Kala Mandala Playbook
A downloadable game
Spices, rivers, magic, gods.
More gods than people, more monsters than gods.
And very few shoes.
Kala Mandala is a 44 pg rules-lite, flavour-heavy fantasy roleplaying game centred on medieval Southeast Asia.
Featuring:
- Meddling as adventuring: Join a Meddling guild! Fulfill your irrepressible nosiness, monetize your busybodyness. You might even help people along the way.
- Skills as progression: Learn from NPCs you help, levelling up is organic and contextual. Be a dick and you might miss out on some cool stuff.
- Art, Dance, Food and Culture: Actual in-game utility to the Really Big Things in this region.
- Prayers and Rituals: Magic, ghosts and deities are everyday realities in Kala Mandala. Prayers are equally real and important too.
- Lineages and Heirlooms: You are always connected to something — immediate family and extended relatives, personal histories. Heirlooms are physical representations of such connections.
Including:
- Character Creation, Skills, Weapons, 6d6 Spells and more.
- Over 60 illustrations of Southeast Asian fantasy, bringing the world to life
Kala Mandala is a work in progress (V 0.13a) built on the original rulesets of Cairn RPG and Into the Odd. Inspired by Mausritter, Liminal Horror, Runecairn, Maze Rats and Troika.
Foundations of Kala Mandala
- Centring on Southeast Asia, leaving Eurocentric fantasy.
- Exploring the region's shared histories and fluid identities, departing from ethno-nationalist narratives.
- Bolstering imagination and fun, beyond tokenism and representation.
Writing, Art, Layout
Munkao
Additional Writing, Consulting, Editing
Alia Ali (Food), Elizabeth Gimbad, Mabel Ho
Bawan Meddling Association Sign Up Forms (Character Sheets)
- Inspired by Simon Carryer’s Character Playbooks.
- Fillable sign up forms made by John Marron.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
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i'm giving this five stars purely for the reference to Lofi Hiphop Radio.
haha. YES!!
I reviewed Kala Mandala and omg I love it: https://batts.substack.com/p/kala-mandala-a-review
Thank you for the lovely review!
What an absolute joy it has been to see Kala Mandala develop and having a small part in this. Munkao kills it with the visual storytelling. 44 pages of absolute flavour (literally). Not only is it amazing to play in a world that feels close to home (Malaysia, Southeast Asia), but it's great for beginners and anyone who wants to try something new without a huge learning curve!
HAH YOU PLAYED A SIGNIFICANT(NOT SMALL) PART IN IT! But thank you thank you. Deeply appreciate your thoughts and support right from the start. :)
Another hit from Munkao! If this game doesn’t inspire you to reimagine what adventuring could be, I don’t know what will. Exquisite vibes, fun innovations on Odd/Cairn derived procedures. Encouraging Singing, dancing, and sharing food? Brilliant.
Thank you! So glad you like the additions. :)
I absolutely LOVE the vibes of this!!!
My home game is set in a sort of JRPG-ified version of the cultures around the Bay of Bengal and this is such good grist for the GM mill. So wonderful to get a different cultural perspective on Fantasyland.
Also, DAMN your art is beautiful.
Thank you! Bay of Bengal culturally overlaps with this region quite a bit! I'm really glad you like it. thank you!
It does for sure!
As a Westerner worried about appropiration I don't go "all in" for obvious reasons. I take the climate, politics (Tamil dynasties or Mughal Empire for ex.), and some general truisms of human cultures that develop closer to the equator using more vibrant colors in their folk craft/spicier foods. I leave the actual cultures and religious beliefs alone.
Anywoo, again - great work!
This rules
Thank you! :)
Hope you don't mind. I made a perchance name generator for the game! Hopefully it can come in handy.
https://perchance.org/kala-mandala-name-jm
OMG JACOB THIS IS SO COOL. I know nothing about Perchance.org so thank you so much.
Have you shared this on Bsky yet? I want to share. haha
I haven't. I'll post it there!
Wow—that’s great! “Anja the Angry” 🤘
oh hex yeah
🤘🤘❤️
This is Brilliant!
Thank you!
Awesome, I like the rules light system and the inspirations and (spiced) flavour!
Yes to spice (and everything nice).
I completely missed that this wasn’t solo (no idea how I got so confused! It’s 1am so let’s blame that) but I had such a good time reading the rules that I'm smiling ear to ear and excited about being a meddling bearcat healer. I don’t know if you’re thinking of doing a solo mode but I will keep my fingers crossed just in case! Thank you for all the work you’ve put in!
I'm glad you dig it! Solo is something I want to explore. (The appeal of playing with going near my social anxieties is very exciting)
But I haven't read too much of solo games yet to have found what feels right for me.
This is really good stuff. Just bumped to the top of the pile for my regular table!
I am so stoked you dig this! ❤️❤️
Fantastic as always, Munkao! The adventurer as professional meddler is brilliant, especially in competition with other guilds with different approaches. I'm about as white-bread Midwestern America as possible, but it certainly seems to fit with my mediated understanding of Southeast Asian cultural contexts. :-) It certainly would feel weird in a "Western" setting.
I'm hoping to give this a try at a small con this weekend, using one of your other scenarios--if so, I'll report back.
While I certainly get this is a WIP, I'm really feeling the need for some monsters/gods to fill things out (more gods than people, and more monsters than gods, after all!) Any resources off the top of your head (besides just randomly googling)?
Aa.
Thanks Aaron! If folks with little understanding of SEA culture can vibe with it, that is like... oooof... dream outcome. :D So fingers all crossed for that!
These are not TTRPG books and also not fictional(in a way) but are completely fascinating books on Malay supernatural, written by British administrators decades ago. They are a fascinating read.
Malay Magic: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47873
Malay Poisons, charm cures: https://archive.org/details/Malaypoisonscha00Giml
There are also quite a few contemporary Filipino books on their monsters!
I can smell and hear these rules. Love it!
Yess. I hope it smells tasty!
Like the best Rendang you can imagine. ❤️
hahaha
Amazing worldbuilding!
Thank you so much!
Love the feel of this and it has definitely jumped to the top of my list for games/setting to mess around with. Love how clean and readable the design is.
Reading through the skills there is so much flavor, it's all excellent!
Thank you! Really hope you do find useful stuff and mess with it! :)
My mind is blown.
❤️❤️
amazing
Thanks Tony! ❤️
Instant classic
❤️❤️
Couldn’t have asked for better time to try this out! Getting ready to run more SEA adventures soon.
Yay!!! ❤️
This is SO full of flavor and awesome little tweaks to the familiar Mark of the Odd style, it’s incredibly inspiring!! Gorgeous art, masterfully snappy text, and I’m in love with every single skill. I’m so excited to see where this goes in future versions.
Yes! Thank you! So glad you like it. I've got a Trello of stuff I want to do with the Rulebook/World. Maybe I'll tidy it up and put it public as kind of roadmap. We'll see. :)
spectacular work!
Thank you! ❤️
This looks incredible! I can't wait to play it!
❤️❤️❤️
This looks very good. Some really interesting and fresh takes on MotO - the skill system is excellent!
Thank you for your kind words! :)
fantastic fantastic, may you bring it further into manifestation! so i can hold it in my claws!
haha thanks! I will I will, just need a bit more time!
This is amazing! So much packed into 44 pages!
Thank you! Glad you like it! :