Flamesong: Out Now In Trade Paperback

 

I'm delighted to share the news that the Tekumel Foundation has brought M.A.R. Barker's Flamesong back into print in a new trade paperback edition with the original, stunning cover art. You can also purchase it for Kindle. To order either the print or Kindle edition, go here. 

I reread The Man of Gold a few years ago, and followed that by rereading Flamesong. I really enjoyed both of them, but Flamesong struck me as the stronger novel of the two. I was surprised both by how much I had forgotten in the decades since I had last read it, as well as how the positively Howardian name for a secret passageway in an ancient palace ("The Serpent That Winds Within") had stuck in my head all these years!

It's great to see Flamesong available again!

Tekumel Games at Virtual Gamehole Con

 

I'll be running two Tekumel scenarios as part of the virtual gaming experience at Gamehole Con 2021 this year, October 21-24.

To attend the convention virtually, in-person, or both, go here.

Once you have registered, go here to select events.

The first happens on Thursday, October 21, from 1-4 PM:

Tekumel: Prince of Barsoom: A new emperor sits on the Petal Throne and has charged you with hunting down a rebel Prince who has escaped through an interdimensional Nexus Point. Find the Nexus Point and follow the rebel Prince to Barsoom, the fabled Red Planet of of John Carter and Dejah Thoris. Swords & Planet adventure on two worlds! The Worlds of Tekumel and Barsoom involve adult themes including slavery and sexuality. While these themes are not the focus of the game session, players should be aware of this before signing up for this game session. Game will be run on the convention Discord server. The game uses the John Carter of Mars RPG (2d20 System) from Modiphius.

The second game happens on Friday, October 22, from 3-6 PM:

Tekumel: Over the Wall: Your clanhouse shares a wall with another. There has been no sign of activity next door in an entire day, which is extremely odd. Relations with the other clan are strained, as they have a history of not paying their fair share in wall repairs. The elders also suspect that the neighbors have tunneled under the walls of your clanhouse at some point. Considering the odd lack-of-activity next door, your clan elders authorize a little expedition over the wall, to find out what has been going on. The World of Tekumel involves adult themes including slavery and sexuality. While these aren't a focus of the game session, players should be aware of this before signing up for this game session. Game will be run on the convention Discord server. This game uses the Fate of Tekumel RPG.

Con of the North: Mostly Great! But Some Improvements Needed!

 

Legion of the Lord of Wisdom

This weekend was virtual Con of the North. I ran three, three-hour RPGs:

• "No Small Favor", an all-Klingon Star Trek Adventures scenario using the brand new Klingon Core Book for the RPG line. The story was set during the TNG episode "Unification II", and explored what a Klingon Bird-of-Prey was really doing while Picard and Data were visiting Spock on Romulus. The PCs were an Imperial Intelligence team on special assignment for this mission. We had three Imperial Klingons (to use John M. Ford's terminology), as well as a Klingon-Romulan Fusion (another tip of the hat to Mike Ford); and one of the Imperial Klingons was one of the freaky-looking Discovery-era Klingons. The PCs decided that to complete their mission, they had to assassinate Captain K'Vada. That's what happens when you don't take Imperial Intelligence agents seriously when they "urge" you to do something important for the Empire! And so an alternate Trek universe is born! 
• "Lex Arcana: A Simple Mission for the Emperor" was my first time running a scenario for the brand new English edition of Italy's most popular homegrown RPG. This is an alternate history RPG set in 476 AD. The Empire has not fallen due to the vigilance of the Cohors Auxiliaria Arcana, Christianity is a tolerated faith but not the established state religion. The PCs are members of the Cohors Auxiliaria Arcana, a special unit of the Praetorian Guard charged with investigating and dealing with supernatural threats, magic, and monsters. A lot of the character sheet is in Latin and the game is very immersive. The mechanics make combat high stakes and quite unpredictable.  The entire game is a labor of love.
• "Servants of the Divine Daughter" was a Tekumel RPG using my own forthcoming Fate of Tekumel RPG. The PCs were members of a mostly Stability-oriented party armed with an Imperial Writ* to conduct a shakedown of Change-affiliated clans in Thraya during the reign of the Stability fanatic Empress Shaira Su. This was a really fun game to run!

