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Re: the Cantonese working-class Buddhist women who never married, because at least some of you will be interested: www.nlb.gov.sg/main/article... Many venerate Cundi, a martial Bodhisattva associated with Avalokiteshvara, or what East Asians call Guan Yin/Kannon. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cundi_(...

nlb.gov.sg

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Incense shops also do good business during this festival, as adherents purchase paper and incense offerings. Fruit and flower stalls also do a thriving business. And in contrast to my vegetarian point, roast meat and alcohol also sell, as some ghosts are tough guys who like roast pork and stout..?

The Chinese Vegetarian Foodscape of the 1950s–60s

biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections... Here's a fascinating article by the National Library here in Singapore, about history of Chinese vegetarian cuisine in Singapore. You'll probably find similar patterns in other parts of Southeast Asia with history of Chinese migration over last few centuries...

biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg

Set up by five Buddhist women in 1946, Loke Woh Yuen was the first Chinese vegetarian restaurant in Singapore. It employed an all-female staff, was known for its popular shark’s fin made from maize, a...

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Popular meals in Singapore include "vegetarian bee hoon", which are rice noodles served with vegetables, tofu, seitan etc. popularised here by Cantonese working-class Buddhist women, many who swore vows to never marry, and to take care of each other into old age. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetar...

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So back to Ghost Festival things for a bit; during this period many Buddhists and Daoists will practice vegetarian diets, either as religious observance in respect of Bodhisattvas or to make merit (Dāna) for themselves, their loved ones, wandering dead, all of above en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C4%81na

Dāna - Wikipedia

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Another character I'm deeply fond of is Itkovian the Shield Anvil, from Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen. I think I just like the idea of a decent person.. who sincerely holds space and has time for others as their cosmic superpower? So that's a vibe and angle I wanted to boost in TTRPGs.

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All that money and power and you are still just trying to replicate what entropy does for ... Free. Haha. It amuses me. Anyway! Soul gems imprison souls and are used by fiends as currency or power up candies, basically. So what the sramana strives to do is to break and upend that economy/industry.

In Pathfinder's Golarion setting, soul gems exist, which can be created via very costly ritual (Bind Soul) or the predations of very low-level fiends (Cacodaemon). I enjoy that asymmetry, the hint that it takes such great power and wealth to enact a cosmic violation which a trash mob does for free.

I love them! We must have scene where master gets trolled by disciple who slacks off and ends up getting romantically entangled with a ghost because they are soft hearted and don't listen to the master's rules But the ghost helps to save the day and that's a Buddhist lesson on compassion there too?

static.klipy.com

英叔九叔正英师傅林正英僵尸喜剧搞笑

ALT: 英叔九叔正英师傅林正英僵尸喜剧搞笑

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That's why the sramana has the abilities to "Heed the Fettered" and a "Soul-Rescuing Vow". I won't go into detail on what Bodhisattvas do, but a major pattern across the Bodhisattvas are their power and vow of rescuing or aiding others who are in need of help or compassion.. even those in the Hells.

And I think for me it's always been... part of that ethos of "I'm holding on to pain not because I'm wallowing in pain, but cos someone has to bear witness, to dignify this, to dignify you", that went into my design of the PF2e sramana, as a celestial itinerant liberator of the metaphysically lost.

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Kenshiro's Blue Aura Power

I recall chatting with @jamescase.bsky.social about Demon Slayer haha, about shonen anime tropes infused with compassion, empathy, holding space rather than more "heated" emotions of righteous anger, judgment, etc. power up being "I'm so sad" and bearing that sorrow (but hey Kenshiro does that too)

static.klipy.com

ALT: Kenshiro's Blue Aura Power

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I based this design largely on the Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha, a key figure in the Ghost Month... He is the Bodhisattva who undertakes an Oath to empty the hells, that one day the underworld will be emptied of suffering, to literate the suffering across the hells.. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E1%B9...

