The Eye of Joyful Sitting Amongst Friends

Old School Death

2012-04-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

On the third session of our Swords and Wizardry game, we had our first death. Mick the Dwarvish thief/warrior got his head popped off by a zombie on a natural 20 when he only had 1 hit point left. Understand that these are very short sessions of about two hours, and the first session was just traveling to the ruin.

Cookie the dog also took a hit that would have killed any of the rest of us and survived.

We barricaded ourselves into a room and waited until the zombies finished lunching. Then we properly looted the body and left the dungeon.

We did find an interesting human back in the town, who had enormous bulging muscles. We cut him in on a share.

The Jakallan Underworld

2012-03-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

With the recent talk about a future release of the Jakallan Tsu'urum in the works, I thought it might be a good time to prime the pump of demand by describing what it is in its current form.

Decades ago, I received a copy of Barker's original Jakallan underworld from an agent of the O.A.L. It consists of a huge map of the first level (probably 30" x 30"), a two page map of the second level (about 12" x 18"), and a one page map of the third level. Along with the maps, it has about 40 pages of typewritten room descriptions.

The maps contain many areas described in EPT and the Sourcebook as being in the underworld, such as trap that teleports you to deadly Queen Nayari's throne room and the Garden of Weeping Snows. These well-defined dungeon 'specials' are scattered across the maps, connected by standard, Old School, D&D-style random dungeon areas, with their meaningless passageways, secret doors, traps, and monsters. Room descriptions in these undefined places are simple (e.g."6 Qol, 4 lapis worth 200K under rubbish in the corner". Numerous walls could be punched through with a pick or shovel, since they are a pencil-width thick on the map.

Barker has said that this map was strongly influenced by D&D and does not represent the real state of Tekumelani underworlds. The process of dritlana razes all but the basements of buildings and then fills them in with rubble, building the next city on top. Then, in order to get to the ancient shrines deep within the ground, the temples excavate some of those debris-filled passages to connect up with the hallways lower down. The creatures that live down below also dig out new dens and perhaps even new exits from the underworld.

So, according to the Professor, the underworld 'specials' are connected by a relatively small number of tunnels that crisscross one another occasionally, with some traps and secret doors to prevent folks from just waltzing in and making off with the goods. The "every 10 foot square is used" format of early (and many not so early) dungeons would not be used.

Also, there are some extremely cool things right on the first level of the underworld. I think many of these locales, like Nayari's throne room, are actually much deeper.

Rather than simply publishing the old underworld of 1975, I'd like to see the foundation add a chapter on how to make the original conform with a more realistically Tekumelani underworld map.

One of these days, I am going to take my existing map, photocopy it, and take a scissors to it, cutting out the 'specials' and redrawing the rest of the map.

Dominion

2012-02-27T12:23:00.000-08:00

I finally learned Dominion from Rio Grande Games this weekend. What a great card game! The idea of having a built deck game where you build the deck as part of play is ingenious. I played the "If this is your first time playing" game. I lost, but I caught on quickly. Final score 76 to 42. Yet another game to add to my Buy list.

Then that night, I dreamt about playing Dominion. Weird.

Con of the North

2012-02-22T10:07:00.002-08:00

Con of the North, a local Saint Paul con, had its 20th anniversary this year. This was the first game con I've attended for several years. I had a great time.

Saturday, I played in three games, back to back, from 10a to 10p. The first was an Over the Edge adventure on Al Amarja. This is surreal modern setting on an independent island in the Mediterranean. It was fun and crazy. One PC was a talking gorilla veterinarian. I played a bicycle messenger who moonlighted as a high-tech thief. I can't really tell you what happened, other than a fantastic X Games-style bicycle free-styling run down a hill to knock out the bad guy, including skidding down a bannister and hitting a jump at the bottom. We laughed pretty much non-stop.

The next was a musketeer adventure in 17th century Paris, investigating the nighttime injury and maiming of other Musketeers. The adventure ended with a bang, literally, due to an explosives-obsessed alchemist. Unfortunately, though the sorcerer involved was killed, so were a number of Musketeers. But I got to kiss a beautiful succubus!

The last game was the highlight of the weekend. The setting was Pirates of the Caribbean, if the Aztecs and Incas had had magic, and therefore didn't get conquered by the conquistadors. I played a Aztec warrior/diplomat. We chased a pirate ship whose captain could control the wind with an ancient Olmec artifact. A fantastic ship battle and boarding ensued, and then a quick trip to the Meso-American underworld to play a game of Tlatchtli, or Mayan court soccer, against other lost souls. Thanks to the selfless sacrifice of one of the players, who leapt to the top of the court to confront the unnamed Olmec god, we scored a point (yours truly), nabbed the artifact, and vamoosed out of the underworld with the artifact and a few lost crew of the ship.

This was a new game GMed by the author (Hi, Chad), called Heirs to the Lost World. It uses a unique dice pool mechanic that gives players a large amount of flexibility in putting effort into their actions. Each culture has some form of magic: alchemy, voodoo, blood magic, sun magic, and shamanism. I liked the system.

The last game of the con was the Sunday morning Tekumel adventure, run by John Till, who played in a T:EPT adventure I ran for his birthday last fall. Called Jakalla Nights, it was a typical "Fresh Off the Boat" tribe in search of new home scenario that had very atypical results. I got to play my favorite nonhuman race, a Tinaliya. We got working passage on board Captain Harchar's ship. We had to do some sailing and shoveling bird guano. But just before we were going to disembark in Jakalla, we discovered that Harchar intended to sell us into slavery. So, we rioted, killed Harchar, and convinced the new captain to let us off in the swamps across the river from Jakalla. We were sick of 'civilized' people trying to screw us and wanted to find a home in the jungles similar to our previous home. Yay for self-determination!

