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Overview
More than 40 years after the release of Empire of the Petal Throne (EPT), why do we still love Tékumel? For me, it’s the deep mystery. In other words: figuring it all out. And nothing is more fun to figure out than the detailed invented languages and linguistic histories.
Languages were what most interested Barker himself about Tékumel from a young age. In a 1984 interview published in The Space Gamer magazine, he said he first became interested in inventing languages when, as a child in St. Marie, Idaho, he played with Basque children who kept secrets in their native language, a rare isolate unrelated to other tongues. Barker had invented the Tsolyáni script by age 12, before learning any other languages. He said he could not consciously remember any real-world influences on Tsolyáni and that the knowledge of his invented languages had “just come.”
The first Tékumel RPG work, EPT, included elaborately drawn inscriptions in Tsolyáni (and one snippet of Classical Tsolyáni), allusions to the modern and classical languages of all the five empires, a pronunciation guide to Tsolyáni, and a guide to the Tsolyáni script. Tsolyáni (and other) language texts and proper names also appeared in later source material, magazine articles, and short language studies. In all, Barker published grammars and word lists for five invented languages: Tsolyáni, Yan Koryáni, Livyáni, Engsvanyáli, and Sunúz. In addition, he published articles on the scripts of six other Tekumel languages: Mu’ugalavyáni, Salarvyáni, Classical Tsolyáni, Bednálljan, Llyáni, and Thu’úsa. A few scattered words of these latter six languages appear in the Tékumel canon (e.g. EPT includes the Salarvyáni book title “Guppíshsha Hrakkúq Mazhzhátl” translated as the “The Book of the Fragrant Garden”), but no extensive word lists. Barker also published an article on the ideographic kázhra ve ngakóme script, which I have not read.
.TSR1005, Empire of the Petal Throne, 1975 Author: M.A.R. Barker Description: Boxed set containing spiral bound 114 page rule book, three color maps, and a four page pamphlet. The first printing has no picture on the bottem of the box, while the second printing has a picture of the box's contents. Included with the rules is a four page set of charts and tables, errata for the original game, a map of the City of Jakalla, a b&w map of the Five Empires, and a citizenship document for Tsolyanu, the Empire of the Petal Throne! Hardcover and softcover: 140pp. nb: Empire of the Petal Throne is the original role-playing game for The. Empire Of The Petal Throne, Tekumel, and all IP there-of are trademarks(tm) and fully owned by M.A.R. This rules conversion document is a work of love for this fantasy setting by a fan, and is in no way shape or form intended to directly compete with any of Professor Barker's owned Intellectual Property. Box set contains Maps (of Jakalla, and Eastern and Western Tekumel), the Game Book, and two 20 sided dice. Microbadges Tékumel fan M. Barker fan Empire of the Petal Throne (1975).
Publications
A language book was an early Tékumel product. Barker in 1977 self-published a detailed two-volume, 120-page grammar, phrasebook, and dictionary of Tsolyáni, which is now collectible. The Imperium Publishing Co., which we discussed in our last post, advertised “The Tsolyáni Language” in late 1977 and Brett Slocum’s excellent index of published Tékumel works lists the self-published version and an Imperium version separately. However, I have never seen a version marked “Imperium Publishing Company” and I believe that Imperium simply sold the self-published version, which has a plain turquoise cover and is marked “Richfield Printing.”
Dave Arneson’s Adventure Games reprinted the two volumes of the language book in 1981. Some (or maybe all?) of these were sold with an audio cassette. The interior pages of the Adventure Games edition are identical to the self-published version. The only differences were that the new version had a well-drawn but stupid cover, some slight differences in the front matter, and an advertisement in the back of each volume for a few Tékumel products published by Adventure Games. Carl Brodt’s Tita’s House of Games reprinted the books in 1999 along with a CD version of the audio cassette.
The language guide is a wonderful window into Tsolyáni culture. Even if you have no interest in the Tsolyáni language per se, reading through the phrasebook provides excellent background.
A version of the audio file originally included with the Adventure Games edition is still available on Brett Slocum’s site. In addition an audio file available on Youtube contains a rendition of chanted Tsolyáni poetry and music. I do not know whether Barker ever visited Indonesia but the chant and music sounds closely resembles the music and monologue of a Javanese shadow puppet show. Compare for example this Youtube audio of the epic “Birth of Gatotkaca.”
Summary: The Tsolyáni Language
Publisher: Self-published (Richfield Printing)
Date: 1978
Author: M.A.R. Barker
Artists: NA
Size: Two 5 7/8” x 9” volumes of 64 pages each.
Original Price: $8.75
Number published: Unknown
Rarity: Very Rare.
Value: Few sold but I’d estimate $80-$100
Collecting Notes: The self-published edition with a blue cover rarely comes up for sale. This version was also sold by The Imperium Publishing Company.
Publisher: Self-published (Richfield Printing)
Date: 1978
Author: M.A.R. Barker
Artists: NA
Size: Two 5 7/8” x 9” volumes of 64 pages each.
Original Price: $8.75
Number published: Unknown
Rarity: Very Rare.
Value: Few sold but I’d estimate $80-$100
Collecting Notes: The self-published edition with a blue cover rarely comes up for sale. This version was also sold by The Imperium Publishing Company.
Summary: The Tsolyáni Language
Publisher: Adventure Games
Date: 1981
Author: M.A.R. Barker
Artists: Kathy Marschall (cover)
Size: Two 5 7/8” x 9” volumes of 64 pages each.
Original Price: $12.95
Number published: Unknown
Rarity: Uncommon
Value: Frequently listed but rarely sold, I’d estimate $30-40.
Collecting Notes: The language booklet appears nearly continuously on ebay but usually with an unrealistic asking price. The tapes seem to have gotten lost or broken over the years and I have never seen the tape included in a recent sale.
Publisher: Adventure Games
Date: 1981
Author: M.A.R. Barker
Artists: Kathy Marschall (cover)
Size: Two 5 7/8” x 9” volumes of 64 pages each.
Original Price: $12.95
Number published: Unknown
Rarity: Uncommon
Value: Frequently listed but rarely sold, I’d estimate $30-40.
Collecting Notes: The language booklet appears nearly continuously on ebay but usually with an unrealistic asking price. The tapes seem to have gotten lost or broken over the years and I have never seen the tape included in a recent sale.
Summary: The Tsolyáni Language
Publisher: Tita’s House of Games
Date: 2001
Author: M.A.R. Barker
Artists: Kathy Marschall
Size: ? (I don’t have this one)
Original Price: $29.95
Number published: Unknown
Rarity: Uncommon.
