Devachanda:Main Page
The Funeral[edit]
The toll of bells echoed from the distant church, drowning out clamor. The the funeral procession circled the hall, singing mournful hymns. It is a tradition among the Jiang people to sing as they lay someone resting. As Jiangs became the majority of the Archipelago, so did this form of burial ceremony.
Those who passed by heard the tolling, they will ask: "Did someone important die?" Then, those observant person will find answer in the evening paper: "It's the famous scientist's daughter, you know? The one from the serial killer case..." "So they haven't caught the guy yet? Hmph, cops in Yukaritou..."
Luo Yejin waved her hand lightly to brush away the whispers by her ear as she moved towards the mourning procession. She wore a black felt cloche, her long black hair flowing freely, and a black gauze dress draped over her frame. Despite the summer heat, a somber aura clung to her, making her seamlessly blend into the funeral scene, So much so that people could sense a sorrow in her that was not truly exist. Mistaking her for the sister or close friend of the deceased, they respectfully stepped aside to let her pass.
Beside her walked a tall man, his skin as dark as her shadow. He hailed from Twilightland, a place where night never falls, where people live under a blazing sun and sleep in perpetual twilight. Despite his imposing figure, he was easily overlooked unless one paid close attention, for he followed behind the lady, as close as her shadow.
At the center of the funeral crowd, Mo Siyuan listened to the chanting of scriptures all around him, to the meaningless condolences and prying questions from the police and reporters. He felt a weariness that overshadowed even his grief and anger, realizing that the precious few moments he had left to be with his daughter were slipping away in this sea of futility.
Yejin heard Siyuan's inner voices, intertwined with those of a young policeman who was recalling his father's funeral. It was also a summer day, but without the fresh air of today. His relatives gathered outside the bungalow, with person-tall candles burning on either side, smoke swirling in the air. People were beating drums and gongs, using the destructive cacophony to underscore the reality of a person's death.
The inner voices flowed incessantly. One of Siyuan's friends was a Archipelago native, their funerals were more somber. Every attendee would shovel a piece of dirt to bury the deceased. His sister had died when she was three, and he, at seven, also shoveled a piece of dirt. A sudden downpour disrupted their plans, in the end, they had to hire several labours, mixing mud and rainwater as they laid her to soil.
A young cook, born in the Marshland, belonged to a family that worshipped Shikishin, a secular incarnation of Bloodspring. His earliest memory of a funeral came from his grandmother, a woman with high cheekbones and a comically smile, who also inspired his dreams. She once said, "The meaning of life lies in eating, drinking, and making love. We love life because these things are beautiful." She left out the latter part of that statement. The Marshlanders leave bodies in the wild, letting insects and beasts devour them. Because these things are not beautiful, they stop loving life for a while, thus lessening the sorrow over its loss. Ever since, he always remembered his grandmother's high cheekbones in his dreams, shining with a white gleam.
The inner voices surged like tide, noisy, clamorous, tedious. "What a boring funeral." Yejin remarked with a sigh.
"We're here at the invitation of Mo Siyuan," the shadow-like man explained, his voice cultured and serene. "His connections with the Lijiang Pharmaceutical Company are quite valuable to us."
"Even without 'listening', I know what he wants.”
Siyuan seemingly spotting Yejin through the crowd, a spark of life flickering in his eyes. Yejin nodded slightly in response, "It's to avenge his daughter, isn't it? Let's be straightforward -- send several watchmen to deliver the head of that killer to him."
"We must make him anxious, make him waiting, make him plead, make him desperate for pleading in vain, and only then, when he receives what he desires, can we obtain his soul."
"Is he desperate enough now, Carlos?"
"You know it better than I do, Ojou-sama." The man called Carlos replied calmly.
Yejin fell silent for a moment, then turned to Carlos. "Let me handle Mo Siyuan's request on my own hands. This can show more sincerity, besides, I haven’t flexed my muscles for a long time since becoming the head of family."
Introduction[edit]
“凡运诸界 森罗万象 皆有情众生法欲观虚”
Becoming Abandoner[edit]
Shozen (初禅, The Firtst Meditation) is a a terrifying experience. Perhaps the things around you begin to be engulfed in pure white or pure black, leaving you floating alone in the void; perhaps either you or the world suddenly flips upside down, gravity tearing at your fragile body, lifting you from the ground and sending you plummeting into the sky; perhaps when you look at the people around you, you find that they all have cat heads and bird beaks, and they pounce on you, pecking at your flesh, yet you feel no pain, you feel nothing but the supreme ecstasy.
