You’ve probably seen the art. It’s dense. It’s detailed. It looks like it was plucked from a fever dream of Southeast Asian history and folklore, then meticulously inked by someone who doesn't believe in white space. This is the world of A Thousand Thousand Islands, a series of zines that basically dismantled how we think about world-building in tabletop RPGs. It isn’t just a setting. It’s a massive, sprawling rejection of the "European Middle Ages" default that has gripped Dungeons & Dragons for fifty years.
Most people get this project wrong. They think it’s just a collection of cool maps or a "setting guide" you read from cover to cover to prep for a Saturday night session. It’s not. Honestly, it’s more like a visual and lyrical prompt for your brain to start working differently. Created by Mun Kao and Zedeck Siew, this project is a masterclass in "show, don't tell."
The Southeast Asian Soul of A Thousand Thousand Islands
Let's talk about the geography. Usually, fantasy worlds are big continents with a few jagged coastlines. But A Thousand Thousand Islands focuses on the interstitial. It’s about the water between the land, the mud in the mangroves, and the specific way a stilt-house sits over a river. This matters because it shifts the gameplay. You aren't trekking across a dry plain; you're navigating tide charts, bartering with river-spirits, and worrying about the humidity rotting your gear.
Zedeck Siew’s writing is sharp. It’s brief. He doesn't give you 40 pages of dry history about a king who died three centuries ago. Instead, he tells you what the people eat, what they fear, and what they trade. You get snippets. Fragments. A description of a ritual involving a giant, sentient fish. A note on why a certain village refuses to use iron. It’s evocative. It forces the Game Master to fill in the gaps, which is exactly where the magic happens in tabletop gaming.
The art by Mun Kao is the heavy lifter here. His style is unmistakable—thick lines, heavy blacks, and a sense of scale that feels both intimate and cosmic. You can smell the incense and the brackish water just by looking at the page. It’s a far cry from the sanitized, digital-painterly look of modern "triple-A" RPG books. It feels handmade. Because it is.
Why the "Zine" Format Actually Matters
Standard RPG books are heavy. They’re expensive. They’re intimidating. A Thousand Thousand Islands chose the zine format—small, staple-bound booklets—for a reason. Each zine focuses on a specific place, like Centipede Bone or Mr-Kr-Gr.
This modularity is a godsend for busy GMs. You don't need to memorize a 300-page Tome of Lore. You just pick up a zine, flip to a page, and you have enough flavor to run a three-hour session. It’s lightweight. It’s portable. It’s also affordable, which lowered the barrier for entry for a whole generation of players who were tired of the "Standard Fantasy" tropes.
There’s a specific kind of "world-building fatigue" that happens in gaming. You know the feeling. You open a book, and it’s a list of 20 gods you don't care about and 15 provinces you'll never visit. A Thousand Thousand Islands avoids this by being intensely local. It’s about this village, this spirit, and this conflict. It’s micro-lore that feels macro-significant.
Breaking the Colonial Lens
One of the most profound things about A Thousand Thousand Islands is how it handles culture. Often, when Western RPGs try to do "the Orient," it ends up being a messy pile of stereotypes and "exoticism." It feels like a tourist looking through a window.
📖 Related: Finding Until Dawn All the Totems Without Losing Your Mind
Siew and Kao are from Malaysia. They aren't "visiting" this culture; they are speaking from within it. They draw on the deep, complex history of the Malay Archipelago without feeling the need to explain it to a Western audience in a way that demeans the source material. They use local terms. They reference local myths. They don't apologize for the complexity.
This is huge. It’s part of a broader movement in the RPG scene (often called the "OSR" or "Indie" scene) that prioritizes diverse voices and decolonial perspectives. It’s not about "representation" as a checklist item; it’s about authentic world-construction. When you play in the world of A Thousand Thousand Islands, you aren't a "conqueror" or a "colonist." You’re just someone trying to survive in a world that is beautiful, terrifying, and completely indifferent to your existence.
The Mechanical Weight of the World
How do you actually play this? Interestingly, the zines are "system-neutral." This means they don't have stats for D&D 5e or Pathfinder. You have to do a little bit of work.
For some, this is a dealbreaker. They want a stat block for the "Crocodile King." But for the rest of us, it’s a blessing. It means the world isn't constrained by the math of a specific game. If you want to use Old-School Essentials, go for it. If you want to use a narrative system like Powered by the Apocalypse, it works just as well. The lack of "hard mechanics" means the flavor remains pure.
👉 See also: King of the hill the game: Why this playground classic is actually serious business
That said, the descriptions are so vivid that the mechanics usually suggest themselves. If a creature is described as "heavy as a boulder and smelling of ancient silt," you know exactly how to stat that. You don't need a table to tell you it has a high Armor Class and a slow movement speed. It’s intuitive design.
Real Talk: Is It Hard to Run?
Kinda. If you’re used to having every room of a dungeon mapped out with a numbered list of encounters, A Thousand Thousand Islands will feel scary. It’s "high-prep" in terms of imagination, but "low-prep" in terms of reading.
You have to be comfortable with ambiguity. You have to be okay with your players asking a question and you having to invent an answer on the fly based on the "vibe" of the zine. But honestly? That’s what the best DMing is anyway. It’s improv with a safety net of cool art.
The Legacy of the Reach
The project eventually moved toward a larger collected work called The Reach of the Roach God. This was a pivot. It was a massive, hardcover campaign book that took the lessons of the zines and applied them to a long-form subterranean adventure.
It’s brilliant. It features one of the best "underdark" style settings ever written. It’s claustrophobic. It’s weird. It features giant insects in a way that is actually terrifying rather than just being "level 1 fodder." It proved that the team could handle "Big Gaming" just as well as they handled the indie zine scene.
Practical Steps for Your Next Session
If you’re looking to bring the flavor of A Thousand Thousand Islands to your table, don't try to port the whole thing at once. Start small.
- Change the Environment: Stop using temperate forests. Switch to a humid, overgrown swamp where the water is the primary road. Make the heat a factor. Describe the sweat.
- Focus on Material Culture: Instead of "Gold Pieces," what do people trade? Are they trading pressed tea bricks? Rare spices? Shells? Changing the currency changes the "feel" of every interaction.
- Use Visuals as Prompts: Show your players a piece of Mun Kao’s art without explaining what it is. Ask them, "What does your character think when they see this?" Let their reactions build the world for you.
- Embrace the Spirit World: In these zines, the line between "nature" and "spirit" is thin. A tree isn't just wood; it’s a neighbor. A river isn't just water; it’s a personality with a temper. Treat the environment as a character.
The world of A Thousand Thousand Islands is a reminder that fantasy doesn't have to look like a generic European castle. It can be lush, wet, complicated, and deeply rooted in histories that many of us are only just beginning to explore. It’s a challenge to the status quo. Take the challenge. Your players will thank you for it.