games where rules elide--your fiction is still arising from shared cultural tropes, shared ideas, shared interests and consumed media.

So for Gubat Banwa, the philosophy was this: when you spend a resource, something happens. This changes the entire battle state--thus changing the mechanics, thus changing the fiction. In a tactical game, very often, the mechanics are the fiction, barring the moments that you or your Umalagad (or both of you!) have honed creativity enough to take advantage of the fiction without mechanical crutches (ie., trying to justify that cold soup on the table can douse the flames on your Kadungganan if he runs across the table).

The other philosophy was this: we're designing fights that feel like kinetic high flying exchanges between fabled heroes and dirty fighters. In these genres, in these fictions, there was no "he attacked thrice, and one of these attacks missed". Every attack was a move forward.

So Gubat Banwa removed itself from the To-Hit/Damage roll dichotomy. It sought to put itself outside of that paradigm, use game conventions and cultural rituals that exist outside of the current West-dominated space. For combat, I looked to Japanese RPGs for mechanical inspiration: in FINAL FANTASY TACTICS and TACTICS OGRE, missing was rare, and when you did miss it was because you didn't take advantage of your battlefield positioning or was using a kind of weapon that didn't work well against the target's armor. It existed as a fail state to encourage positioning and movement. In wuxia and silat films, fighters are constantly running across the environment and battlefield, trying to find good positioning so that they're not overwhelmed or so that they could have a hand up against the target.

Gubat Banwa has THE VIOLENCE DIE: this is the initial die or dice that you roll as part of a specific offensive technique.

In the above example, the Inflict Violence that belongs to the HEAVENSPEAR Discipline, the d8 is the Violence Die. When you roll this die, it can be modified by effects that affect the Violence Die specifically. This becomes an accuracy affectation: the more accurate your attack, the more damage you deal against your target's Posture/ Mas asintado, mas mapinsala.

You compare your Violence Die roll to your target's EVADE [EVD]. If you rolled equal to or lower than the target's EVD, they avoid that attack completely. There: we keep the tacticality of having to make sure your attack doesn't miss, but also EVD values are very low: often they're just 1, or 2. 4 is very often the highest it can go, and that's with significant investment.

If you rolled higher than that? Then you ignore EVD completely. If you rolled a 3 and the target's EVD was 2, then you deal 3 DMG + relevant modifiers to the DMG. When I wrote this, I had no conception of "removing the To-Hit Roll" or "Just rolling Damage Dice". To me this was the ATTACK, and all attacks wore down your target's capacity to defend themselves until they're completely open to a significant wound. In most fights, a single wound is more than enough to spell certain doom and put you out of the fight, which is the most important distinction here.

In the Thundering Spear example, that targets PARRY [PAR], representing it being blocked by physical means of acuity and quickness. Any damage brought about by the attack is directly reduced by the target's PAR. A means for the target to stay in the fight, actively defending.

But if the attack isn't outright EVADED, then they still suffer its effects. So the target of a Thundering Spear might have reduced the damage of an attack to just 1 (1 is minimum damage), they would still be thrown up to 3 tiles away. It matches that sort of, anime combat thing: they strike Goku, but Goku is still flung back. The game keeps going, the fight keeps going.

When you miss, the mechanical complexity immediately stops--if you miss, you don't do anything else. Move on. To the next Beat, the next Riff, the next Resound, think about where you could go to better your chances next time.

Otherwise, the attack's other parts are a lot more mechanically involved. If you don't miss: roll add your Attacking Prowess, add extra dice from buffs, roll an extra amount of dice representing battlefield positioning or perhaps other attacks you make, apply the effects of your attack, the statuses connected to your attack. It keeps going, and missing is rare, especially once you've learned the systematic intricacies of Gubat Banwa's THUNDERING TACTICS BATTLE SYSTEM.

So there was a lot of setup in the beginning of this post just to sort of contextualize what I was trying to say here. Gubat Banwa inherently arises from those traditions--as a 4e fan, I would be remiss to ignore that. However, the conclusion I wanted to come up to here is the fact that Gubat Banwa tries to step outside of the many conventions of that design due to that design inherently servicing the deliverance of a specific kind of combat fiction, one that isn't 100% conducive to the constantly exchanging attacks that Gubat Banwa tries to make arise in the imagination.

[makapatag]

On Posture In Gubat Banwa

So the sixth version of Gubat Banwa's First Edition "returns" to the ideal that HP as a pacing mechanic, an Action Economy limiter, and a resource pressure. As always, in Tactical Combat games, resource management is a major aspect of the gameplay. Management of action economy, management of distance, management of other currency (such as Class-specific Resources). Most of a Tactical Combat Grid game revolves around the manipulation of these mechanics: reducing, regaining, adding, changing, force multiplication/division of these resources, and more. In Tomian Design (that is, Tom of LANCER RPG and ICON RPG), costing.

