ma pimeja nasa

Ashcan edition of my dungeon crawler with a toki pona-based freeform magic system

EDIT: There is now an official character generator.

ma pimeja nasa (toki pona: “the dungeon”, lit. “strange dark place”) is a lightweight OSR-ish dungeon-crawler with freeform spellcasting based around constructing sentences in toki pona, the minimalist constructed language created by jan Sonja.

It features a simple d20 roll-under based resolution system based on four randomly rolled attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom and Willpower), random equipment selection, slot-based inventory, and four classes (Warrior, Thief, Wizard, and Conjurer) with two schools of spellcasting:

• Scholarly magic, which has access to all spellcasting vocabulary, but the length of spell is limited by a Casting Dice system
• Empirical magic, which has unlimited spell length but with a limited, randomly rolled vocabulary that can be used to construct spells.

Simple and quick procedures for combat, equipment damage, dungeon exploration, and overland travel. 

Conceptualized as a living document to be continually updated based on feedback and playtests. Right now it's lacking in content, but in a completely playable state using easily converted adventure modules and bestiaries made for other OSR-ish games. Planned upcoming content includes:

• GM and player principles and duties
• Examples of play for major mechanics
• A more extensive bestiary
• Sample Hexcrawl and Dungeon(s)
• GM toolkit (generators, treasure tables, encounter tables, advice for how to build adventures), as of right now the game assumes a certain level of familiarity and expertise in running similar games
• Printout sheet with sitelen pona symbols maybe

Written by Juan Carlos Hernández.

Most mechanics inspired by and/or looted from several OSR and NSR games:

• bastards. By Micah Anderson
• The Black Hack by David Black
• Mausritter by Isaac Williams
• Knave by Ben Milton
• Glaive by Lonely Adventurer
• Macchiato Monsters by Eric Nieudan
• a dungeon game by Chris Bisette

This system features mechanics centered on the language toki pona and the writing system sitelen pona, both created by jan Sonja (a.k.a Sonja Lang).

sitelen pona font used is kilitelen by kili Temeke

Released under a CC-BY 4.0 license. Any original mechanics and ideas of this work may be freely reused with or without attribution. Verbatim text may be re-used with attribution.