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COPPERPLATE OF
THE SWORD ISLES

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OF SONGS AND COPPERPLATES 7

SUGILANON, OR A STORY 8
THE LIES OF BEGINNING 9
ANG DAGHAN 11
THE FORMING OF THE CONTINENTS UPON THE WORLD JAWS 11
THE SWORD EMBEDDED INTO THE HEART OF THE WORLD 12
THE ANCIENT CYCLES 12
THE STORY OF THE FIRST HOUSE 13
THE SEVENTH SUN ERA 14
THE RAMAHASAN EMPIRE 14
PETTY MANDALAS 16
PANNAI LEAGUE 16
STATE OF VUYU 18
SRITALUK, KINGDOM OF VIOLET CORAL 20
THE KINGDOM OF SINUKU 22
NATION OF IBALNONG 24
THE SULTANATE OF DAGINDARA 26
ON THE PEOPLE OF THE SWORD ISLES 28
AMONG THE TAWO: ILAWOD AND IRAYA 29
AMONG THE SINA 30
THE TAWO ACROSS THE POLITIES 31
ON GENDER AND SEXUALITY 32
A SMALL SAMPLING OF NON-HUMAN TAWO: SARING LAHI 33
BETEL NUT CHEWING 36
BETEL NUT CEREMONY 37
THE SOCIAL CLASSES 38
DATU, KEDATUAN, AND BINUKOT 38

 The Paramount Datu 38

The Sandig sa Datu 39
NOBLE CLASS 44
Golden Web Tapestry 44
FREEMAN CLASS 48
DEBTOR CLASS 52
Peasants 52
Servants 53
Infantry 53
ON SOCIETIES AND POLITIES 56
TRADE, WEALTH, AND PROPERTY 56
Property 57
Debt 57
Domestic Trade 57
International Trade 57
On Currency 58
HUKUM, OR LAW 60
LIFE IN THE SETTLEMENTS 61
Hygiene, Makeup, and Aesthetics 62
Jewelry 63
Tattooing 63
Working the Field 64
Smithing 65
Woodworking 66
Goldworking 67
Weaving 67
Pottery 69
Seasons of The Sword Isles 69

 Sailing 70
Winds Of The Sword Isles 72
Food 72
Hunting 73
Alcohol and Drinking 73
THE BALAY, OR HOUSE 75
TOWN HOUSES 76
COTTAGES 77
TREE HOUSES 77
FAITHS OF THE SWORD ISLES 79
IDOLS AND SPIRIT HOUSES 79
THE DAGHAN: NATURE GODS, ANCESTOR SPIRITS, AND GUARDIAN
SPIRITS 81
OFFERING AND WORSHIP 82
KAHIYANGAN 82
YAWA AND BUSAW 83
COSMOLOGY AND THE AFTERLIFE 84
THE OVERWORLD 84
THE MIDWORLD 85
THE AFTERWORLD 85
ANITO 86
Creation: Violence 93
HIYANG 94
Creation: Arriving From Mists 98
SAMPALATAYA 99
Creation: Forming From Bamboo 102
IMAN 104
Creation: Engendering by the Black Eel 108

 THE TRANSCENDENT DICHOTOMY AND ON MATTERS

OF THE SOUL 110
NAME GENERATOR 113

OF SONGS AND COPPERPLATES

Sung by Parawali Dunung Bakal, who never forgets his words,

wrapped in silk and bamboo. Never lies, for what is truth but that
story we all nod to?
Parawali Dunung Bakal has his work cut out for him: his student,
the ancient pandita of the Sultanate named Sarik Surugu, sought to
immortalize his writing, and thus he wrote what he spoke in thirteen
Copperplates, whereupon the histories and cultures and societies of
The Sword Isles itself can be found
The Inscriptions are further appended and amended with
supplementary bamboo scrolls that have upon them drawn in faded
ink maps and artistic renditions and recreations of the peoples and
monuments of The Sword Isles.
All these are kept in Yarashgara’s personal library, although
countless copies have been forged in bamboo scrolls, and the people
of The Sword Isles have begun to memorize its contents (as they all
do, for the memory of the The Sword Isles people extends from the
individual and bleeds into family and community)
This part of the book is a long series of histories and lore pieces
that you can use when you run your own game to make sure that you
run a Gubat Banwa game within The Sword Isles.
Many of the setting pieces here will be presented in short
paragraphs and then a small table that you can roll on, to make sure

 that you don’t need to read huge swathes of writing to get a game
going

SUGILANON, OR A STORY

It is fair to say that history is simply another story, that many nd

to be true, or that many rely on.
Like many things in the world, histories are mutable, changeable,
and rely on the eye of the infallible, as the Eclipse Teachings of the
Pangwakasang Mayitresiya say. And so we look behind us, that
ultimate meditation, to nd the truth of the beginning, and to nd the
trajectory of the future
The Sword Isles is that place known as the islands of heavenly
bloodshed. To Baik Hu, we are known as the Pearl Islands of the
Barbarians. To Naksuwarga, we are simply extensions of their
empire, once conjoined, and this is true
Our story begins an innumerable number of years ago, when the
world was made. It was only sea and sky. Then, out of the sea and
sky, came many many beings. Diwata, they are called. Burning
manifestations and beings that arise from the world and live within
them as well. Many call them gods, others spirits, others elementals.
All of them true, all of them not enough to approximate the truth of
the Diwata’s being
Here is the truth, one that many cannot suffer to suffer. Each
island, each land, has different gods, different beginnings.
Many say: “But this is an impossibility! A paradox of paradoxes!”
But I am here to write that this is not so. Only fools and cowards will

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 think that to be false. Only dullards and kings will think that our
present day cannot come from multiplicity

THE LIES OF BEGINNING

The beginning point was a time known as The Finiting. In the

Finiting, unknowable ancient peoples, some say gods, erected the
earthen mountains from the sky and from the sea, creating the World
Jaws that keep all the Known World as we know it within. They did
this through war, almost always through war. There were some that
did it through peace
Past the World Jaws is the Forest of Chaos, a consequence of the
ancient peoples’ de ance of the Sea and Sky Conversation. Limiting
the universe caused in nity to reject what was not in nity, and
in nity was chaos for the nite
The ancient peoples afterwards ventured into in nity. What they
found, none knew and none will ever know. Who they were, it does
not matter, for their only consequence here is that they created the
World Jaws that now border the world
With the Finiting of the world, our world was formed: Yutadagat
Numbers mean nothing to nature, so an amount of time later, the
Multiple Cosmogonies crafted the many lands that now permeated
this world
This was the end of the In nite. The end of the Timeless. The
precise point of repetition began here, time began here

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 ANG DAGHAN
The nature spirits that live within natural places, as well as those
gods of pantheons that live in sky abodes, are known collectively as
Ang Daghan, The Many. None is above Ang Daghan. No, not one.
All are within Ang Daghan: all diwata, all gods, all goddesses, all
demons, all malevolent spirits. All are Ang Daghan.

THE FORMING OF THE CONTINENTS UPON THE

WORLD JAWS
The Earth God Nu walked to the shores of the World Jaws and
struck the sea, his spear becoming the holy continent of Zhongguo,
where the Hegemony of Baik Hu now thrives along with the Empire
of Malirawat and the two other powerful kingdoms of Larantaka and
Ashima on the Madaki Peninsula that juts out to its northeast
Each major island of The Sword Isles was made from a different
diwata or pair of diwata. Some of them still exist today, some of them
are now gone. None know exactly, for how can one truly con ne
nature into lists
So were the islands of the Crescent Archipelago, created by the
Dyaus Patar, a powerful godhead, kings even among the diwata

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 THE SWORD EMBEDDED INTO THE HEART OF
THE WORLD
Look now, to the center of the sea
A memory strikes you, like lightning. An image of a grand
warrior, a thunderous one, tattoos running up their sky-skin, their
face perverted into a devil god grin
Their kris impales the heart of the world. Yutadagat, in a single
instant, is boiled
Another lightning ash: the kris shatters. It falls upon the center
of the world.
The god is the Sky
This is one of the many stories for the origins of the Sword Isles,
although this is the one most important and shared across the isles
themselves. The Sword Isles, when looked upon from above, is in the
shape of a shattered kris
The heart of the world still bleeds

THE ANCIENT CYCLES

The wise men of the Sword Isles, after having reckoned through
the use of wisdom, spirit guides, and techniques borrowed from
Annuvaran bhikkhu, have reckoned that there have been, as of
modern day, 7 Cycles before the current one
The rst six Cycles are not well known. They are so far back that
they might as well have never happened. But they did. Jade artifacts,
intricate water earthenware, and the ancient, re-puri ed bones of
the various people that lived before in the Sword Isles is proof of
such.

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 It is said that in those times, even more monsters roamed the
lands, before the Rajah known as Rajah Baltog of Botavara in the
south of the Sword Isles and the Rajah known as Rajah Indarapatra
in the north of the Sword Isles went to cull them. They did not do
this in concert, but they cleaned out much of the monsters.
However, these monsters have recently resurfaced in the wake of
the coming Eighth Star Era
Most of the stuff of Epics among the various cultures of the
Sword Isles happen during these Ancient Cycles, describing
powerful gods, sorcery that causes entire islands to ascend into the
heaven, warriors that can ride upon shields, and ying barges
Of course, all these things are still doable in the modern era

THE STORY OF THE FIRST HOUSE

It was said that the rst folk upon the world had a house, and
they birthed many children. One day, this timeless pair went out on a
journey, and the countless children performed much mischief in the
house. When they heard the thundering steps of their father, they
scattered into the various parts of the house to hide: those that hid in
the bedrooms became the ruling classes, those that remained in the
living room became the freemen, those that hid behind the walls of the
house became the debtors. Those who hid in the stove and among the
pots became the nomadic folks and spirit folk, those that ed the
house traveled to the eight corners of Yutadagat

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 THE SEVENTH SUN ERA
The Seventh Sun Era is said to have been the longest. It was a
time of peace and innovation. During the Seventh Sun Era, said to
have lasted ove a thousand years, three states ruled over the Sword
Isles: Tundun, Put’wan, and Ba-e. During those years, the three
kingdoms had a name for the region that spanned between Ba-e,
Tundun, and Put’wan (which means it did not include the Kalanawan
area nor southern Rusunuga): Tulongarajah, which means Three
Kings
Tundun, Put’wan and Ba-e have lost their luster in recent years,
but their technology and innovations persevere: the various writing
systems, writing upon copperplate and palm leaf scrolls, ying barges
rowed by guardian spirits, goldworking, and various kinds of sorcery.

THE RAMAHASAN EMPIRE

The most powerful empire in the distant past was the Ramahasa
Empire, to the furthest East, in the Continent raised by the Sky-
Skinned Gods. It is peopled by the diverse auraskan tiger folk, who
still hew close to a divine caste system. From them arose the two
most popular faiths in the Known World: the ascetic Annuvaran and
the embracing of multiplicity that is Ashinin
To this day, they ght and war and worship the Beings that live in
the Sea, and undergo meditation to ascend the realm of Falsity and
achieve oneness with the Chaos of In nity
There the faith of the Prime River or the religion known as
Ashinin, which hinges on the belief that there was a Great Being, the
Prime, known to most as The Om, that is split into three, the

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 Tatlubagi: of Sinhakti the Creator, Alihmbati the Preserver, and

Vararaha the Destroyer
From that arose a Mad Monk, who was known as Annu. Annu
asked the question of “What?” when asked any question, but through
his Dog Philosophy he caused the Questioning of Materiality and
explored the Limitations of Spirituality. Thus was born the religion of
Annuvara
Ashinin priests are known as brahmin, and they teach the truth of
the OM, the Prime Being. Annuvaran priets and monks are known
as bhikkhu, and they teach of Detachment, transcendence of the
material form. Each of them have a multiplicity of schools and sects
Ashinin-Annuvaran faiths have permeated and in uenced much
of the faiths in the Sword Isles
Annuvara took many from principles and metaphysicalities from
Ashinin but focused on the principle of Questioning, removing
materiality and attachment, and focusing on a life that would lead to
separation from gods and men and into true transcendence. Thus,
Annuvara focused on life guidance rather than spiritual cosmogony
or contextualization

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 PETTY MANDALAS

The Petty Mandalas are called as such because they are smaller
than the expansionist and larger mandalas that play a larger role in
the Skysea War. They are at most 1 - 2 banwa in size. They are
nonetheless important and contribute to the growing enmity between
states. A Player Kadungganan can choose to play a Mandala from the
following Petty Mandalas as well

PANNAI LEAGUE
Cooperative lords, pious folk, and disciplined warriors. On the
island of Lantiaw, north of Rusunuga, east of the Gatusan, lays the
powerful league of ten city states known as Pannai. Established by
ten monkey-headed datu who arrived from deep within the jungles of
Sonyoh, they brought with them sorceries, spiritualities, spirits, and
gods of their own and conquered the land. Pannai, wherein local
tawo lived in disparate and small banwa, were gathered up and split
into ten haop, each one following a holy monkey lord
The Pannai League is assembled about one of the grand holy
mountains of The Sword Isles: the Holy Mountain of Madjaas, where
the gods live. There, they say, Sri Dapa etches upon the Tree of Life
the number of days for every mortal born. They believe in a whole
pantheon of gods, as well as minor gods, that live within every single
thing. They each claim a shore or island
The League does not war against each other. Instead, they
support each other, trading with each other and supplying each other
with the other’s needs. One state, Puti, will provide weapons to the

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 rest of the states, while another state, Paiburong, will provide rice
and root crops to the rest of the states.
They are connected by rivers and the sea, and once a harvest they
all send pilgrimages to the base of the holy mountain of Madjaas to
offer prayers and thanks. The most elder of them, usually priests and
priestesses, would also nish a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain of
Kanlaon, found deep in the island of Haraya, a day northeast. There,
the Ancient One lives
The people of Pannai are noble and disciplined. Unlike the
Rajahnate of Gatusan and the State of Ibalnong, they do not mark
their valorous acts with tattoos. They wear thick hardwood armor
and ght with both sorcery and sword. Their priests are all known to
wield swords alongside prayer chants. Their warlord datu led huge
swathes of armies to expand and conquer their domain
The people of Pannai are constantly warring with those in the
Gatusan to protect their island

If you come from Pannai, choose 1 item you start with: rattan
rope, holy leaves from Kanlaon, a ritual bamboo spear, intricately
engraved clay pottery

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 STATE OF VUYU
Providers of rice and fruit, ritualistic headhunters, and celebrants
of nature. The state of Vuyu is the most powerful of the states that
live and thrive upon the Rusunugan Spine, the large mountain range
that spans the eastern edge of Rusunuga. Vuyu deals with their
fellow states as equals, despite being the most wealthy of them. They
specialize in farming, especially rice, which has become an important
export from them and has turned them into an integral part of
domestic trade
Established by the great Winged God Apuvuyu, who came down
from the Sky to grant the rst elders of the mountain-dwellers
knowledge of farming, terracing, weaving, pottery, smithing, and
warring. Finally, to create a royal line of leaders who will serve their
people, Apuvuyu took upon him a wife in one of the daughters of the
elders, who birthed the rst Datu of Vuyu. With his job done, he
ascended to heaven, leaving the words: “Let us remember.” They
believe that when someone born from Vuyu dies, they ascend up to
the top of Mount Vulan, the highest point in Rusunuga, where
Apuvuyu lives in a holy city
Vuyu lives in concert with surrounding settlements, performing
ritual headhunting, farming shared land, and trading rice and
foodstuffs with lowland peoples. They live in intimate closeness with
nature, and follow the tenets of Hiyang. They follow elder datu, who
provide them with counsel, knowledge, and guidance
The people of Vuyu constantly war with the lowland empire of
Virbanwa who seek to invade their sacred ancestral land

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 If you come from Vuyu, choose 1 piece of item that you begin
with: a branch of owers, a laurel wreath, fragrant oils, a woven
abaca basket

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 SRITALUK, KINGDOM OF VIOLET CORAL
Unbound pirates, travelers to distant lands, and friends to the sea.
Sritaluk is a kingdom built at the northwestern tip of Kalanawan. It
is built upon an ancient crab kingdom that harvested the violet coral
underneath the surf, known as taluk. The crabs are now nowhere to
be found, although some shells can still be found, and are used as
communal spirit houses
Founded by sailors from the Rajahnate, Sritaluk has become an
enterprising “free” state, wherein those that wish to travel far off
unseen lands: usually the far northern hinterland of Majebebe, where
the land is cold and the mountains are white
Sritaluk is ruled over by a triumvirate of merchant princes,
considered orangkaya by travelers. Sri Digna, Sri Amion, and Sri
Isakatuparan banded together to overthrow the previous tyrant,
Sarripada Bulkeiah, who imposed unfair tariffs and docking fees
upon those that traded.
Sritaluk is far away in the Gold Silk Current, but those ships that
do pass by Sritaluk are blessed with the sight of titanic crab-shell
spirit houses, datu longhouses made of violet coral, and warriors clad
in that same coral breastplates, shields, and spears. Taluk is light in
water, and thus Sritalukan warriors are adept at swimming in water,
able to ght both at boat and underwater.
Sritaluk’s mandala of in uence is not wide, although thanks to the
crab gods that they supplicate to and the aforementioned skill of
Sritalukan Kadungganan, they have been able to ward off various
raids and invasion attempts from other polities, namely Dagindara,
Akai, and Gatusan.