For the first 5 versions of Gubat Banwa's design, we worked with lower HP values (across the board) and with Dice Pools. The idea was that each dice in a dice pool was an attack launched, or a moment of concentration. Every die in the defense pool was a parry or evasion attempted. While the fantasy of that worked pretty great, the maths on the other hand did not. It worked almost counter-intuitively against the high-flying martial arts x deliberate tactical combat that I was trying to strike a balance for. My white elephant, my Shambhala, was to strike a good balance between that.

The Change

In 1.6, while the Dice Pool didn't entirely go away--much of the game is built around getting tactically advantageous positions so that you can get more dice and a higher chance of dealing greater damage on the target--it went for a more linearly scaling game with the result on the die reducing the target's Health.

It was a hit, mostly, among the inner circle (that is to say, my friends that I run the newer version for). There was an immediate sense of "we know how this game works" now.

On Tactical Video Games

It was more transparent--this information was crucial to making a tactical game work and sing. This is why in video games, almost every tactical game has the "Combat Forecast", like in Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics, that showcased the expected Hit Rate and the Damage Output.

This is absolutely integral: tactical games are decision point games. Without the proper information (doesn't need to be complete information), no decision can be done satisfyingly. This isn't to say that dice pools can't be used for a tactical game of course--I've done it. But it requires a different kind of design principle and design goal that Gubat Banwa wasn't going for. That sense of martial progression, of spiritual strength and eventual enlightenment.

From HP to POS

During the initial playtests, we were still working with HP. Hit Pearls. The idea was that every hit "shattered" a Hit Pearl. This worked with the Dice Pools, because the fiction was that every attack could be parried with Defense Dice.

What was the problem with this? Firstly, the math of this was inherently fraught, unfortunately: on higher levels, Defense Dice were either horribly impenetrable or did absolutely nothing to defend you. It became a binary thing. That was not the goal: for the martial fantasy to come to life, much of the decisions should not binary but rather, on a gradient spectrum.

To me, the destroyer of tactical grid games is when there's a single best strategy that shatters the tension of the game. My favorite parts of Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre were early game moments where the output randomness could make every fight go completely different, even if you redid the same stage more than once.

Secondly, when the outcome of an action is that, really, nothing happened, you used an attack (even worse, the attack was buffed by yourself, an ally, and tactical modifiers) and then the target was able to parry all your hits. The fiction is exciting for a second, but then when you return to the battle grid, nothing changed. The mechanics fed into the fiction, but the fiction didn't feed into the mechanics.

With the math change, the fiction of the Hit Pearls wasn't working because HP values were higher to compensate for the changed math. 12 Hit Pearls could feasibly be visualized as Link's Hearts, for example. But at 48 HP, that didn't work anymore.

Hearkening to the Ancients

So I actually went on a trip to older versions of Gubat Banwa, and found I'd solved that particular problem. Older versions of Gubat Banwa had HP as "Mettle", their ability to stay in the fight. Turning to the game's current version, I realized the Physical Defense stat was perfect: POSTURE. The stance, the guard, the ability to keep fighting, the ability to turn mortal wounds into grazing hits, the ability to ignore the effects of bleeding wounds, of burning pyres, of seeping poison.

Every attack was inflicting damage by chipping away at the target's guard, or forcing their stance into more compromised positions so that they would be open to an actual mortally wounding strike. They were still real hits that the defender was actively still guarding against. And with every attack defended, their guard wore down.

This hit me after watching Donnie Yen's SAKRA (2023) the other day. Reaching back into the high-flying wuxia roots, Donnie Yen's character doesn't even take real hits until after he's overwhelmed because he is such a martial superior against the rest of the Beggar Clan. Because his Posture was so high.

Ten Thousand Earth Shattering Blows

It worked great. Not to mention that it's a great reference to Sekiro, another huge inspiration to the games's intended fiction, which also had a Posture break. Now Staggered for half Posture or lower made sense: your guard is brittle! You court death! Now the Wide Open affliction felt more in genre: your guard is wide open, so you're suffering more!

The Physical Defense stat was renamed into PARRY, while the Magical Defense stat was kept as RESILIENCE (itself a reference to Final Fantasy Tactics A2!) The defenses were there to keep the mechanical bite of an Attack vs Defense interaction, to provide an avenue for another mechanical design space, as well as to shoe in the fact that when an attack targets your Parry you're physically blocking while an attack against your Resilience requires your fortitude and concentration to block against: when your Posture is reduced, when you guard is worn down by these attacks, you know how you were defending.