I was also able to play in David Lemire's scenario "The College of the Hand of Hrugga" an EPT-based scenario in which youthful wizards in training took advantage of the absence of their teachers to do some archaeological exploration of their own to the east of Bey Su. We encountered Chnélh, and discovered a temple-tomb with a humanoid incarnation of the demon "The Beast With No Tail."

The Good Things About Con of the North 2021:

• I had great players in all my games - and that makes all the difference!
• While my scenarios are typically very player-driven, I do considerable prep in the days immediately before a convention (at least 15 hours per 3 hour game, usually for 3-4 days). That means I take PTO from work. After running the games, that really felt like that was PTO time well-spent.
• I'm getting more of the hang of using Discord. I ran all three games using that platform, and had a good experience with it. The sound quality was excellent in all but one of the four games that I GMed/played-in.
• In two of my games, I had players from across the United States! This is one of the great aspects of virtual play.
• At least one friend whom I see - and often get to game with - every year at Con of the North (and only there!) popped in to say hello right before my game. It was great to see him. 
• The technical support during game days was just great!

The Bad Things About Con of the North 2021:

• Communications by the convention organizers were too late and too infrequent.  
• Communications about the convention were not focused on the core activities of the convention experience. There were way more Facebook posts about signature characters/artwork being used to promote the convention than there were communications about what GMs or players should expect in terms of the play platform. We were all pretty much left guessing how things might happen until just a day or two before the convention started. This is no way to treat your GMs, Con of the North; we are the people who will make or break the experience, so please, please, please - tell us what's going on, and what to expect! GMs especially need clear and recurrent guidance about the technology to be used. Players want that too. People need to know where the convention server is, how the server will be organized, and how to find their games. I do get that the convention platform borrowed heavily from Gamehole Con's successful virtual game convention last Fall, but no one should have to have attended virtual Gamehole Con to have a guess at what and how things might happen at virtual Con of the North.
• The COVID-19 themed official convention dice were truly tasteless. Gamers should recognize that there is far more to life than gaming, and that having to play in a virtual convention in order to continue enjoying our hobby really has nothing to do with "rolling all 1's". That is a perfect example of why "Geek Culture" is such a First World, narcissistic turn off at times. Seriously, concom, please recognize that many people are experiencing losses and making real sacrifices. Don't trivialize that with tasteless dice jokes.
• Finally, I really miss being able to play in-person with some of my regular Con of the North buddies, as well as the special in-person things like the conversations that happen in the food vendor lines, in the dealer's room, or over meals. Hopefully that will be possible again in the next couple of years.

*I am not sure any of my players noticed that the Imperial Writ included a direct quote from Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, but there you go. The document was an entertaining project for the GM.

#StayAtHome: "The Revenge of the Rose"

I don't know whether Professor Barker read and enjoyed Michael Moorcock, but in spite of Phil frequently being called "the other Tolkien", there are aspects of his work that resonate more with the multiverse of Michael Moorcock.

Now don't get me wrong: Moorcock has never shown much interest in the kind of anthropological realism and sociological nuance that the Professor has built into Tekumel. One often gets the impression that the Young Kingdoms and most other settings in Moorcock's novels are just set pieces or backdrops where an Eternal Champion can have adventures and mishaps.

But a couple commonalities - at least on an aesthetic/thematic level - include science fantasy, interplanar travel, demons, and the weird. Oh, and Chaos. Or Change.