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 Sritaluk trade in sea items: giant mother-of-pearls, sharkskin

armor, coral weapons, weapons with sharkteeth, and colorful sea
ora, octopi, squids, whale sharks, and much more. These things are
much wanted in the continents, where land is wider and the sea much
further. Trade thus with Malirawat, Baik Hu, and even Ramahasa
through Naksuwarga has sustained Sritaluk, and turned it into a
trading enterprise that none can conquer.

If you come from Sritaluk, choose 1 piece of item that you

begin with: a coral gumamela, a coral imbued with light, a
sharktooth agimat, a pearl necklace

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 THE KINGDOM OF SINUKU

Unbeatable mercenaries, sky-attuned scholars, and warrior
priests to the Old Fire and Lightning God. Sinuku, built upon the sea
shores of the same name, to the south of Ananara. Virbanwa cannot
conquer them, their skill in combat is unmatched. It is from Sinuku
that mercenaries have traveled far and wide, to the Madaki
Peninsula, to Malirawat, to Baik Hu. Due to the Sinukuan, the
prestige of The Sword Isles folk as being erce warriors is
strengthened and emboldened. The Sinukuan are known to be ardent
in the ght to keep their sovereignty
To the northwest of Sinuku is the Holy Mountain of Alaya. It is a
mountain with a beating heart, a pool of lava, whereupon their
supreme god, Suku the Old Bird God of Fire and Lightning, sleeps.
Due to the heat, hot springs have arisen about the mountain of Alaya,
boasting healing properties. Sinukuan ascertain time of day and
direction with Alaya: the sun rises in the direction of Alaya, from the
west, and thus Alaya is the morning. All directions going Alaya are
known as Alayaward, while all directions leaving Alaya are known as
Fromalaya
The Sinukuan people are a noble people, with a written set of
codes that punishes thieves and upholds justice. Their Datu is a lord
due to both royal blood and valorous prestige.
The people are hardworking farmers and seafarers, but they are
most well known for their mercenarism, which has given them a
famed name across the known world of Yutadagat
They are well-versed sailors, not only due to their skill in
navigating the deep seas, but also for their river culture, for most of

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their lives is spent up and down the myriad rivers that arise from the
bay of Sinuku. They are in an ever strife with the crocodile folk that
live in these rivers
They are attuned intensely to the movement of the stars, naming
them and assigning proper words to the movements of the sun and
moon. They reckon their time by the stars, and they awake at dawn
when the morning star, known as Salandaguis, the rat’s lamp, appears
in the dawn sky. They are friends with the comets

If you are from Sinuku, choose 1 piece of item that you begin
with: clay pot, porcelain ask, a box of rice, a ake of meteorite

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 NATION OF IBALNONG
Fierce defenders, ever-loyal braves, and unparalleled hunters.
Ibalnong is a powerful city state headed by the descendants of
legendary warrior-hunters that was fabled to have cleared the region
of Ibalnong of all the destructive monsters and made it a clean place
to live in. Following after their warrior-hunter ancestors, the
Ibalnongan are skilled and fearless warriors who foster trade and war
with the Rajahnate. They staunchly defend their peninsula from all
forms of attack, whether it be from within the archipelago or from
foreign power
Like the cultures within the Rajahnate’s mandala, they tattoo
themselves as spiritual markings of valor. They have a practiced and
written code, etched upon copperplate inscriptions. Their forts and
towns are protected by bamboo towers, called bantara, upon which
skilled sharpshooters wield the sikarom longbow, as large as a man is
long
They pay their worship to the greatest of mountains in all of The
Sword Isles, Magayon, who is said to have been the corpse of a
beautiful woman, Daragang Magayon. Within Mount Magayon,
which is an active volcano, sat upon a Firesmoke Throne, is the great
elder god Gugurang, who looks over his domain with benevolence.
Thanks to him and his dedicated warriors, the Lakanate has been
having a rough time creeping into the fabled state of Ibalnong
Ibalnong is built upon an ancient city of bamboo and gold. Ruins
from an ancient age are quartered off into one section of the city,
while the current datu, Datu Laadang Amiris, and the rest of his her
haop lives in a more lived in a portion of the state, wherein cottages

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 have been built and watchtowers rise. The ancient ruins, said to be
the balay and tombs of the ancient Ibalnong Hero-Datu, are revered
and considered sacred, and act as a communal spirit house for those
that live within Ibalnong
Ibalnong are prone to war and trade, and they will not bow before
any other than their god Gugurang. The Ibalnongan never
surrendered

If you begin from Ibalnong, choose which 1 piece of item you

begin with: a bamboo hat, a bamboo tube for storing water, a bag
made of butanding skin, a vial of ash-water with medicinal
properties

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 THE SULTANATE OF DAGINDARA

Divine scholars, devout shers, and unfazed raiders. The
Sultanate of Dagindara, of which the city of Shrisug is the capital, is
a city established after a civil war within Put’wan. The noble Kiling
traveled to the far north shore, past the Holy Mountain of Apu, with
his own following. There they met with a resting Bulanist coterie,
and they were taught in the ways of Baginda Sumongsuklay. They
converted into Iman at that moment, and thus they established a
Sultanate, with Kiling becoming the rst Sultan
The land they were on was called Daginda. The strip of land they
decided to call Dagindara, “Holy Mediator” in the ancient Iman
language. They established their city there, Shrisug, and began their
Sultanate
A few generations have passed since then. The current Sultan is
Sri Saridanaw. Under his in uence, they have expanded their reach,
creating a Sultanate to rival Akai
Dagindara has subjugated much of the upriver settlements,
seizing them to sell as debtors, or letting them to harvest foodstuffs
and other forest goods upriver. While the upriver settlements have
their own paramount datu and complex societies, Dagindara rules
over them all
The Dagindaran Sultan rules over other Datu, and those other
Datu rule over their subjects. As the transcendent ruler, the Datu pay
fealty to the Sultan. The Sultan can perform tasks and executive
decisions that could affect the entire Sultanate
In executive functions, Dagindara, much like Akai, speaks in the
fabled Bulanist tongue. These functions are royal and structured, and

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 made to show off power and wealth. Similarly to Akai, Dagindara’s

history is recorded in tarsilas, or genealogies, upon palm leaf and
bamboo.
Dagindara has extensive trading connections with both Baik Hu
and the Madaki Peninsula, wherein they gain their property wealth
in weapons, lantaka, and golden gong. A sort of merchant nobility
has formed from this trading, called the orangkaya.
Dagindara matches Akai in royalty and wealth, in moshkes and
warriors. They are locked in constant war

If you come from Dagindara, choose 1 piece of item you begin

with: a shard of a lantaka, a miniature war gong, 3 sago cakes
wrapped in banana leaves, pondag (bamboo long ute)

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 ON THE PEOPLE OF THE SWORD ISLES

The People of The Sword Isles are known as the tawo. Any
person outside of the islands (or to an extreme extent, any person
outside of their particular settlement) such as the Pale Kings of
Issohapa or the Auraska Tiger Lords of Ramahasa, are Sina.
The tawo are a large array of people, diversi ed by their nations,
families, and ethnic origins.
Their diversity was said to have been the blessing of the gods of
the Ancient Peoples. But those things do not matter.
What does matter is that the tawo are of one ancestry, one thread,
one connection. They were not made better or less than another.
They were all equal, born from the same earth, formed from the same
dust, pecked from the same bamboo
And then they angered nature. The world trembled. They were
split and they split themselves. They looked at nature and wondered

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 and marveled, and said: If the world be three, then surely, we are
three also
There is a little folk tale, sung across all of The Sword Isles: that
once, in a long time ago, the rst man named Kausausa and his family
lived in a house. He went out and hunted a giant shark
Seeing that he could do this, and not seeing that any of the gods
could, he said that he was surely more powerful than the gods now
A powerful god of the Sky--different according to which
settlement you hear the story from--rained thunder and lightning
upon the man’s house. Kausausa died. His family ran to different
portions of the house to hide: those that hid in the hidden rooms of
the sleeping quarters became nobles, those that hid in the walls
became debtors, and those that ran outside of the house became free
men.
The Sina are part of this people, as they have also observed that
they followed a similar tripartite societal structure. A popular
addition to the folk tale is that some free men traveled to the edges of
the earth, where it was cold, and thus they froze and became Pale
Kings.
Others communed with tiger gods and sea kings, and thus
Auraska and other different humanoids arose
Thus is the way of The Sword Isles

AMONG THE TAWO: ILAWOD AND IRAYA

Ilawod means “down the stream or river”, while Iraya means “up
the stream or the river”
This distinction is applied to the tawo that live among the islands
of The Sword Isles, even in the largest isle of Rusunuga

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 Ilawod Tawo are those that live in the larger shore settlements.
These shore settlements are usually large, and can have three or more
towns sewn together in an interweaving web of familial relations and
political connections
Iraya Tawo are those that live deeper into the island up the
mountains, where the air is cold and perfect for farming rice and even
crops from different parts of Yutadagat, or through the deep
rainforests, in intimate connection with the rest of the world.
The Iraya Tawo hunt for foodstuffs, rare animals, wild honey, and
more items from the deep forests and the high mountains, as well as
plant in large rice swiddens and paddies, which they then trade down
the river to the shore settlements.
The Ilawod Tawo trade these items for foreign exports, silks,
clothing, iron, and weapons to the Iraya Tawo. This symbiotic
connection is integral to the survival and ourishing of both ways of
life

AMONG THE SINA

For the most part, the tawo that trade with foreigners don’t
distinguish them other than being sina, or those others. Those from
Baik Hu, or from Naksuwarga, or from the Medaka Archipelago, all
the way to the Pale Kings of Issohappa and the Auraska of
Ramahasa
When foreign trade comes in, the tawo make no distinction from
where the items come from. These foreign materials are simply from
sina, and immediately become items for their own consumption, for
their own recreation, and for their own material culture.

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 This lack of strict reverence for nations and states have formed a
very diverse archipelago. Many people from other states come into
The Sword Isles and as long as they can contribute to the way of life
of the tawo, they are considered as part of The Sword Isles. Thus
culture is diverse as well to The Sword Isles, and they adopt much of
their neighbors stylings and religions and cultures, leading to a truly
diverse and intermixing area. The Sword Isles has become well
known for this, despite being out of the way from the supposedly
lucrative Sea Silk Wind Path, where trade from Ramahasa from the
far Eastern Continent has made those in Naksuwarga and Medaka
Peninsula materially and culturally rich
Many Tawo travel to Medaka for lucrative job opportunities as
well as for trade. Many Kadungganan become mercenaries that ght
for the Medakan Kingdom, or with Naksuwarga, or even against the
Malirawat Empire

THE TAWO ACROSS THE POLITIES

The tawo are a diverse and varied lot, but the one unifying thing
they usually have is what polity they are born in, which usually
de nes their early world view and how they grow. In the following
pages, you will nd how the tawo are like across the twelve largest
and most prominent polities
Witness then how much they have in contrast... And how much
they are so alike. While it is easy to think that the states are
heterogenous--and to a degree they are--their inherent proximity
with each other has become a catalyst for inevitable cultural sharing.
This is why the dream of unity is not that far off. One must needs
respect only the lived experience of each one

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 ON GENDER AND SEXUALITY

While Classical Philippines isn’t as progressive as us these days
when it comes to sexuality, they still had some interesting takes on it.
At this point, you might have well known that most Philippine
languages don’t have gendered pronouns, and if we did, they only
came when the Spanish came
Another thing to note is the balyan in Ancient Philippines. While
predominantly a woman’s Discipline, men could also take it up.
While in Tagalog regions, it hasn’t been said whether a transition to
femininity was required, it has been recorded in those regions, as well
as almost every other region in the Philippines. These people were
known as asug, bayugin, or binabaye in most contexts.
They were treated like women and could even marry men. They
were supposed to wear women’s clothing and perform women’s tasks
While this is not exactly the most progressive idea now, we can
glean a bit from that, and we can apply a more progressive idea into
our Fantasy twist on Classical Philippines
I’ve long thought about the idea of Classical Philippine gender
and sex being entirely functional, due to the existence of the asug. If
a man performed a woman’s duties and tasks, they were considered
women.
However, I’ve eventually come to the conclusion that another way
of doing it might have been possible: that how they presented
themselves was their gender
So a woman who presents and wears women's clothes, but
performs the tasks of a man such as raiding, warring, and carpentry,
would still be treated as a woman, or a bayi. However, if they chose

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 to wear men’s clothes and preferred to be seen as a man, then they

would be treated as such
In this manner, we can stay kind of true to what our research has
shown us: that pre-Western genders were much more malleable than
post-colonial ones. Despite this being much more in the space of
speculation, it is one based on researched and informed speculation.
Due to some Katalonan men still probably being treated like men
despite performing the tasks of a “woman”, we can only assume that
the same is true for the other islands and cultures
Of course, this still isn’t as progressive as we want it to be: from
what I can see, despite the malleability of genders and sex in
Classical Philippines, there was still that forced binary. While I’m
personally staying true to that portion of history--partially because as
much as I love this time period I don’t want people con ating this
time period even more as a golden age--if you prefer to play Gubat
Banwa without a sti ing pre-Western binary, go ahead. As someone
who doesn’t feel exactly in line with any binary either (especially the
Western binary) I am only inclined to encourage you to do exactly
that
Padayon

A SMALL SAMPLING OF NON-HUMAN TAWO:

SARING LAHI
While the most popular and most widespread ancestry is the
human one that we all are, if you wish to inject some more ancestral
weirdness into your game, feel free to take some inspiration from the
ones below

