MZ00: A Guide to Mausantara

Mausantara

Sampura sun and welcome to Parahyangan, the mountainous regions of West Java, the literal home of the gods (hyang). This crowd funding project is to help pay for original art by the talented Mun Kao and editing and layout consultancy by Luna P.

Mausantara is a Mausritter setting which features a blend of maus scale adventures in real world Nusantaran places infused with a range of cultures, myths, and legends, starting with the Sundanese culture of West Java. Mausantara and it's as yet unnamed human scale companion series for Cairn were orginally conceived as a vehicle for researching, preserving, and promoting Sundanese cultural education for my children through play. 

The Supernatural

The supernatural imbues all aspects of life in Mausantara, from offerings to the goddess Nyai Pocahi left in the houshold rice barns (leuit) to the absolute rule of keeping indoors just before and after sunset to stay safe from the dreaded Kalong Wewe who kidnaps children and may harm adults. 

The mountain tops of Parahyangan are forbidden to all but the hyang and avoided by everyone, even fools. While the forests which thickly cover the region are shunned by humans and mice of good sense. Even village bamboo thickets are inhabited by spirits that should be feared and most definitely placated before entering their territories. 

Consequently, most villagers (of maus and men) live quite isolated lives restricted to their village and crop lands, only venturing to neighbouring villages for events of great importance like weddings, births, and funerals.

Factions

The Books

MZ00: A Guide to Mausantara

A setting guide which will contain a bestiary, setting specific tables and rules hacks covering backgrounds, items, skills and powers, along with a horror mechanic to help facilitate the experiences of mice sized characters encountering relatively gigantic and gargantuan creatures and when they stumble through the supernatural world of hyang and "lesser" spirits and entities which populate the forests and high places. 

The horror mechanic is an adaption of the Liminal Horror SRD, inspired by Ross Burton's Liminal Maus hack. PCs can gain debilitating stress from encounters with relatively gargantuan NPCs like the Sunda Stink Badger or if they are careless enough to encounter Kalong Wewe. Those who foolishly brave the mounatin tops can be almost guaranteed to be driven permanently insane.

However, the PCs are fortunate enough to be able to draw on local wisdom and knowledge, for example the noble arts of pencak silat, a combination of often deadly martial arts and magical powers are available to the gurus (and their advanced student devotees) of its various schools.

Approximately 40 pages.

MZ01: Pandan Island

The first sandbox adventure in the series. Available in the early bird, guru and guru besar tiers, or as an add-on.

This will later be converted to human-sized adventuring so your players can experience the region as mice and men. Side by side but with very different foci and outcomes. Approximately 40 pages.

This issue features a zooming hex which focuses on Pandan Island and is liberally peppered with stock art by Fernando Salavaterra from his Monstrolist series. The maps are drawn by Abdul Rahman and based on the real world area of Pulo Cankuang which is about fourty kilometers from his usual home in Bandung, Indonesia.

Pandan Island is the home of Candi Cangkuang, an 8th century Hindu-Buddhist shrine to Shiva, understood to be the creator god Batara Guru in the still extant indigneous Sunda Wiwitan religion. It is the central location of MZ01: Pandan Island. The shrine is guarded by pen-tailed shrews who live in a large pandan tree overhanging the entrancepath to the shrine. But, as the PCs will find out, in news that will send shockwaves throughout the region, the guardians and servants of the shrine have failed in their undertaking as indicated by Fernando Salvaterra's AD&D homage image on the cover of MZ01. 

PCs will be impelled to leave the safety of their village to seek the aid of Batara Guru, in doing so they will journey to various places in the region, finding and visiting various NPCs and key locations in a quest to restore the sanctity of the desecrated shrine in order to recieve the aid of the great god of creation.

Stretch Goals

Project Funded: Three new pieces of anthropomorphised NPC art by Mun Kao for the Pen-tailed Shrew, the Sunda Stink Badger, and Horsfields Tarsier.

AUD 600 More art by Mun Kao

AUD 700: More editing and layout consultation with Luna P

AUD 800: More art by Mun Kao

AUD 1000: Bonus zine MZ02: Secrets of Sindaglaya (where my in-laws family lives!)

AUD 2000 an offset print run for all Siswa, Guru and Guru Besar backers in place of the POD vouchers.

Who are we?

Who Are We

I'm BIG Games is a small RPG publisher consisting of a very BIG girl and her tiny father. 

• Naeema (who is BIG) was born in Bandung and is currently in year five. She's a budding artist who enjoys working with graphite and who may contribute some drawings to this project. 
• Abdul Rahman is originally from Sydney, Australia but usually lives in Bandung, Indonesia, and which is arguably the artistic and cultural capital of Indonesia. Abdul Rahman drew the maps and is writing all of the original text. 

We have three main project lines in the works.

• Two Nusantaran series of third-party adventures and world building material for Mausritter and Cairn.
• A zine series focusing on supporting South and Southeast Asian TTRPG artists and authors.
• A zine series focusing on supporting gender diverse TTRPG artists and authors.

Human only writing and art.

I'm BIG Games completley rejects the use of AI and has committed to hating it forever.