When enemies hit 0 POS, that attack is the one that gets through their Defenses and kills them outright. When a Kadungganan falls to 0 POS they're not dead, but they suffer a WOUND, which only heals on Downtime (as opposed to POS healing on Repose, ie., short rest).

On Defeat and Victory

While you're Defeated, you suffer the same effects of Stun, but you can still act and do things, even make attacks at full power: you're Kadungganan after all. But every attack against you, despite your PARRY or your RESILIENCE is not met with a stance ready to block. Thus, every instance of damage you suffer, no matter how much, inflicts another Wound. When you eat 5 Wounds, you can pull on your Conviction to stay alive. Otherwise, you are tossed back into the cycle of reincarnation, or into the river to Sulad, or to Lunar Heaven, or to whatever next life your Kadungganan has chosen to ascribe to.

Status Effects

Statuses such as Poisoned, Bleeding, or Aflame, don't break you yet because they must eat through your bodily resistance. But they are still real: an aflame Kadungganan fights on even as flames swathe their body.

They can die later, when they feel the effects of the burn when their POS falls to 0. They can die later, when the Poison finally seeps through and enervates them and destroys their defensive capability. They can die later, when the bleeding takes its toll and they can no longer keep their stance up.

Martial Glossolalia

With a simple terminology change, the fiction changed entirely. Now everyone knew it was their defenses wearing down. Swords didn't cut off their fingers, flames didn't burn through their skin. They know that defenses are a holistic thing: your stamina, your constitution, your composure, your reactive ability, your dexterity, your presence of mind, your focus.

"It's not realistic!" The game is not meant to be realistic, and realism is not an inherent ontological good nor is it a goal for most TTRPGs, you will notice. Experiences, feelings. The fiction Gubat Banwa draws upon--SEAsian Folk Epics, Asian Martial Arts Cinema--is filled to the brim with the CLANG CLANG CLANG of sword-on-sword action. Often these clangs happen so quickly that you cannot process them, they are abstracted to you when it resolves in your brain--so is it abstracted by Gubat Banwa. Posture going down is the CLANG CLANG CLANG that resonates across a fight scene. It's not realistic because it's not meant to be, and even then, we must argue what your conception of reality is!

I could be argued that much of Tabletop RPGs (and, I would argue, most of games in general) is an exercise of language. Exploiting its vagaries, its ability to connect. When you go into Gubat Banwa, learning the mechanics of the game is learning a new language. And what is language but the foundation of culture?

[makapatag]

The time has come. Raise the sails, sound the horns, bang the gongs! Glory awaits. It's time to sail the sky and seize heaven's thunderclaps! 

Gubat Banwa's KS is LIVE NOW!

Gubat Banwa - Southeast Asian Fantasy Tactics RPG

The War Drama Martial Arts Tactics RPG set in the Sword Isles: a Fantasy setting inspired by the refulgent stories of Southeast Asia.

[kathanglangit]

The Seventh Blade: Kalis - Bleeding Edge

And so- in the end- the wheel must turn, and a new day must usurp the old. Perhaps then, these long-fallen flowers will feed the soil, and nourish a new bloom. Perhaps the fire will find home in the bleeding rivers and cauterize the land, and the steam will rise into skies of the clearest blue. Perhaps our songs will be of triumphant yesterdays, hard-won and now bearing fruit. But we are Kadungganan- we do not sit idly to await the dawn. We claw at heaven to bring forth our own tomorrow! One more day until the launch of the Gubat Banwa Kickstarter! Fight for another day in the turbulent fires of the Sword Isles, carving out your own story by blade and sheer will in this tactical martial arts TTRPG, inspired by the thousand, thousand colors of Southeast Asia.

I've been posting weapons I've drawn for the game to count down the final week before the launch. This was supposed to be for Swordtember, but the deadline had to be pushed back. 7/7 blades, ending with the KALIS

This blade adorns the logo of Gubat Banwa, at once uniting and splitting in twain. Kalis refers to a number of uniquely Philippine variants of the more widely known collective of kris blades, which appears in several forms across Southeast Asia.

(Diagram by Lorenz Lasco) What separates Philippine kalis from kris seems to be an answer with multiple facets. Some say it's a linguistic matter, others say kalis refers specifically to certain blades from the Sulu archipelago.

(Photos from Raymundo Lucero)

(For comparison, an Indonesian kris) Admittedly, the kalis is a bit of a blindspot in my knowledge. I've done what research I can, and asked those who know better, but I exist a considerable distance away from where these blades belong- physically and culturally. This is, perhaps, where I will be most prone to making mistakes of fact with the information I present. If I make any mistakes, please do not hesitate correct me!

