Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

You're welcome!

1. I'm surprised that you are having to recreate the "Armies" series, which has all the information you are looking for - legions, hex number locations, arms and armor, etc. Last I heard, the Tekumel Foundation had republishing these as a high priority project; they were supposed to have been re-done and out several years ago. The editions I did are going for silly prices in the collectibles market; I've often thought of selling off my paper copies and working from my digital versions.

2. Well, I like the lightning-bringers myself; they're a great excuse for some cool models - I have three different ones in the arsenal - and a lot of fun on the game table. They usually fail, and at the worse possible time.



3. Strategic campaigns are what we used to do all the time, as a way to generate battles on the table. I do miss that style of gaming; people don;t seem to have time for it, any more...

1. Unfortunately, there are no digital copies online that I can find. I checked Drivethru RPG and they had some great stuff, but no army lists. Too bad, I really wanted to do something between Tsolyanu and Mu'ugalavya. I guess have to restrict myself to just Tsolyani, Salarvyani, and Pechani lists for now. I can at least make up some Ssu units. Since there are no "official" listings the sky's the limit. The trouble is that even a strategic level campaign against the Ssu would be quite limited in scope given their numbers, and the lack of concerted effort by the Five Empires to utterly eradicate them. Then again, if I do a campaign set in Gamulu's time there's a lot more breadth available, and everything can be made from scratch...

2. My experience has been that these type of things are often more memorable than the majority of battles fought. The guys in my group still bring up events that took place 30+ years ago, and are remembered because they were catastrophic fails. The best laid plans of mice...

3. This must be an "age thing". When I started playing D&D the notion of single unrelated scenarios was unthought of by me and my gaming circle. If anyone had suggested this the universal responsive would have been what's the point of playing a series of unlinked games? How boring! A campaign mindset was intuitive for us. After all, we played D&D primarily because we wanted to make our own fantasy epic like the Amber, or Elric, or Hawkmoon, or Conan stories. Damn, I feel old!

Shemek

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

1.I do, and I'll look for the files when I have a chance. See #3, though.

2. Exactly. The US Army did this, as well; see also the uniforms that the boys wore before and after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.

3. You should be asking the Tekumel Foundation for this kind of thing, really. They are very insistent that any and all such requests for information must go through them, and I am trying to respect their wishes; I was told after this year's Gary Con that they are very hurt - their words - that people talk to me and not to them about things like this.

4. Agreed! And with Harchar supplying the 'magic Elven bang sticks' that we got in Blackmoor, we could do some really serious gaming and not this fantasy crap!!!

5. It was a screaming pain in the ass. There was never any money, so I had to fund pretty much everything out of my back pocket. A lot of people owe their present prestige and position to the hard work that I - and Gronan - put in over the years, and they ruined my relationship with Phil trying to get control of what we'd built. Now, they're in the hot seat, and not having a very good time from what I'm told. Tough. Welcome to the real world, people.

And let's drop that thought, if we may; it only gets me blood pressure up...

1. Cool, and thank you. If you can get this posted I'm sure it would be helpful to a lot of people, even those not prmarily interested in miniatures.

3. I get it and I'm not trying to stir the pot, but I have to ask, at the risk of sounding belligerent or obtuse, why bother? You and Gronan are the experts on the subject at hand. You are willing to share your knowledge. No one is trying to profit at Phil's expense. This forum, to me at least, is like sitting around at the local pub or hobby shop and shooting the bull. I wouldn't write Mr Tamiya and ask him if I can talk about his 1/35 JS2 with my fellow modellers. Why should I have to ask others if I can talk about Tekumel? No offence, but stroking people's egos is not something that I really worry about these days. I'm kind of getting to appreciate what you've had to go through. One final point: I agree with you let's drop it and not cause any unnecessary aggravation. Here endeth the rant. :rant:

4. Hear! Hear! Kind of like when my old group found some Gamma World energy weapons and inadvertently blew a hole in the city wall, causing the visiting vizier from a neighbouring kingdom to be dropped in the street from his palanquin, when his panicked slave bearers hit the dirt. A Benny Hill chase ensued much to everyone's amusement.