Value: Few sold but I’d estimate $30
Collecting Notes: This version and CD may actually be rarer than the Adventure Games edition. I have never seen the CD for sale on the secondary market.
Publisher: Tita’s House of Games
Date: 2001
Author: M.A.R. Barker
Artists: Kathy Marschall
Size: ? (I don’t have this one)
Original Price: $29.95
Number published: Unknown
Rarity: Uncommon.
Value: Few sold but I’d estimate $30
Collecting Notes: This version and CD may actually be rarer than the Adventure Games edition. I have never seen the CD for sale on the secondary market.
Later works on language will be discussed in future posts but here is a brief summary:
- The Tékumel Journal published “The Tsolyáni Primer” by Curtis Scott (1982). A PDF version of the primer later appeared on the Blue Room website. Tita’s House of Games in 2000 republished the primer in hard copy.
- The Journal of Tékumel Affairs Vol III No. 2 (1982) included an article on the kazhrá ve ngakóme script. (Note: I don’t own and have never read this article.)
- The Journal of Tékumel Affairs Vol III No. 3 (1982) included an article on the Classical Tsolyáni script.
- The Journal of Tékumel Affairs Vol III No. 4 (1982) included an article on the Mu’ugalavyáni script.
- The Journal of Tékumel Affairs Vol III No. 5 (1983) included an article on the ancient Llyáni script.
- The Swords & Glory (S&G) Sourcebook published by Gamescience (1983) included extensive descriptions of the languages of the Five Empires (i.e. Tsolyáni, Mu’ugalavyáni, Yan Koryáni, Salarvyáni, and Livyáni) and briefer mentions of many others.
- The novel Man of Gold (1984) included notes about languages, especially Llyáni.
- The grammars of Engsvanyáli, Sunúz, Livyáni, and Yan Koryáni were published as PDFs on the old Blue Room website in 1994 (not collectible).
- I am not clear when the descriptions of Thu’úsa and Bednálljan scripts first appeared but they are marked copyright 2006 and were made available on the RPGNow website that year (also not collectible).
- Brief language references appear in other source material, e.g. Joe Saul’s Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne (2005), but as Barker got older he stopped creating new languages from whole cloth. There is also a perception among the latter-day Tékumel community that the languages are off-putting to new players. The latest Tékumel RPG does not included a chart of the Tsolyáni script.
(Some Diacritic Vowels Written with the Consonant “B”)
The Languages
I will not recapitulate here all of Barker’s descriptions of the languages of Tékumel. Briefly, the languages of the five empires all are in the Khíshan language family, which derives proximately from Engsvanyáli, which in turn descends from Bednálljan, which is a child language of Llyáni which may have a relation to a “dubiously identified” tongue of the Three States of the Triangle. Ghatóni, Pecháni, Hijajái, Tsoléi’i, and Milumanayáni are all Khíshan languages as well. Barker wrote that the Khíshan languages largely share the same “phonemic inventory.”
To say that an entire family of languages shares basically the same sounds but comprises wildly varying scripts might seem strange to a student of Western languages (or Chinese), which have many sounds but few scripts (thanks to empires). However, the Indic languages , which were Barker’s academic focus, share many sounds but have been written in many varying scripts and are a better basis of comparison. And in any case, Barker probably underestimated the variety of sounds that would accumulate as the corpus of published languages grew.
In addition to Khíshan, there are two other major families represented on the portion of the globe well mapped in canon Tékumel: the Nlü’ársh family, which includes Pijenáni and the language of the N’lüss and descends from the tongue of the Dragon Warriors; and the tonal Aom family, which includes Saá Allaqiyáni and some other northeastern languages. Some of the latter are written in the ideographic kázhra ve ngakóme script.
Barker also mentions two isolated families unrelated to the three families above: Qùótl, which is spoken in the jungles to the west of Mu’ugalavyá, including M’mórcha; and Pe’é which is spoken in the Nyémesel Isles. He also makes many scattered references to other languages and argots throughout the canon.
For many more details, see the S&G Sourcebook.
Barker’s Real-World Influences
How did Barker dream up this extensive material and what real-world roots can we detect in these languages? To consider this question, it would be useful to examine the languages Barker spoke himself.
Barker said he invented Tsolyáni “by age 12.” Though this precise year may be an exaggeration or inaccurate recollection, it’s fairly clear that Barker had largely completed the Tsolyáni script before he went to college. (Based on circumstantial evidence, I also speculate below that Barker might have invented Yan Koryáni before Tsolyáni, but there isn’t enough evidence to establish this firmly.) Though Barker denied any influences from real-world languages, there are enough traces of real-world influence in Tsolyáni to establish that Barker must have read some books on ancient languages as a child.
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Jeff Berry has documented that Barker owned the following books:
— Ancient Egyptian Religion by H. Frankfort (signed and dated by Barker “1948”)
— Egyptian Grammar by Alan H. Gardiner (signed and dated by Barker “June 7, 1945)
— Assyrian Grammar by A.H. Sayce (signed and dated by Barker “September 5, 1948”)
— The Book of the Dead by E.A. Wallis Budge (No date shown)
— Digging in Yucatan by Ann Axtell Morris (signed/dated by Barker “November 14, 1943)
— The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind by David Dirringer (No date shown)
— Ancient Egyptian Religion by H. Frankfort (signed and dated by Barker “1948”)
— Egyptian Grammar by Alan H. Gardiner (signed and dated by Barker “June 7, 1945)
— Assyrian Grammar by A.H. Sayce (signed and dated by Barker “September 5, 1948”)
— The Book of the Dead by E.A. Wallis Budge (No date shown)
— Digging in Yucatan by Ann Axtell Morris (signed/dated by Barker “November 14, 1943)
— The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind by David Dirringer (No date shown)
Barker’s book collection was sold to an educational institution in Malaysia, but it would be interesting if someone had a catalogue of the books sold and what other pre-1948 titles were among them.
