Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

I think there's a distinct difference between Games Workshop in the eighties, nineties, and new millennium. In the early eighties Warhammer was a side line and they published D&D in the UK. In the late eighties they turned to the full on Warhammer company but were still distributed by the gaming industry. By the early nineties with the success of Adeptus Mechanicus and Warhammer 4th edition, they moved from the hardbacks to jumbo boxed sets with plastic figures. It was around this time that they jettisoned the gaming distribution network and built their own. Warhammer 40000 3rd edition and Warhammer Fantasy Battle 6th edition saw them turn towards larger armies, more plastic figures, and more rigidly tournament oriented rules. White Dwarf quickly declined from a hobby magazine with lots of painting and terrain building and scenarios and fun odds and ends like naval combat in 28mm and jousting rules to a full on product spotlight flyer. Along side this was the decline and eventual dropping of the tournament circuit. With Age of Sigmar, GW deliberately jettisoned the Warhammer mechanics and even dropped points totals. If it's successful, Warhammer 40000 will probably follow suit. Leaving little more than a skeleton of a game.

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Hello Chirine,

I hope all is well. Just a few of quick questions...

Can you say a bit more about the instances Tekumel was pulled back into Humanspace? Also about the defeat of The Twenty? It seems your predecessors liked to cause all manner of problems in Bethorm...

Would have any plot details from the Professor's two unpublished novels? And how it fits into the Professor's History of Tekumel? Thank you.


Hope to hear From you soon,

H :0)

They did, really. The first time back into Humanspace was after Eyloa was fooling around with the Egg of the World; I think the second was after they messed around with Baron Ald's Big Black Box. There are very, very few written records from that time - or from that group in general, as they were not particularly interested in any kind of long-term campaign record-keeping.
They also fought the Battle of the Gods at Dormoron Plain, and 'won'. Phil 'edited' that one pretty quick.

Re the two unpublished novels: The first one was started in Lucknow in the 1950s, and is about a Harsan who gets into a lot of trouble right off the mark. It's hard to see where Phil was going in this, as while there's a plot outline and some 52 pages, these pages are scattered amongst some 13 chapters. So, there's a lot of interesting details and locations, but nothing's really developed enough to see what's going to happen. It does not seem to be connected to the five later novels that were published, but again, it's hard to tell without a detailed analysis.

(Elara hi Vriddi appears, and she's a real jerk. Good-looking, but nasty. I do have to wonder what Mirusiya sees in her.)

The last manuscript, "Beside The Dark Pool Of Memory", is more complete. There are several different electronic versions, as Phil was entirely digital by that point in his writing, and collating them together gives us about a dozen chapters. The work is much more developed, and it shows Phil's skill as a writer. I did not find a plot outline or anything in Phil's files; and what we have are the beginning chapters where Phil sets the scene, establishes where we are in his timeline, and introduces and updates the various characters. Unlike the first novel, there is a plot that's being developed, but it's not all that apparent where Phil's going with it. We have about a quarter of the book, and it's the first one.

I'm sorry that I can't be more specific, but it's just not there. The Lucknow manuscript is very 'underdeveloped', and could be published as an artifact - but that would be it. The last one? Well, it would take a whole lot of work to make anything out of it; one would be writing a novel almost from scratch, and having to incorporate the existing chapters as well. Sorry, but that's all we have.

If I may be permitted a comment; this is one of the reasons why my little effort is being written in separate 'episodes', rather then 'in order'. I have the advantage in that I'm writing about our adventures, so I can tell the stories as think of them; you, the reader, will then be able to read them in the order in which they happened. I think my job is easier then the one Phil set himself, and I'm still astounded at how much he really did.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Ok, let's see...

Yes; they were complex people, and short posts just don;t do them justice. The game hobby / industry back in those days was a lot more nuanced and complicated then it comes across in references. And yes, I also thought that the 'later TSR stuff had been 'sanitized' for the mass market.

