DARK campaign setting - need help with malaysian-inspired mythos

[Primitive Screwhead]

Hello all, I am looking to build a setting concept into a fully actualized world setting for use in a fantasy RPG using EnWorld's own 'O.L.D.' game system. Below is a quote of the email I sent to my players to stir up excitement for the game.

When your grandfather was your age, the Empire spanned the continent. The roads between the farming communities and the cities where well maintained and patrolled. The monsters lived in the depths of the mountains and the dark recesses of the tanglewoods, and even then they were weak. Trade blossomed, the merchant class wielded the power of wealth, and the nobles’ largess was renowned. Colleges and churches were full of eager youngsters seeking learning and arts. It was the good old days.

Then the Empress was assassinated and civil war broke out. At first it was the military battles out on the battle plateaus, in keeping with the Tannahauser Accord. Then in desperation, Duke Leopold led his losing force into New Haven and took the citadel by force, killing all who were in his path. Blood was spilled in the streets and the cities became the battlegrounds. The warriors were too equal, so the Dukes turned to their advisors for power. Some asked for power regardless of the price. Alchemists brewed living death, cabals smithed eldritch weapons, and some called forth creatures from the depths of misery and pain.
Darkness spread across the empire, extinguishing the lights of one mighty city after another. The colleges and churches fell early. Ports and trade routes were next. Bridges and byways were destroyed. And then came the monsters. Out of the depths of the mountains, out of the dark recesses of the tanglewoods. Bigger and stronger than ever before.

In the aftermath, your grandfather helped carve out a small community in a relatively undamaged corner of what was once the Duchy of Cairn. Presumably other places like this one exist, hanging onto a fragile livelihood on the edge of destruction. There is time for naught but the work of keeping the community alive. Keep your eyes open, your blade sharp, and trust no-one whose mother you have not met. Stay away from the ruins, for things cling there. Magic is forbidden, for death always follows.

You have become one of the Walking Dead. Your funeral was a dreary affair, with fewer attending than you expected. It was not your choice, exactly. There was a lottery and your card was drawn. A child had come from outside, alone and starving, pleading for help. Jake killed her, of course. But now the town needs to know if there are others, and if anything is following her it will be up to you to draw its path away from here.
As your steps lead you over the rise, your eyes are drawn back to see the small grouping of houses, huddled against the oncoming night. It is the last time you will see this place. Your new brothers, continue down the path with a grim determination to make that Thing out there pay dearly for the lives that it took. Their lives and yours.

There are some things I knew out of the gate that I wanted:

- A world full of magical creatures and superstitious rituals... yet blatant magicians are shunned. Magic is relegated to a more occultish, witch doctor approach than 'Tim, the fireball casting sorcerer'
- A points of light setting with ruined cities that are centers of the adventure. Instead of dungeons the primary focus is on wilderness adventures and then 'delves' into the ruins of towns.
- A gritty, non-heroic goal for the main characters. This isn't a game about garnering mounds of gold or basking in the recognition of society. Instead its a game about defeating as much of the evil in the world as you can before you die.
- An abnormal mythos.

That last is why I am posting here. I want the primary mythos to avoid the oft treaded stories of Norse and Greek/Roman mythology. The Malaysian and Filipino religions of old fit the bill quite nicely with animist spirits, demons, giants, and elfs... *but* its very hard to develop a condensed version of their mythos for use in a game.

What I have so far is the immediate-contact level where 'Hantu', or minor elementals and minor demons are doing the bidding of their masters {or just causing havoc on their own}. These monsters are the primary bad guys.

What I don't have is a pantheon for the player who wants to play a cleric

Any theologians, Malaysian-area experts, or random internet personages willing and able to help me flesh out a condensed pantheon?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Razjah]

You'd have clerics in this setting? Why? It seems the gods don't care a lot, and they aren't doing anything to help their people. I would run the setting without clerics.


However you could adapt the Datuk Keramat worship. Link There are nine Datuks:

1. Datuk Panglima Ali (Ali)
2. Datuk Panglima Hitam (Black)
3. Datuk Panglima Harimau (Tiger)
4. Datuk Panglima Hijau (Green)
5. Datuk Panglima Kuning (Yellow)
6. Datuk Panglima Putih (White)
7. Datuk Panglima Bisu (Mute)
8. Datuk Panglima Merah (Red)
9. Datuk Panglima Bongsu (Youngest)

 

[gamerprinter]

Not knowing what game system you are using, so I'll use Pathfinder for my ideas on this. No cleric? Use oracles instead they tend to fit better as vessels to speak with the spirits and spirit world - as an alternative to actual deities. The witch from PF is an arcane caster with connections to a patron being that could be a great spirit as well. Those two caster classes would be the only such that I might include in your setting, as the closest ones that fit.