In any case, some of the Tékumel languages that Barker later invented do show obvious influences from the languages and linguistics that Barker, an amazing polyglot, learned later in life. Barker studied anthropology at the University of Washington at Seattle, where his advisor was a linguist who had studied Chinook. Barker published his graduate dissertation on the Northwestern Native American language of Klamath and this work was the basis of three volumes on Klamath that he later published. He studied Hindi and Urdu (mutually intelligible languages written in different scripts) while on a Fulbright in India and later wrote several books on teaching Urdu and a book on Urdu poetry (some of which was drawn from his extensive personal collection of old Urdu manuscripts). He wrote a book on Baluchi as well, while at a university in India. I speculate that his knowledge of Baluchi gave him some familiarity with Farsi and Old Persian. He taught for 14 years at the Institute of Islamic studies at McGill where it would have been de rigeur to know Arabic and internal evidence in Barker’s writings gives ample evidence of this knowledge. He had also studied Mayan and constructed a database of Mayan inscriptions and his writings indicate that he had knowledge of Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs) as well. Internal evidence also makes it clear Barker could read Sanskrit and we’ll see below that he must have been familiar with some other ancient scripts, including Indian scripts, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and cuneiform.
According to first-hand reports, Barker was an astounding polyglot who spoke or read languages in addition to those above. I hope any of Barker’s associates who read this blog can share what they know about other languages that Barker knew.
Despite Barker’s claim that Tsolyáni had “just come” to him, some aspects of Tékumel languages do show the direct influence of the Terran languages and linguistic theory that Barker learned as an adult.
Barker wrote in EPT that all the languages on Tékumel were descended from the “Tamil-Mayan-Arabic argot which served as the lingua franca of humanspace” but I suspect this was just a bit of color rather than a real linguistic signpost. While there are some Arabic and Mayan cognates in Tsolyáni (see below), it’s not clear that Barker even spoke Tamil, which is a Dravidian language unrelated to Hindi, Urdu, and Baluchi. However, the agglutinative grammar of Tsolyáni is similar to Tamil (and some other languages), so maybe I am wrong. And in any case, Barker claimed he had invented Tsolyáni, before he knew other languages, though this cannot be completely true.
General Linguistic Observations
The alphabet chart and the partial Swadesh list (adapted for a science fiction RPG!) above show a few things. Clearly the Tsolyáni and Mu’ugalavyáni scripts are the most closely related, with Livyáni also showing similarities. All three of these scripts show some resemblance to Engsvanyáli. Classical Tsolyáni was written in the “Bednálljan Monumental” script obviously related to Bednálljan Salarvyáni, though the latter was written in a much more ornate script influenced by the Irzákh language of the Dragon Warriors. (Barker’s various descriptions of Bednálljan are confusing – see below.) The other scripts all look sui generis. Barker said that Yan Koryáni had been modeled on Llyáni, but that is hard to see, unless he meant “stimulus borrowing” similar to the way Persian cuneiform was inspired by but not copied from Sumerian cuneiform.
The limited word lists that exist also reveal some relationships. The few words of Mu’ugalavyáni in the canon mostly resemble Tsolyáni. Yan Koryáni has many correspondences with Tsolyáni as well. Livyáni is not as similar. All four languages show relationship to Engsvanyáli. Sunúz, as Barker notes in the grammar booklet, is unlike other languages, though Sunúz “tül” might correspond to Tsolyáni “tuléng” (sun) and Sunúz “khet” might be related to Tsolyáni “khátunikh” (name).
Comparing the grammars of the various Tékumel languages is beyond the scope of this post.
Tsolyáni
Tsolyáni is so fully developed that I once believed that it must be largely based on a Terran language. There are indeed some cognates. For example, “korún,” the root word for “book” in Tsolyáni comes from Arabic, as does “kábar” (“story” in Tsolyáni and “news” in Arabic). The Tsolyáni and Arabic words for “menstruation” are both “haid.” The word for tongue is “lussán” in Tsolyáni and “lissan” in Arabic. The name of the ruling dynasty of Tsolyánu is “Tlakotáni,” clearly derived from “tlatoani,” which is the Nahuatl word for “ruler.” The “tla-“ prefix that marks the accusative case in Tsolyáni also corresponds to Nahuatl. The Sákbe roads of Tsolyánu are cognate with the Mayans’ “Sacbe” roads.
That is all I have found. While others will spot more cognates, in sum the evidence indicates that Barker invented most of the words of Tsolyáni rather than borrowed or transformed them from existing languages.
Cham Script
The Tsolyáni script also does not seem closely modeled on that of any Terran language. The script is written right to left and uses vowel diacritics, like Arabic (and many other languages) but that’s a thin parallel. One might also detect resemblances to some descendants of ancient Indic scripts (e.g. Cham and Dives Akuru), but very faint.
Tsolyáni has alternative forms for some consonants (the Káshtri variants). He attributed the differences to regional variation but I assume this was a device that Barker used to reconcile some of his older manuscripts with the final form he decided for the script.
Grammatically, Tsolyáni has agglutinative noun formation that resembles many real-world languages, but is very different from English. Similarly, prefixes and affixes lend aspect, tense and other meanings to verbs. Pronouns are quite elaborate. I cannot judge whether Tsolyáni’s grammar particularly resembles that of any real-world language living or extinct, though ancient semitic languages were agglutinative and Javanese (a Sanskrit descendant) has separate vocabularies based on politeness level that faintly recall Tsolyáni’s many words for you.
There are many examples of Tsolyáni inscriptions in canon Tékumel, including an illuminated citizenship document and the Tsolyáni texts accompanying several Barker drawings.
Mu’ugalavyáni
As noted above, Mu’ugalavyáni is the Khíshan language that most resembles Tsolyáni. The script was illustrated in an article in The Journal of Tékumel Affairs Vol. III No. 4 (1982). The script, and accompanying description, also appeared in the S&G Sourcebook. The Sourcebook version has a few differences with the article, including the Sourcebook’s inclusion of a “rare” glyph for the “ng” consonant and some differences in the list of determinative glyphs.
Mu’ugalavyáni has largely the same sounds as Tsolyáni, though it includes glyphs for some additional diphthongs and consonant combinations. Mu’ugalavyáni also includes glyphs for some rare vestigial aspirated consonants, which occur in spelling but are not pronounced as aspirated in modern Mu’ugalavyáni. Many vowels are doubled with intervening glottal stops in Mu’ugalavyáni and the script has special symbols for these doubled vowels
Mu’ugalavyáni’s determinatives are one feature that has a clear Terran antecedent. Mu’ugalavyáni determinative glyphs resemble cuneiform in function, because they are occasional and specific, as well as unpronounced. However, they sometimes more resemble Egyptian determinatives in form. For example, the Egyptian determinative glyph for “city” resembles Mu’ugalavyáni.
