Luminous Mind
An urban fantasy game concept
This is an idea of mine that has been brewing for a long time, since I was in middle school exactly 20 years ago. I’ve discovered Nobilis 2e after years of making my own game1 (and playing it with my friends) in graph paper book, because I didn’t really like D&D 3.5e. In the same year I bought and played Persona 3.
Almost a decade later I discovered JoJolion, before I marathoned the entire series from Phantom Blood (without skipping any parts!) to catch up. I played Persona 4 and 5 in the mean time. Then it hits me: Stands and Personas are two examples of a new genre of superpower.
Summoning is a staple in folklore and fantasy around the world, but the summoned being is always an entity separate from the summoner. This is why I think Stands and Personas are new. Both of them are extensions of the summoner, manifestations of a person’s inner power. They’re not creatures bound to serve their masters. They’re like how your hand is not a separate entity from your self.
I prefer Stands more than Personas, because Persona games tend to blur this fine distinction by being based on mythological creatures and deities.2 Stands also exhibit more non-traditional powers, such as optical discs or nuts and bolts, while Personas are still tied to typical fantasy powers like fire and ice.
But I love the daily life system pioneered by P3. Having a set recurring deadlines tied to lunar phases is brilliant. P4 is kinda miss because weather cycle is not that intuitive, while P5’s deadlines are arbitrary. Turning this into a tabletop procedure should be intuitive. That leaves me with finding a central theme.
By the way, this post is more of a rambling. I’m exhaling the ideas so I can breathe again.
Lumen
My take on Stands/Personas. Roughly based on the concept of prabaswara cita (luminous mind) made tangible. Just as our mind generates luminosity within, our body generates Lumen outwardly. They come in various forms, both humanoid and non-humanoid, and all of them are biomechanical creatures. Avant-garde Giger aliens.
Araki is genius for naming Stands with music titles.3 To me, music is storytelling-adjacent, which means using it for your story feels natural. There’s no need for excessive intertextuality: your story can stand (heh) on its own without being bogged down by the lore of another story.
At first I wanted Lumens to be named after postmodern book titles. Now I think they should use postmodern art titles, because art is also storytelling-adjacent. The postmodern bit stays because this Stand/Persona genre is postmodern.
The initial incident when someone manifests their own Lumen is called a Vindication.
Judge
Stands in the early Stardust Crusaders are named after Major Arcana cards. Persona series took this further and pigeonholed each Persona to Major Arcana. Later, Social Link characters are also associated with Major Arcana.
In response to that, I look into other esoteric traditions: geomancy.
This campaign is set in Jakarta. The Indonesian word for divination/prophecy is ramal(an), which comes from Arabic raml, part of ‘ilm al raml: science of sand aka geomancy. While I never knew of any geomantic practices in Indonesia, it’s close enough culturally. Enter geomantic figures.
Instead of 22 Major Arcana, geomancy has 16. Using it requires us to make a chart just like horoscope, except in geomancy it’s called shield chart. The final figure of the chart, the one who determines the answer, is called Iudex or Judge. There are only 8 possible Judges among the 16 figures:
It’s easy to see that every main character should be associated to one of these Judges. An ideal 4-character Panel (party) should be composed of liminal Judges, since they have no directionality and thus are neutral. The other 4 Judges can be the rogues gallery of this campaign: Lumen users who have their own twisted sense of justice.
Now we have a central theme! On that note, let’s make all Lumens eyeless too.4
Counsel
Since the figures are made of dots, they can double as progress tracker for character development. Let’s call this personal event Counsel. Fill a dot every time a character finishes a Counsel.
This is like Social Link from Persona 3 onwards. A day in the Panel’s life can either be spent on Court adventure (dungeon crawl, more on this below) or Counsel event. Only 1 person’s Counsel event can be progressed in a day. Other characters who don’t participate in that Counsel are assumed to go on their own daily life.