(Photo from Zambasulta Pakukus) On the heels of that disclaimer, let's take a look at the blade. This is definitely one of the most beautiful weapons I've ever had to draw. Philippine kris/kalis tend to be longer and more "sword-like" than those of our neighbors.

(Photos from Johnwick Cabrera) The hilts tend to differ depending on who makes them. Some sport what might be cockatoo/"kakatua" bird-head hilts, some have very ornate junggayan hilts, some feature okir carvings, some are more rudimentary.

(Photos from Dennis Andrew Golez) The blade is used by several peoples in the south Philippines, including the Maranao, the Tausug, and the peoples of Maguindanao. I am most definitely missing a few groups, this is not an exhaustive list. There are differences between the way they build hilts and assemble blades that I don't feel qualified to speak about. And yes, the blades are like that because they are an assembly near the handle.

(Photo from Sulu Utak Shop) Apart from hilt shape and assembly, variations occur in blade thickness, ornamentaion, presence and type of okir carvings, number of curves or seko (odd numbers), length (kalis sundang = "swords", kalis gunong = "daggers") Actually- you know what?

(Photo from Richard Hudson) Since this is the last one in the countdown, I'm going to do something different. I invite you to find the answers yourself. That is part of what Gubat Banwa is meant to be: an invitation to engage in a fantasy setting centered on our cultures, so you can tell stories built on our terms. The cultures in the Sword Isles are NOT the cultures in the real world from which they draw inspiration. It is very much still a fantasy setting. But part of engaging with the setting in good faith is doing your own learning, on things for which you are not owed an explanation. Curiosity rewards the adventurous. The kalis is well-researched. If you're curious about something, you'll find the answers. You don't need me to hold your hand.

Instead, I'm just going to show you some of the coolest kalis I've seen.

(Silver and ivory-hilted kalis from the NCAA) A (relatively) simple but gorgeous build by a modern smith.

(Blade by Zambasulta Pakukus) A pair of kalis from a smith in Zamboanga.

(Blade by Panday Onsboy Maktar) Silver-hilted kalis from Sulu.

(Photos from Arma Filipinas; Polished by the "Blade Barber") Kalis with some gorgeous carvings on it.

(Photos from Sulu Utak Shop) Kris inlaid with a brass naga.

(Photos from Ron Zambaranno) Kalis rehilted by a Lumad group- uncertain which group. Supposedly, the Lumad would take kris they captured from enemies, disassemble them, and rehilt the blade.

This one appears to have a blade that looks like most of the kalis we've seen, but with a hilt similar to Indonesian or Malaysian variants.

(Photos from Raymundo Lucero) Antique Moro kris sundang with a hilt made of fossilized mammoth tooth, ornamented with a silver coin from the 1700s. A personal favorite, as I used the hilt as a reference for one of my favorite designs.

(Photo from Richard Hudson)

(Art by yours truly) As with the panabas, the people who make and use the kalis are still around. There are bladesmiths, scholars, practitioners of Moro Fighting Arts, historians, and just people who live alongside these blades who can tell their own stories better than I ever could.

(Photo from Richard Hudson)

I hope this and all the other threads I made inculcated an interest in some of you- even those who just look at the pictures (I see you)- to look into these blades yourself. Do your due diligence, treat people with respect, and approach what you are unfamiliar with in good faith- and you should be well on your way to learning more than you thought there ever was to know.

The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter launches in 1 day! Check it out here:

Coming soon: Gubat Banwa - SEAsian Martial Arts Tactics Fantasy RPG

A Drama and Martial Arts Tactics RPG set in the Sword Isles: a Fantasy setting inspired by the refulgent history of Southeast Asia.

A very special thanks to GB team-member onefloor who helped expand my knowledge on this blade. This legend scores the music for Gubat Banwa, check them out here! This will be the last blade post I do for the promotion. I'm going back into the hole I dug in the ground to work on the rest of the weapons I'm drawing for this game. If there's interest, I might do another series of 7 before the Kickstarter campaign ends. Anyway, help us get the word out, small team of creators from the global south, too broke to advertise, etc. etc. you know the drill by now if you've read the other posts. Until next time! Until glory!