I ended Sunday playing some Chrononauts and Monty Python Fluxx, thus getting my urge to play fun card games out of my blood for a bit.

All in all a good con.

I get to play!

2012-02-17T08:33:00.001-08:00

This week is Con of the North, the local game convention celebrating its 20th year. I've been going for most of that time with hiati (hiatuses?) over the years. I remember being stuffed into the Landmark Center in the early 1990s, with most games played in the enormous atrium.

This year, I'm not running any games, just playing. And I get to play in Tekumel for once. The fellow for whom I ran a game for his birthday last fall is running a "Fresh off the boat" game on Sunday. I'm looking forward to what ever he has in store for us.

I haven't played in Tekumel for decades, so this is going to be fun.

Adventure help

2012-02-04T12:54:00.000-08:00

I'm coming back to adventure building after a long hiatus, and I don't feel like I was ever that good at it to begin with. I pulled a couple books out of my library and wondered what the opinion of the assembled minds were of them before I commit time to reading them.

The first is Dungeon Master's Design Kit by Harold Johnson and Aaron Allston from AD&D 1E. It is an adventure design kit that has three parts -- Book 1: Adventure Design, Book 2: Forms Book, and Book 3: Adventure Cookbook. The forms are sheets for planning out your villians, and other aspects of the adventure.

The second book is the Dungeon Builder's Guidebook by Bruce Cordell for AD&D 2E.

Any thoughts? Useful to read? Total crap?

Are there more useful books? I've heard the AD&D 1E DMG has good advice.

Speak up, please.

Retro D&D

2012-02-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

We started a new campaign in my Tuesday Night Gaming Group. We're using Swords and Wizardry, the OD&D reboot. Yesterday was character rolling and the initial setup. I had a blast.

But there's a problem. I'm the only warrior amongst a dwarven fighter-thief (emphasis on thief), a cleric, and an elvish multi-classed magic-user. Not only that, but I have the lowest hit points in the party. I do have a bow to fight things over there instead of right here, but still -- we're all going to die. The cleric also has a dog, who has one less hit point than the whole party combined. That dog is going to save our collective ass, I predict.

My character had the treasure map, so now we have a goal.

So, meet Tarmac the Glib, 1st level fighter:

Str 13
Dex 15
Con 8
Int 12
Wis 7
Chr 17

Hit points: 2 (bad rolling and -1 for Con)

Bastard Sword
Short bow and 40 arrows
Ring Mail
Shield
Treasure map

P.S. Coming up with the name was fun. It's been awhile since I've played low-level fantasy with punishing names.

Delving in the Underworld

2012-01-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

(n.b. This was originally written before the holidays, but then I got laid off and it has laid fallow since then. Thus the holiday poem at the beginning.)

I'm going to uncover delectable morsels hidden in my website to showcase for you. Some are my own, some are hosted for others. I hope you'll find something you like. Interspersed with these I'm trying my hand at color copy. I've never written fiction in Tekumel, so bear with me.

Juresh walked silently to the top of the stairway that led into the darkness. The treads of the stone stairs were smooth with wear and rather rounded, almost slippery. The slight smell of moldy decay wafted up from below. Many tales from his childhood told of the dangers and rewards of the deeps. His uncle, Karjan, had brought back the death mask of Queen Nayari's second husband's mother, dead these 19 millennia, or so the story is told.

My first delectable morsel is a seasonally-apt poem by Bob Alberti, 'Twas the Night Before Chitlásha. I think this needs no more introduction. Enjoy.

And also the tale of his grandfather, also named Juresh, who died with Sagun fungus growing in his lungs and out his mouth, and was left as a macabre new ornament in a dank tomb below ground. The life of a tomb robber was a hazardous life, sometimes cut short. Juresh steeled his nerves and stepped on the first step. Two slaves took tremulous steps behind him, their hands shaking on the torches they carried. His two clan cousins, trained warriors both, brought up the rear. They were to protect Juresh on this rite of passage to becoming a full-fledged tomb robber.

I found a useful document written by Erick-Noel Bouchard titled Nonhuman Species of Tekumel. This gives the EPT rules to roll up nonhuman characters in Empire of the Petal Throne. In this time of the EPT revival, this will help for those who want to play nonhumans. It even includes the Urunen. If you have critiques of his designs, send them to me. Perhaps I rewrite them.

As they approached the bottom of the well-worn stairs, the torchlight made long shadows into the space that opened out. Juresh waved a hand to stop everyone as he gazed into the room that had once been part of the thriving city above. This entrance to the Tsu'urum was only accessible from the Nighted Tower clanhouse, so Juresh knew that it was unlikely that he would encounter anyone not of his clan, and that the frequency that his people passed through here would keep the worst denizens of the underworld in places with easier pickings. Still the nervousness would not leave his belly, piquing his paranoia. He opened the kayi's-eye lantern shutter, projecting a brighter beam into the room. A few rats fled the illumination, but otherwise the room was empty. Juresh stepped in first, and the others kept close behind.

The next stop on this mini-tour is Justin Grabowski's conversions of Tekumelani nonhumans and creatures to The Fantasy Trip (TFT), a wonderful set of roleplaying rules that includes one of the best tactical combat systems in any RPG. It is very well-suited to the dungeon/underworld style of gaming, as well as having plenty to occupy those above ground. I have used TFT for Tekumel in the 80s, and I'm currently writing a complete set of character rules, including spell conversions and new talents, for TFT Tekumel. These nonhuman and creature stats will be a part of that effort.

