Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal - part II

Originally Posted by Zirunel

Yeah, spot on, you go straight to the res. That's what my questions are dancing around.

I was an undergrad in the 70s and a grad student in the 80s. I lived that environment, I have my own stories, of no interest to anyone outside a rarified field (much like Tekumel!) and I can imagine how it might play out in any university department. Young kids jostling for position, older authority figure gratified and validated by being some kind of mentor, all that. Just trying to get a sense how it played out in that particular time and place.

It did indeed play out the way you think, and for decades. I think we'd have all quit years earlier then we did, if Tekumel wasn't so damn fascinating. The sheer fun of adventuring in the setting made the crap we all took bearable.

So, I was playing in my third ever D&D session yesterday, and the party got dry-gulched by some goblins. Just like you GM'd all those years ago, the party reaction was "Let's track down the little creeps and get our stuff back!"

And we're about to, in the next game session, and the party has asked yours truly about the best tactics to use to dry-gulch the goblins back. Mayhem will ensure.

Excellent! The correct response to the PCs being killed by bad guys is not "WAAAH!" but rather "VENGEANCE!!"

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

True. It makes the current situation just that much more comprehensible.

And I apologize for being so snarky earlier, too. The whole incident made me wonder - and still does, for that matter - if putting in forty years, unlimited energy, and substantial sums of money was at all worth it. Again, not your fault; sorry for being a cranky old man.

No worries, I didn't take anything as being specifically aimed at me.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

if putting in forty years, unlimited energy, and substantial sums of money was at all worth it.

Well, you obviously thought it was at the time and that is usually all one has to go on.
That extra effort may be what has gotten us this far.
May not seem all that far but, there are other great ideas that are long gone already.


What efforts are taken to preserve all this paper that is being used to record transactions?
Is humidity as much of an issue as I suspect (what with living in Florida)?
How long are they retained? Are there huge storehouses of nothing but the clan's records?
=

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

No worries, I didn't take anything as being specifically aimed at me.

Thank you - you're very kind!

What has been truly annoying to me have been all the lost opportunities for Tekumel over the decades. No funding, no resources, no interest from some of the people you'd think would be the most concerned, and a level of infighting that is truly breathtaking. My curse is to be able to see into the future - not like Cassandra, who knew what would be, but to see what could be. (You, I think, tore your hair out just as much as I did during your time in the barrel) There was too much of doing things for personal prestige and position, both before and after our time, and not enough thinking outside the box and for the long term.

So it goes, I would guess; human history is full of this kind of thing...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Well, you obviously thought it was at the time and that is usually all one has to go on.
That extra effort may be what has gotten us this far.
May not seem all that far but, there are other great ideas that are long gone already.


What efforts are taken to preserve all this paper that is being used to record transactions?
Is humidity as much of an issue as I suspect (what with living in Florida)?
How long are they retained? Are there huge storehouses of nothing but the clan's records?
=

Agreed; we were having a lot of fun, and a pretty good time. Lots of games, lots of things like doing our costumes, and we were doing something that had never been done before.

Lots of cool dry cellars, extra copies in safe places, and plenty of scribes. Humidity is indeed an issue, which is why there are wind trap towers to collect breezed and keep the archives vented out. Retention - centuries; you never know when you might need the documents in some sort of property dispute. And yes, there are warehouses full of records, as well as temple archives and the government ones.

The Mu'uglavyani, I have to point out, require that everything is done in quadruplicate...

Originally Posted by Zirunel

Yeah well, although I have seen my share of silliness in academia, I have also been fortunate enough to work with professors who knew how to be the adult in the room. Not all could pull that off, and it could be disappointing when they couldn't. Oh well. On the other hand, even faculty that didn't have those abilities could still sometimes create inspiration. And yes, Tekumel remains inspiring. For me, the only thing from my rpg days that still has its hooks in me all these decades later.

Agreed! It was an inspiration, and why we stayed. I wound up with a basement full of the result, too...

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Agreed! It was an inspiration, and why we stayed. I wound up with a basement full of the result, too...

Totally. And I think your basement enriches us all. As do you.