[kathanglangit]

The Sixth Blade - ... - Fear Itself

Last two days! Gubat Banwa launches on Kickstarter on October 10, and we need your help to get the word out! Silence your fear- stifle it if you must. Harness it if you can. Fear begets hesitation, Kadungganan, and when rivers bleed, and skies burn, and blades dance to the rhythm of cannonfire- Hesitation is death. Let the Sword Isles of Gubat Banwa paint your stories in its thousand colors, inspired by the intricate cultures of Southeast Asia. Carve your legacy into the world by blade and smoke as warrior Kadungganan in this tactical martial arts TTRPG.

Not long now until the long-anticipated KS launch, and I've been posting the weapons I've drawn for the game as a sort of countdown. These were supposed to be Swordtember drawings, but the launch got bumped back a little bit. 6/7 blades! The penultimate entry goes to the CORDILLERAN AXE

Some time in June 2020, a certain weapon was intercepted in Australia entering the country from the United States. An ancient terror-weapon, which brought low the conquistadors of old, and drenched the soil of the pine mountains such that the ground remains the color of rust. In November the following year, the ax was returned to the Philippines. Strap in- it's about to get really convoluted.

(Photo from the Philippine Embassy in Australia) You may be wondering why I referred to this blade as a "Cordilleran Ax" rather than using a native term like in the rest of this series. That is mostly because the ax comes in many forms, and bears many, many names. Seriously, you wouldn't believe how many names there are for these things.

(Photo from the collection of Nonoy Tan) They are commonly called "head axes" (we'll get to why in a minute- but you can probably guess), referring to a collective of different blades of a more-or-less similar shape, used by the peoples of the Cordilleras. "Igorot" is a general term used to refer to these peoples of the mountains of north Luzon.

(Diagram by Lorenz Lasco)

You will recall from the thread on the hinalung that Spain never took the Cordilleras, allowing the peoples there to more easily preserve their traditions and cultures. These axes belong to some of those same cultures. These- too- were preserved from way back.

(Figure from The Tingguian: Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe by Fay-Cooper Cole) It's easy to forget that these objects- all of the blades I've been posting about- are very deeply embedded in cultures that still exist today. These peoples have their own names and stories and knowledge of these blades that I simply do not have access to the way they do. It's all I can do to try and deliver accurate info without misrepresenting anything.

(Photo from the National Museum) And try I have. This is a diagram I tried to make as a reference, way, way back.

I know a bit more now, I'm not sure if I still stand by this, I am sure that it will need some updating. Due diligence is the bare minimum we can do, to respect the knowledge of people who are still around. Allow me to try again! The one I drew in the image at the start of this thread is called the SINAWIT. This is the Kalinga variant of the axe. From what I can tell, those with the curved/concave cutting edges tend to belong in this category.

(Photo from Pinoy Blade Hunter) Supposedly, the protrusion on the handle is also indicative of a Kalinga origin.

(Photo from Ursulo of Filipino Traditional Blades)

(Photos from Global Inventory of Filipiniana Artifacts) Here's some close-ups of another example, featuring ornamentation in the form of copper/copper-alloy "staples" along the handle, which may have also aided in providing grip.

(Photos from Lorenz Lasco) Variations in size are common across all the axes we'll be looking at, some are short and fit well in one-hand, others are large enough to accommodate two. The biggest ones I've seen are sinawit.

(Photo from Christian Vasquez of Filipino Traditional Blades)

(Photo from Ron Zambarrano) Next up is the GAMEN or GAMAN. This is the Bontoc variant of the axe. Here's a gamen (top) compared to a sinawit (bottom) of similar size. Notice the difference in the shapes of the blades.

(Photo from the collection of Zel Umali as shared by Filipino Traditional Blades) Another term that gets thrown around is "pinagas", though I believe this is a general term referring to all "head axes" rather than one specific variant. I could very well be wrong on this, as the word pinagas has to come from one of the many languages in the Cordlieeras- I'm just not certain which. This one was labelled "Bontoc pinagas".

(Photo from Zel Umali) The thickness of the blade tends to vary as durability requires. In particular, the spike on the back tends to be thicker overall. Portions of the blade closer to the handle appear to be thicker as well.

(Photos from Lorenz Lasco) Examples of the gaman as I have seen them tend to have more straight or sometimes convex blades. I am uncertain if the convex shape is a unique feature, or a product of happenstance, or just how whoever used this blade liked to sharpen it.

(Photo from Pinoy Blade Hunter) They also tend to be "taller" than sinawit I've seen, with blades that are almost like squares with spikes on the back, as opposed to sinawit that are more rectangular. Still following so far? Good- it's going to get more complicated soon.

I am not- by any means- formally educated on Philippine blades, so always take my words with a grain of salt. This ax inherited by a blacksmith in Baguio is something that might be gaman, but I can't categorize it with certainty without knowing more. The profile is not exactly the same, the spike is considerably longer and more curved.