The room at the bottom of the stairs was empty, but Juresh checked each wall for hidden passages, like his father had taught him, by tapping and listening for hollowness. Nothing seemed more than it was -- solid stone and mortar. Juresh headed down the only hallway available. The other four followed. As he walked, Juresh noted the smoothness of the walls, which were all stone and mortar. Perhaps it was the ancient walls of the clanhouse from millennia past, thick rock to keep the oppressive heat out. As he walked, he rapped on the left wall, sounding for a change in echo. He found nothing. The corridor took a sharp right turn, so Juresh paid particular attention to the walls at the corner, since often, secret doors were hidden there. When he rapped on the wall straight ahead, he thought her heard a slight difference in the timbre of the echoes.

The bus now stops at another roadside attraction. Years ago, I came across a script by Christopher Pound that took a list of sample words and constructed new words based on the repetition of patterns through the word list. It was called the Language Confluxer and randomly created the best set of Tsolyani sounding words I had ever run across -- better than Barker's Tsolyani Names Without Tears algorithm. I took it and jiggered things a bit. Thus was born the Tsolyani Word Generator. With this tool, new GMs and players no longer need struggle to come up with new names. Just generate some and pick good ones. As an example of the names generated, here are the first five I randomly generated:

Hr hiLo’ochilash
Chiruku hiKaru
Mrishesha hiMashik
Tetkumas hiHitam
Tsoggashte hiNly

See? Not that bad. Perhaps, switch some things around. Take a lineage name from one and make one of the first names into a lineage name. Mashik hiTsoggashte, for instance. I used this tool to create 'Juresh'.

Juresh held his breath for a few seconds in anticipation. "Take the slaves a dozen dhaiba back so I can see with just this light," he instructed his escort. He also didn't want anyone to see his technique. They nodded and took the slaves each by the arms. Once their lights were gone, he reached for one of the many pouches at his belt. He opened it and took a large pinch of the contents -- feathery ash from the cooking fires. With his lantern opened to a medium-sized beam, he threw the ash in the air near the wall. He observed the dust as it floated in the air. Then he noticed a small area where something was blowing the ash away from the wall. Juresh smiled because he had found a hidden door. He noted where the disturbance was. Now he just needed to figure out the unlocking trick. He called to his companions.

A final tidbit for your enjoyment. A series of maps of Tekumel. The first map is a photo of the globe made by the Professor and his close associates. Unfortunately it only shows one side of the planet, but it does give you a sense of how much of the planet the northern continent takes up. The second map is a projection made from this globe, uncurling the rounded map into a flat map. The next three maps show three cities: Tumissa -- metropolis of western Tsolyanu, Sirsum -- a small town in Kilalammu, and Setnakh, a small town situated about halfway between Jakalla and Thraya on the Rananga River. More details of Setnakh appear in Seal of the Imperium #1 in an article by Zane Healy and Professor Barker.

Juresh could tell that the slaves were spooked to be below ground. He was sure they had heard tales of the dangers. Their eyes darted nervously from side to side. But their torches were essential to the next stage, finding the trigger. In the increased light, Juresh examined the wall. It was stone blocks with mortar between them. But with the light he could just barely make out the hair-thin outline of the door. He used his lantern to illuminate the area he was inspecting. The pace was painstakingly slow, but Juresh had a sharp eye and patience, things his father said would serve him well.

The others got a little restless as Juresh proceeded. After ten minutes of looking, the pattern of the stone popped out in his sight. He went back over the areas of the hidden doorway and found the anomaly. He pushed the tiny out of place bit of rock and it moved and clicked. A gasp of suction came from the wall and the door swung open.

To Be Continued

Stop wringing your hands and start playing!

2011-12-15T09:53:00.000-08:00

Tekumel has a reputation for being difficult to GM. One complaint goes that who but Barker can properly GM Tekumel. The world is so rich and so detailed that only the Professor would know enough. Another complaint is that a GM must read every word written about Tekumel to do it properly. This article will try to debunk those notions, and give my personal advice on how to get started.

I think the best way to introduce players to this wonderfully detailed world is to start their characters with as little knowledge of Tekumel as the players have. This means using the "Fresh Off the Boat" beginning scenario, where the characters are tribal barbarians from a distant (and simpler) part of Tekumel, a milieu more familiar to players. Primitive tribes are similar on Earth and on Tekumel.

The other choice to make is the matter of rules. Four sets of official rules have been written for Tekumel: Empire of the Petal Throne from TSR, Swords and Glory from Gamescience, Gardasiyal from Theater of the Mind Enterprises, and Tekumel: Empire of the Petal Throne from Guardians of Order. Several other rules sets have between written specifically for Tekumel, including Tirikelu. There are also quite a few generic systems that have been adapted to Tekumel, like GURPS and BRP. Each of them has advantages and drawbacks, which I won't go into here.

For me, the original Empire of the Petal Throne rules are the best place to start. My reasoning goes as follows:

EPT supplies a rich amount of setting material. I feel that the description of Tekumel in EPT is the most concise of all of the rules, yet delivers the flavor of the place, including all nations and non-humans.
This set of rules is full of adventuring material. It contains all manner of animals and monsters, examples of play, and it is generously sprinkled with tidbits of information that provide the seeds of many an undertaking.
It is a straightforward set of rules, close enough to D&D to be recognizable, yet specific to Tekumel. It only takes 10 minutes to roll up characters.
Retro gaming is in. EPT is easily suited to Old School-style of roleplaying, since it invented Old School.
It costs $25 for a complete playable game from Tita's House of Games. All the monsters, all the neat treasures, all the nations, all the non-humans, all the politics, everything.
Moving to another set of rules once your players are hooked and you are more familiar with the setting is not that hard. Either you can convert your characters to the new system, or you just start over with new characters, perhaps ones from within Tsolyani society.