As there are 4 rows of dots in a figure, events can easily be mapped into the 4-stage kishōtenketsu structure. At the end of stage IV, when all dots are filled, the character comes to a turning point in their life. They gain conviction for their personal problem and their Lumen evolves into ultimate form.
There’s a maximum of 16 important characters in a campaign, including the main party of Judges. Because the 8 Judge figures are already reserved, the other 8 are non-player characters that I call Jurors. They have luminous minds just like the Judges. That’s why they’re each associated with a geomantic figure. But they can’t use Lumens like the Judges do.
Judges can also spend a day to play a Juror’s Counsel event. Each finished stage gives bonus support during Court adventure. But if the event went badly, the Counsel turns cancerous. Cross a dot each day the Panel skipped playing this Counsel event. Reach stage IV cancerous Counsel and the Juror takes the law into their hands: becomes a false Judge and establishes a new Court.
Judge players must also play as Jurors. This means during character creation players create 3 characters at once: 1 Judge and 2 Jurors.
Judgement Day
With 4 twisted Judges and 8 Jurors, the total matches the amount of full moons in 2025.5 This campaign runs for one in-game year. During each month’s full moon, one of these 12 experiences Vindication.
The campaign cycle goes thus: 2 full moons of Juror Vindication, followed by 1 month where a twisted Judge establishes a Court and sets a Judgement Day on that month’s full moon. Repeat until we get a year. The campaign ends on the last Judgement Day, in a Court. Sort of a final dungeon situation.
Juror Vindication produces what I call a guilty Lumen. A Lumen that wreaks havoc without the user’s conscious control.
Court
These are the dungeons of the campaign. When play enters this phase, someone should say “Court is now in session!”
The Panel must venture inside a Court because a person they know (or even another party member!) is captured by a twisted Judge. They’re detained until the Judgement Day, when the twisted Judge decides on a punishment.
All Courts exist within a parallel realm known as Tribunal. Basically any place where law operates has a Tribunal. Since this campaign is set in Jakarta, it’s called Jakarta Tribunal or Metro Jaya Tribunal.
Witness
This is almost like the traditional game master role. But the Witness doesn’t play as a faceless non-entity. They’re a character that won’t directly fight in a Court adventure but can still provide support to the party. Like a Navigator in Persona games.
The Witness is one of the twisted Judges. And in the recent Persona games tradition, this is a mascot character. So yes, the game master of this campaign is required to create a character and also required to role-play a single character only.
In Court adventures, they describe what happens through the senses of the Witness mascot. It’s less “You meet three enemies ready to fight, what do you do?” but more “Guys, I smell three enemies up ahead just around the bend, what should we do?” or “Watch out, that one’s about to hit you hard! Do something!”
My pregen Witness mascot is a gecko named Scales. Get it? Because scale is the symbol of justice. Gecko is a household god in Sumatran beliefs and a harbinger of omens in Javanese beliefs. Tim Scales is his full name. In Indonesian he’s called Bang Tim, meaning Big Bro Tim, a pun on timbang (to weigh). Outside Tribunal, Bang Tim turns into a bag charm like Labubu.
Reconciler
Called Superiudex in Latin: Super Judge. But I guess it’s silly in English so they changed it into Reconciler. This is the final, secret figure commonly not included in a geomantic shield chart. The Reconciler is the final boss of this campaign.
It’s a Lumen that manifests after all 12 Vindications are done. Depending on what happened during the campaign, the Reconciler will pass its judgement to humanity: either guilty or not guilty.
If we’re all guilty, the punishment is apocalypse.
A fantasy school simulator heavily inspired by the Gardens from Final Fantasy VIII. We used a single d6 made of pencil because dice are forbidden in my Islamic middle school, but Allah gave me creativity.
Since Diamond is Unbreakable, Stands are based on music albums. Persona 5 is a welcome change for me, because Personas are now based on public domain pop culture characters.
Later JoJo spinoffs (not written by Araki) use movie and book titles, which I think diminished his genius.
For Lady Justice is blind.
I just realized that my late wife Renee passed away during May 2025 full moon.