Both authors were also quite fond of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

As I started reading the second of the "late" Elric novels, The Revenge of the Rose (1991), I kept thinking of Tekumel from time-to-time. I read the novel in about a week. Like past Elric novels, there is plenty of the weird, and plenty of interplanar travel. There are also more female characters with agency than in the early Elric novels, including the Rose, who may be an incarnation of the Eternal Champion herself, and a creepy but beautiful young seeress named Charion Phatt, herself a distant descendant of Corum, an incarnation of the Eternal Champion from ancient Cornwall.

None of the women are Elric's love interest, nor do they show any interest in him. The women do scheme and work effectively with each other. In fact, Elric doesn't even fully understand the Rose's motivations, which really have nothing to do with him (he is just the Rose's instrument), until the last few pages of the novel.

The Revenge of the Rose is disjointed, and has some borrowings or parallels with The Dragon in the Sword (1987), an Erekose novel. The latter is a much more coherent novel, although Revenge has one of the most chilling examples of willful self-destruction and mass suicide that I have ever read. It is perfect reading for the pandemic.

Since finishing Revenge, I have started on the first of the late Elric novels, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989). I am about 60 pages in and it is a much more coherent, tighter narrative. I am looking forward to continuing with the Pearl before I tackle some of the LONG late Elric novels.

There are at least three more of those.

There Are Few Absolutes

On Tekumel, we see something better than "evil" races. The inimical races are classified as such (by some humans, and some non-humans) because they were either brutally displaced by humanity - and had the gall to resist - when "mankind" came to Tekumel, or had in the past contended with humanity for dominance among the stars.
There is nothing inherently evil or inherently inimical about them; the classification is entirely materialist and sociological-political rather than metaphysical.
Most or all of these aliens can be understood rationally and even negotiated with from time to time. In some places on the planet, humans even live in peace with them. All of this is possible, of course, because Tekumel was envisioned by someone who was familiar with other cultures, and traveled a bit. It also helps that Tekumel is science fictional at its roots.
So the friendly-neutral-inimical axis is not even a true alignment system; it's more of an historical anthropology.
Scholars and priests of the Five Empires however DO recognize two alignments: Stability and Change. These exist at the intersection of religious and other social institutions, and are frameworks for understanding the great interplanar intelligences that are recognized as the Gods and their Cohorts, and associated demons.
People tend to have an affinity for either Stability or Change, based on what deities are important to them personally, or to their clan or nation.
Also, anyone who studies the Aspects of the Gods, or the demons associated with particular gods, is aware that certain Aspects of a God or demon associated with Stability may have very specific characteristics associated with Change - and vice versa. Any theologian worth their salt understands that Stability and Change interpenetrate. There are few absolutes.

Tekumel at Gamehole Con

Adventurer Party from Jeff Dee's Bethorm

This weekend I attended Gamehole Con in Madison, WI, where The Tekumel Foundation sponsored at Tekumel RPG theme track. The GMs included Victor Raymond, Mark Seifert, Amanda Dee, Scott Kellogg, Jeff Dee, and myself. I was able to run three games, and play in another four games by other GMs. It was also really nice to GM for and game alongside Mark Eggert, a Tekumel veteran whom I haven't seen since my early years playing Tekumel!

Games I GMed included a two-part Fate of Tekumel RPG adventure set in the time of the Pe Choi Revolt (yes, there was one!), with Part I called (surprise, surprise): "The Pe Choi Revolt" and Part II called "The Time of No Emperor" (and this is NOT the same thing as the "Time of No Kings"!). The players represented an expedition/delegation sent by the ruling Temples of Change to enter into negotiations in the Chakas with a newly independent/separatist Pe Choi state. The PCs defeated Feshengas in the deep jungle, discovered an ancient Bednalljan Sarku shrine guarded by a Pe Choi Jagji, and eventually arrived at the Pe Choi village at the center of the new nation. I was pretty stunned to have a full table of 6 players ready to go for Part II at 8 AM on Saturday! Gamehole is a convention that draws about 5,000 players, and people are ready to game!