The biggest drawback to EPT's background material is the spell system, to my mind. A member of any temple can learn any spell, which goes against canon in all the other games. To overcome this shortcoming, I will provide a simple solution: ignore canon. Since the PCs will be barbarians from a distant land without the same temple structure as Tsolyanu, they won't be in the temples anyway. Magic users will be primitive shaman, a great justification for having 'the wrong spells'.

Once you've read the EPT rules, the next step is to get more familiar with Tekumel. For this I have a low cost suggestion -- read The Man of Gold and Flamesong, the first two novel by Professor Barker. Though they are out of print, I found many copies of each for just a few bucks including shipping on Amazon and ABEBooks.com. These books give you a feel for the world and how things work.

Now, find some ~~guinea pigs~~ friends who want to try something new. Pick a type of terrain (forest/jungle/mountain/seashore/plains). Then tell them they are members of a tribe that lives in that terrain. Have them roll up EPT characters. Some of the skills may not be appropriate (e.g. Mountaineer in a plains tribe), so either have them reroll those skills, pick a reasonable one from the same list, or have them make up a new, better-fitting non-combat skill.

You now have your erstwhile tribesfolk -- they need a reason to be in Tsolyanu. There is nothing like a disaster to get people moving. The disaster could be environmental (drought, locusts, erupting volcano), economic (crash in dna-grain prices), or political (war, invading marauders, etc.). Pick a disaster. Force the tribe off their land and onto a ship headed for Jakalla or, if you are truly perverse, Penom (my first GMs were truly perverse).

An article in the Eye of All-Seeing Wonder #1 gives exactly this beginning. It's called Welcome to Jakalla by Michael Cule. A really good thing about this article is that it supplies a large amount of description of what the characters experience. I recently used this as the basis for a game that I was commissioned to run last month. I changed the mission at the end of the adventure, but the setup is so good I kept it all. This adventure has the entire tribe moving to Tsolyanu, which makes for a good base to start with. If When characters die, they can roll one of the other tribes folk. It also gives the players a common goal, the survival and growth of the tribe.

Now you have a solid starting point for adventures in the Imperium. Who knows, maybe the characters will get into a temple or maybe even a clan!

The Tékumel Community: A History

2011-11-15T13:45:00.000-08:00

In the beginning, a star system got sucked into a pocket dimension. Along with it came hundreds of roleplayers and wargamers -- the Tékumel community. In this article, I will go over the various things that have been done over the years to support communication between the far-flung fans of the Tékumel community, outside of rules and supplements and other published material.

Fanzines

Almost immediately, The Powers That Be sought to support the Tékumel community. In 1977, the first fanzine was published, The Tékumel Journal. Though it only lasted two issues, it was chock full of great articles. But there was no feedback. No means for the players to contact each other. The later fanzines (Imperial Miltary Journal and The Journal of Tékumelani Affairs) provided a means for players to have some of their adventure reports published (i.e. Imperial Dispatches), as well as a means to contact other people in their area. The last official fanzine was The Imperial Courier (Vol. 2 No. 2) in 1987.

It took the Internet to get the community to really talk to each other.

Electronic Mailing Lists

The first attempt at getting these folks talking was my Tékumel Digest, a moderated electronic mailing list before the web existed. The first digest went out May 10, 1991, and it consisted of a single message from me about using Christopher Pound's language confluxer script to take Tsolyáni words and generate new Tsolyáni names from them. The Digest was constructed by hand, because I was not aware of any automated mailing list administrative software. People sent me their questions and comments, and I built the digest from them. I did this until I lost my regular email access at my employer when I got laid off in July 1992. Bob Alberti took over after that, continuing the Digest till August 1993. I store the archives for the Tékumel Digest at my website.

I don't know what we did until Chris Davis started The Blue Room in May 1995. Probably twiddled our thumbs and deconstructed Gardásiyal. The Blue Room was another email list, with the wonderful addition of Professor Barker making in-depth comments and answering questions. Over a thousand messages were exchanged until June 2000, when circumstances ended The Blue Room. The Blue Room Archives are stored in the file section of the Tékumel mailing list. This is one of the definitive sources of information outside of the rule books, second only to The Tékumel Sourcebook for solid information. I still research topics in the archives of this tremendous resource. Luckily, there is a handy search engine to assist the erstwhile GM in finding out esoteric answers.

The next venture into electronic communication was the Tékumel list on OneList.com, started in February 2000. This list is still going, even after OneList.com was bought by eGroups.com, which was subsequently bought by Yahoo! Groups. Yahoo provides some file storage for the group. Numerous other groups have arisen as well, though most of them get little or no traffic now.