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 These “races” are known within the game as “Lahi”, which
translated from Tagalog to English is more or less “ancestry”.
Bukarottawo: Crocodilian folk. They are thin and lithe and walk
on both legs, and can use their tails as secondary weapons
Ugima: Satyr-like creatures that live in the forest, but sometimes
trade with tawo. Ugima are usually seen as maneaters, but only if
they are hungry and have nothing left to eat due to the atrocities
caused by human war
Banoytawo: Eagle-folk, creatures that are humanoid but have
eagle-like features. Most resembling the Philippine Eagle
Pugitatawo: Actually just octopuses that have learned how to
wield weapons, wear armor, and can now walk on land
Tamawo: “Those Unlike Us”. They look like humans, but have no
philtrum, have pale skin, and platinum blonde hair. Some say they
have weird magics, others say that they have secret cities within the
forest
Ubag: Inspired by the recently found skeleton of homo
luzonsensis, is a kind of pygmy human. They’re good with tools and
are usually much quicker and lither than the normal human
Binturongtawo: Bearcat people, brothers to Musang folk but not
as friendly. They’re big and tend to be lazy, but they smell like
popcorn and hide serious muscles
Irongtawo: Large dog people that live in little packs within the
forests. Are mostly peaceful, and help humans in catching their prey
Auraska: Tiger folk, usually from Ramahasa and Mahajola. They
are large, usually bearded white, and wear clothing inspired by
ancient Sanskrit India. Many nobles in the Rajahnate have some
form of Auraskan blood, leading to some of them having leftover

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 traits, such as crimson feline eyes, white bushy whiskers, or subtly

striped body hair
Kadanay: They look like humans, with the main distinguishing
trait being that they have glowing magenta eyes. The Kadanay are an
ancient people that lived in certain parts of The Sword Isles, and they
mastered the art of Waking-the-Stone, creating artifacts and spiritual
wonders from stone and jade
Where the Kadanay went, none know. Not even still living
Kadanay can seem to remember
Sawangtawo/Lungyi: Humanoid dragon-folk, seven to ten feet
tall, with long cat sh-like whiskers, ruddy scales, and ne feathers
instead of hair. Lungyi are the highest rung of Reincarnation in
Annuvaran belief, and is the highest form of humanity right before
Enlightenment. Every man is taught that they can eventually reach
the level of Tawong Lung through cycles of Reincarnation. All
nobles, warlords, and government of cials in Baik Hu are either
Tawong Lung, or have Lung blood
Those mortals that have only one parent as Lungyi become
Bantai, halfborn. They have a much easier chance of becoming
Lungyi in their next life, and are known to possess powers and
abilities only Lungyi would have. Bantai typically have their non-
Lungyi form, but have Lungyi traits: half-tawo, half-Lungyi for
example, might have tawo with oating white hair, crimson eyes, or
sprouting antlers. While strange in The Sword Isles, and demonic in
the eyes of the Issohappan, these are holy symbols for Baikhan

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 BETEL NUT CHEWING

Betel Nut (bonga/bunga, nganga), the fruit of the areca palm, is an

integral part of socializing in the Sword Isles. In a simple way of
understanding it, think of it as like the various tea ceremonies one
would nd in East Asia. Betel nut chewing is accompanied with its
own ceremonies, given to visitors like an owner would offer tea. Betel
nut itself has a mild narcotic effect, similarly to how tea might calm
the nerves, or how alcohol might relax. Thus it is integral to
conversation. Not only that, but betel nut chewing stains teeth red,
making one “not an animal”, as only animals have white teeth

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 BETEL NUT CEREMONY

The nut is cut into segments, sprinkled with lime made from
shells, wrapped in a leaf, and chewed into a quid which produces a
blood-red spittle
The preparation, exchange, and serving of betel nut is the most
important social act in all of the Sword Isles, even in Virbanwa. Men
carried the necessary ingredients in little baskets or pouches. A
householder who fails to offer betel nut to anyone who entered his
house was an insult inviting enmity.
On formal visits, the quids are prepared and served in expensive
and beautiful metal trys or boxes by the females of the household:
servants, daughters, or even the lady of the house herself, depending
on the social standing of the guest
A special honor is to add a touch of musk or a slice of cinnamon
bark, or some other aromatic avoring, to the chew
Betel nut is also important in romance and courtship: to offer a
quid partially chewed is an act of irtation; to send one in response to
a man’s clandestine request is an act of acceptance to his advances.
To send it unbidden is an open invitation
Betel nut palms are extensively cultivated across the isles
Youths chewing for the rst time usually suffer giddiness like
drinking alcohol. Young
noble ladies have their rst
betel nut chew as a kind of
puberty rite or ceremony

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 THE SOCIAL CLASSES

In the land of The Sword Isles, the Social Class system is the
skeleton and framework whereupon all things dance. It is so
ingrained into society that tawo even give things in nature titles that
re ect their social rank: Datung Bayawak is a term for large and
great monitor lizards or komodo dragons, while Oripung Bukad is a
term for small and “frail” owers that shy away when touched
Here are the Social Classes of The Sword Isles laid out. For each
of the Classes, there will be a short table to help you visualize what
each person of each of the Classes would look like, as so much of
society hinges upon them

DATU, KEDATUAN, AND BINUKOT

Datu is the term for the heads of settlements. Leaders, lords, and
owners of vast amounts of heirloom wealth. In Ancient Visayas, Datu
was also the term for the closest family of the Datu: their spouses and
their children, denoting them as lordly royalty, higher than other
nobility. In The Sword Isles, we use the term kedatuan to denote that
they’re royalty, belonging to the family of a lord, so as to not confuse
the terms

THE PARAMOUNT DAT

Larger settlements and haop, such as the Rajahnate of Gatusan or
Ba-e, would have multiple Datu underneath a single Paramount
Datu. A Paramount Datu is chosen by choice of all kedatuan in
multiple settlements settling on one that is considered “ t to lead” the
Datu. This procedure is sometimes democratic. The parameters for

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 becoming a Paramount Datu usually include warrior prestige, skillful

merit, and natural charisma
Many different areas have different ways to call their Paramount
Datu: Rajah, Sarripad, Batara, Pangulo, Kaponoan, and Lubus nga
Datu

THE SANDIG SA DATU

The closest followers of the datu constitute a sort of inner circle of
people, called the datu’s sandig. They might not be the datu’s kin or
blood (although they can be, or might be of the nobility), but they are
treated with a similar deference. This is something that can be found
across all the polities.
Kedatuan are treated more or less with the same deference as the
Datu, and enjoy all the bene ts of being nobility
Datu are lords of their following. As already established, land is
not the scale by which a Datu’s power is measured, by their
following, known as their haop. Their haop engulfs and covers all the
people that follow the Datu: from nobility all the way to the smallest
of debtors
Kedatuan can still fall into debt, especially should they loan
something but nd that they cannot pay it back. In this manner,
kedatuan can become debtors to even other datu, or even to other
servants
Datu are expected to be skilled in war, and truly many Datu earn
their name through valor in combat. There are also Datu that become
Datu after being married to someone who is of Kedatuan. Datu are
usually skilled in trades as well, many becoming blacksmiths,
jewelers, song makers, and more

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 Binukot are veiled princes and princesses, hidden away in special

compartment rooms in the attics of royal houses or hidden deep
within sacred caves, all caled bukot. Binukot are never shown to the
public eye, but are taught how to sing, ght, dance, and read within
their bukot. When a binukot is brought out into the public, they are
carried by strongmen or women upon their shoulders, making sure
that the binukot never let their feet touch the ground. They are
usually used as barter or leverage to create social kinship and
connections with other settlements, letting one’s own binukot marry
another datu to establish a strong bond with that settlement. Of
course, not many binukot like this arrangement

Sandig sa Dat
1. Atubang. The datu’s chief minister and privy counselor
2. Paragahin. The datu’s steward, one who speaks, makes
arrangements or takes charge for them
3. Bilanggowan. The datu’s sheriff, who has a balay called
a bilanggo that acts as a jail
4. Paratawag. Usually a slave. The towns-crier, who
announces unto the settlement through shouting from a tall
tree or delivering a message directly to the persons
concerned (such as calling speci c Kadungganan for a
raid)
5. Senapati. A warlord and commander of a portion of the
Datu’s army, answering directly to the datu. In smaller
settlements, a datu takes on the role of a senapati

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 6. Shahbandar. The collector of anchorage fees and the

one who sets up the port markets during the trading
season

Datu Disposition
1. Black-toothed and quirky eyed, with a penchant for
collecting scraps to create new inventions. Would love to
explore the ancient tombs left behind by the Kadanay
people
2. Large and heavyset, always grim. Readying their haop
for war. Is vigilant, knows that another settlement is going
to come any day to attack for something they did not do
3. A datu hellbent on correcting injustices, for they
suffered injustices of their own and they would not wish it
upon others
4. An ancient and wizened old datu, leaning upon a staff
made of the bones of an ancient tiger. Skilled in the ways
of offensive sorcery. Seeks to create a new religion
5. A skilled and tricky lord who knows the ways of
politics and abuses it to get what they want. Helms a large
haop, which is built upon spider web
6. A young datu who has something to prove, and
sometimes does not listen to the counsel of the wiser due to
his rashness
7. A datu burning with ideals, seeking to change the
course of the world as they see it, attempting to abolish the
classes from the top down

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 8. A broken datu who has suffered too much during their

lifetime, and goes into combat for if they do not, they will
break down
9. An older, more caring Datu, who treats their followers
like their own children and cares for them as their own
10. A militaristic Datu hellbent on conquest of the entire
archipelago. All in the name of peace

Datu Problems
1. Another Datu has declared war upon them
2. The umalagad, ancestor spirits, of that datu are
displeased with them, and it has caused ill fortune to befall
the settlement
3. The diwata are rampaging nearby, and they do not
know why
4. One of the polities is planning to conquer them
5. A Rajahnate settlement is closing their trade routes
with them, causing a major blow to their supply lines, and
will likely cause starvation or loss of wealth
6. They are being attacked by either the Lakanate or the
Sultanate, to further conquest (if the Lakanate) or faith (if
the Sultanate)
7. They are being raided by foreign powers
8. The Confederation has deemed them to be too
dangerous to the nature around them, and is launching a
raid upon them

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 Datu Settlemen
1. Small, cozy. Around 100 households. Mainly a trading
haop, or an agriculture haop
2. Larger. Around 200 households. Usually adept at raids
3. Huge. Around 300 or 400 households. Might have
connections with foreign trade, or large connections with
surrounding polities.
4. Expansive. Usually only for the capitals and
international trading entrepots. Around 600 households.
Might have more than one Datu leading them

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 NOBLE CLASS
Tumao in the Rajahnate, Timway in the Sultanate, Maginoo in the
Lakanate, Kadangyan in the Confederation
The Nobility are usually those that have in some way a blood
connection with the Datu: either through lineage, as their relatives
(cousins, nieces, nephews, and the like), or as blood-sworn kin
(through the Sanduguan, the Blood Compact)
The Nobles are considered the second rank of nobility, right
below the kedatuan royalty
Many Nobility act as retainers and vassals to the Datu, helping
them and doing work for the datu, should they need it, whether it be
contributing materiel, working their elds, or ghting in raids and
war engagements. However, they do not need to pay tribute, only
that they ght with the datu should the datu call upon them, and they
very commonly engage in their own pursuits, whether it be artistic or
mercantile

GOLDEN WEB TAPESTR

Nobility and Kedatuan, and especially Datu, are beholden to the
Golden Web Tapestry: an “elevated” form of speech that is polite
speech in all but name. One is expected to be dancing the Golden
Web Tapestry when before a noble, even if you are noble yourself,
and especially if you are of lower class. You cannot speak certain
words before them, and you must speak wholly in third-person, never
addressing the noble directly--ie. as “you”. This polite speech is
expected even amongst balyan and other spirit mediums that are

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 ubiquitous in the archipelago. Other examples include burping or
talking about how dirty a noble’s nails or ears have become
If one breaks the Golden Web Tapestry, it unravels a whole slew
of consequences. Things such as nes and debt for the lower classes,
while other nobles might suffer societal disgrace and public shame,
which is something no noble wants, as they would be indebted, or
have Debt, to the noble that they committed the breaking of the
Golden Web Tapestry to. Of course, the Golden Web Tapestry is
simply a social construct, and needs a society to be enforced
Nobility Problem
1. Another noble has blasphemed their countenance, and
must be punished
2. They must be ready and need new items for makeup
for the coming feast
3. Someone from the lower class saw them making love
with someone that they should not be making love with
4. They have broken the Golden Web Tapestry, and seek
to evade the consequences or are being hunted down
5. A noble is hunted down for not honoring a trading
contract with another settlement
6. A noble has blasphemed the name of the Datu in a
feast
7. A noble has lost their heirloom wealth and must get it
back
8. A noble has lost their imported texts, which they use to
learn more languages. They believe someone has stolen it,
as texts are well wanted as culture in other settlements
Nobility Disposition

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 1. An eccentric noble who pores over palm leaf

manuscripts seeking enlightenment
2. A calm noble who loves performing tea and wine
ceremonies for their guests
3. A generous noble who loves giving away items for the
ones that amuse them
4. A broken noble who has seen the terrors of war, despite
not being a warrior.
5. A brave noble who is also a Paraawit, a singer, who
seeks to travel with Kadungganan to expand their song
repertoire and to create more songs for the settlement
6. A wide-eyed noble who wants to see the world from
byeond their own little world view
7. A wise noble who gives actually good advice, and loves
to sit upon the porch of their house observing the town
8. A loving noble who makes sure that their debtors are
properly treated
9. A conniving noble who has mastered the polite speech
of the Golden Web Tapestry, who wishes to climb the
social class even further
10. An artful noble who creates paintings upon palm leaf
scrolls, and uses sorcery only to y
11. A noble who thrives on the thrill of battle, usually to
the detriment of themself or their friends
12. A strict noble who has mastered a particular form of
weaponry, and acts as a guardian or bodyguard (kawal)
for kedatuan royalty

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47
 FREEMAN CLASS
Freeman are a privileged class, and not a serf like class. Those of
the Freeman Class are free to change their allegiance to their datu at
any time, theoretically. Theoretically because it is not uncommon for
many freemen to own a large amount of debt to a certain datu, or
choose to become retainers for that Datu
Freemen are considered a third rank of nobility, right below the
nobles. They do not need to work to pay off a labor obligation like
debtors—although they can accrue debt—but they can choose what
to do. Many become capitalists in their own right, become datu, or
perhaps enjoy the protection of community and helps around the
datu. Very commonly, though, whatever the pick up as a trade, they
must ght with the datu when the time comes.
A Kadungganan is a kind of freeman. They may pledge their
services to a Datu for a time, and then leave and change allegiances
whenever it pleases them, or whenever they need to. This is their
privilege: they are not part of a datu’s particular following
Freeman, thanks to their freedom, get to enjoy a wide variety of
freedoms. Freemen usually render services to the datu. Thus many
freemen work as laborers. Some owning their own farms, others true
warriors, others professional singers, and even others as potters and
traders and merchants, sometimes with wealth rivalling the Datu’s
own
When a Freeman either chooses, or manages to pay off their debt
to the lord they have chosen to follow, they may choose to leave,
traveling and either seeking out another lord and settlement to follow,
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 Freeman Disposition
1. A freeman who loves singing and will never give it up for
the world
2. A freeman with a particular sweet tooth and is running
around trying to satisfy it
3. A young one who wishes to become a Datu someday
4. A freeman who takes great pleasure in abusing their
servant for some twisted reason
5. A freeman who holds an important secret of a noble that
they refuse to let go
6. A freeman who is in love with the binukot (veiled prince
or princess) of another settlement, but does not have the
bugay or bride price to be able to buy their hand in
marriage
7. An eccentric freeman who loves collecting herbs and
hides away in their balay for days at a time
8. An overly serious freeman who does their best in their
trade and does not want to slip up, ever
Freeman Problem
1. The freeman does not have enough wealth to be able to
move to another Datu
2. A freeman is discontent being the retainer of a Datu, and
wishes to dethrone the datu and take it for themselves
3. A freeman has lost their means of living, and is quickly
accruing debt. At the rate that they’re in, they will become
oripun