If you're interested in Fate of Tekumel or this adventure, be sure to come to Con of the North in February. At that convention, I  am going to pick up where Part II of the adventure left off, in an adventure titled "Tekumel: The Time of No Emperor."

I also ran a Barsoom-Tekumel crossover adventure, "Red Moon, Red Planet" using the 2d20 John Carter of Mars RPG from Modiphius Entertainment.

My fearless Barsoomians

Players started on Barsoom, and had landed in Katalal by the end of the adventure. But the player right in the center of the photo remarked that by the end of the game, his PC had lived in three different worlds!  He played Joseph Stands Alone, an American Indian spy from the Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico, who had previously been transplanted from Jasoom (i.e., Earth) to Barsoom! The players picked up the system very quickly, and play was evocative and fun!

Amanda Dee ran a great Bethorm RPG game called "Maidens of the Mist". The PCs played priestesses-in-training in the Temple of Dilinala who had been sent on a spooky mission to a spooky, spooky place in the Kurt Hills. That was a great game for Halloween night!

Scott Kellogg ran an EPT-Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel in the underworld of Penom. His scenario, "The Rising Tide of Darkness" was a real hoot, with a lot of surprises for both Tekumel veterans as well as players new-to-Tekumel.

Jeff Dee ran "A Little Bit of Ice", another great Bethorm RPG game that became a TPK. You'd think that would have been the EPT-DCC game - which did have causalties - but no. Tune in to an upcoming Hall of Blue Illumination podcast for more about what happened in the story.

Finally, I also played in Scott Kellogg's Saturday night EPT game, "Hirilakte Hijinx", in which the PCs played a Stability-oriented gladiatorial team ("Red Rage"), that ended up with hijinx in the Underworld.

Gamehole Con was a great convention, and I plan to be back next year for more Tekumel gaming!

Clans for Characters Starting in Thráya

One of the challenging aspects of character generation at the game table, is having a list of clans that is easy to visually scan and from which players can select a clan that "feels right" for their character concept and that does interesting things. The Sourcebook has the definitive list of best-known clans on Tékumel, but the Professor was also clear in the text that there are many other local clans. We know that players at the Professor's table also worked with him to create new clans, such as Ensorcelled Goblet, a Drá-focused clan. The challenge is how to carry on that tradition in a way that is respectful of the source material and continues to build the world in ways that are respectful, natural, and interesting to players.

It has been a busy few weeks for the Fate of Tékumel RPG, as I have been developing a new document, "Clans for Campaigns Starting in Thráya". The focus of the document is a resource to help players choose clans at character generation. My focus is on clans that are based-in or have a presence in the city of Thráya and its immediate surrounds, since Thráya the area of the Empire that I am developing for the RPG.

The list includes traditional, canonical clans as well as some new local and regional clans. The clan list is currently at 4,500 words (about 10 pages), but will grow a bit as I add a few more clans.

Oh, and every clan has Aspects now.

Tékumel Sourcebook Chiaroscuro

I just completed a read-through of Swords & Glory Volume 1: The Tékumel Sourcebook.  This reading spanned several years, from before my mom's passing through to breakfast this morning. I read intermittently, sometimes taking a break for several months. Quite a bit of the reading was done during travel - either by air, or as the dachshund-tending passenger on a road trip.

This is not the first time that I have read the Sourcebook, but it IS the first time I have read the entire Sourcebook.  I believe in the past I had read both volumes of the Sourcebook that saw print in the very readable Different Worlds imprint, and I know I read chunks of its original Gamescience edition.

In fact, I was about to read the Sourcebook in its entirety when the binding on my Gamescience edition suddenly failed! We are very fortunate to have this book now available from DriveThru in both POD and PDF formats, with the wonderful, ever-so detailed index and glossary prepared by Krista Donnelly. They are quite remarkable, and improve the usability of the product quite significantly.