Tekumel-related Yahoo Groups

tekumel: The main Tékumel group. Active.
apatekumel: Visitations of Glory, the Tékumel Amateur Press Association (APA). No issues since Feb 2008. The files section contains most of the issues of the apazine, as well as Tekumel.com.
tekdevel: Discussion of technical development projects for Tékumel . Moribund since 2005.
tekumelnovels: Discussion of Man of Gold and Professor Barker's other novels. Last message in 2009.
tsolyani: For the discussion of the Tsolyáni language. This summer they had a VOIP teleconference.
Ketengku: A group to discuss architecture and medicine on Tékumel . Undergoing CPR since 2007.
MightyImperialDeeds: A group for posting your game reports in the style of Imperial Dispatches, as was done in the fanzines of old. Only one message, but a new one is pending. (I just sent a Dispatch that I wrote for a recent game and posted on my website. When I saw the description of this group, I sent the Dispatch in to the moderator.)
savage_tekumel: A group for developing a set of Savage Worlds rules for Tékumel. The author of this rule set posted drafts in 2009. Nothing has been posted since then.
tekumel-moderated: This group was originally intended to emulate The Blue Room, with questions submitted and answered by the Professor and his minions, leaving the Tékumel group for free-flowing, sometimes rancorous, discussions without moderation. Since the Professor has less energy for this type of activity, this group has been slow for a couple years.
TekumelArt: For the dissemination of fan art related to Tékumel, as well as discussion of various methods of producing said art, such as electronic means. Not much traffic.
TekumelMinis-War: This group is for talking about Tékumel miniatures and wargaming. The new figures have helped revitalize this group, which has recent activity.
tenebrousplaces: This group publishes Tenebrous Places: The Magazine for People Being Pursued by the Undead, a stylish graphic magazine with a humorous slant, as well as other graphical constructs of the moderator. It's been a couple years since the last post of substance, but the archives are well worth looking at.

I'm sure if people participated, people on these lists would respond, and perhaps the less active groups could be revived.

Bulletin Boards and Forums

There have been a few bulletin boards and forums for discussing Tékumel. The first I was aware of was Bill Cumberland's Tékumel discussion board on the Shadowlands BBS out of Vancouver, B.C. that lasted from 1991-94. Because it was a BBS, it had limited participation, since it required a phone call to use. The advent of the Web killed BBSes as they were (and Shadowlands was no exception), though some managed to reinvent themselves as mailing lists or web sites. (Shadowlands Archive available.)

For a long time before the Intarwebz, Usenet supplied one of the functions for keeping people connected. This was a large set of forums where people discussed everything, including Tékumel. alt.games.frp.tekumel existed for a long time as a low volume newsgroup, but Usenet also succumbed to the Web. Archives of a particularly active period from 1994-95 are held in the Weird Realm repository.

The latest excursions into forum communication are the Tékumel Forums on the official Tekumel.com site. Peter Gifford of Enmore, NSW, Australia added forum software to the site in May 2005. There are numerous discussions there that need more readers and responders. I encourage you to check it out and participate.

This concludes my review of the means by which the Tékumel community keeps in touch. I hope this helps you find people to talk about Tékumel with, as well as provide some support for playing and refereeing in Tékumel. Enjoy.

New Idea: Video Game Reviews

2011-11-14T14:47:00.001-08:00

While reading the Tekumel Forum, I ran across a mention of someone's video reviews of EPT material. Interesting.

So, for your viewing pleasure:

EPT review (part 1 -- part 2 -- part 3)

S&G review (part 1 -- part 2)

Book of Ebon Bindings review (part 1 -- part 2)

Birthday Tekumel Game Report

2011-11-14T10:51:00.001-08:00

So a friend of a friend contacted me to GM a T:EPT game for his 50th birthday. I agreed and since three of his players had no experience with Tekumel, I used Michael Cule's 'Welcome to Jakalla' article from the Eye of All-Seeing Wonder #1 as the tribal setup and then inserted my own mission into the Jakallan Tsu'urum (courtesy of the original Jakalla Underworld maps) to ~~steal~~ recover a powerful magic item from the Temple of Hru'u (red 64-68).

Their first armed conflict involved destroying a group of Qol, after the ~~foolhardy~~ brave Master of the Hunt shouted down the corridor at them.

They managed to get out only losing half their slave torch bearers and with only moderate injuries. The Chest of the Topaz God was retrieved, and they ended up with several thousand Kaitars worth of gems and Hru'u icons.

Everyone had a good time. They all said they would play again, and the notion of playing every year on his birthday came up. In other words a big success!

My compensation was wonderful: a bottle of good port (Graham's 10 Year Tawny Porto). I shared some with the players, most of whom had never tasted port.

New Tekumel Newsletter: The Skein of Destiny

2011-08-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

Peter Robbins has started a Tekumel newsletter blog called The Skein of Destiny. His purpose is to collect what's neat around the net related to Tekumel, and then post the monthly results in various Tekumel venues and places devoted to the old-style games of yore.

His August collection is out now. Check out what's going on in the world of Tekumel.

The Tekumel Blogosphere: Miscellanea

2011-08-26T23:45:00.000-07:00

I've kind of fallen off the blogosphere for a while. Here are a few more Tekumel-related blogs. I hope you find some fun stuff here.

Tekumel Art

Next comes Dave's Irregulars. Dave is a young artist who plays in Jeff's Tekumel game. He has a bunch of drawings up on this blog that are Tekumel-related. I particularly liked his Mihalli and his Tinaliya.

Tekumel Roleplaying

A fellow nicknamed Kogigami has a Tekumel roleplaying blog titled The Superior Force. He has session logs and maps and photos of figures. Sounds like his players are having fun.

Tekumel Miscellanea

I was quite surprised when I found the next blog, Shen Blog. This blog is written in broken Shen-speak. I haven't read a lot of entries, but what I read was amusing.

The Tekumel Blogosphere: Miniatures

2011-06-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd take a tour of the blogs devoted to Tekumel and Tekumel-related topics. I found more than I expected, so I'll focus on one topic at a time.

