A porous, patchwork reality — where rice grows in blood-red paddies, where princesses romance their spears, where it is a bad idea to mispronounce a crocodile’s name.
A THOUSAND THOUSAND ISLANDS is a Southeast Asian-themed fantasy visual world-building project.
This project is a series of zines, designed for use in fantasy adventure tabletop RPGs. Ongoing since 2017, this project draws from the overlapping material cultures, lived stories, and mythistories of that region of the world variously called Indochina, Suvarnabhumi, and the Nusantara — Southeast Asia.
A THOUSAND THOUSAND ISLANDS isn’t a medieval European fantasy world, superficially re-skinned with brown people, kerises and catamarans. The imagery and texts here will be going deeper:
- Referencing a wide range of historical and ethnographic sources, as we find them;
- Evoking the shape of the region’s myths and stories, which we grew up with;
- Drawing from our lived experiences of contemporary Southeast Asia, day after day.
A THOUSAND THOUSAND ISLANDS is a project by Centaur Games — an amalgam of Mun Kao and Zedeck Siew:
MUN KAO, ARTIST
An artist, illustrator and game designer. He is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Mun Kao creates ideas and images. Find drawings and research notes on his Patreon.
ZEDECK SIEW, WRITER
A journalist, translator, and editor. His books include Creatures of Near Kingdoms (with artist Sharon Chin) and Lorn Song of the Bachelor (with artist Nadhir Nor). He is based in Port Dickson, Malaysia.
Zedeck creates ideas and text. Find stories and essays on his blog. Follow him on Twitter.
GRACE WONG
A writer, editor, and marketer. Mostly for the beauty industry, and now for games. She is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Grace manages projects and the A THOUSAND THOUSAND ISLANDS Instagram account.