On Gordy... Well, he was a good, solid writer, who could be relied on to produce good stuff by editors and publishers. I thought his and Poul Anderson's 'Hoka' series was hysterical; the 'Childe Cycle', which included the Dorsai series within it, got a little philosophical for me but I still liked it. I just liked his work - it had a resonance with me, and I think that was because we also had a lot of stuff in common like our love of history. What he didn't know about Sir John Hawkwood would fit on a small postage stamp, and his telling me about that period and those people had an influence on how we played in Phil's campaign. Kathy Marshall drew Yours Truly as a version of Frederigo di Montefeltro (spelling's probably bad, sorry), the mercenary Duke of Urbino.

He was very approachable, and very kind. I enjoyed doing up the Dorsai miniatures and vehicles for him. (No idea what happened to them after he passed away.)

What else? Themes? Characters? What would you like?

No, "Dragon Warriors" didn't seem to make any kind of a splash here in the US; I don't recall ever seeing any copies in the local stores. Maybe somebody can help us with this?

Hmm, that's kinda a cross-info, so I feel obligated to ask. How did him telling you about John Hawkwood "influence your play at Phil's campaign"?

And I just like what (addmittedly little) of Gordon Dickson I've read. So, I guess: whatever you find interesting about his themes and/or characters?

I was just asking about Dragon Warriors because I happen to be running a forum game of it on another forum.
It seems a few of the premises of the game would be considered "too nasty" by those Referees usually known as "Killer GMs". I mean, the rules support dungeon crawls, but that's a game where your combat-focused character gains exactly one hit point by going up a level. Imagine a cross of OD&D and Pendragon, if you can.
Long story short, I was just wondering how it was received at the time. "It wasn't noticed" is about what I expected, really.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Agreed. You could never gotten EPT past the Morality Police at TSR, as it violated something like 90% of their strictures against 'unwholesome' content. I can recall some of them having the vapors over our stuff, even back as early as 1980 or so.

I'm afraid we might be seeing the emergence of a new Morality Police.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

'The Tekumel Boat People' was Dave's name for us; we lived in the basement of 1278 Selby, AGI's building (Dave and his family loved on the top floor) where we lived up pallets and under tarps; when it rained, water would come up out of the floor drain, and when somebody flushed the AGI toilet, water would come down out of the ceiling. Oh, those were the days, weren't they?

I'm pretty sure that these days, that would get them in deep trouble with the authorities, possibly investigated for slavery and forced labour!

Originally Posted by David Johansen

I think there's a distinct difference between Games Workshop in the eighties, nineties, and new millennium. In the early eighties Warhammer was a side line and they published D&D in the UK. In the late eighties they turned to the full on Warhammer company but were still distributed by the gaming industry. By the early nineties with the success of Adeptus Mechanicus and Warhammer 4th edition, they moved from the hardbacks to jumbo boxed sets with plastic figures. It was around this time that they jettisoned the gaming distribution network and built their own. Warhammer 40000 3rd edition and Warhammer Fantasy Battle 6th edition saw them turn towards larger armies, more plastic figures, and more rigidly tournament oriented rules. White Dwarf quickly declined from a hobby magazine with lots of painting and terrain building and scenarios and fun odds and ends like naval combat in 28mm and jousting rules to a full on product spotlight flyer. Along side this was the decline and eventual dropping of the tournament circuit. With Age of Sigmar, GW deliberately jettisoned the Warhammer mechanics and even dropped points totals. If it's successful, Warhammer 40000 will probably follow suit. Leaving little more than a skeleton of a game.

Yes, I'd agree with this. The GW of today is very, very different from the storefront it once was. I never really played any of their games; I have to admit that none of them really appealed to me. (Some of the miniatures, though, have proven to be very useful over the years.) I had copies of many of the books and magazines, and I recently gave them away to some of the young people (high school aged) in my gaming group as I simply wasn't using them for anything. They like them, so I'm calling it a success...

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Hmm, that's kinda a cross-info, so I feel obligated to ask. How did him telling you about John Hawkwood "influence your play at Phil's campaign"?

And I just like what (addmittedly little) of Gordon Dickson I've read. So, I guess: whatever you find interesting about his themes and/or characters?

Oh, right; let me gather my thoughts on Gordy's writing, and I'll have something for you as soon as I can.