Determinatives
Barker never wrote a grammar or vocabulary list for Mu’ugalavyáni. Scattered Mu’ugalavyáni words that appear in the canon often resemble Tsolyáni with some consonant mutation and vowel doubling. For example, “death” is “missúm” in Tsolyáni and “mssomü’u” in Mu’ugalavyáni. The root words for “man” are “básrim” and “vozru’um” in Mu’ugalavyáni.
I am not aware of any inscriptions or Mu’ugalavyáni text in the Tékumel canon.
Yan Koryáni
Yan Koryáni is one of the five languages that receive the full treatment of a grammar booklet, though unlike the other grammar booklets the Yan Koryani grammar does not include a vocabulary list. Phonetically, Yan Koryáni has a wider range of vowel and consonant sounds than Tsolyáni. The script has glyphs representing these extra sounds and more glyphs representing consonant clusters, diphthongs, and even three-vowel combinations. The blocky script looks very different from the flowing curved scripts of Tsolyáni, Mu’ugalaváni, Livyáni, and Engsvanyáli. The systematic shapes do not resemble any real-world language and, in fact, of all the Tékumel languages, most openly resemble a constructed language.
Grammatically, Yan Koryáni is very alien to an English speaker but straightforward. Nouns are formed by from stems modified by a structured system of prefixes. Verbs are stems with a structured system of suffixes. Again, the rigidly systematic style of the grammar more openly resembles a constructed language than some other Tékumel languages. I speculate that Barker invented Yan Koryáni first as a child, before moving on to the greater complexities and detailed texture of Tsolyáni.
Barker notes that modern Yan Koryáni is also sometimes written in the ancient Tsaqw script in formal documents and in the city of Hlíkku, where Tsaqw is still spoken. No examples of Tsaqw exist in the canon. He also writes that the Yan Koryáni script is used for some other northeastern languages, including Milumanayáni, Lo’orunánkh, Pijenáni, and Sa’á Allaqiyáni. The S&G Sourcebook gives the subscript diacritics used to accommodate some unique sounds in the latter two languages.
Barker created an illuminated “travel pass” written in Yan Koryáni. The cover of the S&G Source Booklet has letters resembling Yan Koryáni but I think this is not intelligible writing.
Livyáni
Barker says that Livyáni is “on the periphery” of the Khíshan languages and that linguistically it less resembles Engsvanyáli than Tsolyáni or Mu’ugalavyáni. However, he also writes that of all the child languages, the modern Livyáni script most closely resembles that of Engsvanyáli. This is a little strange since Livyánu was never occupied by the Priestkings and, historically, Livyáni was written in the semi-ideographic Durúob script. (There are no examples of Durúob in the canon.)
In any case, Livyáni looks like it would be easy for a Tsolyáni to learn. Though the glyphs are different, roughly the same sounds, numerals, and punctuation are spoken and represented in the script. Well, it would be easy, except that Barker notes the paranoid Livyáni love to obscure their language with cyphers. Even a native speaker, he writes, might have difficulty understanding a document written by another temple, government department, clan, or business because of the coded substitutions and other intentional obscurantism.
Barker’s Livyáni grammar focuses on verbs. He describes 17 classes of verbs and a system of proclitics and enclitics that mark tense and aspect, among other things. Other parts of speech are described more briefly.
The Livyáni grammar booklet includes a love poem written by Márya of Tsámra (the only cultural figure in Livyáni history described in the canon). Other than this poem, I am not aware of any Livyáni inscriptions in the canon.
Salarvyáni
The Salarvyáni script is well described in the S&G Sourcebook. The script is one of the most attractive of the Tékumel languages with pleasing ligatures. It distinguishes “big letter” consonants and “small letter” consonants used in affixes.
Barker said several times in the Blue Room forum and on Yahoo! Groups that he “should write out” what he knew about Salarvyáni, but that he blanched at describing the language’s difficult grammar. For example, the S&G Sourcebook alludes to Salarvyáni’s “52nd conjugation.” For whatever reason, no grammar or vocabulary of Salarváni ever appeared. Few Salarvyáni words can be found in the canon.
Some of the shapes of the Salarvyáni script are reminiscent of Egyptian determinatives and logograms, but the Salarvyáni language as a whole does not much resemble Egyptian.
Classical Tsolyáni
The Classical Tsolyáni script was first described in The Journal of Tékumel Affairs Vol III No. 3 (1982). No grammar is described in the Tékumel canon and I am only aware of two unique Classical Tsolyáni words (which appear in an EPT book title): Chnéshaq = (modern Tsolyáni) Chnéshna = mystery and khy = hi = of. Classical Tsolyáni is written in the Bednálljan “Monumental Script” and resembles the ornate Irzakh script of “Bednálljan Salarvyáni.” The script is an abugida and each consonant includes an inherent “i” vowel unless accompanied by another vowel diacritic or a “silencer.” (Tamil is an example of a Terran language where consonants have an inherent vowel and that uses a silencer.)
EPT includes one classical Tsolyáni inscription in the illustration of two Sárku priests summoning the fire demon Jneksha’a. The Inscription, which Barker calls “Monumental Bednálljan” rather than “Classical Tsolyáni,” reads “Sárku Mítlan Kólumel” (“Sarku God Emperor”). Note that the “i” in “Mitlan” is omitted per the rules described above. The front cover of the S&G Sourcebook also has a short Classical Tsolyáni inscription reading “Riüulkoi,” which is an erroneous attempt at “Riyúlkoi,” which means “the Worm of Sárku.” The error stems from mistaking the glyph for the vowel “y” (which later was transliterated as ü) for the glyph for the consonant “y.” The illustration seems to depict fighting against troops of the usurper (and Sárku worshipper) Dhich’úne, who apparently has already redecorated.
Bednálljan
Barker’s descriptions of Bednálljan are confusing. In EPT, Barker referred to “Bednálljan Monumental Script,” but this script is used exclusively for the Classical Tsolyáni language. References to what Barker called “Bednálljan Salarvyáni” appear in EPT and other early works, but the script was first illustrated and described in a 2006 PDF article. Barker says the script was influenced by the Dragon Warriors’ Irzákh script, which is also confusing since Bednálljan is a Khíshan language and the language of the Dragon Warriors was part of the unrelated Nlüarsh family.
In any case, the script is the most ornate and artistic of all the scripts. The grammar and vocabulary of Bednálljan are thinly described. No inscriptions exist in the canon. The only known words of Bednálljan appear in EPT: “Púrohlan Znamríshsha Kagékte” = “The Book of the Unnamed God.”
The ornate script does not resemble any Terran script that I have seen.