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 4. They have lost an important piece of bahandi heirloom

wealth, one of the only ones they have
5. They have lost the favor of the datu, and must seek a
different datu to serve
6. Their family has been killed after a raid, and they lost
their source of livelihood to the raiders
Freeman Trade
1. Warrior. A freeman that prides on ghting for the Datu.
Probably a Kadungganan as well
2. Jeweler. Someone who is an expert at creating jewelry
3. Hunter. A freeman who uses state of the art technology
and strategies to hunt down large game
4. Weaver. A skilled weaver of silks and cottons, usually for
the Datu’s bene t
5. Merchant. A skilled trader and peddler of wares,
whether it be foreign silks or local civet
6. Potter. A freeman who is skilled in the ways of clay
pottery. Perhaps they even have the means to craft
porcelain. They may have a number of servant under them
that they teach in the craft of pottery
7. Sailor. A sailor and traveler, who has their own ship and
renders service to those who need it, although sometimes to
those that pay the highest
8. Honey Tracker. A freeman who is skilled in travelling the
forests and foraging through foliage to nd the best bee
hives to harvest honey from
9. Cook. A cook who owns their own eatery, in service to
the Datu. They usually have a number of servant and

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 children that help them in the kitchen, making meals for the
Datu themselves. Larger settlements might have cooks that
can cook for the entire Kadungganan or noble population
10. Fisher. An integral trade in archipelago. A skilled sher
who uses harpoons, nets, and traps to capture large amounts
of sh, which they then cook or trade
11. Paraawit. A professional singer, hired to sing epics in
feasts, dirges in funerals, or inspiring war songs when going
into war
12. Shipbuilder. A freeman who owns their own shipyard
and has their own horohan to help collect materials and help
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 DEBTOR CLASS
There are three kinds of debtors in The Sword Isles: the peasants,
the servants, and the infantry
When these debtors are raided, they are usually taken away and
brought to markets, where their obligation and labor is sold to others
that wish to take them on. As labor is a premium in the Sword Isles,
with their being a surplus of natural resources and not enough labor
to capitalize on it, debtor obligations are usually priced similar to
bahandi. When they are bought, they usually become servants for the
one that bought them, sometimes peasants if the buyer deem it so.
Enterprising and mercantile capitalists sell debtors at a pro t.
More commonly, when a datu raids a settlement, they take in the
debtors of that settlement and turn them into debtors to the datu
instead
Debtors make up the majority of the The Sword Isles population.
Becoming a debtor is easy: accrue enough debt through your actions,
enough that you cannot pay it off, then you wil become a slave to that
person that you owe the most. This will then extend to your next of
kin, until one of them can eventually pay off your debt price, and free
your family and generational line

PEASANT
Peasants render their service up to the datu, most usually working
in their eld, shing, hunting, or what else. Peasants have their own
houses, and they render a portion of their labor and work to their
datu, whom they owe their debt to. Through opportunity and
enterprise, they can decrease their debt, and eventually pay it off in

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 full. When raiders come to their village, they are expected to take up
arms and ght alongside the datu. Peasants are different from
servants in that they live in their own houses while tilling the elds of
the datu, in exchange for the datu’s protection and strength in being a
settlement

SERVANT
Servants live in their master’s houses, and any person can have a
servant, even other servants (thus making them the lowest rung of
the Debtor Class). Servants are not to be traded away and must be
treated well, lest you become a bad master, as tradition dictates. They
must be fed and given clothing by the masters. Masters dictate when
a servant can marry and sometimes even who they can marry. The
servant’s children inherit their class until they can pay off the debt
price. Servants render all their labor to their master, and they live in
their master’s house. Should they give birth, the master is expected to
take care of the servant’s child as if it were their own. A master may
even have a favorite servant, who act similarly as retainers, which
they call their sibin

INFANTR
Infantry serve as footsoldiers for the master they serve, oftentimes
working as a personal guard as well. Their masters train them and
equip them, Infantry usually have similar tasks and functions to
squires: helping their masters when it comes to combat, maintaining
their weapons, and more

Servant Disposition

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 1. A disenfranchised servant who is tired of working for
their master
2. A beautiful servant who is in an ilicit love affair with
their master
3. A servant who harbors a deep hatred for the one that
their master serves
4. A servant who is wholly committed to their master until
their death
5. A servant who would want to become free and pursue a
different trade, but cannot due to their love for their master
6. A servant who seeks restitution for something their
master has done to them

Peasant Disposition
1. A peasant constantly unimpressed by sorcery and war,
simply annoyed that it gets in the way of their weaving
2. A peasant who likes farming way too much, and is
devising multiple technology to help it along
3. A peasant who tills lands so large that they have to deal
with another settlement hogging up too much of the space
4. A peasant who walks around drunk all the time, but is
still surprisingly competent
5. A peasant who is in a secret love affair with a servant
6. A peasant who works all day in the elds but crafts
poetry at night, under the light of a small candle

Horohan Disposition

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 1. An infantry who is beholden to war and ghting, always

looking for the next ght
2. An infantry who sees ghting and combat as their duty
and nothing else, and they aim to be the best at it
3. An infantry that loves their master, and will do anything
to protect them
4. An infantry who abhors ghting, and only does it
because they are ordered to, but is scarily good at ghting
5. An infantry lled with hatred and a longing for justice,
and wishes to depose datu and cast down false thrones
6. An infantry brimming with a hard knowledge of truth,
and wishes to document all things they must witness in war
to make sure future generations do not witness and suffer
their mistakes

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 ON SOCIETIES AND POLITIES

The Sword Isles are rife with settlements and societies that share
many things in common, diverse and different as they are. This
includes their general outlook on crimes, laws, and dooms, as well as
the things they eat or the things that they trade.
In addition, they do share a similar way of trading and counting,
using wooden counters and rice grains as barter, and sometimes even
foreign currencies to be able to trade with other kingdoms
The common unit of measurement for weight is sack, which
comes from sacks of rice being main forms of trade. A sack of rice is
equal to three liters of rice. Other common terms for weight is hand,
for a handful.
For length, it is the following: nger, for the length of a single
nger. Palm, for length of a palm. Foot for the length of a foot. Arm
for the length of an arm. Wing for the length of two arms spread out
wide. Most balutu or personal boats, for example, are 10 wings long

TRADE, WEALTH, AND PROPERTY

The most important thing to note when it comes to wealth and
property in The Sword Isles is that land is not one of them. All The
Sword Isles polities view land as not theirs. Nature is not something
they own, after all
Traders were usually professionals. They might even have their
own cargo vessels. This would mean that they are usually freemen, or
Datu themselves, or some sort of Kedatuan or Nobility

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 PROPERT
Property is usually measured as heirloom wealth, known across
the isles as bahandi. This heirloom wealth is accumulated over
generations, and is usually constituted of gongs, porcelain, and other
such expensive items, usually items that can only be found from
outside the archipelago, but not always. Things that mostly only
warriors and nobility can afford, and is out of the ballpark of the
lower classes

DEB
Debt (Debt) is accrued through both materially and obligatorily,
and is an integral part to society and The Sword Isles social classes as
a result. A Datu and their family who has performed a horrible crime
is usually given so much debt that their entire family, and perhaps
even extending to their next of kin and generations after, are turned
into debtors, working for the person that they owe the most

DOMESTIC TRAD
Traded domestically among the Tawo of the siles are textiles,
other weavings, wood, and especially foodstuffs, as it is easier to
cultivate food such as rice from upland societies where hills can be
turned into rice farms.

INTERNATIONAL TRAD
Imports from outside the archipelago is a frequent source of
wealth and power as well. As of present, Baikhan porcelains are so
prominent in The Sword Isles that most of their ceramics and

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 tradeware are now porcelains, and the locally produced clayware

with intricate wave engravings and psychopomp idols have fallen to
the wayside, usually used as burial jars
Other items being imported are weapons (katana, dao, foreign
kampilan and kris) and expensive silks, parasols, silver, and culture:
usually in the form of newer religions, and brahmin that would come
from distant lands to teach about Annuvara
Iron is another important material, especially in the time of the
Eight Sun Era. The most common way of obtaining iron was through
import or raiding, burning down nails from ships, iron cauldrons
from Baik Hu, or malleable cast iron from the Naksuwargan
Empires. They are also found in mountains and other mining areas,
and others produce iron on their own without the need to import it
from elsewhere

ON CURRENC
There is no currency, although the closest is rice grains, gold
kernels, and barter rings, used as a medium of exchange. Calculations
are made on wooden counters, kukot, and heavy items are weighed
with a steelyard, sinanta, and gold weighed against little seeds in a
pair of balances that can be carried around on the person
Gold kernels and barter rings are used as medium of exchange for
barter. This is a preferred export of Baik Hu and Madaki
However, square-holed Baikhan coins known as caz were already
in wide circulation, especially in the Sultanate
To the right is a table of the usual trade goods, both domestic and
international
Some Trade Good

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 1. Kalamay. Palm Sugar. Commodity

2. Rice grains. Measured by ganta, around 3 liters.
Commodity
3. Coconuts. Buko. Almost like a cash crop, grown in
plantations and sold by the boat-full. Commodity
4. Iron Cauldrons. Used to be broken down for forging.
Necessity
5. Hinalasan. Dragon porcelain jars, from Baik Hu and
Malirawat. Bahandi
6. Honey. Traded by men with professional skill in locating
hives. Commodity
7. Agung. Brass or golden gongs, very much highly priced.
Usually heirloom wealth. Bahandi
8. Cloth, woven. Elegant textiles, usually very colorful and
with complex geometric designs. Commodity
9. Fruits and Nuts. Tropical fruits and nuts, plentiful. Acts as
1 Provision. Commodity
10. Blankets. Spun of dyed cloth and abaca. Commodity
11. Abaca Fiber. Useful for creating abaca items such as sacks,
rope, and more. Commodity
12. Fish and Goatmeat. Foodstuffs. Necessity
13. Alcohol. Of all types, from pangasi rice wine to intus
sugarcane juice. Sold in jars. Necessity
14. Clay Pots. Locally made, gets the job done. Commodity
15. Kasuba. A kind of saffron. Dyestuff. Commodity
16. Bihag. War debtors or captives, either by debt or by raid.
Priced high, treated like bahandi heirloom wealth. Necessity

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 17. Wood. Commodity. Logs of wood, usually, or planks.

Kamagong, hardwood, is a necessity. Mangkono, iron wood, is
a rarity.
18. Musang. Civet cats, bought and sold both domestically and
internationally. Necessity among the isles. Rarity to
foreigners
19. Wax. Found usually in forests. Commodity
20. Pearls. From the sea. Large ones are useful for foreign
trade, as it is valuable to other states. Rarity. Bahandi to
foreigners. Smaller pearls are less valued, usually seen as
commodity, as they are easy enough to acquire

HUKUM, OR LAW
The Hukum, a term for Law or Judge found across the entire
archipelago, is the term applied for judicial matters.
When someone performs a crime, the Datu takes upon the mantle
of the Hukum, serving both as judge and as the Law. Despite this, it
is not as arbitrary as it seems: social mores and unwritten-yet-sung
traditions already foretell and speak the laws of the Tawo into
existence. Taboos and social norms are ingrained upon every child as
they are born into this world. There is the assumption, of course, that
one does not need to be taught to be moral. That this virtue is
ingrained into our very souls, a priviliege for being able to live
together with nature
As the Hukum, the Datu presides ove civil cases and criminal
cases, sometimes referring to the judgment and counsel of those
trained and experts in law and custom--those that study the Hukum.
If results were inconclusive, it is not rare for the Datu to demand a

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 trial by ordeal, such as retrievnig an object barehanded from a boiling

pot, or staying underwater longest
The following are considered crimes in The Sword Isles societies:
theft, defamation, murder, witchcraft (although, in the time of the
Skysea War, witchcraft is being viewed as a weapon), offense to the
Datu’s authority, and malicious vandalism (such as poisoning
livestock)
Due to the strict social class system of The Sword Isles, penalties
were ne set in accord with the litigants’ standing: crimes against
upper-class persons were ned more heavily.
If a slave killed a Datu, the slave would be killed outright
Many crimes were to be paid by heiroom wealth. If not heirloom
wealth, then service by debt. Many people become debtors due to the
crimes they commit. Other times, a part of them was cut off, for good
measure

LIFE IN THE SETTLEMENTS

I have been using settlements to refer to the towns, villages,
neighborhoods, and cities of The Sword Isles. This is because they
are called a variety of things in The Sword Isles: in the Rajahnate it is
usually termed haop, as per following and already stated, but in the
Lakanate it is bayan.
Settlements are neighborhoods of around 30 or more households,
each one usually pledging allegiance to a Datu. Settlements can band
together and work together, fusing to become larger settlements.
Larger settlements are known to have more than one Datu governing
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 HYGIENE, MAKEUP, AND AESTHETIC

Mornings begin at the rst light of dawn, when the wind is chilly
and the sun has not risen up fully just yet. They then bathe, usually in
rivers, using oils and other herbal extracts to shampoo hair and apply
fragrances upon their body. Hygiene is an integral part of The Sword
Isles life: men and women both pluck their eyebrows to thin
crescents, Lakanate and Sultanate men grow their moustaches and
beards out while Confederation and Rajahnate men trim them or clip
them off with clam shaped tweezers
Bodies are scrubbed with pumiec and other fragrant owers,
especially among nobles, who wish to have good body odors. They
clean their ears out with feathers and swabs and brush their teeth
with a toothbrush made of vegetable husk, to polish and keep teeth
clean.
This does not make their teeth white, however: white is for the
foreigners, who are like animals. Only animals have white teeth. The
tawo of The Sword Isles pride themselves on stained teeth, reddened
or blackened, and sometimes completely pitch or crimson. Some tawo
even le their teeth to points
Both women and men applied makeup: from tana eyebrow paint,
pupol face powder, red kamuntigi nail polish, and yellow barak root
to rub on the body as a skin lotion.
Some children are also given skull molding, which is done
through contraptions that attened the front of the skull, letting the
front of the skull grow backwards instead of forwards. The Sword
Isles beauty standards hold crescent moon-like skulls, called
tinangad, to the peak of beauty, alongside broad faces and at noses.