First let me say that I have a complicated relationship to miniatures. I love the look of miniatures, especially Tekumel miniatures. I love using them for role playing to visualize the action. I played The Fantasy Trip for several years, and it's tactical map movement for combat was amazing. I'm still looking for an RPG that makes mapped combat so easy.

Let me also say I hate miniatures battles, getting the huge table out and moving hundreds of figures around. I've done it with several different genres. I still hate it. I don't have the mass army strategic mindset, I guess.

I got into figure painting for a bit. I made a gorgeous Warrior-Priest of Vimuhla figure from the original Ral Partha figures. His robes were different colors of red, the flame finial on his helmet looked like real fire, and he had a gold flame on the back of his cape. I think it could have won awards. It took me about 12 hours of work on a single figure. After that, I just painted Shen and naked skirmishers, which were easy, and some sloppy troops, because I knew if I was going to take 12 hours per figure, I'd still be painting my Legion of Red Devastation. Then I discovered my dislike for miniatures battles, and I just stopped.

That being said, I can't ignore miniatures in Tekumel. Some of the most exciting things happening right now in the Tekumel arena involve the miniatures. A new line of figures is being sculpted and produced, and a new set of rules for miniatures combat is being playtested. This is the first new set of sculpts since Robert Smith's 15 mm line in the early 90s. Also, Tekumel started with miniatures. The professor carved miniatures from wood when he was a kid, and from the beginning of Empire of the Petal Throne, miniatures have been there.

So, let's look at who is out there.

The first stop is the blog for a grand project, bringing the newly sculpted Tekumel miniatures to market that I mentioned above. The Tekumel Project is the brainchild of Howard Fielding. The sculptures being made are of really fine quality. There is also a discount club called The Tekumel Club

Next stop on the tour is Chirene's Workbench. This is a Tekumel blog written by Jeff Berry, mostly about miniatures. He's been around Tekumel longer than I have, with his main focus being on miniatures. He ran Tekumel Games for several years. His library/museum of all things Tekumelani in his basement is a wonder to behold. He runs a Tekumel game regularly, and also hosts regular Tekumel battles. He's also a crack figure painter.

Another fellow interested in Tkeumel miniatures has The Pewter-Pixel Wars blog. He shows his figures as he paints them, telling about techniques he used and difficulties he had. Nicely organized.

That's all for now. I'll post more as I find them. If you have favorite Tekumel miniatures blogs, let me know.

Humanspace Empires

2011-04-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

(Yes, I know I said I wasn't getting to this until next week, but I had some time this week, so here you go.)

So, Tekumel popped into a pocket universe millennia ago and the highly technological culture slid into barbarism. But what about that incredibly advanced culture that discovered Tekumel, defeated the Ssu and the Hluss, terraformed the planet, moved its orbit, and installed huge gravity engines in the planet's core? What would it be like to adventure in the time before the Time of Darkness?

This question is answered in a new game called Humanspace Empires by The Drune. This game is part of the Old School Renaissance characterized by Pathfinder and Labyrinth Lord, as well as similar games evocative of the early years of RPGs. Humanspace Empires is very much designed to have the feel of EPT, but translated into the ultra-high technology level of the pulpy source material that Professor Barker was inspired by. The Drune has done an excellent job of injecting material that will be familiar to Tekumel fans, such as the Health and Pleasure Yeleth and Sunuz being the Galactic Standard language. The descriptions of the non-human races are also superb.

You'll find blast pistols, shield belts, ansibles, and interfogulators. Characters learn PSY powers such as Control of Self and Mind Bar, all very familiar.

So, if you're interested in pre-Cataclysm Humanspace, take a look at Humanspace Empires.

To find more out about this game, I've joined the Spacewords and Glory play-by-blog game. So, as an introduction to this new game, here is my character for the campaign:

Name: Krútai Málakal, Executive Officer on Deeds of Glory
Class/Level: Astronaut/3
Species/Homeworld: Human male from Tau Ceti
Age: 26

STR: 9
DEX: 16
CON: 8
INT: 12
PSY: 11
CHA: 7

Background skills:
Driver
Air Pilot
Spacer

Astronaut Skills/Powers:
Space swordsman
Energy Pistol
Navigator
Pilot +3

PSY Powers:
PSY Luck
Empathy
Control of Self
Bio PK-II
Sleep
Mind Bar

Credits: 2610 CR
Gear:
Space sword
X-Ray pistol
Z-Ray pistol
Skin suit with Shield Belt Mk II
Scan goggles
10 air tablets
Communicator
Magnetic clamps
Utility belt
Backpack
Contra-Grav belt
Perimetric orbs
Concubine (level I)

History:
Múruset Málakal was a brilliant administrator on the Tau Ceti system governor's staff, as well being a member of the governor’s prestigious Dhuón Tuptláng Két. Tlayésha Vríddu was an up-and-coming Imperial Naval officer from one of the great Houses of the empire, the Vríddu. Her career was meteoric, pushed by her whip-smart tactical mind and intense ambition. Múruset was her first husband, the perfect storm of an important political marriage and a love match. They met when Tlayésha was posted to Tau Ceti during a miner’s revolt. Their relationship was instantaneous and passionate. By the time they were married four months later, she was pregnant. Soon, her fleet was reposted to another system.

When she was five months pregnant with Krútai, as the executive officer of the frigate The Sérqu, she led the marine attack on a Hlutrgú corvette. They captured the ship and used it as a decoy to capture several other ships. Her ploy turned the tide in a key part of the Hlutrgú incursions. She then returned to Tau Ceti to be with her husband and deliver her son.