(Photo from HanYan Blades) But that's the least of our worries! The ALIWA, BINARAWAD, BADAN, BADON, BINAROY are only some of the terms used to refer to the Isneg variants. Remember when I said it would get convoluted?

(Photo from Nonoy Tan; Identified as binarawad-badan-badon in that order) The binarawad in the previous photo looks- to my very untrained eye- to be similar to the gaman in many respects. Whenever I think I've identified a distinction, a different specimen shows up.

(??? from Rob Miller)

(Gaman(?) from Hearst Museum) Remember when I said the protrusion on the handle was uniquely Kalinga? But I also said taller/squarer blades were common in gaman? But the swept shape on the back looks emblematic of the Isneg variants we just saw? Identify that topmost blade for me, real quick.

(Photo from Pinoy Blade Hunter) Material exchange of culture makes a mess of categorization. The peoples of the Cordilleras regularly interacted- by trade, union, or warfare- and the influences clearly went all ways. Perhaps that blade above was made by a smith who took influences from a variety of sources. Perhaps the blade itself has worn out its old handle, and the new owner replaced it with this one There are a lot of ways this could have come about, it's difficult to say. Blades tend to make their way around. This sinawit- a Kalinga blade- has been passed down through generations, and was found in Sagada.

(Photo from Pinoy Blade Hunter) It certainly doesn't help when blades are found far from home and are labelled with confusing specific terms or useless general terms or just different terms entirely.

[Author's Note: Apparently there's a 30 image limit per post? I'll continue this in a reblog, I think.]

[kathanglangit]

The Fifth Blade: Kampilan - Warrior Made

Down to the last three days before Gubat Banwa launches on Kickstarter! Moon-eating titans, sword-souls and bullet devils, giant flying crocodile mounts, sparks arcing off clashing blades like lightning- Gubat Banwa is an action-packed martial arts TTRPG where you play as warrior Kadungganan in a Southeast Asian-inspired fantasy world afire with wonder and violence in a thousand colors.

Counting down the days to the KS launch on October 10 comes with anxiety and anticipation in equal measure, and I thought maybe posting the weapons I've drawn for the game would help cut through it all. These were meant to be posted for Swordtember, but the game needed a bit more time to pick up speed. 5/7 blades done, let's start off the final three with the KAMPILAN

Yet another large weapon from south of Luzon, the kampilan is a long-bladed sword with a unique "trapezoidal" shape, sometimes sporting a small spike at the tip, often with a figural hilt. "Figural hilt" just means the hilt depicts a certain abstracted figure of something, usually a creature or a beast of some kind. The sharpened edge is on the long side of the blade. I repeat: The sharpened edge is on the long side of the blade. You would not believe how frequently people get that wrong. This useful diagram is one of the first things you see when you do a Google-search for "kampilan", so there is truly no excuse for anyone to be depicting it with the sharp side pointing the wrong way.

(Diagram by Lorenz Lasco) The most common examples of kampilan figural hilts depict the Bakunawa- a giant moon-eating serpent of legend- and are decorated with hair or with roots. The angled protrusion on the hilt usually points away from the sharpened edge, and may have been used for added leverage when maneuvering the blade.

(Photos from the collection of Ron Zambarrano) Other creatures commonly depicted in the hilts are crocodiles, cockatoos (what collectors call "kakatua" handles), or- in the case of this somewhat rare example- a horse.

(Photo from the collection of Richard Hudson) The kampilan is surrounded by a rather popular story: That it was the blade used by Lapu-Lapu himself to slay Fernando Magallanes on the shores of Mactan. One of Pigafetta's writings recounts how Magellan was wounded on the leg by a large blade, akin to a scimitar. Whether or not this was describing a kampilan is anyone's guess, and whether it was in the hands of the hero of Mactan is foggier still. While it is difficult to verify the authenticity of this claim, the legend of Lapu-Lapu quickly grew, taking the story with it- and it kind of just stuck.

(Photo from Lapu-Lapu City LGU) Most Philippine blades generally vary in size make depending on where they're from, but the distinctions are even more apparent for kampilan. The two-handed ones shown so far are often referred to as Moro kampilan. The Lumad peoples have kampilan of their own.

(Photo from Iniingatang Talim At Kaluban.; Taken by Ramon H. Bathan) I'm not an expert on identifying these blades, and this is by no means an exhaustive list (as the kampilan was used widely across Visayas and Mindanao), but I will try to show and identify a few select variants. Starting with this "NICE SHOT"

(Various Moro kampilan; Photo by Richard Hudson) Following up with some antique Bagobo kampilan. Notice the difference in size relative to the Moro variant. This seems to be built for one-handed use. You will also notice that the shape of the blade is different, without the spike, and with the sharp edge on the other side.