As I noted above, I had previously read parts of the Gamescience edition, as well as the Different Worlds editions cover-to-cover. But the last third or so of the Sourcebook was never published in the Different Worlds edition. This was the first time I had read the final Sourcebook sections on arms and armor, military units, assassins' weapons and the assassins' clans, and the arts and sciences. There is a LOT of great content packed into the last third of the Sourcebook; that's for sure!

A friend once said that Tékumel is the only world he needs for gaming, and there is a lot of truth to that.

So what's next? I really need to read Swords & Glory Vol. 2. But I need to wait until I have a sturdy POD edition of that in-hand. In the meantime, I am going to read this one cover to cover, as preparation for running Empire of the Petal Throne at Con of the North in February. I have played
EPT several times, and I have certainly used it as a reference for Fate of Tékumel, but this will be my first time running it!

Tubecar Discs

© 2017 Tangletown Games

There are many forms of wealth on Tékumel, but a satchel of tubecar discs, like the image above by Juan Ochoa, are a sure way to put a price on your head.

Imagine all the places these discs could take a party!

Where have you been on Tékumel?

New Illustrations for Fate of Tékumel

Juan Ochoa just turned in a whole passel of spot illustrations for the Fate of Tékumel RPG.

Here is a great one of a Feshenga:

© 2017 Tangletown Games

U-Con Tékumel Events

I'm attending U-Con this year (November 17-19) for the Tékumel track. The scheduling times haven't been set yet, but here are the events I am planning to run:

Title: “The Labyrinth of Elongated Shadows”

System: Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Short description: 17th Century Stargate! Servants of the Spanish Crown step through an obsidian mirror, entering a strange plane adjacent to fabled Tékumel - one filled with unearthly monsters and threats.  

Title: “Under Hmakuyál”

System: Fate of Tékumel RPG (Fate system)

Long description: In the year 176, Seal Emperor Trakonel I “the Blazing Light” laid siege to the city of Hmakuyál to put an end to the Pariah Deities. Unfortunately your relatives were in the city at the time of the siege. You’ve learned they are hostages of the Temple of the One Other. You’ve gained access to the city and must now enter the temple and rescue your kinfolk! FYI, “Under Hmakuyál” is the sequel to a scenario introduced at Con of the North 2017.

Title: “Borrowed Trouble”

System: Fate of Tékumel RPG (Fate system)

Short description: The Temple of Lord Belkhánu in Thráya has sent you to recover books and scrolls loaned to the Great Temple west of the city. But chaos lurks within this great temple of Stability!

Fate of Tekumel for Free RPG Day

Art by Mahlon  Blaine

Starting at 6 PM on Saturday, June 17, I'll be running a Fate of Tékumel game for Free RPG Day at Source Comics and Games in Roseville, MN.

The game session is titled "Lords of the Latter Times". This will be a free-wheeling Barsoomian style adventure in the early days of Tékumel. If you like strange mutants, psionics, aircars, crossed swords, and battle harnesses, come on by and play the game!

No knowledge of Tékumel is necessary for this game.

How to Fire an Eye

I made this home video for some art direction that I provided to illustrator Juan Ochoa. The thumb depresses the firing stud on the back of the Eye (opposite the face of the iris) while the first and second fingers keep the upper and lower edges of the Eye pointed at the target.

One with fat fingers needs to be cautious not to interrupt the beam with those fingers!

A Taste of Thráya

Art by Juan Ochoa, © Tangletown Games

This is an illustration detail from new PC art that I commissioned from Juan Ochoa for the Fate of Tékumel RPG. There's enough detail that those of great erudition may be able to elucidate where in the environs of the city of Thráya this character is presently found, and who this person is (i.e., social role).

The Rite of the Diffraction of the Baletl

For my scenario "The Gate to Hmakuyal" at Con of the North this past weekend, I created "The Rite of the Diffraction of the Baletl", one of the secret rituals of the Temple of Lord Hru'u, Supreme Principle of Change. The rite teaches humility, revealing the impermanence and irrelevance of personal and clan status before Lord Hru'u, as well as demonstrating the illusory character and interchangability of the person, self, and memory (i.e., the Báletl, or Spirit-Soul).