Engsvanyáli
After Tsolyáni, Engsvanyáli receives the most detailed treatment of any language in the Tékumel canon. It has many features that do not exist in Tsolyáni, including vowel harmonization, inflected verbs, complex tenses, and use of a definite article. The PDF article on Engsvanyáli grammar also contains a long vocabulary list.
As discussed above, Engsvanyáli has many correspondences with its modern child languages. Correspondences to Terran languages are elusive, as they are with Tsolyáni.
Please note that the PDF article “The Grammar of Engsvanyáli” contains a serious error. The PDF describes the font as reversed but the font as depicted on the font map is in fact correct. The sample text, however, has been mistakenly flipped. This is clear by looking at the Engsvanyáli inscription in the Book of Ebon Bindings and also by comparing the Engsvanyáli glyphs with analogous glyphs in the child languages. For example, compare the Engsvanyáli “m” and “t” glyphs with Tsolyáni. Clearly, those letters are correct as written in the font map unreversed.
Sunúz
Barker’s article on the Sunúz language is an amazing piece that combines a fantasy theory of semiotics with a mystical text rolled up with a language treatise. The whole Sunúz article deserves a separate post, but Sunúz as a language has several interesting features, including post-postions, verbal modalities, verabl infixes, a distributive suffix (modeled after Klamath, I believe), and classifiers somewhat similar to Chinese unit words.
Sunúz is not a Khíshan language and only a rare word here and there shows any relation to other Tékumel languages (e.g. Sunúz “léngba” is related to Engsvanyáli and Tsolyáni “otulengba” = “hail”).
The script of Sunúz also does not resemble other Tékumel languages. However, it strongly recalls the Terran Siddham script (see below). Siddham is an ancient Indic script with which Barker was certainly familiar.
Siddham Script
Ancient Llyáni
Ancient Llyáni is mentioned in EPT and other source material. A Llyáni inscription appears in an illustration in The Book of Ebon Bindings first published by Imperium Publishing in 1978. The script was first comprehensively illustrated in a crudely drawn version in the back pages of The Journal of Tékumel Affairs Vol III No. 5 (1983). However, no grammar or vocabulary list was ever published. The glyphs in the table above were (poorly) hand-drawn by me based on the article. No nicely produced font exists. Note that the font in the Journal of Tékumel Affairs includes a second character for “t,” which is not used in the Book of Ebon Bindings inscription and seems to be an error. Also, the inscription uses a glyph for words with initial vowel sounds that is not listed in the table of glyphs.
The Llyáni script is vaguely reminiscent of the real-world undeciphered Elamite linear script.
Thu’úsa
Thu’úsa is first mentioned in the S&G Sourcebook and described as a secret argot of the Gods of Stability (Tlomitlányal) based on a language once spoken in the Kurt Hills. A 2006 PDF article provided the Thu’úsa script, but Thu’úsa is the most thinly described language in the Tékumel canon. No inscriptions exist and I am not aware of a single Thu’úsa word that has been mentioned in canon works.
Oirat Clear Script
Thu’úsa has the faintest of resemblances to the Terran vertical Mongolic scripts like Traditional Mongolian and Oirat Clear Script.
Remaining Mysteries
This slapdash post is a little short on details and there is a lot of research remaining to be done. A list of all Tékumel language words that appear in the canon would be useful. A list and translations of all inscriptions would be helpful as well.
Glyphs from Nyélmu Illustration in S&G Sourcebook
One intriguing loose end is the inscription at the end of the novel Prince of Skulls. From context it would appear that this must be modern N’lüss but I am not aware of any other description of modern N’lüss in canon Tékumel. The glyphs in the drawing “Nyélmu Gazing Upon Princess Ma’ín” are also intriguing. I have not been able to make them out. They maybe the canon’s only example of Duruob or they might be just squiggles. Similarly, the four glyphs in the EPT drawing of Queen Nayári remain undeciphered.
Jeff Berry says that many so far undescribed Tekumel scripts were in the Professor’s files. Those would be cool to see!
This article or section is about something oldschool - and awesome. Make sure your rose-tinted glasses are on nice and tight, and prepare for a lovely walk down nostalgia lane. |
This article contains PROMOTIONS! Don't say we didn't warn you. |
Through the ever vigilant eyes of the Dai Li Azul Legion, the omnipresent Emperor sees all; knows all!
An elaborate, impressively detailed fictional world created by a distinguished English linguist as a setting for his fictional language he made up as a kid. Features fully-realised history, languages, geography, and cultures with a richness that can only be envied and aped by lesser creators.
Wait, what was I talking about? Empire of the Petal Throne? Oh, it's okay I guess, if you like eating bugs.
The world is called Tekumel and the author was Professor M.A.R. 'Phil' Barker. There are some novels set there, the first being the Man of Gold.
In the 1970s, people used to learn the languages of this world, apparently.
If you can't tell, this is not a setting you can just jump into like a generic Dungeons & Dragons setting. It should be called 'Culture Shock: The Role-Playing Game', as it needs a damn primer just to better understand what your characters can and can't do! Just the act of sarcasm or cracking jokes, even with a friend, needs to be handled carefully (if at all) or else you offend someone's honor and you'll have to fight it out, to the death, at the local arena. On top of that, the setting is filled with hard-to-pronounce names with some letters lacking English equivalents (this is basically language porn). Despite being the very first RPG setting ever published (if you ignore Greyhawk and Blackmoor, as they where nothing more than rule-supplements) the game never reached mainstream popularity in the role-playing community, maintaining only a cult following with mostly old-time gamers.
The main appeal is where settings like Greyhawk and Blackmoor are the kiddie pool of fantasy settings — fun for what they are, but lacking in depth — Tekumel is the deep-end. This is for players who are sick of vanilla fantasy and want something different, exotic, and challenging.
It could be argued that the actual appeal would be all the topless women in the art, if not for the fact that this game requires a degree of maturity to get into -- if all one wants is the boobage, there are other games for that. That said, it has a lot of nice, tasteful nudity.
- 1The Plane of Tékumel
- 2Customs and Culture
- 3The Races of Tékumel
- 3.1Humans
- 3.2The Friendly Races
- 3.3The Neutral Races
- 3.4The Enemy Races
- 4The Many Editions of Tékumel
The Plane of Tékumel[edit]
Pre-History[edit]
In the distant year of 2013 (later editions would change this to 20XX), humanity nuked itself into near non-existence. The only areas not effected were the Middle-East and Central America, and so as humanity built itself back up, these regions led the charge. Then some friendly aliens called the Pé Chói came by and granted the survivors the secrets of faster-than-light travel. And so, humanity joined a great community of space faring species, and began to form its own empire, known simply as Humanspace.