Shemek

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Ahh Lord Shemek,

The thought of Shaka Ssulu and his mighty horde surrounding Beneshchan's Drift is enough to give me the creeps...musty cinnamon, piping chimes and all!!!
I only hope I can make it in time. I'm no friend of the Ssu...

H;0)

PS Shunned Ones, Freshenga, and Sro oh my!!!

That's a good one Mighty Hrugga of the Epics! I have to remember to use Beneschan's Drift next time I visit Teshkoa. I'm sure King Beneschan would find that amusing.

Shaka Ssulu! You know that I'm stealing that one don't you?

Shemek

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Agreed; I think his only regret with the TSR edition of EPT was including The Secret Tongue as an 'open source' item in the languages list. So, Phil being Phil, he then came up with The Even More Secret Tongue of the Temple of Ksarul, which all the Ksarul-worshipping players then learned. This then led to The Really Secret Tongue of the Temple of Ksaurl, and one had to be very high-level to learn it. Nobody ever got that high, so the problem was solved.

This totally sounds like something I would have done as well.

Shemek

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Yes, they can; it's in the Sourcebook. The outcome are the Pallid Ones who live on the shores of Lake Parunal; these are the ones who do not go back to the underwater civilization, and live on land. They have vestigial gills.

They are also the ones who provide the Gurek of Ngakku - I first modeled these for Phil in 1977, or so. The Ral Partha 'Sea Elf Advancing With Pike" is a dead ringer for the illustration that Craig did. They are now back in production by Ral Partha, too, so you can have the same figures that we did, back in the day...

And they may have powered exoskeletons in their treasure vaults, for all we know; nobody ever did much exploring, up that way...

Just out of curiosity what colour scheme does the Gurek of Ngakku sport? What colour did you use to represent their flesh?

Shemek

Originally Posted by Hrugga

The thought of Shaka Ssulu and his mighty horde surrounding Beneshchan's Drift is enough to give me the creeps...musty cinnamon, piping chimes and all!!!

I can predict there shall be many antagonists in different Tekumel games named Shaka Ssulu!

Originally Posted by AsenRG

I can predict there shall be many antagonists in different Tekumel games named Shaka Ssulu!

...you have no shame at all, do you.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

...you have no shame at all, do you.

...Shame from what?

From Shemek hiTankolel:

1. Unfortunately, there are no digital copies online that I can find. I checked Drivethru RPG and they had some great stuff, but no army lists. Too bad, I really wanted to do something between Tsolyanu and Mu'ugalavya. I guess have to restrict myself to just Tsolyani, Salarvyani, and Pechani lists for now. I can at least make up some Ssu units. Since there are no "official" listings the sky's the limit. The trouble is that even a strategic level campaign against the Ssu would be quite limited in scope given their numbers, and the lack of concerted effort by the Five Empires to utterly eradicate them. Then again, if I do a campaign set in Gamulu's time there's a lot more breadth available, and everything can be made from scratch...

Well, that's odd. I was assured that they had their very best people working on it, as that the troop lists had valuable information that was vital for doing RPGs. Wonder what happened?

2. My experience has been that these type of things are often more memorable than the majority of battles fought. The guys in my group still bring up events that took place 30+ years ago, and are remembered because they were catastrophic fails. The best laid plans of mice...

Very true - I'm still laughing over things like this, forty years on, and enjoying them still.

3. This must be an "age thing". When I started playing D&D the notion of single unrelated scenarios was unthought of by me and my gaming circle. If anyone had suggested this the universal responsive would have been what's the point of playing a series of unlinked games? How boring! A campaign mindset was intuitive for us. After all, we played D&D primarily because we wanted to make our own fantasy epic like the Amber, or Elric, or Hawkmoon, or Conan stories. Damn, I feel old!

Same here. These days, it seems to be all about one-shots, modules, pre-gens, and get-it-get-out-with-the-XP.