This ritual is only carried out in certain Inner Shrines within the temple. The temple typically invites groups of acolytes to participate in the ritual as a reward for devotion to Lord Hru'u and dedication to their studies. Pilgrims and devotees, particularly high status individuals who are financial patrons of the temple, may also be invited to participate in this ritual, although never at the same time as acolytes.

Once successfully cast, the spirit-selves of those seated in mediation are diffracted and shared among the presiding priests and participants. Fragments of memories, desires, experiences, and secrets are randomly transferred among the seated participants. The presiding priests' memories and experiences are NOT shared however.

***

Two priests preside over the ritual. The participants must fast for at least 12 hours prior to the ritual, and must be seated in meditation for at least three hours. Once this has occurred, the junior priest will need to make a Chusetl roll of +3, and the senior priest a Hlakme roll of +3 to fully instantiate the rite.

Each seated participant should roll 1dF.

• On a + roll, the participant gains an extremely useful memory from another person seated in mediation. This takes the form of a persistent additional aspect. The memory's potency as an aspect lasts for one scenario. It can be invoked once per session for free. 
• On a blank face roll, the participant gains a memory which lasts for the remainder of the session. It can be invoked once for free.
• On a (-) roll, the participant gains a terrifying or otherwise negative memory. This counts as a Moderate Consequence. 

Fate of Tekumel Playtest

Yesterday was Dave Arneson Day at the Source, and since Dave was a Tekumel player and GM, I ran a playtest of some new chargen mechanics for Fate of Tekumel, and after that ran a three hour scenario set in the Forest of Gilraya. Both players were familiar with Tekumel (one is a veteran Tekumel GM, although this was the first chance we had ever had to play together), but new to Fate.

All three of us created players from the noble Rising Sun clan. We were on a hunting expedition in the Forest of Gilraya, and the party included:

• Randy created a Sorcerer-Priest of Karakan who was a veteran of the legions. He made good use of the Doomkill and Vallation spells during the two combats in the scenario.
• Taylor played an aristocratic swordsman who was the party's hunter.  He was very good with a spear and held it together against some very tough foes in a couple very close fights.
• I made a socially ambitious and adept layabout from the Rising Sun clanhouse in Thraya. He was the guy trying to use a palanquin in the jungle. Poor Bekkanu met an ill-end, touching an execration inscribed into the bottom of a Hlutrgu caracole. These kind of things happen on Tekumel.  

The combats were tense and dramatic; Randy said they felt close to EPT, which is high praise.

The players shared some great feedback for the next cycle of chargen revisions, so I'll be incorporating their ideas over the next week!

Fate of Tekumel for Dave Arneson Day at the Source

On Saturday, October 1st, Source Comics and Games will be running its annual Dave Arneson Day event. Since Dave Arneson was one of the "greatest generation" of Empire of the Petal Throne players and GMs, I am going to run a playtest of the newest iteration of the Fate of Tekumel rules as my contribution to the day's festivities.

My game will run from 2-6 PM on October 1st. 

The map above may give you a sense of the real estate involved.

Don't be surprised if you meet Dave Arneson's signature character on Tekumel, the pirate, smuggler, and all around Haida Pakalan rascal, Harchar. 

The adventure might involve frogs. Maybe even a temple.  Possibly a god.

We shall see. 

Tekumel Track at Con of the North

This past weekend was Con of the North, a gaming convention in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. For the third year in a row, Con of the North featured a superb Tekumel track. This year, I had an accident the day before the convention so I was at my home and off my feet for the first day. However, by Saturday I was back on my feet and enjoying two full days of Tekumel.

Saturday started with Bill Acheson's excellent miniatures adventure, "Panic in Pan Chaka." Bill travelled all the way from Baltimore to run this game, and he put together a fantastic table. There were miniatures gamers popping in throughout his four hour game just to see the spread. One was a gamer who had last played EPT some 30 years ago at Augsburg College.