The Discovery of Tékumel[edit]
Skipping ahead to the 61st millennium, one day some of these humans were exploring the star Nu Ophiuchi, and found Tékumel, a nice little planet full of primitive alien life, particularly a pair of sentient species, the Ssú and the Hlüss. Presented with this, the humans did what humans do best. They genocided the shit out of them, forced the survivors to move to reservations, and began the process of colonizing and terraforming the planet, replacing most native plant and animal life with genetically engineered species based on those from Earth and going so far as to alter the planet’s very rotation to simulate a 365-day year. Tékumel quickly became one of humanity’s greatest possessions, a paradise world attracting settlers from all across Humanspace, and even the various other intelligent alien species, both friendly or otherwise. If there was one thing that you could say against Tékumel, it was that the planet was unusually poor in metals, especially iron, but since any needed materials could be imported from off world, who cares? This state of utopia continued for 50,000 years.
The Age of Darkness[edit]
Then, for like, no reason, Tékumel and its entire star system was whisked out of reality and placed into Béthorm, an inescapable pocket dimension. As one would expect, this did not go over well on Tékumel. Tidal waves, earthquakes, and volcanoes destroyed much of civilization, and the Hlüss and Ssú, still a bit miffed from that whole genocide thing, waged war on humanity and the other sentient races in a quest to regain their homeworld. Eventually, things settled down into the time known as the “Latter Times”, during which humanity retained most of its scientific knowledge, though soon even this would be lost. The scientists of this time made a great discovery that would change the course of Tékumel’s history. The ‘walls’ of the pocket universe were thin, and it was found that with great mental strength, one could tap into the energy that flows through the space between universes. And so, magic was invented.
Modern Day Tékumel[edit]
It is now 50,000 years later, give or take. Humanity and friends have sunken down into a feudalistic pre-industrial society, having forgotten most of the knowledge of their ancestors, to the point that they now believe that the planet is flat (hence their referring to Tékumel as the ‘plane’ of Tékumel), and that their ancestors were gods who brought magical gifts. The lack of metal has not helped this fact, and now the most commonly used material is the tough and malleable hide of an alien rhino species called chlén. The only thing that humanity has gained from getting stuck in this pocket dimension is magic, but even then their knowledge of the mystic arts is less than that of the humans who lived in the Latter Times.Long story short, the world is filled with alien monsters and about 50,000 years of ruins for you to loot. Tékumel the planet is bigger than Earth, and the setting focuses on a small region called the “Five Empires”, especially the Tsolyánu Empire, which is the titular Empire of the Petal Throne.
Customs and Culture[edit]
As noted, Tékumel is seeped in customs and culture. So much so, players have to acclimate to the setting's alien morality and sensibilities! Besides all the diacritic-heavy foreign words in play, this is what makes Tékumel so difficult to run. The setting is old-fashion with many things, like the rigid caste system, arranged marriages, slavery, women lacking rights (unless they become “aridani”), and so on. But at the same time, it is strangely progressive for something invented in the early 1940s.
Outlook[edit]
High morality is based on being Lawful-Neutral. So much so that the old Conan trope of 'rescuing' a damsel-in-distress from becoming human sacrifice to a nasty blood-god is wholly rejected in Tsolyani society, as people do not question the gods — good or bad — and it is considered a high honor to be so 'chosen.' Likewise, it would be highly offensive for someone to think less of someone who faithfully follows any of the gods — good or bad — or the temple they serve. In the polytheistic world of Tékumel, the only thing not tolerated is intolerance.
Due to the way the gods and the dead make their presence known, no one question their existence. You would be a fool to think otherwise! People live and die with their noses to the grindstone, enduring life's hardships, knowing that eternal paradise awaits them (if they survive the hellish trek to paradise). Due to this, you will not find philosophers on Tékumel.
Social stratification is seen as the way of life. Clans are separated by class: Slaves & the Clanless, Plebeians, Trade Clans and Nobility. Climbing up the social ladder is frowned upon, and going down it is disgraceful. A lesser casually socializing with a superior is impertinent. A superior casually socializing with a lesser is suspicious.
As noted above, people take all statements, even in jest, very seriously. That is not to say that they are joyless and uptight. Maintaining stoicism and reputation is seen as matter of life-or-death.
Politics[edit]
Civilization is highly bureaucratic and super conservative. If one were to wake up from a century of hibernation, things will have changed so little that the only real difference will be that all your kin are long dead.
When it comes to religion, bureaucracy, legal matters, asking for directions and so on, there is the expectation of bribery, or 'incidentals.' Crime and punishment is usually handled by heavy fines levied against the offender's clan. A clan can punish its own members by expulsion or even enslavement, if only to recover some of the cost of legal fines.
While the imperial government has supreme authority over everyone, as everything and everyone belongs to the Emperor, the government seldom affects the day-to-day affairs of people's lives. In truth, the Clans work as micro-nations and mega-corporations with regards to their own members and the other clans they have dealings with. On the other hand, family ties are put aside for the sake of the Empire or the demands of a temple.
Family[edit]
Their are no 'Nuclear Families' on Tékumel, instead, people follow Iroquois kinship where many of your aunts and uncles are treated as your 'Mothers' and 'Fathers', with their kids being 'brothers' and 'sisters', made even more complicated by the fact that polygamy and same-sex marriage are common. This may sound confusing, but the defused relationship over mothers and fathers brings a child into a very loving enviroment as everyone is raising the child. People live in large communal clan houses, with kin houses found all across the five kingdoms. Each clan maintains a specific trade or specialty and jealousy guard their trade secrets. No one uses inns, as travelers usually stay in the clan house of kin or at the clan house of someone a traveler considers a 'close friend.' To be without a clan is to be seen as the worst scum on earth.
First marriages are arranged by clan leaders as a means of barter between clans. “Good Clan Girls” are expected to become wives, and a clan girl declaring herself as “aridani” (an independent woman) can throw the system out of wack. A wife has no rights, property or inheritance, but at the same time, she is immune to all legal prosecution and responsibilities. Men and aridani are also free to marry whom ever they want.
Entertainment[edit]
There are a number of houses that specializes in one form of entertainment or another, and most clans have members with a talent towards it. Thespians, singers, poets, musicians, dancers, and the like are common throughout the world.