Kṣitigarbha - Wikipedia

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Sramana - Creatures - Pathfinder 2e Nexus

It's a time of year where I get lot of TTRPG work done, as I reflect on mortality; what we cling on to, what we leave behind. Here's something I did for Pathfinder 2e, which is inspired by the Ghost Festival... This is a celestial that I chose to call "sramana". app.demiplane.com/nexus/pathfi...

app.demiplane.com

Pathfinder 2e Nexus - Sramana

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The Ghost Festival is starting today! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_F... It's an important festival for Buddhists, where we offer generosity and compassion for spirits of the dead and hell-beings released momentarily from the underworld for a month, when they try to seek reprieve to their suffering.

Ghost Festival - Wikipedia

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Ghost Festival - Wikipedia

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If I recall .. did you submit it to the Awards 3 or 4 years ago? I was a judge then and I tried to play as many of the games I read and judged hahahahaha

SprintingOwlDesigns @sprintingowl.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Reposted by Tan Shao Han

The year is 2026. Extreme heat is threatening the cheese banks where thousands of Parmigiano-Reggiano wheels are stored as loan collateral. kumada1.itch.io/cheese-squad...

kumada1.itch.io

Cheese Squad: Stay Sharp by kumada1

Tactical cheespionage action. TTRPG.

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... Oh, I ran this too. Thank you. It was amazing. - from de brie of my gruyereing, aged (cheddar) heart

Tomas Gimenez Rioja @ Crypt of the Nekrolych 💀 @tgimenezrgm.itch.io · 11/08/2026

Reposted by Tan Shao Han

Let's make this happen It looks phenomenal and the premise looks very original And we need more Latino American stories in media

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You are welcome! I am also happy to see you again (after I left the other site, I lost touch with many ppl), and am glad you enjoy the Songbai directions in 2e we took!

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Ok I'm sorry (Probably an ancestor displeased her) Get a longer list of Singapore Daoist gods at www.instagram.com/p/Db0RBgUk-D...

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If every moment of design, writing, cultural work is praxis-as-emergence, then it's important to... Not shut yourself out or up from larger webs of narratives, that humans make about and with others. Singapore is wild place, peer pressure, fear is immense. But you don't have to think/live like that.

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Like dude, reminder to self, reminder to you, whatever I did there isn't going to be typified in any framework written or devised by ppl who don't believe in spirits, not even as metaphors. There's something here about how the indie creators you respect, kinda talk about their homes, lands, scapes..

In my head that counts a bit as making merit, Dāna... Because if I facilitate players to imagine and affectively assume/play/think/feel as yakshas, then it helps ppl understand the cultures from which these beings emerge, and also to ecological and non-human realities these beings/stories represent.

I think uh telling the yaksha statues in temples and also my neighbourhood old trees where tree spirits are supposed to inhabit about the yaksha ancestry I designed in Tian Xia Character Guide is probably some peak overlap of "everyday animist Buddhist stuff" and "freelance ttrpg designer life".

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Part of great great joy is community, for e.g chatting with @brianyaksha.bsky.social and @senhhs.bsky.social over themes and ideas from Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and how that'll work in Pathfinder metaphysics across multiple projects (and sharing lot of puns, bilingual puns and memes, thanks Sen)

Just put it out there, be self-reflexive, responsible, sincere to yourself and more importantly to the communities or traditions, to the intangible heritage or the stakeholders, for both what is signified and represented, and who is interpreting and experiencing these texts/games/images etc...

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Like, remember, you don't have the "formal training" or the same networks and community resources (but so what ? It's nothing new to you. disciplinary definitions, or rather the ghosts of systems and structures, well, you didn't fit).. and much advice or wisdoms won't work same for you, so why fret?

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And also to see stuff that ppl love or hate; ppl saying "this sucks" or ppl saying "this rocks", about very same thing. Then accept and Be Yourself Even If It's A Bit Much and turn various eyes and hands of the panopticon into monsters lolol or discuss fantasy military-industrial garrison complex.

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Kind of taking stock of what I've made and done. Now I'm formally resuming my academic journey, I think it's healthy to have some transition and see clearly what one has done, to take pride in what one has helped, contributed to.. And really well what ones been privileged to be allowed to work on!

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