Interestingly enough, I have only-ever played miniatures games in Tekumel settings. Multiple parties (assembled by an auction process) set out to discover why human villagers in the Chakas were disappearing. (And of course, each party was also motivated by the possibility of discovering loot.) My party consisted of a priest of Ksarul, an Ahoggya, and a Hlaka. This was a deadly wilderness crawl; the Chakas have lots of nasty wildlife.

Here's the set-up we encountered:

On Saturday afternoon, Don Kaiser, a veteran Tekumel GM, ran "A Royal Visit". The story featured a group of Golden Bough clan PCs dealing with the sudden arrival of Princess Ma'in in the city of Thraya. Our charge was to find out why Princess Ma'in was here, so that our clanmaster could turn her visit to our clan's advantage. Most of the session took place at an elite reception for the princess. Don's game was a great example of the kind of clan-based stories of intrigue that are possible with Tekumel. He also did a great job thinking through the implications of the princess' secret mission.

Saturday night Krista Donnelly, visiting from DC, ran a playtest of Felip Moral's Tekumel boardgame. She had a full table for the game, including a least three folks who were new to Tekumel. I missed my chance to play the game at this con, but I heard that the game went well and that the players had a lot of fun with it.

Victor Raymond, chair of the Tekumel Foundation, also visited on Saturday night and brought copies of the new edition of the Tekumel Sourcebook as convention prizes for the Tekumel track. It was great having this kind of convention support from the Foundation!

Our late Saturday night game was Brett Slocum's. He used the Warriors of the Red Planet RPG to run an adventure set in the Latter Times, a period of Tekumel's history when the level of techology was still relatively high, making it perfect for Barsoom-style swords & planet action. I had played a version of this scenario at U-Con in November and had a great time with it there. This time, we ran with an all-Fighter party!

Sunday morning, Don Kaiser ran "A Thrayan Intrigue", a follow-up scenario to "A Royal Visit". This one was an Underworld adventure that dealt with the immediate consequences of the princess' mission in the city. The PCs discovered a second Nexus Point in the Underworld adjacencies to the Golden Bough clanhouse. We went through the Nexus Point, and had a classic experience of the Twin Cities-style of Tekumel high adventure.

I wrapped things up on Sunday afternoon with "Black Ships in Jakalla Bay", a Fate of Tekumel RPG scenario set in the distant past of the Dragon Warriors and the Fisherman Kings! The scenario pitted the PCs against a huge naval armada besieging Jakalla.Seven players showed up for the game, which was a great way to end the Tekumel theme track and close out the convention!

I also used the scenario to playtest character generation for Fate of Tekumel RPG!  More to come on that! Look for a post in the near future on the Tekumel Foundation blog.

Tekumel Games Played at U-Con

Brett Slocum GM's Heroic Age of Tekumel

Last weekend was U-Con, a high quality, well-organized, very friendly gaming convention based in Ypslanti, Michigan. I travelled there with my Minnesota road buddies Brett Slocum and Howard Hendrickson. It's a long trek through the Midwest to and from the con, but you have a lot of time for Tekumel-talk on a 12 hour road trip!

Here's a brief report on the games in which I was a player:

• Hlaka 2: The Way Home - T:EPT author Patrick Brady is know for his high quality military scenarios, and this one was a diceless adventure of a Hlaka mercenary flight that ended up on the losing side of the Civil War. Patrick spent a lot of time working out both the flight mechanics and social behaviors of these three-eyed, six-limbed, mammalian flyers. They flew using patagia, with behaviors and flight dynamics similar to those of bats. I played a Hlaka archer. Hlaka don't try to use bows while in flight; they're an intelligent species. Instead, you find a tree, land, and shoot from there. As always, Patrick's game was funny as hell, and provoked deeper thinking about how things work in Tekumel.