Learning about the workings of a mercenary company like Hawkwood's 'White Company' was an eye opener; we were just starting to do the first military campaign out at Phil's, where the Glorious General was still a field-grade officer with a legion. We didn't have a lot of good information back then about how a period military unit functioned; we had Engel's book on Alexander the Great's army, and some good stuff on the Roman legions, but it didn't address a lot of the issues and problems that we were running into in the Tekumel campaign. Like, "How do we pay the troops?" Or, "How do we feed the troops in this crummy desert?" Phil wanted us to work these things out, otherwise he was all ready to hand us a mutiny or starvation. Either way, Castle Tilketl was not going to get stormed, and Gronan was not going to get a promotion. (And we were all likely to get dead, too.)

Being originally wargamers, we mostly just brought troops to the tale and fought the battles. As RPG players, we had a much more personal stake in learning how to do things, as our PC's lives depended on it. We plowed through Phil's extensive library, and we had the chance to talk to Gordy and look through his books as well; like Dave Arneson and his expertise in the Age of Sail, Gordy probably could have gotten a degree in medieval history.

I was astonished to discover, for example, that the White Comapny had (in addition to the expected fighting men) a whole staff of lawyers, accountants, clerks, and other 'non-combatant' specialists who ran the 'services' behind the fighting edge of the company. This is how I wound up becoming a specialist in staff work for the General, which left him free to concentrate on winning fights and so keeping us alive. We didn't run out of arrows, or water, or other useful things, which freed us to carry out our military mission.

Looking back on it, talking to Gordy gave us a whole new insight into what people have called 'the domain game' in D&D, where the players establish themselves in a castle or stronghold and use that as a base of operations. Similarly, in Phil's EPT campaign, one of the big 'goals' was to be appointed to an Imperial fief and become lords of a two-hex area. A couple of people did this, early on, but it was not a success - the disasters at Ferenara and Tu'umnra were the result, and it was years before Phil granted anyone a fief again. (Vrisa - Kathy Marshall - got the Nyemesel Isles.

Our legion became our fief, and we did our best to run it well. It was, in effect, the domain game, but not tied down to a fixed location as we marched around a fair bit over the years. So, yes, Gordy's help was invaluable, and it still is as I run my extension of the original meta-game as I play. I have the same kind of staff of people to help me run things - and I even have miniatures for them, thanks to Dark Fable! Having scribes, cooks, accountants, heralds, chamberlains, and all the other staff people give rise to more adventures, and a ready-made source of PCs for guests who drop in to play in a game or two.

"Flower, being a sensible young lady, knocked the assassin senseless with a handy platter while he was distracted."

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Oh, right; let me gather my thoughts on Gordy's writing, and I'll have something for you as soon as I can.

Learning about the workings of a mercenary company like Hawkwood's 'White Company' was an eye opener; we were just starting to do the first military campaign out at Phil's, where the Glorious General was still a field-grade officer with a legion. We didn't have a lot of good information back then about how a period military unit functioned; we had Engel's book on Alexander the Great's army, and some good stuff on the Roman legions, but it didn't address a lot of the issues and problems that we were running into in the Tekumel campaign. Like, "How do we pay the troops?" Or, "How do we feed the troops in this crummy desert?" Phil wanted us to work these things out, otherwise he was all ready to hand us a mutiny or starvation. Either way, Castle Tilketl was not going to get stormed, and Gronan was not going to get a promotion. (And we were all likely to get dead, too.)

Being originally wargamers, we mostly just brought troops to the tale and fought the battles. As RPG players, we had a much more personal stake in learning how to do things, as our PC's lives depended on it. We plowed through Phil's extensive library, and we had the chance to talk to Gordy and look through his books as well; like Dave Arneson and his expertise in the Age of Sail, Gordy probably could have gotten a degree in medieval history.

I was astonished to discover, for example, that the White Comapny had (in addition to the expected fighting men) a whole staff of lawyers, accountants, clerks, and other 'non-combatant' specialists who ran the 'services' behind the fighting edge of the company. This is how I wound up becoming a specialist in staff work for the General, which left him free to concentrate on winning fights and so keeping us alive. We didn't run out of arrows, or water, or other useful things, which freed us to carry out our military mission.

