Azza Amma loves the first glow on the horizon. She reaches out, and with a sweep of her arm gathers up its light. Now it is warm within her fist.
Azza Amma loves the cool in the first clay pit. She bends and presses a hand into its soft matter. She squeezes and kneads many shapes.
Azza Amma loves the first roar of her fire. She admires its rising flame; with a flying elbow and fingers splaying she mimics its ceaseless motion.
Azza Amma loves the fruit of the first mango tree. She reaches up, and plucks and plucks and plucks. She fills her basket up. An entire harvest.
Azza Amma loves the first call of the nightjar. She turns, cups her palm to her ear. She waits for him to call again, and catches his second poem.
Azza Amma loves the taste of the first spring. She places a pot in its stream, and collects its waters. Her pot is heavy; she sits it upon her hip.
Azza Amma loves her youngest child, Ammat. She teaches them her alphabet, suckles them at her teat, surrenders her thumb for them to grasp.
Our mother’s name is Azza Amma. She has seven arms.
Her bosom is vast, but the world is wider. To embrace the world she must hold it in all her arms. To want the world it must consume all her desire. She has none left; she is distraught.
Azza Amma abandons her youngest child, Ammat. Hungry, thirsting after their mother’s teat, they cry the first words, speak the first language.
Azza Amma lets her pot of springwater fall. It shatters and spills. She weeps into its pieces. It forms the first sea, and her tears become fishes.
Azza Amma turns away from the nightjar. As she uncups her palm his poetry flies free. His steady metre is the beat for all the world’s music.
Azza Amma upends her basket of mangoes. They roll away and are stolen by monkeys. Their saplings sprout all over, and seed the first forests.
Azza Amma stamps out her fire. But many have watched her move, framed by its flame. Many mimic her movements, and make the first dances.
Azza Amma cracks her tablets of clay. She cuts her hand on their shards. Their dust is beaded with her blood, and become all the world’s rubies.
Azza Amma releases her captured light. She winds up her shoulder and flings it into heaven. It flies, and sticks high in the sky. The very first star.
Our mother’s name is Azza Amma. She has seven arms.
Her bosom is vast, her hands are free. To make the world she let it go. To want a soul her heart must be empty. Now she has space enough; she knows love truly.
This is me beginning to build a TTRPG ruleset around inventory / capacity. Initial idea directly inspired by this cohost post.
I am a very reluctant writer of rules. I’m tricking myself by starting in fiction.
The idea is that this ruleset is diegetic; its abstractions represent the cosmology and worldview of Azza Amma’s priests. Your soul has seven parts, like the seven hands of the mother goddess. Character creation has its own gazetteer / is part of the campaign setting.
( Image source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/38273 )