• Bethorm: A Night's Entertainment - Krista Donnelly ran two sessions using the new Bethorm ruleset. The adventure carried over a character (and storyline) from last year, and involved an Emerald Circlet (a very low clan) group of entertainers who had been summoned to a very remote island estate of the very high status Azure Cloak of Gems clan. This was a rather sinister scenario with a lot of strange things happening in and around the clanhouse. I've had a copy of Bethorm for a while, and found the system easy to learn and use.

• Heroic Age: Fresh Off The Boat - Our next game as a classic fresh-off-the-boat scenario in which a group of demon-worshipping islanders began new lives in Jakalla. We ended up taking a patronage offer from a member of a middle-clan with scholarly interests; this led to a rather deadly expedition into the Jakallan Underworld. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this demon-worshipping tribe becomes a recurrent "character" in future Foreigners' Quarter games set in Jakalla. Brett's Heroic Age of Tekumel is a retroclone of EPT. I've played it a number of times now, and I think it does a good job as an old school Tekumel game. The Heroic Age of Tekumel quickstart is a free download on RPGNow. 

• Warriors of the Red Planet: Princess Zira & the Jungle Ruins - I have run Warriors of the Red Planet a number of times; it is an old school swords & planet RPG that is very faithful to it's primary source material, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom. A Princess of Mars was one of Professor Barker's favorite books, and in many ways the world of Tekumel is a sister planet of Barsoom. WotRP perfect for Tekumel games set in periods such as the Latter Times, long before the low-tech, highly stratified Tekumel-as-we-know-it came into being. I played a member of the Mentalist Guild of Omel. The action involved the intrigues of a sinister cult in a very distant city. Great game!

• Bethorm: A Guard's Life - Krista's second Bethorm scenario featured a group of Sakbe road guards who had to deal with a BIG situation (50+ escaped slaves) way beyond their pay grade. This game was a challenging mystery in which we narrowly avoided killing or capturing the innocent. I played a guard who had been kicked out of the Temple of Sarku for failing to learn the prayers. However I had learned a few useful spells, which caught my fellow guards by surprise! Nobody expects a Sakbe road guard to cast Web of Kryag!

Ahoggya Ark - 12th Plane Encounters

The 12th Plane is a jungle level. The primary denizens are Ahoggya, Shen, Platform Builders, and Tribal humans and mutants. And other mutants.

The jungle is dense. Crossing 1 mile of jungle on foot takes four hours. If travelling by water (canoe, raft, boat), it takes 1 hour to cross a mile of jungle. Roll 1D6 per mile of jungle crossed. On a roll of 5 or 6 there is an encounter.

Consult the On Land and On or Near Water tables below as appropriate.  Standard mutant descriptions and number appearing notes start on p. 17 of MA. Distribution of Monsters (Mutations) and Treasure rules and tables are on p. 20-22. Standard encounter tables by terrain type are on p. 22.

On Land Table

1. Ahoggya party
2. Platform Builder party (1)
3. Shen party
4. Tribal party
5. Mutated human
6. Mutated animal (2)
7. Mutated plant
8. Mutated Ahoggya
9. Cyber-Ahoggya
10. Gachaya (dragon-like 10 M long lizard from Shen worlds)
11. Thief Beast (p.17)
12. Hyehoon

Notes:

(1) If at night time, substitute Qol, who often emerge from the sublevel below 12.

(2) Common forms include Atlun (spiders), Nyar or Tsi'il or Chlen, Feshenga, Hu, Giant Dri (ants), Syusyu (small Shen lizards, 4-6 cm, many edible, some poisonous), Sezhme (snakes, some segmented, some not; many poisonous).

On or Near Water Table

1. Hlu'un
2. Ghar
3. Sezhme (snakes)
4. Ahoggya party (waders)
5. Ahoggya party (raft)
6. Shen fisherfolk
7. Hisser (p.17)
8. Fern Bush (p.18)
9. Dart Weed (p.18)
10. Winged Biter (p. 17)