The Temple of Gu: Call of the Taíno - Cultural Resurrection Through Sacred Play

For centuries, the colonial narrative declared us extinct—our language suppressed, our spirituality driven into hiding by the Inquisition and forced conversion, our vibrant culture reduced to tragic footnotes in history books written by those who tried to erase us. But the Zemí never stopped speaking. The spirits of rivers, mountains, hurricanes, and stones continued their ancient songs through the land itself, waiting for the descendants who would remember how to listen. We never forgot completely—the knowledge went underground, hidden in folk practices, whispered by abuelas who carried what they could, encoded in traditions that looked Catholic on the surface but remained Indigenous at the root. Now, in an era of cultural reclamation and spiritual reawakening, the Temple of Gu offers something unprecedented: a pathway back to ancestral practice through the unexpected medium of collaborative storytelling and game design.

The Temple of Gu: Call of the Taíno is a comprehensive two-hundred-page expansion for the award-winning Temple of Gu tabletop roleplaying game, a system that uses dice, character sheets, and shared narrative to teach genuine spiritual principles from multiple Afro-Indigenous traditions. This supplement focuses entirely on Taíno cosmology, ceremonial practice, and cultural knowledge, creating what amounts to an interactive textbook disguised as entertainment—a mystery school curriculum delivered through gameplay that makes learning feel like adventure rather than academic study. This is not fantasy worldbuilding where someone with no connection to the culture invents "inspired by" content for profit. This is cultural resurrection through game design, created by Philip Ryan Deal, a Puerto Rican Babalawo with Taíno ancestry who has spent decades studying what fragments survived, consulting with Indigenous knowledge keepers, and building a coherent framework for contemporary practice rooted in authentic tradition while honestly acknowledging where reconstruction becomes necessary.

The expansion presents an alternate timeline where colonization never happened, allowing players to experience Borikén (Puerto Rico) as it could have been if Indigenous development had continued uninterrupted into the present day. Imagine thriving Taíno cities where ancient wisdom and modern technology blend seamlessly—the University of Borikén teaching both traditional ecological knowledge and cutting-edge environmental science, solar farms positioned to honor the sun Zemí while generating clean energy, fiber optic networks carrying prayers alongside data packets, and the Grand Batey in San Juan hosting sacred ball games that resolve community conflicts and divine future possibilities. This is Afrofuturist methodology applied to Indigenous experience, the same creative worldbuilding that imagines uncolonized African futures now extended to Caribbean Indigenous peoples. Rather than centering trauma and loss, the setting shows possibility and resilience, building the future we were denied and demonstrating that cultural genocide is never complete when the land remembers and descendants choose to listen.

Call of the Taíno serves multiple communities with different needs while maintaining coherent focus on cultural preservation and spiritual transmission. For tabletop RPG players seeking collaborative storytelling that carries genuine weight beyond entertainment, this expansion transforms game sessions into spiritual practice where player choices have real consequences for character development and where the mechanics themselves teach Taíno values like balance, reciprocity, and community accountability. The system ensures that character growth mirrors actual spiritual transformation rather than simply accumulating mechanical advantages, creating gameplay experiences that challenge players to examine their own relationship with land, ancestors, and sacred responsibility. For spiritual seekers wanting to walk an Indigenous path but lacking access to traditional teachers or intact lineages, the expansion provides structured guidance drawn from authentic sources, practical exercises for building relationship with Zemí spirits, and clear protocols for approaching this work with appropriate respect even when direct cultural connection feels distant or uncertain.

For Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean peoples engaged in ancestral reclamation, discovering that our Indigenous heritage is not extinct but sleeping and can be awakened through intentional practice, Call of the Taíno offers something precious: permission to reclaim what was taken combined with honest acknowledgment of what was lost and how reconstruction differs from unbroken transmission. The supplement teaches Taíno cosmology as documented by early observers before the worst destruction occurred, explains how to work with Zemí spirits using both traditional protocols and contemporary adaptations, provides vocabulary and language elements that survived into the present, and models how to build coherent spiritual practice from fragments without pretending we have complete unbroken knowledge. This is cultural work done with integrity—honoring what we know, acknowledging what we've lost, and refusing to fill gaps with appropriation from other Indigenous peoples or New Age invention.

The expansion addresses anyone who has felt the call of rivers and mountains speaking in voices older than human language, who suspects the world pulses with more consciousness than mainstream culture acknowledges, who wants to build genuine relationship with land and spirits through reverence rather than extraction. The Taíno understanding that Zemí inhabit everything—not just obvious candidates like storms and ancient trees but also stones, particular springs, specific mountains, even tools and objects when treated with proper respect—offers an animist framework perfectly suited for people seeking spiritual practice grounded in place rather than abstraction. Through seven detailed chapters plus introduction and appendix materials, players learn to work with specific Zemí from Taíno tradition including Yúcahu (supreme creator), Atabey (mother of waters), Guabancex (hurricane lady), and numerous local spirits tied to Caribbean geography, alongside practical instruction for identifying and honoring the Zemí present in your own bioregion regardless of whether you live in the Caribbean.

The supplement includes complete game mechanics for playing Taíno characters with culturally specific Archetypes and abilities, detailed setting information about the alternate-timeline Borikén, guidance for Game Guides facilitating Taíno-focused campaigns, ready-to-play adventure scenarios that teach through experience, an appendix with Taíno language primer and extensive glossary making vocabulary accessible even to players with no prior exposure, and illustrations throughout featuring maps, petroglyphs, and character art that brings the setting to life visually. The content addresses mature themes including death work, violence in ceremonial contexts, what it means to imagine a world without colonialism's wounds, and the spiritual intensity that comes from genuine relationship with forces beyond human control. This material assumes players mature enough to handle complexity without needing sanitized versions that strip out anything challenging or uncomfortable.

Call of the Taíno demonstrates that games can carry sacred knowledge, that entertainment and education need not oppose each other, and that Indigenous cultural preservation can happen through unexpected channels when practitioners bring both creativity and reverence to the work. This is decolonial game design that refuses to participate in the ongoing erasure of Indigenous peoples while also refusing to trap us in permanent victimhood—we acknowledge what was done while insisting on our right to futures we define for ourselves. Whether you play weekly campaigns that span months of story time, use the book as standalone cultural resource without gaming, or something between those extremes, the Temple of Gu: Call of the Taíno offers pathways toward relationship with ancestral wisdom that survives because the land never forgets and the Zemí never stopped calling those who would listen.

The Taíno people never disappeared. We evolved, adapted, and carried forward what we could through impossible circumstances. Now it's time to speak the old names again, honor the spirits openly, and build the future our ancestors dreamed of before colonization tried to kill those dreams. The Call sounds across centuries. Will you answer?