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 This practice is more popular among the Rajahnate and
Confederation settlements than the Lakanate and Rajahnate

JEWELR
Jewelry is an important part of The Sword Isles culture: even
debtors would have bangles or anklets of gold. Some jewelry would
have carnelian adornments, or pearl, or sometimes even diamonds
and rubies. The most important jewelry is of course the gold
accessories, which range from diadems to bangles to waist cords to
sashes made of pure gold to rings to arm bands to thigh bands to
belts to anklets to ear ornaments to ear piercings and even to golden
pegs upon the teeth
Decorative dentistry is another important component of jewelry:
those that can afford it would ll the gaps between their teeth with
gold, and others would peg their teeth with gold stubs, making it so
that whenever they grinned or smiled their mouth would shine like
the sun, akin to the epic heroes of their tales

TATTOOIN
Tattoos are called batuk or patik, and mostly only some
settlements in the Rajahnate and the Confederation used them.
Professional tattoo artists are called Mambabatuk and those tattooed
are called binatakan. The rst tattoo is usually given as a coming of
age deal, with a person’s rst conquest in war or love: either by
killing another or by having sex. Tattoos are then only given to those
that continue to conquer, each new tattoo a burning marking of his
valor. They are given piecemeal, but each one would eventually
connect with other tattoos to create an intricate painting with the

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 body as a canvas. The most valiant of them, which constituted a sort

of warrior elite, will have tattoos up to the eyelids, giving them a
demonic look and no doubt affect their enemies psychologically

WORKING THE FIEL

During the early hours of morning, if it is planting or harvesting
season, they work the elds. Not only do the peasant work the elds,
but so do also the rest of the people, especially if they must work the
elds of the Datu. Even nobles, Kadungganan, and freemen must
pitch in, as a form of tribute to the Datu at some point during the
planting or harvesting season
Most farming is done upon swiddens, using a traditional kaingin
system of slash-and-burn farming. This constituted rice farming for
some islands that had the conditions for it. The most common crop
was the root crop, such as taro and yams. Rice, while favored, was
not always in supply, and was much less available year round. In
worse harvesting days, even nobility resorted to eating root crops
instead of rice
Farming is stopped immediately in the sight of bad omens, such as
termite mounds and squeaking snails
Millet is also of great importance, and in some islands is the main
crop, with rice not being grown at all
In addition to root crops and rice and millet, bananas and sago (a
kind of starchy palm our) were also planted in swiddens
Planting and harvesting season is not the same across the islands
of The Sword Isles, due to varying exposure to monsoon winds. Time
was measured through harvests: a year is de ned as the time between

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 one harvest and the next. Age therefore is measured through how
many harvests a person has lived through

SMITHIN
Smithing is a very valued skill, and one that even datu practice
due to its prestige. Being a smith, which is called a panday, does not
only mean you can create weapons and armor. Smiths can craft all
sorts of things, from gold (Panday-sa-bulawan) to iron (Panday-sa-
puthaw).
Smithing is expensive since it would mean you would have the
materials needed to craft weapons and items. It is considered the
noblest trade, as usually only the wealthiest datu could even afford
the raw material. Iron and such were usually not mined, but rather,
stolen from raids against other polities, whether it be from within the
Archipelago or from foreign in uences. Regular raids to Baik Hu to
gain iron to melt and use for smithing is a very common raiding
impetus
A smith’s shed is called gusali. This is usually an open house
beside their actual house. Here they would have their forge, made of
hollowed out small tree trunks, with pistons ringed with chicken
feathers set so as to collapse on the return stroke. They were
alternately raised and lowered by the blacksmith’s apprentice, knwon
as masaop, to produce a steady draft. Both cylinders had a bamboo
outlet near the bottom which led to a common stone receptacle
known as a lilong, which concetrated the draft into a charcoal re.
The anvil was a piece of iron set in a heavy wooden block, and the
smiths’ tools were: palo (two-handed stone maul), a palo-palo (stone

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 hammer), kipit (pair of tongs), and an assortment of bolos for cutting
the red-hot metal
The most important tool manufactured, repaired, or retempered
by the blacksmith was teh bolo. Dohong/Dayopak was the ordinary
one, while tuwad was a larger, heavier one for woodcutting. Bako for
weeding or cultivating, pisaw was one with a short blade and long
handle to be pressed under the arm or against the ground with the
foot to leave both hands free for stripping rattan
Additional tools used by the smith are the abluwang (drill), barit
(a rough piece of iron for whetting tools or striking with int for
re), binkong (curved adze), bisong (knife for preparing betel nut),
dallag (straight adze), garol (spurs for ghting cocks), kalob (spoon
bit), sabit (billhook), salat (sickle), sipol (paring knife), tigib (chisel),
tirlos (lancet for bleeding), ulok (dentist’s awl).

WOODWORKIN
Carpenters cut their own timber. They had lore for when to cut:
different species are felled during the different turns of the moon,
some are more solid on the eastern side, and “male” trees are always
stronger than the “females” of a species. Trees are felled with ax and
bolo, split down the middle with edges, and then each half is adzed
into a single plank, squared with the same tool. All carpentry and
house construction are done with skillful joinery without saws or
nails. This has lead to beautiful geometrical pegs and shapes made to
t entire boats and houses, usually only held together by the
ingenuity of the joinery design or by thick abaca rope
Plates, bowls, spoons, and ladles, urns called bohon, cof ns, and
chests of all sizes are hewn from single blocks of wood, and often

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 decorated with ne carvings. Rough leaves of the hagopit tree or biri
palm are used as sandpaper, and ray sh tails or dahonan hides are
used to smooth even the hardest of woods

GOLDWORKIN
Most The Sword Isles settlements and polities almost always have
gold upon almost every person. Most gold was mined by placer
mining: gold panning in streams or riverbeds. These placers are
called dulangan, dulang being the wooden pan used. Pamiling,
sifting, was the activity.
Gold is bulawan, ne gold is himulawan. They had touchstones
known as sanitran to test its quality, but most people could estimate
content on sight. Some men would carry around little scales and
weights in special pouches to make spot purchases.
A panday-sa-bulawan take advantage of gold’s supremely
workable material. Lumps are carved, modeled, and hammered to
shape, beat out into onionskin sheets, to be cut with shears into
silhouettes, wrapped into beads, or drawn into thin wires to be used
in lgree work or woven into thick ropes. They soldered tiny
granules together, several hundred in a square centimeter.
None have surpassed The Sword Isles smiths in this manner
The Sword Isles gold is integral to this goldworking progress

WEAVIN
Weavers were usually those considered women. It is usually done
through the use of backstrap looms. The warp threads were not
placed in a permanent framework but rather, in one continuous loop

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 around a loom bar held in the weaver’s lap by a strap behind her
back, and another one suspended from a house beam or tree branch
Weaving is a normal part of housekeeping, and weavers supplied
clothing. In the epic literature even in the Philippines, this is the
pastime of even royal ladies. Heroes departing on ventures are
ritually clothed with magical raiments and garments by their mothers
and sisters
Cotton and abaca are both exports here. Baik Hu called Ba-e
abaca yu-da, or jute, in the thirteenth century. Wives of householding
oripun are required to spin cotton, supplied to them by their masters.
Paid workers are employed as domestic weavers
Tying bers together with ne knots to produce threads is the
rst task taught to young girls. Cotton is a standard part of blankets.
Cloth straight from the loom--whether they be cotton or abaca--are
soaked in lime, sometimes dyed, and then cudgeled to soften.
Dyestuffs are red sibukaw, intensi ed by nino wood, indigo tagum,
yellow ginger root known as dulaw, kasuba a kind of saffron, and an
impermanent black dye known as tina. Dyed thread is used to insert
colored stripes in plain cloth, including imported silk and sometimes
even threads of gold.
The most elexant textile, considered to be a monopoly among
those of Gatusan and Apumbukid, is pinayusan. It is woven of abaca
bers hand-selected for both their whiteness and hair-thin structure.
It is then tie-dyed by binding little pinches of cloth, leaving a ne
owered pattern in natural color on a eld of deep red. It can be
made to make pudong as thin as gauze

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 POTTER
A potter’s craft is known as dihoon. They do not employ the
potter’s wheel but rather, the paddle-and-anvil technique.
The common cooking pot is daba/koron. Wide-mouthed jars are
bogoy, and at pans for cooking are balanga. Banga water jars are
shaped like porcelain jars. Dinner plates are Baikhan porcelain,
however: pingan lasa are large ones, lampay are small ones, and siwit
are little ones like sauce dishes
Baikhan jars are known as ang-ang, those used for pangasi
alcohol are gining. Linoping are big ones with ears for handles, so
called because they look like men tattooed all over. Hinalasan are
dragon jars, so called because of the serpent done in high relief on
their sides. Tinampilak are large black jars, tuytuy are small black
ones. Kabo are blue and white jarlets, often used for tea and carrying
waters

SEASONS OF THE SWORD ISLE

In most islands, the agricultural season began when the
Constellation of Boiling Lights appeared in the night sky. Swiddens
are prepared during this time, and then two moons later--when the
Boiling Lights are directly overhead--they would plant seeds. Those
in the south waited for the Constellation of the Ballista before
planting seeds, and those in the north area waited until the
Constellation of the Coconut Palm. This is because of, as already
stated, because of the differing monsoon winds that strike different
parts of the archipelago at different times

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 The seasonal rotation of The Sword Isles depended on the

owering of certain trees. There are four in all: Katparasan,
Kattaloto, Katlawaan, and Katkisiw, which constituted the
mercurial harvesting cycle. Each season lasted for 2-3 moons each.
Each of them pertained to the particular blossoming of trees:
Katlawaan is when the lawaan trees blossomed, for example. This
would also signal planting season. Most planting seasons in the island
are during the season of Katlawaan, while those on the northern and
southern extremities begin in Kattaloto and Katkisiw, respectively. At
the nal season, the harvesting season—the end of Katparasan for
most islands, end of Katkisw for the northern islands, and the end of
Katlawaan for southern islands—they end a harvesting year, and
move into the next year. The rst season is then used as a resting
period.

SAILIN
Water is the lifeblood of The Sword Isles. From the rivers that
wind up to the upland societies, and down to the seas that spread its
arms in both a beautiful and terrifying embrace. When in The Sword
Isles, look for no roads or trade paths: it is the water that provides
movement. This is why there is no need for wheeled carriages during
this time: the ships that shipbuilders create are more than capable of
bringing anything they wish to any part of the island, from coconuts
to elephants
Sailors in the islands of The Sword Isles are almost never out of
sight from land, and thus they rely on landmarks and piloting instead
of celestial observations. The waters between islands are a means to

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 connect, and not separate, the differing polities and societies of The
Sword Isles
Shipbuilders are known to be usually very rich, and datu are
known to be shipbuilders as well. A wide variety of ships sail across
The Sword Isles waters: from the single canoe baroto, to the large
merchant biroko, to the outrigger warships of biray and karakoa.
Among the Lakanate the trading galyon ship, stolen from the Pale
Kings, has already arisen to dominance and has led to further trade
among the region
Most ilawod settlements are almost never built out of reach of salt
water. Men and women that paddled would carve out their own
paddles, and were as personal to them as their weapons.

A few examples of boats...

1. Balutu. Made usually out of a single log. Dugout
canoe. Might or might not have outriggers
2. Biroko. A kind of boat with high sides, large sails and
no outriggers. Used for cargo
3. Biray. A large outrigger ship with multiple washboards
for carrying even more cargo (which, remember, includes
debtors). Will usually have painted and colorful prows
4. Karakoa. Similar to the Biray, but larger and can carry
up to forty warriors on each side. It had large outriggers
whereupon rowers would sit upon. Its prow was decorated
and intricately painted, and would have tall staffs of
brilliant plumage (sombol on the prow, tongol on the
stern). Lantaka, swivel guns, were commonly placed on its

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 sides to attack. It also had an elevated ghting deck

amidship
5. Daya. Flat open ships, similar in shape and appearance
to Chinese sampan
6. Galyon. Stolen design from the Pale Kings. Slow but
can carry lots of cargo. Reminiscent of Spanish galleons.

WINDS OF THE SWORD ISLE

The Amihan is the wind that blows from the Northeast, bringing
with it warm winds and constant rains. Ships from Baik Hu,
Naksuwarga, and Malirawat use this wind to travel to the isles, and it
also facilitates domestic trade among The Sword Isles
The Timog trade wind is a wind that circulates throughout the
archipelago during the tail end of the Habagat, around three moons
before Habagat ends. Using this wind, trading and raiding is
facilitated, and is an important aspect of interisland travel. It is the
third major wind in the archipelago
Between the Habagat and Amihan winds, there are two other
winds that blow: Kanay the South Chill Wind, and Iphag the
Northern Wind after that. The Iphag Wind is known to have been
the wind coming from caverns deep in the earth, seemingly from the
World Below, bringing with it haunting wailing gales and warm
winds

FOO
Most food is made in iron stoves and pots, wherein they boil
chicken, sh, octopus, squid, pig, deer meat, goat meat, and more
foodstuffs that could be eaten. Fishermen and Hunters bring back

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 their catch with them at the end of the day, and freshly caught catch
is almost always cooked and eaten immediately

HUNTIN
Hunters use hunting dogs to hunt down wild boar and deer, and
chase them into balatik traps: bamboo balistas that could skewer
entire human bodies. Using these strategies they capture large games
easily. Fishermen use traps at the mouths of rivers, as well as cast
wide nets while out in the sea to catch sh and other game. For sh
in streams, they would harpoon it, and for larger sh such as whale
sharks, they would hunt it down and bleed it out with serrated
harpoons

ALCOHOL AND DRINKIN

Alcohol is almost never drunk alone, except for those alcoholics.
Alcohol is stored in large porcelain jars, as is water, which preserves a
certain amount of chill. Alcohol in porcelain jars would ferment and
then be drunk straight through reed straws. Imagine a single large
porcelain jar, with multiple reed straws poking out of it. These straws
would be drunk communally between friends, although they usually
never shared straws
Pangasi is rice wine stored in these jars. Kabarawaan is a kind of
wood mixed with honey and drunk in a shared porcelain jar. Intus is
sugarcane juice. Tuba is made from the sap of wild trees. Alak is
anything made with a still and drunk in small jarlets
Drinking is an important social norm in The Sword Isles.
Drinking is usually done outside of the house, with a group of
friends, and anyone is welcome to join. It begins with the agda, which

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 is a sort of ceremony to persuade a person or the diwata to take the
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 THE BALAY, OR HOUSE

The balay is the term for all the kinds of houses in The Sword
Isles. The most common type of balay, the permament settlement, is a
kind of cottage built upon thick hardwood pillars (in the case of the
balay of Datu, sometimes maed of stone or ironwood). These square
houses are then given an attic, which is where most of the sleeping
quarters can be found. The underside of the house is tall enough to
be used as either a storage (usually for weapons or personal boats) or
for livestock, in which case they would be fenced.
It should be noted that balay are almost never bare (save for
balay-balay): keys and beams are carved with stories of animals, with
sarimanok and crocodile, with large petaled owers and blossoms.
Flowers, foliage, and gold are abundant and were used as decorations
upon a house. To the locals, these are normal. But foreign merchants
have described the balay in the Sword Isles as “gold houses” or
“ ower houses”.
There are three kinds of balay: the permanent wooden structures
that could be considered as town houses, usually housing the datu
and the kedatuan, cottages made of light materials near elds and
hunting ranges which are inhabited by most of the ordinary people,
and tree houses which are important installments during times of
war
A fourth kind of balay, known as the balay-balay, is a sort of
temporary hut structure that function as temporary shelters for
hunters, farmers, and travelers

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 TOWN HOUSES
These town houses were built upon hardwood or stone pillars,
ve to ten on a side, and planted deep into the ground with
something valuable buried under the rst one. The hardwood is so
sturdy and incorruptible that it can withstand two to three
generations of decay and storm
The oors of town houses are split into two sections by a squared
beam running lengthewise down the balay. The higher portion is
made of bamboo, rattan, or cane strips lashed together on top of a
wood grill. Liquids run down the grill, and is noisy, so respectful
members of the house must stay away from that portion of the oor
especially while the datu is sleeping.
The roofs of the town houses are made of bamboo or palm leaf
shingles lashed to heavy rattan strips, rising to a ridge pole or up to
three in larger town houses. On the attic area is where the datu might
sleep
Townhouses always have wooden ladders that lead up to the door
and might include one or many or all of the following (1d6)
1. Verandas for laundering (batalan)
2. Living spaces alongside the house (saramde)
3. A split bamboo ladder for house dogs (salugsog)
4. A decorated facade (pamulong)
5. A small room for servant (sibay)
6. A door or window large enough to pass through
(pasngawan)
A ruling datu has the largest house in the community, sometimes
30 meters long. As a town house, it not only served as their dwelling,

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 workplace and storehouse, but also a community center for civic and
religious affairs, with a public lounging platform down the front.
Wooden partitions carved with high foliage creatated separate
chambers for the datu and their family
To construct a town house large enough to entertain an entire
community was a form of competition itself
Houses of Royalty or Nobility are constructed similarly, although
not as long or as large as a Datu’s.
Lakanate houses are known for their balay-na-bato structure,
which replaces the posts and pillars of the town house with a stone
basement instead, lifting the living room to the second oor.