In the further development of the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) which I am the creator, developer, and one of the writer/designers for and is published as an imprint under Rite Publishing. One of the ideas we are working on, something to fit the "Shinto" worship niche. Kannushi are it's clerics. Like normal clerics, they possess 2 domains. One never changes, but the other changes based on which particular spirit inhabits a given region. When a cleric (or oracle, which might be better) ventures into a new area, they find what appears to be a holy place and perform a communing ritual to contact the local spirit. Once contact is made there is a period of appeasing this spirit, so that the oracle can empower their spellcasting while in the duration of remaining in that spirits region of control. In shinto, spirits tend to inhabit locales, unique eco-systems - a holy mountain, a special marshland along a river, etc. I think playing a neutral alignment might be best, so you can contact all alignments of spiritual beings and access them for power. To me most spirits aren't generally good or evil, rather more ambivalent where some of their concerns help the good, some help the bad, but neither with intent to promote a particular alignment - rather the moods of such spirits that change. This sounds like the direction you might take.

Unfortunately this explanation of changing local spirits is still in development, although it should be finished in development in a few months - so nothing ready to show to expand my explanation above.

Edit: something else to look at is Purple Duck Games Legendary Classes: Covenant Magic, which features a medium class with very unique abiliities, that might be really well suited to the worship of varying nature spirits - I think it's worth a look. (I have no connection to this product except as a customer, I got it).

 

[pickin_grinnin]

In the further development of the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) which I am the creator, developer, and one of the writer/designers for and is published as an imprint under Rite Publishing.

I bought a few of your Kaidan products and enjoy them. Are you ever going to do a full Kaidan setting book, though?

 

[pickin_grinnin]

Do you need clerics at all? Why not look to Malaysian culture and myths in general to see what sort of a person would contact deities and/or which sort would heal people? The standard fantasy rpg classes might not be the best fit.

 

[gamerprinter]

I bought a few of your Kaidan products and enjoy them. Are you ever going to do a full Kaidan setting book, though?

Its in development now. We're adding a new writer to join the project, Steven Russell of Rite Publishing is tweaking my designs for a kind of Weapons of Legacy for Kaidan. I'd say it has a few more months of writing before its wrapped. I'm hoping for a release this fall. I will be doing the page layout for it, once it's done with editing, but we are definitely working on both a GMs and Players setting guides for Kaidan.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Thanks!


I am going to use those 9 Dutak's as the core and flesh them out with corresponding elements. I will also look to adapting the idea of getting local spirits power..and I guess I better looking into Kaiden!

I am using the Elements of Magic: Revised mechanics, so 'cleric' is really a placeholder name for a character whose mojo comes from supernatural sources instead of arcane chicanery.
The game system is O.L.D.

 

[gamerprinter]

Thanks!


I am going to use those 9 Dutak's as the core and flesh them out with corresponding elements. I will also look to adapting the idea of getting local spirits power..and I guess I better looking into Kaiden!

I hope you do give Kaidan a look, if only for setting ideas and not for the system it happens to use.

All currently released Kaidan material can be found at DTRPG - make sure you read the reviews, as spoilers are given to let you see what is really inside each product!

 

[pickin_grinnin]

Its in development now. We're adding a new writer to join the project, Steven Russell of Rite Publishing is tweaking my designs for a kind of Weapons of Legacy for Kaidan. I'd say it has a few more months of writing before its wrapped. I'm hoping for a release this fall. I will be doing the page layout for it, once it's done with editing, but we are definitely working on both a GMs and Players setting guides for Kaidan.

I look forward to that. Thanks!

 

[pickin_grinnin]

It looks like a bomoh, dukun, pawang, or (for women) bobohizans would be good candidates for the cleric role. Bomoh is the most generic term for that sort of person. They are healers and spirit mediums, and originated in old animistic beliefs. Some practitioners mix standard religious beliefs (Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism in particular) in with the older animist ones.

The religious/supernatural belief system was originally highly animistic. As such, spirits of various sorts would be a more appropriate focus for worship than deities as we conceive of them.