(Photos from Raymundo Lucero) A more useful comparison; These next three blades come from the same collector.

Bagobo kampilan

T'boli kampilan or kefilan

Moro kampilan (Photos from Dennis Andrew Golez) Sometimes these blades stray far from home. This next one is a T'boli kampilan inherited by a collector.

(Photos from Hege-Eileen Ottem Lund) Rather than hair or roots, the Lumad seem to prefer adorning their hilts with brass bells. When you see examples of these blades in museums for up for auction, the bells tend to be absent. I purposefully included examples with bells to show them off in their full ornate glory. "Lumad" is a collective term for indigenous peoples in the south of the Philippines. Another T'boli kampilan, with a closeup on the hilt to show the brasswork.

(Photos from JC Nolas) This one's a headscratcher for me- supposedly this unique find from the 1800s has a hilt made of whalebone. The blade looks to be of the Moro variant, but I could very easily be mistaken. It looks to have been adorned with bells as well.

(Photos from Ron Zambarrano) One more thing to note is that the kampilan is not a tool-turned-weapon, nor a multipurpose blade. They are made to be used as weapons. I won't fault anyone for subscribing to the belief that Philippine native blades were mostly farming implements, which just happened to be repurposed for combat sometimes. It is true for many blades which functioned essentially as multi-tools, and the languages sometimes don't help when they use the same word for any kind of blade- be it a tool or a sword. Dispel your myths. Our ancestors were not ALL farmers-turned-fighters. They faced our colonizers as warriors.

(Photo by Ramon H. Bathan) The veritable force of nature that is Sam'baha (the smug-looking badass in the art at the top of this post) stands as the face of Gubat Banwa, wielding a kampilan in one hand and a karambit in the other. Challenge her legacy! Be a part of all the tide-churning, sky-burning, world-rending action by supporting the game on Kickstarter!

The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter launches in 3 days! Check it out here:

Coming soon: Gubat Banwa - SEAsian Martial Arts Tactics Fantasy RPG

A Drama and Martial Arts Tactics RPG set in the Sword Isles: a Fantasy setting inspired by the refulgent history of Southeast Asia.

Just three more days for this incredibly small team from the global south to get as many eyes on this project before it launches. We straight up cannot afford Proper Advertising on the scale this game deserves, so we're relying on folks like yourself to help us get the word out. Any help will do! Share it with your friends! Send it to people you think might be interested! Send it to people you know aren't interested! Dump it in that one channel in your friendgroup Discord server that no one has sent any messages to for weeks now! Reblog this even if you didn't read the post at all, we won't tell!

[kathanglangit]

The Second Blade: Diplata - Extinct Bolo

Continuing the countdown to the launch of the Gubat Banwa Kickstarter coming up on the 10th of October- 6 days to go! Gubat Banwa is a tactical war-drama TTRPG set in the Sword Isles, a fantasy setting inspired by Southeast Asian cultures and folklore.

To promote its launch, I'll be posting some of the weapons I've been drawing for the game every day until the campaign kicks off in earnest. These were meant to be Swordtember entries, pardon the lateness I suppose. 2/7 blades so far, let me introduce you to the DIPLATA.

The diplata is a short-to-mid-length blade with a distinct handle, with most specimens sporting a horn-like protrusion facing the same side as the edge.

The blade shape itself I feel is something common across most toolblades in the Philippines, not much longer than one's forearm with a more-or-less rounded out tip- though the diplata seems a bit wider than most. I would say the most unique features definitely lie in the shape of the hilt, and the circular guard. Most Philippine blades don't have anything in the form of hand protection, so a wide guard like this stands out.

This one was a little difficult to find photo references for, as apparently they're quite rare. Some blade scholars call it an "extinct" blade, meaning those who traditionally forge authentic ones supposedly aren't around anymore.

(Photo from Victor Balaguer's museum near Barcelona; Diplata on the blades hanging on the wall, the two next to the rightmost blade) "Traditional" blades refer to those made by the same people to whose culture a blade belongs. To illustrate in the simplest terms, a katana made by a traditional Japanese swordsmith would count as a traditional blade. A messer made by a traditional German blacksmith would count as a traditional blade. I'm sure there's more internal nuance there, but that's the quickest reference point I could come up with. Take note however that the Philippines is composed of many, many different cultures who all happen to exist in the same archipelago with varying levels of overlap- there is no singular, unifying blade culture, so categorizations like "Traditional" and "Modern" (often referring to modern reproductions) aren't always as exact as convenience may demand. In particular, material exchange between cultures makes a mess of this categorization, not just because the blades themselves could get traded (or stolen or lost) and physically make their way to other places beyond the imaginary borders of their "homelands", but because the smiths themselves (or their knowledge and techniques) may travel around. Smiths in different places may also see blades from different cultures that they might feel like imitating or emulating in some way- that's how certain Philippine blades obtained D-guards- but that's a story for another time. The diplata is oft-attributed to the Aeta peoples, specifically those who come from Mt. Pinatubo in Zambales. Not much confusion as to whose culture these blades belong.