Sexuality[edit]
People are not embarrassed by sex and nudity, seeing them as normal things. In fact, clothing are more costumes one wears outside to show what clan someone is, along with one's faith, occupation, social and occupational status and political affiliation — like looking at someone's back bumper — than a means of modesty. Adultery is not a big issue as sexual jealousy is frowned upon, and premarital sex is seen as normal. Clan girls typically grow plants that work as a contraceptive when chewed. The clans foster such a strong family support group that having children out of wedlock is not a big deal, and is fairly common.
Afterthought[edit]
This is just scratching the surface of the setting! Not all of this applies to all the kingdoms and outlying people. Baker was born to be an anthropologist and it shows!
Due to Baker's desire to keep western values and 'white savior' fiction out of his setting (as these were common themes that played out in pulp-era of sci-fi and fantasy), he established that anyone with physical features that are anything but dark are seen as a bad omen, to be put down at birth by decree of the gods! So basically the setting is racists against white people, but for in-universe religious reasons.
The Races of Tékumel[edit]
Tékumel is mostly populated by humans, but also has various other alien species who got trapped here along with us.
Humans[edit]
Sign your name in the blank line and you will become the vassal, from now on and to the end of time, of the 'Emperor-great-excellent-powerful'.
Tsolyani[edit]
The Tsolyani humans of Tékumel are in most ways similar to the humans of old Earth, but with some notable cultural differences. For starters, there are, like in many cultures, strict gender roles, many enforced by law, but with the caveat that any woman can declare themselves “aridani”, after which the law will consider them as men, allowing them to do normally male activities like fighting in the military and adventuring. All Tsolyani are born into a clan, with those few clanless Tsolyani being considered inherently untrustworthy, and there is a strong honor system based on what is considered noble or ignoble. Slavery is widespread, and the concept of abolitionism is unheard of. The Tsolyani are polytheistic, and very serious about religion, on account of how most gods can be objectively proven to exist, being strange alien beings from the space between universes.
N’Luss[edit]
The other notable race of humans in the Five Empires region is the N’Luss. They are huge. So huge that they tower over other human races and in most editions of the game have special rules just for playing them. Unlike most races on Tékumel, who are mostly inspired by middle-eastern and meso-american cultures, the N’Luss are basically Vikings, complete with tribes, bards, raiding, and generations long blood-feuds. They usually come to the Five Empires to fight as mercenaries, and most often return home after their time is done, as they do not integrate well into the culture of the Five Empires.
Nom[edit]
A nomadic seafarer culture not found in the Five Empires, the Nom can be encountered in the seas to East. In contrast to the pale-ass N’Luss, the Nom have skin as black as human skin can possibly be. The most notable thing about the Nom is that they have somehow developed a form of sorcery unique from that found in the Five Empires. Nom spells are catalogued in the form of “spell-pictures”, and every Nom sorcerer only memorizes a single spell. Just the one. They become masters of this one spell, and often change their name to match their own personal spell.
The Friendly Races[edit]
Some of the friendly races.
Those species who maintain a friendly relationship with humanity.
Pe Choi[edit]
The Pe Choi are weird seahorse people and everyone’s friends. They were the ones who gave humanity faster-than-light travel and remain the friendliest species in regards to humanity. They are not uncommon in human cities, where they start dressing and acting like humans. They are generally peaceful, but have the natural ability to tell when one of their kin is murdered up to several miles away, and if they don’t consider the killing just they will go out of their way to absolutely murder the shit out of the son-of-a-bitch who did it. They are originally from the star Procyon. Their greatest enemy is bees. No seriously, there is a species of bee on Tékumel who, when annoyed, will vibrate at such a high pitch that it will cause the Pe Choi to have seizures.
Pygmy Folk[edit]
Referring to themselves as the Nininyal, the Pygmy Folk live up to their name by not even being a meter tall. They look like an odd amalgamation of reptilian and rodent features, and have a reputation as being violent and greedy, but are also oddly friendly towards humans. They are originally from the star Mirach.
Swamp Folk[edit]
Happily living in their humid mud-holes, Swamp Folk are four-legged and two-armed, with a large rubbery crest coming out of their heads and heading down their backs. They are common in human navies and are quick to adopt human customs.
Tinaliya[edit]
These four-legged two-armed people are even shorter than the pygmy people and look like they’re made of rocks. They are amicable and curious but are also so literal minded as to be incapable of understanding metaphors or jokes. They live underground, are better then anyone at repairing ancient technology, and are essentially Tékumel’s answer to dwarfs. They originate from Algol.
The Neutral Races[edit]
Those species whose relationship to humans is complicated.
Ahoggyá[edit]
A species of barrel-shaped people with four arms, four legs, and four faces. They have eight sexes, and absolutely no one has figured out how the hell they reproduce. They can be argumentative and difficult to work with. They are originally from the star Achernar.
Chima[edit]
A race of bipedal seafarers with elephantine noses. The Chima have only recently come into contact with the Five Empires, and are a decidedly aesthetic culture, fascinated by the fashions of other species.
Hlaka[edit]
Furry brown creatures with large bat-like wings. The Hlaka are, in the opinions of most other species, massive pussies. This is exemplified by their tendency to flee combat whenever possible, and the absolute terror that open bodies of water inflict on them. They don’t make good slaves or soldiers, so humans generally leave them alone, which suits the Hlaka just fine.
Hokun[edit]
From a distance the Hokun look like strange but beautiful sculptures of glass. Up close, these sculptures will probably stab you. The insectoid Hokun have a transparent carapace, allowing you to see their organs, and have an ant-like society, with every Hokun being part of a “group-mind”, and there’s even a separate caste of larger, dumber Hokun that the others use as mounts. This species has a very complicated relationship with humanity, eating them in some regions, enslaving them in others, and being enslaved by them in yet more.
Mihalli[edit]
The titty-lions. The Mihalli are a species of shapeshifters whose default form is a lion headed biped with four breasts. They came to Tékumel disguised as humans, but after the planet got stuck in the pocket dimension they discovered that they were like, really, really good at magic, the best in all of Tékumel. And so they decided to use this newfound power as an excuse to openly rule over humanity. This resulted in a long war between Mihalli and humans that ended in the humans dropping an atomic weapon on the Mihalli capital city. From the perspective of the other sentient species, the Mihalli are all completely insane with incomprehensible goals.