Looking back on it, talking to Gordy gave us a whole new insight into what people have called 'the domain game' in D&D, where the players establish themselves in a castle or stronghold and use that as a base of operations. Similarly, in Phil's EPT campaign, one of the big 'goals' was to be appointed to an Imperial fief and become lords of a two-hex area. A couple of people did this, early on, but it was not a success - the disasters at Ferenara and Tu'umnra were the result, and it was years before Phil granted anyone a fief again. (Vrisa - Kathy Marshall - got the Nyemesel Isles.

Our legion became our fief, and we did our best to run it well. It was, in effect, the domain game, but not tied down to a fixed location as we marched around a fair bit over the years. So, yes, Gordy's help was invaluable, and it still is as I run my extension of the original meta-game as I play. I have the same kind of staff of people to help me run things - and I even have miniatures for them, thanks to Dark Fable! Having scribes, cooks, accountants, heralds, chamberlains, and all the other staff people give rise to more adventures, and a ready-made source of PCs for guests who drop in to play in a game or two.

"Flower, being a sensible young lady, knocked the assassin senseless with a handy platter while he was distracted."

Heh, excellent! So Chirine became the nightmare of bureaucrats, I mean master of logistics, with Gordon Dickson's help?
You should totally use that for a preface of your book, you know.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

... but it didn't address a lot of the issues and problems that we were running into in the Tekumel campaign. Like, "How do we pay the troops?" Or, "How do we feed the troops in this crummy desert?" Phil wanted us to work these things out, otherwise he was all ready to hand us a mutiny or starvation. Either way, Castle Tilketl was not going to get stormed, and Gronan was not going to get a promotion. (And we were all likely to get dead, too.)

I'm in the process of reading Fury: War in Europe 1450-1700 by Lauro Martines. It devotes a fair bit of attention to the difficulties (impossibility really) of maintaining armies throughout that period. Disease, desertion, and starvation caused far more casualties than battle.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Heh, excellent! So Chirine became the nightmare of bureaucrats, I mean master of logistics, with Gordon Dickson's help?
You should totally use that for a preface of your book, you know.

Oh, probably! I wasn't really a 'bureaucrat' per se, but much more of a military staff officer. Less paperwork, more marching, and you do get to kill anyone who messes up your requisitions.

Yes, talking with Gordy and accessing his vast store of knowledge had an influence on all of us; he and Poul Anderson were founders of the SCA, back when, and as just about all of us were also either in the group or went to events, that also had an influence - which is why we have all those costumes and suits of armor in the basement.

Gordy and Poul have Book Six dedicated to them, along with Sir John Hawkwood. Each of the six volumes are dedicated to those people who had the biggest influence on me in their particular area of expertise.

Some of them might surprise you, like Col. A. D. Wintle of the First The Royals; I heartily suggest his hugely funny book, "The Last Englishman". When Wintle was captured by the Vichy French - he was an Intellegence officer in the British army at the time - he refused to be shot by them as he didn't think they were up to the job, and insisted on being shot by the Nazis instead as he felt that the Gestapo would do a better job. The Gestapo had no problems with shooting him, as he'd been a thorn in their side for years, but did say that it was really a French problem as they'd arrested him in the first place.

While the officials discussed this, Wintle sawed through the bars of his cell and escaped back to England.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried, folks. Real-life is an infinite source of adventure ideas...

Originally Posted by Bren

I'm in the process of reading Fury: War in Europe 1450-1700 by Lauro Martines. It devotes a fair bit of attention to the difficulties (impossibility really) of maintaining armies throughout that period. Disease, desertion, and starvation caused far more casualties than battle.

Must get this book! Thank you!

Yep, Phil had a huge library on this subject, and was just all chock full of wonderfully horrible diseases and other things that he was just all eager and bright-eyed to inflict on us. (He'd survived a lot of them himself, and was Strictly Forbidden by the American Red Cross from donating blood. Period. They even made him carry a wallet card that said that, too.)You are absolutely right; look at the US Army in the Spanish-American War, where losses from disease and food poisoning (bad rations) killed more soldiers then the Spanish Mausers did.