It is a little disheartening that most of the refs I could find were photos from foreign museums and loose images in books and blade forums. I will not speculate here as to how these blades ended up in these places, but it isn't hard to guess.

(Image from a Spanish museum)

(Image from Philippines, Early Collections, Museum of Ethnologie Vienna)

(Image from The Philippine Journal of Science Volume 81) I'm not a hardcore blade scholar, but even I recognize how inseparable blades are from the myriad cultures of the Philippines. I'm forever thankful to the random communities of blade enthusiasts who dedicate a not-insignificant portion of their time (and wallets) to supporting local artisan blacksmiths to grow their collections, and keeping track and tracing which blades came from which places and peoples. Our blade cultures are alive and still developing, but they could still use a little help sometimes, just so we don't lose them.

(Photo from the collection of Zel Umali) In any case- while it's not exactly a scholarly work in the academic sense- part of Gubat Banwa's violence is pushing a fantasy setting of our own making, as seen by our own eyes, as told on our own terms. This is no foreign museum; This time, SEAsian cultures take center stage.

The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter launches in 6 days! Check it out here:

Coming soon: Gubat Banwa - SEAsian Martial Arts Tactics Fantasy RPG

A Drama and Martial Arts Tactics RPG set in the Sword Isles: a Fantasy setting inspired by the refulgent history of Southeast Asia.

It would be a huge help to this very small team from the global south if you could help us get the word out! We straight up can't afford to advertise on the same scale as bigger players in the field, so we're relying heavily on word of mouth. You can find out more about the game on its itch page.

[villain-returns]

Ey yall, opening slots for sept-oct

You can find more deets and my TOR over at

Dylan's Commissions

Information and Commission Rates

and dm me here or email me at [email protected]

HMU, I love drawing peoples' OCs and Player Characters for TTRPGS

[villain-returns]

bumpin! still gots slots open

[villain-returns]

Ey yall, opening slots for sept-oct

You can find more deets and my TOR over at

Dylan's Commissions

Information and Commission Rates

and dm me here or email me at [email protected]

HMU, I love drawing peoples' OCs and Player Characters for TTRPGS

[villain-returns]

bumpin! still gots slots open

[villain-returns]

Ey yall, opening slots for sept-oct

You can find more deets and my TOR over at

Dylan's Commissions

Information and Commission Rates

and dm me here or email me at [email protected]

HMU, I love drawing peoples' OCs and Player Characters for TTRPGS

[villain-returns]

bumpin! still gots slots open

[villain-returns]

Ey yall, opening slots for sept-oct

You can find more deets and my TOR over at

Dylan's Commissions

Information and Commission Rates

and dm me here or email me at [email protected]

HMU, I love drawing peoples' OCs and Player Characters for TTRPGS

[villain-returns]

bumpin! still gots slots open

[dragonkid11]

Masters of the Art of Sending Meteors, Perfection of Improvisation, Those that Perfect Play Through Violence.

[villain-returns]

Ey yall, opening slots for sept-oct

You can find more deets and my TOR over at

Dylan's Commissions

Information and Commission Rates

and dm me here or email me at [email protected]

HMU, I love drawing peoples' OCs and Player Characters for TTRPGS

[solradguy]

I love when Axl Low ends a sentence with ね because then I get to bust out the

[villain-returns]

My sugbuanon bisaya ass cackling at this. (init means 'hot' in my mother tongue)

[shadefish]

hey, Im injured and cant work AND I am trying to move out!

for context: I am an autistic, disabled, Closeted trans woman who is trying to move into a safer home.

so yeah currently dealing with an arm injury that is making it near impossible to draw for extended periods of time.

I have a doctors appointment at the end of the month but I am currently saving to move out by the start of december and am finding it hard to assemble the funds as I am regularly made to monetarily support my parents.

If you like what I do and want to support me in getting out of a frankly shit living situation, please consider supporting me on Kofi or on Patreon in this tough time.

my Patrons gain access to an exclusive discord where I post works in progress and finished art early! as well as higher tiers gaining access to discounts and rewards!

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