COTTAGES
Non-datu and kedatuan live in smaller cottages built of larger
materials, ready to be moved every few years due to shifting
swiddens. They did not stand on thick hardwood pillars and instead
had unsquared poles. These cottages can be put up almost anywhere,
and travelers, farmers, seamen, hunters, and shers all construct so
many so that they could rest within them. Well traveled roads and
river fords are choked by them due to this

TREE HOUSES
Tree houses are built during times of war, upon trees or tall posts,
ften meters from the ground. They are reachable as defensible
positions, and can contain entire families. Vines and ladders are used
to climb up it, and warriors can attack invaders from that vantage
point. These are called ilihan.

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 FAITHS OF THE SWORD ISLES

In The Sword Isles, the term for religion is Tuong. When

speaking about a particular religion, they would append the name
after it, such as Sampalataya for the Religion of Makagagahum,
Anito for the religion of the Lakanate, Hiyang for the Confederation
and Iman for the Moon Faith of the Sultanate
The differing faiths of The Sword Isles have led to a rise in even
more war in the current Skysea War. Due to the inherent belief in
Sampalataya that the Thousand Year Kingdom of Makagagahum
arrives soon, they have begun to strive to conquer all of The Sword
Isles to bring them under the Kingdom of Heaven, so that true peace
can be achieved
The followers of the Iman, the Moon faith, are just as, if not more,
zealous in protecting their beliefs and cultures from the invading
force of those from the Sampalataya. Thus they ght to keep
themselves free, as well as to keep the islands free from a single
hegemonic power
The followers of the Hiyang are forced to ght against all those
that would endanger the balance between man and nature, and
wuold in ict disharmony upon all

IDOLS AND SPIRIT HOUSES

Idols are called taotao or likha in the setting. Taotao because they
usually resemble people. Likha because they are usually created or
creations of people. The taotao are usually made out of stone, clay,
wood, or gold. They depict the various diwata and umalagad,

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 Langitnon and Suladnon, that are present throughout all of nature
and live within every single thing
Larger settlements perfume and paint their taotao. Those brahmin
of the Annuvaran brought with them ancient golden statues of Annu,
the Tranquil Sage. There are also the different bronze and jade
statues of the Tuong-Ashinin, which embody their six-armed gods,
three-headed demons, and sky-skinned deities. The faiths of The
Sword Isles accept all of these as simply the diwata of the other
nations and states
Each household has a taotao to their umalagad, or their ancestor
spirit that also acts as their guardian spirit. This is prayed to when
leaving or entering into a house
Oustide of households, there are spirit houses called lantangan,
found usually among riverbanks or before trees, or in the midst of
settlements. These lantangan usually hold a single taotao within
them, housed in a wall-less house similar to the houses of the tawo.
Offerings of unsalted food, herbs, and rice are then laid in front of
them. Larger lantangan that is made for communal worship and
offering is called a magdantang, and is usually large enough to have
multiple taotao, representing multiple spirits and gods, to reside
within them
Other taotao can be small enough to be carried on a person, as a
sort of talisman.

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 THE DAGHAN: NATURE GODS, ANCESTOR SPIRITS,

AND GUARDIAN SPIRITS
There are three primary kinds of spirits as eschewed by most of
the faiths of The Sword Isles. They live in concert with each other
and are not mutually exclusive. Altogether, spirits are known as the
Daghan, the Multitude
Nature Gods are called diwata by the people of the
Confederation, the Sultanate and the Rajahnate. Those in the
Lakanate call them dyus. They are the souls of all things, from the
sword to the tree, from the stars to the sea. Nature Gods that can be
found in the earth are Yutanon, those in the sea are Dagatnon, those
in the skies are Langitnon, and those in the underworld are
Suladnon. The most powerful Diwata are either Langitnon or
Suladnon. The Lakanate calls them Pintakasi, Patron Saint
Intercessors. Those in the Warring Sultanates believe the most
powerful of the spirits, right below the Moon Goddess herself, are
the Malak, heavenly beings of Baginda Sumongsuklay’s rays
Ancestor spirits are called umalagad in almost every vocabulary,
but they are called nuno in Ba-e and Virbanwa, the most powerful of
which are saints known as Gahumnon. They are the object of most
veneration, even more so than the nature gods, for appeasing them
can dictate the wheel of fate and the temper of nature going forward
for their dsecedants. They also bestow blessings, good fortune, and
more bene ces, as well as ill omens and male ces if they are not
appeased
Umalagad also function as guardian spirits. These are spirits that
have attached themselves onto a single person or place or object, and

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 have devoted their essence and beign to protecting and watching over
said person or item, often imbuing it with strange powers and
likenesses. Anito rituals are also performed for umalagad more so
than the diwata.
Nature Gods are strictly non-human beings, arising from nature
itself. Thus Ancestor Spirits can never be nature gods. However, they
are all worshippped as gods all the same

OFFERING AND WORSHIP

Anito is a term that can be found across the isles, meaning ritual
worship, sacri ce, or offering. The act of ritual worship therefore is
called paganito. These are carried out by priests and priestesses,
usually singing and dancing to let a spirit take over them, whether it
be nature god or ancestor spirit. And through this mediumship they
may speak with the spirits, both as the spirit’s vessel and also as the
interrogator.
Paganito does not only entail spirit possession, but can also
encompass a huge number of communal rituals, such as the killing of
a sacri ce to offer as an appeasement to the spirits, and much more

KAHIYANGAN
All spirits have two states of being: kahiyangan, which means
“state of agreeableness or harmony,” and hindi hiyang, which means
a “state of disharmony, of disagreeableness, of allergy.
Kahiyangan is characterized by a state of tranquility and
peacefulness. The entity would be in essence peaceful, at one with

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 their chosen state of being. Like the calm wind on a cold morning, as
all things should be
Hindi Hiyang is characterized by a state of disharmony, wildness,
chaos, and belligerence. There is something causing the spirit to be
violent, to lash out at what’s causing them ill, whatever it may be.
This is like a harsh howling wind when one wakes up in the middle of
a storm. A spirit, whether they be guardian, nature god, or ancestor
spirit, if left for too long in this state, will gestate into yawa
To appease these gods and spirits, certain rites and passages must
be performed, to give fealty and offerings to these gods. The
Paghiyang, which the Confederation are known to perform, is the
ritual of turning Hindi Hiyang back into Kahiyangan.

YAWA AND BUSAW

A diwata that is not appeased with Paghiyang, or left to fester in
their Hindi Hiyang state, are wont to turn into Yawa. While Yawa
can emerge on their own wholesale from atrocities and acts of grave
unnaturality, more powerful yawa come from diwata left to their state
of disharmony
We must all live in concert with the spirits
Busaw are a different kind of demon altogether: they are wont to
live within tawo societies, with the ability to disguise themselves as
humans, but they are known to in truth be endish ogres that hunt
down vulnerable men and women to satiate their need for esh. This,
however, is Iman and Sampalataya prejudice. In truth, good busaw
can exist among evil busaw. They are, however, inherently non-
human, and truly are demons that live in deep jungle settlements

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 Busaw are known to be large and have more than one set of arms.
They generally wear similar clothing to tawo, but their heads and
faces are like tusked tigers

COSMOLOGY AND THE AFTERLIFE

The faiths of The Sword Isles generally share similar cosmological
beliefs, and that has formed much of the culture. The basic belief is
that the world is tripartite, as almost all things are. On top is the
Overworld, at the bottom is the Underworld, and in the middle is the
Midworld.

THE OVERWORLD
Kaluwalhatian in Anito and Hiyang, Langit in Sampalataya, and
Surgu in Iman. This is generally the abode of angels, heavenly beings,
the sun, the moon, the stars, and in Langit and Surgu, the highest of
its layers is the throne of god, whether it be Makagagahum or
Baginda Sumongsuklay. The general belief is that the sky is
composed of seven layers, and the blue sky we see everyday is the
seventh and lowest layer
As one moves higher, one will nd jars lled with souls of those
worthy to be in the sky as well as those as of yet to be born. Here live
angels and other heavenly beings, as well as powerful priests and
priestesses conversing with the spirits of the sky.
Even further up, one nds gates that bar the path between layers,
guarded by eagle gods known as Garuda, who are headed by Galura,
the Bringer of Storms. None has been able to travel to the upper

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three layers of the Skyworld just yet. However, the Sun and Moon
can both be found on the fth layer of the heavens

THE MIDWORLD
The land where man lives, known across the isles as Kalibutan.
This not only includes land and earth, but also the rivers and the seas
used to connect the land together. Kalibutan is composed of three
layers: the layer of air (Kahanginan), the layer of land (Kalupaan),
and the layer of sea (Kalaotan). Man is made to live in Kalupaan, and
there are other creatures that live in the Kahanginan and Kalaotan

THE AFTERWORLD
Sulad in Anito and Hiyang. Kalaliman in Sampalataya. Narka in
Iman. The Afterworld is composed of 7 different layers as well, and
the caverns of the world are the seventh and highest layer. Deeper
within are the rivers that lead to the layers of the dead, where those
that are not worthy of moving into the Sky (usually because thay did
not die in battle, or did not have enough wealth as judged by
Underworld gods, or committed taboos in the past) live and work
and rest, in the cold burrows of earthen villages. They do everything
they did as in life, except bear children. They live for seven lifetimes
until they are buried in a rice-grain sized cof n
Deeper still one can nd gates guarded by giants and ogres,
barring entry. There is a layer for torture and punishment, as
atonement for the sins accrued upon the Midworld. There is a layer
where the river washes away the memories of a person, so that their

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 soul can then be placed into porcelain jars that become new people in
the Midworld.
Iraon-Daron, the diwata of saving lost souls, is known to venture
deep into the layers of the Afterworld to save those that deserve a
better afterlife
One of the layers holds the earth pillars of the Midworld. They
are held up by four earth giants. When the earth giants are angered
or threatened, Midworld quakes
At the bottom is the throne of the two gods of hell. None know
anything about them

ANITO
The most prevalent religion amongst the isles, so embedded it is
into daily life that it is hardly considered a religion, and thought of
more as a way of life. Anito translates to worship
Anito is the faith in the inherent divinity of nature. It ascribes that
nature is the true law, and that upon the weaves of nature all life
arises. This belief in nature encompasses the fact that diwata, nature
spirit-gods, live within every single thing, and embody them as well.
As a tawo would have a kalag, or a soul, so would a tree have a
diwata. If a person was removed of their kalag, they would become
an unfeeling husk of their former self, not truly them. So too would a
tree be, if their diwata would be removed. A tree that is not truly a
tree
Diwata are ubiquitous creatures, permeating and living upon the
air, the leaves, the shadows and the trees. They believe that the most
powerful diwata live in the Sky and in the Underworld. Those that
live in the sky, living within broad concepts and celestial objects, are

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 known as the Langitnon. Similarly, those that live within concepts of

the afterlife and subterranean objects are known as the Suladnon.
Those that live in the earth, the most numerous of them, are the
Yutanon, and those in the sea are Dagatnon
Umalagad are the main target of adoration, even more so than the
Diwata. Umalagad are ancestors turned into gods and worshipped.
They become Paganitohan
All creatures worth worship are known as the paganitohan. Thus
the collective name for anything worshipped, whether they be a
diwata holy power or an umalagad ancestor god, is paganitohan
Priests and priestesses of the Anito are called balyan. Wise men
that provide counsel are known as parawali. A single settlement
always has more than three balyan, sometimes even competing with
each other. The head balyan of a settlement is called a Katuuran
Some of principal paganitohan are
1. Indira Suga, the Sun Matriarch, who lives in the Sun. First of
her name, goddess of war and conquest, patron of datu and kings.
Worshipped as Indra and Dyaus Pater in other regions, considered
the wife of Hari, the Preserver God of Ramahasa. She is the wife that
brought the rst mortals to earth
2. Jamiyun Kulisa, the Thunderbolt Father, who lives in the
Clouds, Thunder, and Lightning. Splitter of the sea, he once in a spat
killed Indira Suga, his beloved sister, and thus was the region of that
cosmos ended
3. Maharani Gumamela, the Hibiscus Maiden of Compassion
and Love, who lives in owers and happenings of love. Love is thy
poison, lest thy servants bestow upon thee compassion. All owers can never
become steel, unless you rst cut your pistil.

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 4. Mahadiwa Tala Kinabanaagan, the Bronze Multiplicitous

Sidereal Steward of Stars, who lives in the Morning Star. Mahadiwa
are the ten great wisdom goddesses that grant enlightenment to those
that seek hiyang. She is known to lead the 180 Holy Stars of Tala,
where she is the rider of the main war barge, leading 180 other war
barges and Diwata cloaked within palanquins. She is seen as the
watcher of earth, and many modern parawali see her as the mirror
image of Mahadiwa Kalakatri Duumanun
5. Lawana Sinigida, the Bloody Hand of Justice, who lives in the
venom forced by retribution. Sister to Kalakatri, great warrior of
revenge and vengeance. Shame to them that go not on revenge raids. They
surely shall become disenfranchised, lambasted and hated by their ancestors,
who now grovel upon blackened soil, unpure, unclean, uncharred from the sins,
they toil and they toil in the eternal lands
6. Dakhari Barangaw, the Rainbow Suzerain, who lives in
victory. The king of victory who has a silk jacket, bahag, gown, and
sarong made up entirely of rainbows, melting seamlessly into the
clouds. Said to be in good terms with Apung Makangayaw, and the
two treat each other like brothers.
7. Apung Makangayaw, the Bandit Monarch of Raiding, who
lives in piracy. Popular and one of the most worshipped of the
diwata, Apung Makangayaw is known as Baruna, Kadalon, and
Suiten in other regions. He patrols the seas, and has control over
them, and can cause raids to go bad or good
8. Apu Batara Balatik, the Arbalest Sovereign of Hunting, who
lives in the moment of a hunter’s target’s death. Rich and stoic, he
makes sure that no animals are hunted to extinction. Woe to they that
hunt these manifestations of hiyang, of bliss, of enlightement, to extinction!

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 Their kine and kith shall not last ever long. Cast forlorn regrets, they are too
late for the ballista has been red.
9. Buyung Sinagmali, the First Light of Dawn, who lives in the
darkest portion of dawn, at the cusp of all beginnings. Warrior and
enemy of Si Labawanun Humadapdap
10. Mahadiwa Rajatambal, the Lord of Remedies, who lives in
the mending of wounds and unfading scars. One of the ten
Mahadiwa, who give knowledge of healing to all traditions and
cultures
11. Si Dapa, the Magnate of Life, who lives in legendary
mountain of Madjaas, as well as in the time of birth and deaths of all
people. Known as Sarip Apad in other regions, he is not a very well
known diwata, and really prefers to stay in his mountain
12. Si Patpat Nagakapal, the Clay Former Monarch, who lives in
all things being created. Said to be the one to have created the World
Jaws with his wife, Malaonsina, who died after the world was made
13. Si Gurang Tungko, the One Who Holds the Sky Pillars, who
lives at the borders of the horizon. He wanders the earth in search of
his wife. Said to be the grandfather of Jamiyun Kulisa and Indira
Suga
14. Somarajah Daktul, also known as Gab’ibata, or the Child of
Night, the most worshipped deity in the cosmos, the Peerless Shifting
Lunar Overlord, who lives within the Moon, patron of witches and
asuwang
15. Idda Mangubat, the Sovereign of War, who lives in the hearts
of warriors all. Warrior who blesses all heroes on all journeys, for he
thrives in war and war only. Was said to have been able to kill the
diwa of death itself, but was shown a world he could not bear.