Nyagga[edit]
Found exclusively in a single lake in northeast Tsolyanu, the Nyagga are an aquatic race who cannot survive on land for more than an hour. Despite their fishy appearance, the Nyagga are warm-blooded and more like Earth’s mammals than its fish. They react violently to anyone trying to penetrate their watery empire. Despite this, they do have a strange trading relationship with the local humans. The Nyagga will leave sculptures and valuable corals on the beach, and humans will take these and leave things they think the Nyagga will like. Some say that the Nyagga can interbreed with humans to create a race of Fish-People with gills and pallid flesh, but these are probably just rumors.
Pachi Lei[edit]
Four-armed, four-legged reptile men, the Pachi Lei have a strange six-sense that lets them better detect traps, hidden doors, and the like. They are psychologically closer to humans than most species, and as such are better at integrating into human society compared to other species, save perhaps the Pe Choi.
Shen[edit]
The Shen are beaked bipedal lizardmen with a tail they can use as a mace. They are commonly found in human armies due to their skill as warriors and excellent discipline. Despite this, the Shen have shown no desire to expand their nations, and when at home focus mainly on defense. For some reason they really hate the Ahoggya, and will often attack them unprovoked when in the wilderness, though they are polite enough not to do so in human cities. They are originally from the star Antares.
Urunen[edit]
Vaguely Orcish bipeds who primarily live in polar regions. Due to their isolation, they have only just recently established contact with the Five Empires. Statistically identical to humans, as if to underscore how similar they and the people of Tekumel are even as they figure out what to do with each other.
The Enemy Races[edit]
Those species who believe the only good human is a dead one.
Hluss[edit]
One of the original inhabitants of Tékumel, the Hluss look like strange segmented scorpions, complete with stinger. This stinger can paralyze an opponent, at which point a female Hluss will inevitably lay her eggs in her frozen captive. The Hluss are predominantly found at sea in boats made from their ‘Secretions’. They are allied to the Ssu, and enemies of just about almost everyone else.
Hlutrgu[edit]
Strange little goblin-y frog men, the Hlutrgu are humanity’s greatest foe. Every year, a swarm of these tiny maniacs emerges from the swamps and goes on raids into human territory, where they proceed to slaughter anyone they can get a hold of for seemingly no reason beyond the sheer fun of it.
Empire Of The Petal Throne | Tekumel Collecting
Shunned Ones[edit]
Strange skeletal-looking humanoids, the Shunned Ones are an enigmatic race who cover themselves in voluminous robes, further adding to their mystique, and smell like an open sewer in summertime. They rarely leave their underground cities, which are hermetically sealed and filled with a gas that is toxic to humans, but when they do go outside it is usually to collect magical items, which they hoard obsessively for unknown, likely nefarious purposes.
Ssu[edit]
One of the original inhabitants of Tékumel, the Ssu never really got over the whole ‘being genocided into near oblivion and being made into captives on their own planet thing.’ They are friendly to the Hluss, but are sworn enemies of just about everyone else, and have made it their sole goal to exterminate the outsiders (except the Hlaka, who they are okay with for some reason), especially the humans. They are often found in ancient ruins searching for weapons to give them an edge over their opponents. The Ssu have two-arms and four-legs, as you have probably guessed if you’ve made it this far, and come in two distinct subspecies, the Grey Ssu, and the Black Ssu. They look about the same, but the Black Ssu are bigger, smarter, and deadlier.
The Many Editions of Tékumel[edit]
With a history almost as long as the basic concept of RPGs in general, it is no surprise that Tékumel had a long and erratic publishing history with multiple, sometimes wildly different, editions.
Empire of the Petal Throne: Manuscript Edition[edit]
The very first edition of Tékumel, the Manuscript Edition, as it has come to be known, only had fifty copies made. It started off when a friend at Barker’s university’s wargaming club, of which he was an advisor, showed him this weird new thing called ”Dungeons & Dragons”. Barker liked it, and so he decided to adapt it to better fit his own world of Tékumel, which he had already been developing for decades at this point.
Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel[edit]
Not long after, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson got their hands on the manuscript edition, and they liked it so much that they had TSR Games publish it as a standalone game using modified Dungeons & Dragons rules.
Swords & Glory[edit]
Published in 1983 by Gamescience, who you may remember as the people behind the “beloved” d100 golfball. Swords & Glory came in two volumes: The ‘Source Book’, a massive and unmitigated 140-page lore dump and pronunciation guide; and the ‘Player’s Handbook’ that contains the actual rules. Used a d20 exclusively. It should be noted that some poor sod had to mark each and every diacritic by pen prior to publication. It is normal for Tékumel books to have diacritics all over the place, but even the Koran was saying: 'Dial it back a bit.'
Gardásiyal: Deeds of Glory[edit]
A percentile-based game from Theatre of the Mind, published in 1994. It used both d10s and d20s, and had four separate books dedicated to character creation, letting you play a Fighting Fantasy type game to develop your PC. For some reason this line of books spelled role-playing as “Rôle-Playing”, because Tékumel needs more diacritics in it.
Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne[edit]
Not to be confused with the other game, Empire of the Petal Throne 2: Electric Boogaloo, Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne was published in 2005 by Guardians of Order, and used the ‘Tri-Stat dX’ system first introduced in the company’s Big Eyes, Small Mouth system. This is one of the more popular editions, owing to the ease of play and indexing of setting information, and high quality of art.
Béthorm: The Plane of Tékumel[edit]
The latest Tékumel game, Béthorm was written by former D&D artist Jeff Dee and published in 2015 by Uni Games. This is the first Tékumel product to be made without M.A.R. Barker’s direct involvement, as he had died three years prior. Despite this, Barker is still listed as co-writer. The game uses the “Pocket Universe” system, which only uses d10s and is primarily based around percentile dice. Like the prior edition, Béthorm is generally user-friendly.
The key feature with this edition is the way jumping between Béthorm (Pocket Universe) is used to deal with the inevitability of discontinuities that form as new players learn more and more about the setting. That is, if a minor detail like Plebeian Aridani being normal in past adventures (the process of becoming Aridani is too expensive for the poorer clans), but when the GM corrects this, references to this can be be dismissed as 'Oh, that was from another reality.' Slipping into near-normal parallel realities happen enough in the history of Tékumel, people do not question when things suddenly become abnormal and just go with the flow.
Gallery[edit]
Tekumel Empire Of The Petal Throne Pdf Download
- An old-ass pic from the earliest edition.
- Typical outfit of a Tsolyani woman.
- An “aridani” solider ready for battle.
- The character of furry-artist Talzhemir.
- Fantasy armor at its best.
?Harnessing The Tides Of Time? By Juch?ssa Betr?nian Of Ts?mra.pdf
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