Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

The secret is acid free backing boards and evacuated mylar bags. Otherwise your sword will start drooping in your late forties.

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Hello,

I've a question concerning chlen hide weapons and armor. Barring being worn out from use and battle, does chlen hide deteriorate or lose any of its integrity over time? I was doing a bit of reading and it mentioned stores of ancient arms being show to those curious. Even a few instances of ancient armor and weapons being given to new troops. I would imagine that it holds up pretty well. But I wanted to hear from an authority on the subject as I've not come across any references in any volumes I have read.

Thanks,

H :0)

Well, the way that Phil played it, it didn't 'go bad' over time. From what he said, both in the game room and in the various books, if the armor or weapon hadn't gotten broken, it stayed in usable shape. It's 'pickled', in the curing process that also molds it to shape, so it tended to stay pretty good. It's not forever, by any means, but if it had been stored properly it usually was pretty pristine.

Metal armor and weapons, if they'd also been stored and maintained properly, also tended to last - Phil was quite familiar with the Styrian Armory at Graz, which has an incredible collection of military stuff. (Think National Guard Armory, but for the Spanish Armada.)

Chlen hide does not rust or decay much, and there were a lot of times we'd pick up stuff on our adventures. One of our adventures, in Hekellu, revolved around two corrupt Tsolyani officials selling Yan Koryani "military surplus" weapons and armor to the hill tribes - which were in rebellion against the Tsolyani, at the time - and which caused quite the scandal. Basically, if you didn't break it, it was usually still pretty good.

Everybody has stocks of 'heirloom' stuff that they keep in storage, which is why adventurers can be outfitted in short order - and why local politics can get so very interesting for Imperial officials...

Originally Posted by David Johansen

The secret is acid free backing boards and evacuated mylar bags. Otherwise your sword will start drooping in your late forties.

Yeah, pretty much; maintenance is the key. See also the websites on the Styrian Armoury; the stuff there has been lovingly looked after for centuries, just in case they need to issue it to the troops. My favorite are the armor racks with the soldiers' names over each set of armor, so Georg or Hans can get into his gear in the quickest possible time; the place used to be laid out so that the trooper would go in one door on the one side in his underwear, and leave out the other side all ready to march. They have literally everything in stock - when the St. Mary's City Project asked what a particular object that they'd found in their dig site was, the Armoury replied that it was a musket worm (used to remove balls and charges from the gun barrel) and how many did they need as the Armory had something like five hundred in stock...

Thank you for your very good questions! I am going to answer them in three parts - I'm afraid that this is going to be a bit of an essay...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

I realize that you enjoy using the great minatures and the wonderful scenery that you have made but, were there times when everything was only in your imagination?

The 'short answer' to this is "Yes, most of the time.". I've addressed this a number of times, but let me be more clear about it; the use of miniatures in games was, for us, yet another tool for 'telling the story'. They existed to facilitate what we were doing in our adventures. We used miniatures when it felt appropriate to the action in the game, as a sort of 'tactical display' to indicate the relationships of the PCs to their environment in space-time.

Miniatures, for us, were and still are part of what's been described as 'immersion' in our games. Their use was part of a spectrum of gaming that we moved freely back and forth along; there were times we'd play 'straight wargames' such as miniatures and board games, and there were times we'd play 'straight RPGs', when it was all about 'theater of the mind'. I like to describe it as 'watching the radio' - or using our imaginations to fill in all the details.

We didn't much worry if the miniatures we had weren't perfect replicas of what we were encountering; we filled in the details in our minds, and got on with the playing of the roles that we had assumed. Couple of cases in point: Over the years, I did four different figures to represent the character Princess Vrisa. Her player, Kathy Marshall, would select amongst the figures in my carrying case to show what mood or mode Vrisa was in at the moment, from ruthless mercenary bodyguard to elegant lady at a social function. When we needed a figure for her brother, Mridan, I dug around in the spares box and painted up a Ral Partha Greek Hoplite to represent him on the table. Was it an exact replica? No, not by a long shot. Did we care? No, as we simply filled in the details of his armor in our minds.

Can I give you a percentage of what games did and did not use miniatures? No. We didn't worry about it; we just played. One does not need miniatures to play RPGs; in my biased opinion, one needs imagination.

Figures, dice, coins, whatever - all of these are simply aids to the imagination.

Part two...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

How important were the physical game pieces?

In reality? Not very. Both Phil and I happened to like making stuff, so we tended to want to make stuff for the games and show them off. Everybody else tolerated this, as one did get to see some really cool stuff.

But...

The cool stuff was never allowed to impede the flow of the game. It added a lot to the games, providing details and humor, but it never was the be-all and end-all of our gaming.

Having said that, I do admit that I like to run 'skirmish' games with my stuff. But, as my players can tell you, there have been months and months of gaming where there has been nothing but sodas and chips on the table. If the lead isn't needed for the game play, it doesn't come off the shelf.

And part three...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Do you think things that happened flowed from the models that you had?
=

Yes, but it was a two-way street. Stuff got made from the needs of the game play, and on occasion game play would take a cue from what was on the table. We fought the melee at the Palace of Bassa, King of the Black Ssu, in no small part because Phil had just gotten his sample Black Ssu in from Ral Partha. However, we were doing it in the first place because we had to pay off Thomar the Wizard for turning Eyloa back into a human (Well, as human as Eyloa ever got; he was a cranky old fart, most of the time, the snob) from his condition as the semi-divine Blue Fish.

I have had, over the years, games that simply cried out for models and figures to be made for them - which is where more then a few of my ships and boats come from - and I have had models that demand that game sessions be created for them.

If I may be permitted to use an analogy from my model railway:

A number of years ago, I had the good fortune to be traveling on the Severn Valley Railway, one of the oldest and best preserved railway lines in the UK. I was in the sales stall of the local model railway club, on the station plaftorm, when I saw a kit for the immortal "Lion", the star of films like my favorite "The Titfield Thunderbolt". My railway is set in the just post-war Grouping period, so I have no real use for such a model; I got it anyway, and when I got back home I cut a turnout into the line for a new branch line for "Lion" to pull some period coaches. She makes an appearance, collects her passengers and freight, and goes back to her branch station. (Art imitates life, in this case.)

Both Phil and I created models for games, and we both created games for our models. No rhyme or reason to it; it just was the way we did (and I still do) things.

The important thing is the game...

Thank you, Chirine and Gronan, for this thread. It's been a fascinating read, and I'm glad I found it while it's still active because I have questions to ask, too!

I've been fascinated by the Pariah gods (and the gods in general) since my introduction to Tekumel via the Man of Gold. What difference, if any, is there between the Pariah gods and the Twenty? Is it just that Pavar created an "orthodox" pantheon of the Twenty for "official" worship and left out the Pariahs, or are the Pariahs somehow intrinsically different?

On a different tack, what do you think the best thing that we, as fans, can do to increase Tekumel's popularity other than running games and introducing new people to it? From everything that's been said, helping out the Foundation doesn't seem likely to help Tekumel itself very much.

Completely unrelatedly, Chirine, are you a Gophers fan? I gather from what you say of your work that you do a lot of facilities engineering work for the U of M. Do you enjoy working the football games as a fan, or is it just another job for you?

Thanks in advance!