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 16. Si Labawanun Hamadapdap, ancestor god-hero of the isles,

patron of heroes. Fought Buyung Sinagmali and collected many
wives from heaven, hell, and the various regions of the earth
17. Si Ginarugan, slaver of souls, god of the underworld, he who
facilitates the reincarnation of the dead. All things must come to an
end
18. Iraon Daron, the savior of souls, who delivers those that
deserve a better fate than Sulad to the tops of holy mountains, where
they rest
19. Mahadiwa Kalakatri Duumanun. Commonly knwn as
Kaliginida, Kinaduum, and Gulongan (of the Wheel). She is the
enlightened Suladnon of Murder. Killer of men. Sister of Lawana
Sinigida, and is said to be the Scorched Manifestation of Mahadiwa
Tala Kinabanaagan. If Tala is the stars, then Kalakatri is the darkness
in between the brightness. Ever the stars spin, in a sea of black. Pity, to the
Blackened One, may she never know peace. All she will seek and all she will nd
is violence. Kalakatri laughs. She spins the wheel, forged from the skeletons of
the men she has murdered.
20. Uray Malaonsina. The Diwata of Homes and Wives. She ed
heaven after her husband, Si Nagakapal, struck her. Si Nagakapal
believes her to be dead, but she is in truth living among mortals
21. Kadlaganpono Okot. The Lord of all Forests. While each
forest has their own diwata, Kadlaganpono Okot is the yutanon of
the concept of forests themselves. The kahoynon, the spirits of the trees,
and the banwanun, the spirits of the land, pay fealty to him, and to him alone.
Ever whistles the trees, thanks to him, as sound is the ever-present piercer of
reality, the ultimate metaphysical form. Worshipped as Yanarani,
Kinarahari, and Tattiriya

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 22. Rajaraya Pintas. The Vanquishing Lord, who seized heaven.
The rst Rajah, the rst Raider, and the rst Feaster. Rejoicer in
violence, worshipped in other lands as Vashvana, Bischumon, and
Kuvira.

The main tenet in Anito is the concept of the Hundred Thousand

Paganitohan, The Daghan. This is a concept that means that
everything has a soul, whether it be a nature god or an ancestor
spirit. Some ancestor spirits guard particular rivers or seas or houses
or trees, while other times a diwata lives within a particularly
important river or lake. Oftentimes stones or trees are gradually
weathered to look like the spirit that guards them. In this manner, an
ancient warrior’s soul becomes a stone standing by a river mouth,
which vaguely has the shape of said warrior
Diwata are more than just spirits and gods. They are
manifestations and personi cations of concepts, natures. They both
live in the thing they personify, and they are the thing they personify,
at the same time. There are two kinds of diwata: Bound Diwata and
Unbound Diwata. Bound Diwata are usually bound to a particular
place that they personify, such as a particular tree, a forest, a cliff
face, a river, etc. Unbound Diwata travel, and can fall inhumanly in
love with humans to sire children, and can cause good and evil upon
mortals.
Anito has been in uenced greatly by both the Ashinin faith. In
the ancient of days, Auraska bhikkhu arrived on the shores of The
Sword Isles to spread the word of the Ashinin during the rise of Ba-e.
The faith of Anito does not depend on grand stone temples and
structures like those of Naksuwarga, Ramahasa, and Virbanwa. The

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 tenets of Anito state that nature itself is a temple enough: no

cathedral can match the grandeur of a mountain peak splitting the
clouds. No moske can match the majesty of an untouched temple
tree, growing so large that entire congregations and rituals can be
held within. No grand temple nor tower can match the brilliance of
the sun as it rises, or the moon as it crests over the horizon. Examples
of this are Mount Madyaas, the tallest mountain in the Gatusan
region, which reaches heaven, and the Four Great Daknunuk, the
Pagoda Trees wherein the four dragon guardians of the isle sleep
The adherents of Anito believe that when a person of particular
power, such as a datu, is killed because of an ailment, that it was the
doing of the diwata and umalagad. Thus they prepare an equal
sacri ce to the diwata--usually a large number of debtors offered
during a feast--to appease the diwata, which have been perhaps
incensed by something the datu had done
When someone is hanging on for dear life, a balyan coterie are
quick to perform healing paganito, powerful healing rituals that try to
return the stamina and health of a person back, usually because of
diwata stealing their life force away or some other demon infesting
their soul. If that fails, there is a resurrection paganito performed,
called the pag-uli, which is done by placing a coconut shell on the
stomach, with those of higher classes have debtors sacri ced as well.
Debtors are sacri ced violently, and this is the way because it is
believed that those of higher classes, usually datu, were haunted by
the vengeful dead of those they had vanquished. The only way to
appease them was through a similarly violent sacri ce.
In the end if it does not work, funerals are arranged. Mourning is
a somber affair, with the bereaved family offering food and all.

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 Professional mourners sang dirges, eulogizing the dead. Lower

classes are buried wrapped in banana leaves, while higher classes are
placed into intricately carved hardwood cof ns called longon. These
are then buried underneath the house. Secondary burial are also a
practice, exhuming the bones of the buried and then placing them
into porcelain dragon jars. Datu, however, have their own tombs, and
sometimes a guardsman would be charged to guard it for life from
robbers and asuwang, known as a dayo

CREATION: VIOLENC
In the beginning of time, there was one God-King, and two God
Beings. This God-King was known as Manaul, the great eagle. The
other two God Beings were Kaptan, the God of Bedrock, and
Magwayan, God of the Waters. One day, they claimed superiority
over each other, but of course neither would acknowledge the other’s
superiority. Thus they warred, the universal arbitrator. The two
fought in whirlwinds and crashing storms. Eventually, God-King
Manaul ew to a high mountain overlooking the waters and dropped
great masses of rock upon the gods, killing them. The masses of rock
became The Sword Isles. With the end of the war, Manaul traveled
down to a clump of bamboo and struck it open, where Si-Laki and
Si-Bayi, the rst man and woman, leapt out from

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 HIYANG
Hiyang can be seen as an offshoot or a branch of Anito, as it has
much of the same cosmogony and cosmology of Anito, and simply
has a greater emphasis on the principle of Hiyang and holds
importance upon material practices and ritual upon the world.
Hiyang means harmony or agreement
The Hiyang is the faith in Hiyang--that state of perfect
equilibirum and oneness with nature. They believe that katawohan
was not meant to be treated as separate from the rest of nature, and
that they are in fact simply part of nature, and everything they do is
natural.
Con ict comes into play when there is disharmony, the breaking
of the Hiyang. When Hiyang is broken, malevolence abounds.
Therein lies sickness, war, death, ailments, and even Yawa, which in
truth do arise from human atrocities
In matters of cosmology and cosmogony, they share many of the
same beliefs as Anito, with the added belief that the diwata and
Langitnon and Suladnon are all simply expressions of Hiyang, and
thus must be supplicated to and appeased whenever there is a
disharmony.
Those that attain a certain kind of enlightenment with the Hiyang
become known as Makinaadmanon, the Wise Ones. These
Makinaadmanon become physically one with nature, hair turned into
leaves, ngers into branches. They are sages that teach young
practitioners
The truth of the Yawa come from them: Yawa is nature disrupted,
Hiyang destroyed. In places where Hiyang is broken, there arise

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 outliers and fell creatures: undead beings, malevolent engkanto, and

the antithesis to diwata: the yawa. Writhing multicolor beings of an
inky substance, who speak in languages unknowable and have
unfathomable desires
Hiyang is destroyed due to man’s hubris and recklessness. In their
striving for war, wealth, justice, honor, and whatever petty squabbles
they might have, they force killings upon land supposed to be holy,
massacre in front of the eyes of the diwata, and perform other such
sacrilege that forces nature to be destroyed.
The many landmarks and natural shrines revered by Hiyang are
also revered by Anito: the perfect cone volcano of Mount Magayong,
for example, wherein Magayong Masukiling resides.
The ancient Yamakuta balete tree in the island of Budugan is
another, so large that it has a natural library within, housing
thousands of palm leaf scrolls. Its roots grow and choke an ancient
brass Annu statue, which was brought there by ancient Annuvara
biksu.
The Iyam Lake in Rusunuga is still considered a holy place. There
live a society of diwata ruled over by a slumbering buwaya king. The
waters of the lake are said to have healing properties.
Another is the underground river of Kinuyo, where live beautiful
spirit maidens that hold golden silk thread that cannot be cut
The Pannai League is assembled about one of the grand holy
mountains of The Sword Isles: the Holy Mountain of Madjaas, where
the gods live. There, they say, Sri Dapa etches upon the Tree of Life
the number of days for every mortal born. They believe in a whole
pantheon of gods, as well as minor gods, that live within every single
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 They are connected by rivers and the sea, and once a harvest they
all send pilgrimages to the base of the holy mountain of Madjaas to
offer prayers and thanks. The most elder of them, usually priests and
priestesses, would also nish a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain of
Kanlaon, found deep in the island of Haraya, a day northeast. There,
the Ancient One lives
While there are many different ways for Hiyang to be disrupted--
usually as dictated by the diwata of that place, as they are the
expressions of Hiyang--there is a common thread among them that
Hiyang priests have collated and written upon palm leaf manuscripts,
usually known as the Rites of Accord. They are as follows
● Violence upon sacred ground
● Unjust taking of too many resources without letting
nature regroew it rst
● Being too loud in sacred groves and mountains
● Slaughter in sacred grounds
● Filling nature with dirt and other leftover wastes
● Not offering the rst food or rst shot to the diwata
● Blaspheming the name of the ancestors and of nature
Hiyang priests are known as Walian, ritualists and saints of the
Hiyang
Upon the matter of temples, adherents of Hiyang believe similarly
with the adherents of Anito: that no other temple can match the
grandeur of nature itself.
Hiyang tradition--which is all oral, as with Anito, although
teachings of sages are written down on palm leaf manuscripts--states
that building large temples for the gods is inherently destructive, as

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 the gods do not need that as they already live within nature itself,
their self-made temples.
Using materiel from another place and then forcing them into
shapes wholly human is anathema to the adherents of Hiyang
In addition to spirit houses, adherents of the Hiyang put up
Pintuang-hiyang. Arched gates of bamboo and hardwood, usually
decorated with ve different kinds of owers, that serve as a gate into
the world of spirits.
When one steps into such a gate, one is in a divine place.
Pintuang-hiyang are usually placed in front of large natural altars
and shrines, such as mountains, giant trees, hallowed lakes, and
blessed rivers, which all have diwata living within them
Once you have passed a Pintuang-hiyang, you are expected to
observe the Rites of Accord, lest they dishonor and anger the beings
that live within.
Adherents of Hiyang are also predisposed to become exorcists,
those that would ght off yawa and cleanse places of yawa
infestations. Due to their natural knowledge and observance of the
Hiyang, they become more attuned to nding out breaks and tears in
the balance, helping nd out whether a yawa has caused something
bad to happen or not.
In recent times, Walian and Balyan have begun to put up
monasteries around The Sword Isles. Small settlements are usually
built around or at the base of important natural sites, such as the
great mountains and the temple trees. These monasteries teach
natural philosophy and other elds of knowledge to young children,
helping them grow up to become monks, known as biksu or biksuni,

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 or to give them specialized knowledge in elds they otherwise might

not get

CREATION: ARRIVING FROM MIST

In the beginning of time, there was nothing but Mist. This
primordial mist was made up of pure potential, and was not air.
There were two Gods: Tungkung Langit and Alunsina. In their love,
they created the earth and the ve elements spun from the potential
of the mists. And then, up on the highest space, they created a grand
one-hundred roofed palace, which they lived in and watched over.
One day, Tungkung Langit became fed up with Alunsina’s
laziness and vanity, and struck her. In her anger, she ed. Tungkung
Langit eventually regretted this, and so man became prone to regret.
He created the great mirror in the space below in the midworld,
which became the Sea, so that he would be able to nd his love again,
but he could never see Alunsina.
He would sail across the sea of clouds, but never see Alunsina
again. In his frustration, he created the earth, and the jewelry of
Alunsina became the sun, moon, and stars. Even so, Alunsina never
returned to him. When the skies thunder and rain, it is Tungkung
Langit’s regretful tears

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 SAMPALATAYA
The Ashen Star Faith. The Sampalataya espouses one major
doctrine: that all things are under Makagagahum, the Almighty, and
that Makagagahum returns soon in the body of the Prophet
Maitresiya, who brings with him Forlorn Eschatology and Rapture.
Sampalataya means faith
Maitresiya is also a king, a Hari, who brings with him the Yukot-
Langit Kingdom. This Milennium Kingdom, which comes from the
heavens, is said to be the salvation from the nal days. All those that
follow Makagagahum will be brought into this Kingdom and then
sent into the highest heavens, to live in eternity with him.
This is the main thesis of the Sampalataya. They say that after the
Yukot-Langit Kingdom has been established, Makagagahum the
Destroyer, known as Makaubos, will descend upon Yutadagat and
raze it all with a blade of light. No more valleys of tears. No more
islands of bloodshed
Those that follow the Sampalataya believe in the Almighty,
known as Makagagahum, and his three aspects: The Creator known
as Maykapal, the Preserver, the Equalizer known as Makapatag, and
the Destroyer known as Makaubos. These three Aspects are
sometimes revered on their own right, and cults have grown around
them. Death cults and murder cults sprout from worship of
Makaubos, while many panday see Maykapal as a patron god of
sorts
Sampalataya is an amalgamation and successful syncretism of the
native faith system, which was similar to Anito, and with the
Issohappan religion that worshipped the Umnipot, the Almighty

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 God. It is worth noting that those that lived in the settlements before
the Lakanate already believed in a supreme god, whom they called
Makagagahum.
However, when the Issohappan faith arrived, they were forced to
accept the faith, which was then used to cow the many warriors and
turn them into sheep. After the Revolution, the Umnipotism stayed,
but was then quickly syncretized with local religion and faith and
belief, thus creating Sampalataya.
From Umnipotism, Sampalataya evolved intricate worship rituals,
created devotees, a priesthood was born, and stone cathedrals with
the images of the Three Aspects of Makagagahum were erected.
Devotees would spend the seventh day of each quarter-moon in the
cathedrals, called simbahan, wherein they performed rituals and
engaged in worship.
Sampalataya uses a holy book known simply as the Usangaklat,
otherwise known as the One Book. From the Usangaklat, which is
inherited from the Issohappan religion, there is a cosmogony and
cosmology.
It teaches how Makagagahum was everpresent, and was the
prime substance. Out of loneliness and love, he split into three
powerful spiritual beings that eventually became his three aspects,
and how it ended with him having to ght his three aspects to
consume them once again, to become whole. He left the world then,
and was only to return when the time is correct, so that the
Maitresiya can usher in the Kingdom of Peace
The Mahapari is equal to the pope, and is the prime counselor of
the Batara Lakan, the divinely appointed Lakan of the Lakanate,

