And now for something completely different...
I have been immersing myself in the world of M.A.R.
Barker's Tekumel for the last few days. It's been around as a
sci-fantasy setting since the early days of white box D&D (Empire of the
Petal Throne) and crossed over into miniature gaming early on. Ral
Partha used to have a range of wargaming figures specifically for Tekumel and
there have been various army books and battle rules over the years. I
have seen large 25mm games at various conventions over the years, usually
involving a Sakbe Road (similar to the Great Wall of China).
If you have not heard of Tekumel until now it's one of the classic settings used for gaming. It ranks with Glorantha as one of the oldest and most widely developed, being the setting of several games, several novels and a multitude of fan produced material, mostly available on the web. Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and Eberron are of course other game settings that have very large followings and much available material. Tekumel is probably the most alien of the big settings, way more alien than any of the TSR/WotC settings which are all pretty much based on medieval Europe.
Tekumel is a pocket universe consisting of a sun and five planets. Once part of our universe Tekumel was discovered and teraformed by space faring humans way in our future. Then it became a pocket universe of its own...no stars, nothing but the sun, five planets and their moons. On Tekumel, that's ancient history. The inhabitants of Tekumel, human and other, live a medieval type existence having lost both the knowledge and use of higher technology. They do have magic, as the laws of their pocket universe/dimension differ from our own. They have also discovered higher beings who can act much like the gods of our ancient human mythology.
If this is starting to sound like a fairly typical RPG setting, the similarity pretty much ends here. There are no elves, dwarfs, etc. The non-human intelligent species are mostly six-limbed, as are many of the fauna. The flora is a mixture of plants brought to Tekumel during the teraforming and indigenous plants which are mostly poisonous.
M.A.R. Barker was a professor of languages much like J.R.R. Tolkien, except where Tolkien studied Old Anglo Saxon, I believe Barker studied Indian and south east Asian languages. The worlds they created show this influence and Prof. Barker, like Prof. Tolkien invented languages specifically for their made-up peoples. The human culture of Tekumel more closely resembles ancient southeast Asian and Mesoamerican cultures than traditional western models as a result.
One doesn't have to read far into the history of our hobby before stumbling on the name "Tekumel". My one-and-only experience with Tekumel, however, was about 35 years ago playing EPT. I remember some of the uniqueness that I am now rediscovering, but obviously one game was a very brief involvement with the setting. EPT has a unique mechanism for introducing the new player to Tekumel (which was used in my introduction), and one I think I will use if I ever referee a game set on Tekumel. The players all start as "barbarians" from an undefined culture, just arrived at a major trading port, and new to the Empire and its ways. The outlander is quickly told they are only allowed in the "visitor" district of town. Clan membership and citizen status are everything in the Empire and the PCs have neither. They do have a future in the Empire however, because the clans and temples hire "outsiders" to do much of their more exciting work, such as dungeon exploring and treasure seeking. Who knows, working for such employers might even lead to adoption into a clan and eventual citizenship?
If you have not heard of Tekumel until now it's one of the classic settings used for gaming. It ranks with Glorantha as one of the oldest and most widely developed, being the setting of several games, several novels and a multitude of fan produced material, mostly available on the web. Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and Eberron are of course other game settings that have very large followings and much available material. Tekumel is probably the most alien of the big settings, way more alien than any of the TSR/WotC settings which are all pretty much based on medieval Europe.
Tekumel is a pocket universe consisting of a sun and five planets. Once part of our universe Tekumel was discovered and teraformed by space faring humans way in our future. Then it became a pocket universe of its own...no stars, nothing but the sun, five planets and their moons. On Tekumel, that's ancient history. The inhabitants of Tekumel, human and other, live a medieval type existence having lost both the knowledge and use of higher technology. They do have magic, as the laws of their pocket universe/dimension differ from our own. They have also discovered higher beings who can act much like the gods of our ancient human mythology.
If this is starting to sound like a fairly typical RPG setting, the similarity pretty much ends here. There are no elves, dwarfs, etc. The non-human intelligent species are mostly six-limbed, as are many of the fauna. The flora is a mixture of plants brought to Tekumel during the teraforming and indigenous plants which are mostly poisonous.
M.A.R. Barker was a professor of languages much like J.R.R. Tolkien, except where Tolkien studied Old Anglo Saxon, I believe Barker studied Indian and south east Asian languages. The worlds they created show this influence and Prof. Barker, like Prof. Tolkien invented languages specifically for their made-up peoples. The human culture of Tekumel more closely resembles ancient southeast Asian and Mesoamerican cultures than traditional western models as a result.
One doesn't have to read far into the history of our hobby before stumbling on the name "Tekumel". My one-and-only experience with Tekumel, however, was about 35 years ago playing EPT. I remember some of the uniqueness that I am now rediscovering, but obviously one game was a very brief involvement with the setting. EPT has a unique mechanism for introducing the new player to Tekumel (which was used in my introduction), and one I think I will use if I ever referee a game set on Tekumel. The players all start as "barbarians" from an undefined culture, just arrived at a major trading port, and new to the Empire and its ways. The outlander is quickly told they are only allowed in the "visitor" district of town. Clan membership and citizen status are everything in the Empire and the PCs have neither. They do have a future in the Empire however, because the clans and temples hire "outsiders" to do much of their more exciting work, such as dungeon exploring and treasure seeking. Who knows, working for such employers might even lead to adoption into a clan and eventual citizenship?
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