Her career took her all over the empire and beyond, while Múruset raised the boy. She returned as often as duty allowed. Her successes meant promotions to bigger ships. She also married another husband, her chief medical officer, who moved with her from assignment to assignment.

Seven years ago, when Krútai was just starting in the Academy, his mother got her commission as Captain of the dreadnought Red Devastation in one of the empire’s elite fleets. She was always in the lead, always taking the fight to the enemy, always first to shoot, first to board. Four years ago in a Mihálli raid, her ship was destroyed by a completely unknown weapon that obliterated half the fleet in an instant, turning the ships and the crew members inside out. Imperial investigators believe that the ship this terrible weapon was deployed on was also destroyed at the same time -- a suicide ship. His father became the governor’s chief of staff a year later.

From the moment he was born, Krútai moved. His Két-aunts said he never crawled nor walked, but went straight to running. At the age of five, he stole the keycodes to a mining inspection vehicle, and by ten he was learning to fly small inter-asteroid flitters. His father kept trying to get him interested in business or administration, but Krútai wanted to fly a starship. He got good marks in school, and his father finally acquiesced and let him sign up for the Imperial Naval Academy.

When his mother died, Krútai’s resolve stiffened and he finished the Academy with honors. With the solid political backing of his father, and the fiery passion and brilliance of his mother, he did extremely well in his assignments, rising through the ranks deftly with impeccable skills and subtle politics. One outcome of this tragedy was that Krútai became hardened and cruel, which distanced him from his crew. They respect and fear him, but few are his friends. His posting to The Deeds of Glory is his first as executive officer.

Back to back

2011-04-26T12:29:00.001-07:00

I'm in the midst of back-to-back weekend getaways, so you'll just have to wait for the next installment of Joyful Sitting. But I'll come back refreshed and energized.

My History with Tekumel - Part One

2011-04-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

I've been playing role playing games since the very beginning. At the tender age of 15, I bought the white box edition of D&D in the fall of 1975 from a local game store called The Little Tin Soldier Shoppe, which, as the name suggested, catered to the lead miniatures market. I had walked in, because I was looking for Avalon Hill boardgames. I had been hooked on Blitzkreig and Afrika Korps by my older brother, and The Little Tin was the closest store that was listed under 'Games' in the Yellow Pages.

I dove right in, but I had trouble getting traction on playing it. I got a copy of Chainmail to try to assist, but that was even harder and I abandoned it. When Blackmoor came out, I was finally able to play a little bit. Then The Palace of the Vampire Queen came out. Now, I had something that I could play with my friends. I enlisted my buddies Bruce and Scott. I can't even remember if we finished the game, because down at the Little Tin Soldier, of which I was now a regular customer, a campaign of another game started -- Empire of the Petal Throne.

That first campaign was refereed by Tim Cox (who played the priest Dutlor in the Professor's campaign, who fired that fateful Eye of Change at Princess Ma'in) and Craig Smith (who drew much of the artwork in later Tekumel publications (The Tekumel Journals and Swords and Glory, specifically). Here was a fully realized world with history and culture and cool ancient technology and spells! Craig and Tim were players in the Professor's campaign, and the store game was an official offshoot of Barker's game.

We started in the typical "Fresh Off the Boat" scenario in Penom, the delightful unkempt armpit of the Empire. In the first session, one of the characters got dragged off to the impalement stake for asking a nobleman directions. As I have said many times, I never looked back¹.

We did everything. We had city adventures, we delved into the underworld, we had military adventures in Milumanaya, we adventured in the wilderness, we took a tube car, we fought our way out of a Hlüss hive-ship, we had an orgy with followers of Lady Hrihayal, we got spat on by Ahoggya, we got kidnapped by robots (sentient Ru'un), we called for divine intervention (a lot). In other words, we had a blast.

In the culmination of nearly two years of adventuring, our ship sailed into Tsamra harbor. We were 'hosted' by the Vru'uneb secret police. They let us 'donate' our best magic items to the State. Then as a gesture of their thankfulness, they 'escorted' us to the tenth level of the underworld beneath Tsamra. While there, we 'made friends' with the many, many denizens of those environs. Of our original party of ten PCs and numerous NPCs and slaves, the last five survivors were 'housed' in a room that was quickly filling with a substance the consistency of Karo syrup. My character, Tolekh hiDraskalu, a priest of Vimuhla, asked my Lord to save us. I got him at a bad time, as I visualized Vimuhla dressed in a bath towel (the mind places its own understandable framework around things it can't cope with). "Please take my party to the surface of Tsamra!" I pled. I blinding flash of light filled my field of vision.

I know that there were more party members than just the three of us, but myself and two others were the only followers of Vimuhla or Chiteng that remained. We found ourselves in the market plaza of a Tsolyani city. We appeared in a huge flash of light and the crack of thunder. The shopkeepers and customers panicked and ran away from us, screaming "Demons! Demons!". The city guard came, armed for Ahoggya. When they saw us, two priests obviously of Vimuhla and a warrior of Chiteng, they put their swords away and talked to us. We were in Tumissa. Apparently, Vimuhla misunderstood me when I said 'Tsamra' and thought I said 'somewhere'. Must have been my foreign accent. We were debriefed by the OAL, escorted back to our temples and clan houses. Then the campaign came to a close.

Our exploits were later immortalized in The Imperial Military Journal in an Imperial Dispatch that I wrote.