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 descended from a holy bloodline said to have come from the rst man
that stepped out of the bamboo.
The Tuong-Gahum’s Commandments are two, and are ubiquitous
and subject to much philosophical discourse: Love others as you love
yourself and Love the Almighty more than yourself. This has given a
rise to a particularly zealous brand of Kadungganan that would
gladly die for their nation and their god
Worship of Makagagahum is not facilitated through simple
prayer, for Makagagahum is so far away from tawo that they would
not deem to listen. Instead, for prayers to be heeded by the Almighty,
one needs to speak and pray and offer to the one of many Pintakasi,
saint intercessors of Makagagahum. They constitute a pantheon of
13, embodying major aspects of Lakanate life. When prayers are
given to these Pintakasi, they bene t from the offering and then
deliver the beseechments to Makagagahum on high, who will then
decide whether or not to grant it
Lakanate Priests are known as pari, and they focus on speaking
and facilitating rituals to Makagagahum and the Pintakasi, as well as
conducting weekly masses, a liturgical Service Divine for the
Almighty. Due to this, balyan still exist alongside pari to facilitate
rituals for the diwata. Bishops are known as Sonat, and they
primarily exist to train more pari in districts.
Below is the list of 12 major Pintakasi that one can offer to
1 Ahom Kalake. The Pintakasi of the Sun, patron of warriors
2 Bwan Kabayi. The Pintakasi of the Moon, patron of
revolutionaries
3 Gattalim. The Pintakasi of Blades, patron of panday

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 4 Hiyas Ilsabat. The Pintakasi of Rarity and Beauty, patron of

jewelers
5 Dayang Gilunas. The Pintakasi of Healing, patron of
healers
6 Puwang-Puwang. The Pintakasi of Space and Time, patron
of travelers
7 Gatmakasampu. The Pintakasi of Fertility and Harvests,
patron of farmers
8 Munatilyo. The Pintakasi of Civilization, patron of
counselors
9 Diyan Masalanta. The Pintakasi of Lovers and Childbirth,
patron of mothers
10 Kabli. The Pintakasi of the Bow and Harpoon, patron of
hunters
11 Hayik. The Pintakasi of the Sea, patron of seamen
12 Linggabakod. The phallic Pintakasi of Borders, patron of
cities
Sampalataya is often considered one of the most important
aspects of Lakanate life. Each Lakanate village is built around a
cathedral or chapel, to the side of which would stand the Datu’s
longhouse. Due to this importance, priests also have a larger pull of
in uence when it comes to politics

CREATION: FORMING FROM BAMBO

In the beginning of time, when there was no earth, Makagagahum
cried. His tears became the fresh water, and upon the freshwater he
laid the corpse of Ulila, the orphaned serpent god. This body became
the earth. Before the earth was a vast expanse of sky and sea

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 Upon the fresh water, Makagagahum plucked out a piece of

oating bamboo from the waters. When he placed it by the banks of
the freshwaters, he heard a voice calling out from within.
When he opened the bamboo, out came two beings: Malakas and
Maganda, the rst man and woman. Makagagahum gave Malakas
and Maganda permission to rule over the world, and to procreate
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 IMAN
The Moon Faith believes in the sovereignty of the Lunar
Empress, the Moon Goddess Baginda Sumongsuklay. Through Her,
freedom and peace is achieved. “Masi’nag tuud in Baginda.” Her
Majesty is Luminous, the rallying cry for many priests and warrior
saints. Iman means Faith in the people of the current’s language
Iman came to the islands through Sihkandag, a young woman
wreathed in the Jambangan Monsala, the ower kerchief. Sihkandag
became fast friends with the Rajah of the island of Siga, Rajah Akai.
She served as his prime counselor and in exchange was able to
spread the religion of the moon goddess to the isles, which was
eventually accepted and turned into the state religion of the Sultanate
after Rajah Akai conquered and cowed the surrounding settlements
of his sons and became the Sultan. He then eventually married
Sihkandag, and approved--maybe even encouraged--the coming of
missionaries and pandita wise men to the islands of the Sultanate
The basis of Iman is still a reverence in nature, although they, like
the Sampalataya, put a much greater importance upon the worship of
Sumongsuklay. Temples built for Sumongsuklay are called moske,
and they are usually crafted in a distinct geometrical style, out of
white marble and clay and stone. These moskes are architectural
marvels, upon which even travelers bow
Those that follow the Iman adhere to speci c taboos and rituals:
the forbidding of eating pork, the loss of tattooing, the ritual act of
not butchering meat.
Priests and priestesses are in charge of facilitating ritual worship
and masses every week. They facilitate the building of moskes in

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every major settlement, as well as teach young children in the ways of

the Iman. Iman priests are still known as balyan, as with Anito, but a
higher kind of priest known as a siyak acts as a missionary and
bishop that spreads the truth of the Baginda. Additionally, pandita
wisefolk are those that might not exactly be priests (although they
can be), but are more well known for their knowledge and ability to
teach, as well as their expertise in esotery and mysticism
From a young age, adherents of the Iman are taught the
importance of the worship of Baginda Sumongsuklay, and how one
cannot worship any other being except for her. Additionally, at every
major point in the day ( rst light of dawn, sunrise, noon, and sunset)
and before going to sleep at night, one must bow heads to the
direction of Gitungan, the Holy Tomb of the First Prophet-Saint of
Baginda Sumongsuklay, Ayah Menat.
The most important aspect of Iman life are the Divine Strivings:
things in life they must make their lifestyle to be proper adherents of
Iman and proper mirrors of Baginda Sumongsuklay’s light. There are
four Divine Strivings:
- The Striving to Holiness, which is their striving to overcome the
lower self, perfect their bodies, and reach communion with the
Moon by following the tenets of Iman
- The Striving to the Sword, which is their striving to perfect their
martial prowess to protect what is theirs and other blasphemers
- The Striving to Puri cation, which is their striving to cleanse the
land of evil and darkness, injustice, oppression and the works of the
Malaikat demons
- The Striving to Truth, which is their striving to achieve
truthfulness and to spread the knowledge of the Baginda.

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 Many adherents of the Iman make it a life goal to be able to travel

to the Continent and to the lands of Qaliba, where the Holy Tomb
Gitungan is erected as a massive square stone edi ce of perfect
geometry. This pilgrimage is an integral part of the faith, and is said
to be a helpful step in reconnecting with the Baginda. The goal of the
Iman, after all, is to achieve closeness with the divinity. An
impossibility now made possible due to the example and sacri ces of
the Prophet Ayah Menat
Adherents of Iman espouse and exalt perfect numbers and
geometry, each one said to be a little glimpse of the true divinity of
Baginda Sumongsuklay. Due to this, many of the Sultanate’s
architecture and textiles make use of intricate geometric patterns, of
squares and circles
The religion of the people of the Sultanate before the coming of
Sikhandag was more or less similar to Anito, as they were closer to
the heart of the empire and were much more involved in their trade.
Their words for things still re ect their ancient, pre-Iman religion,
and to this day some consider them as jinn, spirits upon the world
• Indara is their word for the highest sky, and is the name of the
Siganon God of the Sky
• Bayhu is their word for monsoon winds, and is the name of the
Siganon God of the Winds
• Api is their word for re, and is the name of the Siganon God of
Fire
• Suga is their word for the Sun, and is the name of the Siganon
God of the Sun.
Until this day, the concept of diwata still lives on in Iman.
However they are not supplicated or worshipped to, simply given

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 offerings and treated like other humans and members of the greater
world. Baginda Sumongsuklay is believed to be the greatest of the
diwata, although some pandita contest that categorizing her as one is
an inherent heresy to her nature of being the one above all,
transcendent of natural categories
Many adherents give themselves up to the faith. Thus the practice
of pagsabil, the act of holy rage. This is done in supreme obeisance
and bloody worship of Baginda Sumongsuklay, and acts as their nal
sacri ce, as pagsabil is usually seen as a sort of ritual sacri ce. When
one performs a sabil, they reach heaven through violence: they are
invested with the trappings of one to be buried, and anointed with oil.
And then, they go into the battle with the purpose of dying and
bringing as many as they can with them.
Moskes built by panditas have become a hub for knowledge, with
culture and religion coming in from Naksuwarga, Baik Hu,
Malirawat, and Iyamat. Through them, many new technology,
known as Agham, is accrued, which is then reverse-engineered by the
pandita. A majority of Aghaman, people who study and construct
these advanced technologies, come from the Iman. Not only because
of the Sultanate’s access to the Agham (as the Lakanate and
Rajahnate are privy to trade with them as well), but because of the
Tuong-Bulan’s insistenec and teaching that all technology is a
supreme act of emulation of Baginda Sumongsuklay’s divinity, who
created the universe
War and raiding are integral parts to the Sultanate. These aspects
are not dampened by the Iman: Ayah Menat teaches that violence
begets violence, and that there is no way to leave this circle except for
oneness with the Baginda. Thus, to achieve true peace, noble

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 sacri ces must be made, in order to bring all under the lovely
closeness of the Baginda. With the coming of the Lakanate, which try
to push forth their faith as the only good faith, adherents of Iman
push forth, bolstered by their zeal and empowered by the rays of the
moon.
Baginda Sumongsuklay, as taught by Ayah Menat, is the moon
because the moon was the rst piece of light in the midst of darkness,
and thus why it is the brightest thing in the night sky. The sun is
simply an extension of the moon’s gleam, bringing with it day.
Baginda Sumongsuklay exists, then, as a counteracting force
against the encroaching tides of oblivion, which is what the ink of
night is. Baginda Sumongsuklay is both the creator and the
preserver, and in Her holy majesty, we must all be, so that the war
against oblivion can end, and the Baginda can ascend with her
creations to eternity

CREATION: ENGENDERING BY THE BLACK

EE
In the ancient of days, there was Baginda Sumongsuklay. They
had an offspring, named Anak. Anak was given the earth to frolick
and live upon. However, one day, Anak felt horribly lonely, and
asked Baginda to create a companion. They did so, forming out of
clay their rst companion, alongside a slew of devils, dwarfs, and
giants.
This companion was named Indung. Anak was elated and played
with Indung, and Indung could ascend to heaven whenever he
needed. He became jealous of Anak’s powers, and reasoned to kill
him, and eventually to kill Baginda. He spoke with the devils, dwarfs

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 and giants and said that Indung was the true offspring of Baginda.
The devils, dwarfs, and giants all believed him. With a golden sword,
Indung and the creatures attacked Anak while he slept
But re came from heaven and destroyed Indung, charring him
black and burning off all limbs. The Golden Sword of Indung ew
into a mountain, and was lost. All the devils, dwarfs, and giants ed
to the mountains, the trees, the rocks, and the depths of the sea, and
that is why creatures hide
Anak pushed Indung into the waters, and Indung became the rst
eel. Now alone once again, Baginda gave Anak more companions:
this time, from cracked clay, came two companions. Laki and Baye,
who were identical in all but name. This made Anak happy again, but
Anak told them that they cannot eat from the areca palm
Laki and Baye were eventually told by Indung, by the shore of
their land, to eat the areca palm because they will learn many good
things. Curious, they both ate it. And when they did, Laki was cursed
with a penis and larger body, while Baye was cursed with breasts and
vagina. Angered, Anak left the earth forevermore.
But Laki and Baye were powerful, they gathered enough Gahum
and used their newfound knowledge to gain true enlightenment, and
they became the two rst Gods: Diyamiyon Kulisat, Brother
Thunderbolt, and Indira Suga, Mother Sun

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 THE TRANSCENDENT DICHOTOMY AND ON
MATTERS OF THE SOUL

The summary and soul of the Hiyang is this: the Transcendent

Dichotomy of ISA and WALA. As sung by Walian Prakash Arsiya
Together, they are called Sambuo (SAM-BU-OH), which
translates to "One Whole".
Written by the sage Datu Sri Manawari, he put forth what he
thinks is the metaphysics of all things in Yutadagat. So far, he is
believed to be the closest one to the truth, short of con rmation from
the diwata. But for the Daghan, what the "truth of the world" is is
much less important
He states as thus: all things are in two states at all times: the state
of KAISAHAN, unity with ISA, and the state of KAWALAN, or
adherence to WALA. KAISAHAN is harmony with all things, while
KAWALAN is disharmony with all things (in other words, harmony
with nothingness)
He then begins to state that all this is not a strict binary, but
rather, a sliding scale. All creatures, when they are born, are in the
middle of ISA and WALA, in a state known as KALAGITNAAN, or
centered. This is actually a very neutral state, but it is not a state of
excellence
By performing duties and ful lling the responsibilities of your job,
your destiny, or your chosen path in life, you move closer to
KAISAHAN, oneness with all things. As you move closer to
KAISAHAN, you nd that the things you are destined to do become
easier, and with oneness, you achieve happiness, elation, and peace

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 But as you do things that are irresponsible of your chosen path, or

things that actively destroy yourself (and by consequence, those
around you), you edge deeper into the cliff of KAWALAN. As you
are in KAWALAN, things become harder for yourself: you lose the
will to perform, you become as stagnant as the swamp air, you
become unambitious and feel worse and worse. The heaviness in your
heart only strengthens
This is the transcendent dichotomy. Datu Sri Manawari believes
that beasts and ora actually nd it much easier to attain
KAISAHAN, due to their intrinsic nature being preternaturally
disposed to ISA
On the matters of the tawo soul, Datu Sri Manawari puts forth
that there are actually two parts to the soul: the KALAG or the
higher soul, and the KALULUWA or the lower soul/second soul.
When it comes to beasts and ora, however, they have a
KALULUWA as their base soul, attuned to ISA. They then have a
higher soul, the DIWATA, the God-Living-Within, which gives them
their quality. For example, a Boar Diwata is what gives a Boar their
Boar-like quality, manifesting as a boar’s giant form, or a tree diwata
manifesting as little kahoynon
The DIWATA can fall into either spectrum of ISA or WALA. If
they are in ISA, they are in the state commonly known as
KAHIYANGAN. Harmony and tranquility. If they are in the
WALA, they are in the state commonly known as DI HIYANG. Fall
too close to WALA and the Diwata turns into YAWA
Such is the same with katawohan. The TAWO's higher soul is the
KALAG. A KALAG that falls into ISA is happy and tranquil, while
one that falls into WALA is spiteful and temperamental. It is

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 believed, Sri Manawari writes, that to achieve a ful lling and happy
life, one must be reaching for ISA, in a state of KAISAHAN. To
achieve this, one must be excellent in their chosen path, whatever
that may be, as long as it does not cause DI HIYANG within nature
A person that dies while their Kalag is in KALAGITNAAN or in
KAISAHAN passes into the afterlife as peacefully as their social
standing might allow. However, a Kalag that passes while in the state
of KAWALAN is liable to become vengeful dead, wherein they will
commit atrocities to those that live: usually atrocities tied or related to
the reason why they are in a state of KAWALAN.
It is well known that people that die and are not given proper
burials or suffer violently beforehand, or are the victims of atrocities,
have their Kalag sink into KAWALAN immediately upon physical
death. Thus the multiplicity of living and vengeful dead among the
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 NAME GENERATOR
Sigw Pura
Iray Buli
Gulo Pangodyon
Tingg Kalwa
Nagkarla Kalampisa
Lamo Lub
Aguyo Natudn
Balaklawo Ligasn
Ita Kila
Kumintan Suban
Mahayha Bangu
Paran Baliri
Bakuwo Ugsa
Amiha Madulu
Raron Malasumban
Sab Para
Magha Kala
Mara Humasunun

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