cool, I like his work too. The "Temple of Dlamelish" issue is great, both pictures and text. Although I wish the images had reproduced better
cool, I like his work too. The "Temple of Dlamelish" issue is great, both pictures and text. Although I wish the images had reproduced better
Probably yes; from what I can tell from his works, I think that the basic outline of the epic was there and South Asia filled in a lot of the details. His time there filled in a lot of how 'modern' Tsolyani looked and felt; his love of Ancient Egypt was the basis of the Engsvanyali Imperium, from what I've seen and read.Originally Posted by Zirunel
That was done from a copy; I have the originals, and they are much sharper and clearer. That was the Imperial Courier we never published, and which Carl finally did up.
Last edited by chirine ba kal; 05-17-2017 at 06:44 PM. Reason: typo
makes sense. Still, it would be great to really drill down on the dates and figure out how Tekumel evolved from what Barker the pulps fan imagined in the 40s into what Barker the newly-returned Fullbright scholar imagined in the mid 50s.
Do you have a sense that Tekumel was put on the shelf somewhat from the mid 50s through to the birth of "game" Tekumel in the 70s, or did he tinker with it fairly actively all that time?
I have the re-issue, but I can imagine the originals are far better, even on the copy you can sense the originals were pretty great
Agreed! One of my personal pet projects has been to research as much of Phil's life s I can, and we made copies of all the biographical information that he'd saved from his career. Fascinating stuff; he went straight from his two-year degree - that he got in eighteen months - to a doctorate, skipping the usual Master's degree.
Yes, very much so, and from Phil himself. He was quite upfront that he'd left his 'fannish pursuits' along from the middle 1950's, once his academic career took off. He dusted it all off when he got to the Twin Cities, and fell in with reprobates like Gronan and Dave Arneson. From what he'd said, he didn't do much of anything with it at all, in the years that came between. He'd kept the files - and lost some, like the draft novel - and prety much just dipped into that when Gary came knocking.
Last edited by chirine ba kal; 05-19-2017 at 04:26 PM. Reason: typo
They had to be; all our publishing was done by Xerox machine, so we had to have the best possible originals.
I didn't realize that, very interesting. Specializing that rapidly into linguistics would explain why his broader background in anthropology and archaeology seems more, what....limited...or dated...than you'd expect........ I always assumed he went through the full academic cursus, but I guess not.
So in a sense, Tekumel didn't "evolve" so much as it exploded in two separate growth spurts 20 years apart?
I've got a question. Someone recently posted an old adventure written for EPT called Mysteries of the Crimson Chamber. In it, the author describes technology of the ancients and will often say that if the device in question were to be dismantled, something like an Eye of (fill in the blank) could be recovered. I wondered if this is something that happened in your games with the Professor, or could be reasonably extrapolated from events you witnessed. What is the true nature of Eyes? I believe they are mentioned as unusual equipment available in the Humanspace Empires playtest document, as well... Thanks! (Oh, and apologies if this has already been discussed, I'm still hundreds of pages behind in my reading!)
I do remember that in Flamesong there was at least one being worked on in the underwater lab.
(If I recall correctly. Been a few years since I read it.)
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