That campaign strongly influenced every other campaign I ran and several I played in. It shaped me as a player and a GM. It also was the start of several friendships that have lasted until today (Hi John! Hi Victor! Hi Tom!). Some of the players in that game became the core of my gaming group through high school and college. And we kept coming back to Tekumel for years to come. I feel very lucky.

¹ - I did play AD&D 1st Ed. for about 2 months in the fall of 1980 in order to reserve my place in a friend's The Fantasy Trip campaign that he was going to start once they finished the Narnia-inspired AD&D campaign he was co-DMing. It was rather unintentionally silly, and confusing, even though I had played white box D&D before. My character was a druid who had a trained rhinoceros with a +2 magic horn that he rode into battle. That character was the inspiration for another player's TFT character, an Elvish animal trainer.

New rules? Systemless books?

2011-04-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

A recent discussion on the Tekumel email list was about what the next step for Tekumel should be. Some of the goals stated during this debate were (1) bring more people into the Tekumel tent, (2) have a steady set of rules and source materials professionally published in print and electronically, and (3) there is no goal #3.

Some people advocate creating a new set of rules based on Pathfinder or Savage Worlds or some other existing rule set. Some people think that system-less source materials should be published. Others think that one of the previous incarnations should be revamped into a modern form.

My take on this question goes this way. There are about 1000 Tekumel fans worldwide that are connected enough to know about Tita's House of Games. The Tekumel mailing list has about 700. Tita's customer list is about 1000. This number needs to at least double to sell enough books to make publishing commercially viable.

I also personally think we have enough rules for Tekumel. With four commercial systems (EPT, S&G, Gardasiyal, and T:EPT) and numerous fan systems, enough different styles of play are covered to appeal to most everyone. I've written several system conversions, as well as translations from one system to another. Why should we reinvent the wheel for yet another time? How many wheels do we really need? Also, the rules in all of these systems are not what keeps people in the Tekumel tent, it's the world. I've personally played using about a dozen different rule sets.

So, my proposal, and my challenge to you, is that the only way we are going to double the number of Tekumel players in the world is for us to play in Tekumel. If you are a Tekumel enthusiast, pick a set of rules that people you play with will play, read a novel or two and some beginning adventures, cajole, bribe, or shanghai your players into playing, and see what happens. Or start a game at your local game store (they still run games in local game stores, don't they?) If 20 percent of the 1000 each started a new game with 5 new players, we'd be very close to doubling our current numbers.

Now, to help facilitate this surge of new games, I'd like to see some of the old rules made available in electronic form. The only system in electronic form right now is Empire of the Petal Throne. The other official rules are available in print from Tita's, but stocks are low for T:EPT (if any are left at all -- Tita's site hasn't been updated since 2009). I'm not sure what happened to the electronic version of T:EPT that sold for awhile. I know that work is being done on a PDF of the Swords and Glory sourcebook, but that work has been ongoing for over a year, and that isn't the rules. I don't know if Gardasiyal can ever be made available electronically.

Or you might go with other unofficial rules. I wrote a set of GURPS Tekumel character rules. Sandy Peterson wrote RuneQuest/BRP rules. Dave Morris wrote Tirikelu, a custom set of rules. There are FUDGE, Torg, AD&D, D&D 3E, Talislanta, D6, Savage Worlds, and Fantasy Craft rules. If you want to look them over, you can go to The World of Tekumel Unofficial Rules page or my own RPG Rules for Tékumel page. Something should appeal to you.

So, let's get more campaigns going out there. Then we can worry about publishing something new.

Why

2011-04-16T13:49:00.000-07:00

The first question would be "Why would anyone write a blog about Tekumel?" It's an old setting that has had a checkered publishing history. It's never reached the audience that something like RuneQuest or Traveller has.

The answer to that is that in spite of difficulties, Tekumel presents one of the most creative settings around. It's depth and scope approaches Middle Earth, but with a heavy dose of the strange and exotic. Whereas Tolkien drew from the familiar themes of northern Europe, Barker used the less well-known motifs of Indian, the Middle East, and Meso-America. He combines them with the pulpy sci-fi of the 40s and 50s in a way that makes you believe this place exists on some plane.

The second question would be "Why would I write a blog about Tekumel?" I've been around role-playing games since the beginning, as a player, a GM, and a writer, and Tekumel was the first campaign I ever played in. It ruined me for D&D. I've been around Tekumel ever since. After 35 years, it's still my favorite RPG setting.

So, that answers those questions. Perhaps you have some questions as well. Ask in the comments, if you like.

Introduction

2011-04-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

The Eye of Joyful Sitting Amongst Friends is a powerful techno-magical item in the Tekumel universe. Eyes are small, handheld devices that use intraplanar power to create magical effects. They are called Eyes, because they are about the size and shape of a human eyeball. They have a small stud on the back to fire the device, and they hold up to 100 charges. The Eye of Joyful Sitting Amongst Friends causes a group of targets to be friendly to the user of the eye. I named this blog after this device, because I hope people will come here and discuss Tekumel as friends.

Tekumel is a fantasy world created by M.A.R. Barker, and described in several role-playing games, including Empire of the Petal Throne. For more information about Tekumel, visit the official Tekumel website or my own Tekumel site.

I have been involved with Tekumel since it was published in 1975. The first role-playing campaign I ever played in was set in Tekumel, and I never looked back. It ruined me, as far as D&D was concerned, forever.

In this blog, I want to discuss the current state of Tekumel, what products are available, what products have come before, and other musings on the topic of this great fantasy universe.

Welcome, Friend!