Those who have little time left find the clock speeding backwards; those who are wrongfully accused glimpse snow falling from the summer sky; those who give up all hope cut their wrists, blood spurting endlessly, flooding the entire city.
Every abandoner has a unique Shozen experience, but they all share a common element: the reality you know collapses and disintegrates before your eyes -- then, you wake up from the dream.
Shozen is a Dream, but Dream is not merely a dream. Ujoushujou(有情衆生/有情众生, sentient beings) believe that dreams are nothing more than activities of the mind during sleep, projections of reality in the brain, reflections of individual struggles. This kind of dream is a mortal's dream, which abandoners call illusion. Dream is something far superior than illusion. Dream is not the activity of the mind, the mind is the activity of Dream. Dream is not the projection of reality; reality is the projection of Dream. Dream is not the struggle of individuals; individuals are the struggle of Dream.
Dreams belong to the Deva. Do you remember those dreams you forgot? You wake up in a cold sweat, knowing that you dreamed of something astonishing, wondrous, something that stirred your heart or left you anxious, yet you can't recall the specifics? That's because the Deva took your dreams away. The Deva always takes people's dreams, but since you have experienced Shozen, the Deva will repay for the dreams taken from you.
This repayment lies deep within your soul, and it is called the Mark.
Mark[edit]
The world you once knew, composed of visible things you could see and touch, governed by the irrefutable laws of physics found in stacks of books, dominated by towering steel and concrete buildings and the shadows they cast, was referred to as Bonun(凡运/凡運) by the abandoners.
Within Bonun, everything was formed. People sustained their existence with formed bodies, maintained their survival with formed food, water, and air, and used formed money to purchase desired goods.
The forementioned items obviously had a physical form, but in the abandoners' language, “formed" was not solely about physical form. For example, money, whether stored in online banking system or as physical paper bills, was all considered formed; academic knowledge, social relationships, talents and experiences for normal activities, while lacking a specific physical form, were also formed. Formed or not depended on whether Ujoushujou could perceive and understand it. Formed things that could be perceived and understood by Ujoushujou were considered by them to be everything in the world, nothing more than that — this is Bonun.
But as you know now, the world is not just Bonun; above Bonun lies another plane, the Deva(देव).
Deva lies above Bonun, but the two are not parallel layers like the upper and lower levels of a building. Deva's influence often leaks into Bonun, yet Ujoushujou cannot perceive it—only the abandoners can detect, study, and utilize Deva's influences on Bonun. This kind of influences is the Marks.
Having experienced Shozen, you have transcended Ujoushujou. The profound power from Deva is no longer ignored by you, and Mark has been etched into your soul. From this moment on, you won’t have your own dreams anymore, you will attain the dreams of Bochanda.
You will attain the Formless Way.
Formless Way[edit]
Ujoushujou has their two eyes covered and two ears blocked by the three hands Holyfool, thus unable to perceive anything beyond Bonun. Without the talent to become abandoners, they would be imprisoned for life within Bonun, unaware of formless matters, and therefore fully engrossed in formed matters.
Their minds are filled with desires for the formed things, always attempting to fulfill those desires through formed means. They strive to earn, to seek, to steal, to plunder……Any method pursued to satisfy desires is termed Formed Way.
Corresponding to Formed Way is the Formless Way, the formless means used to pursue desires—those most crude individuals might refer to it as magic or superpower.
Abandoners see through Bonun, gaze towards Deva, yet their hearts remain dominated by desires (or, chanda/छन्दः). Compared to Ujoushujou, abandoners' desires are always grander, and weirder. Ujoushujou desire money; an abandoner desire to make his hair the only currency in circulation. Ujoushujou desire to attain a certain degree; an abandoner desire to rewrite the laws of Bonun, only to create an entirely new science.
Chanda is the cause, chanda is the essence, chanda manipulates Bonun and even Deva.
Chanda make you an abandoner.
Catalogue[edit]
Chapter One: The Role is about character creation. It will help you create and role-play as an abandoner, a practitioner of mystical and tantric ceremony, a transcendent being who abandoned Ujoushujou, abandoned Formed Way, abandoned their own dreams in exchange for the Formless Way to pursue their twisted, formless chanda.
Chapter Two: The Stage is about the worldbuilding of Devachanda, focus on the setting of the Deva and the Archipelago. The latter is the place where secular stories in Devachanda occur, a fictional country in a fictional world. The mystic system of Devachanda is mainly inspired by Buddhism (particularly Esoteric Buddhism), while the cultural elements of the Archipelago are primarily drawn from Japan and China.
Chapter Three: The Play is about the rule. Chapter Four: The Art is about all the ritual(or magic, as in the crude way of saying) in the game.