Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Little good will come from being in between these competing priesthoods. Let them war amongst themselves and finish each other off. Eventually creative commons rights will snatch their sacred texts from them and render their heavenly kingdoms ground to dust.

And then we can play Siouxsie & the Banshees in celebration!

Originally Posted by Greentongue

What would happen to the survivors if an emergency escape pod ended up on Tekumel?
Starting with the equipment that is included in the pod and the typical skills of a starship crew.
=

Wow!!! I would think depended on where they crashed, which age of Tekumel, and the players. Mayhem ensues...!!!

H;0)

PS I'm sure you have some good ideas. Imagine they crash on the other side of Tekumel. You could have yourself a "Planet of the Hokun" campagin!!! Kidnapped by a temple...

Originally Posted by Opaopajr

Little good will come from being in between these competing priesthoods. Let them war amongst themselves and finish each other off. Eventually creative commons rights will snatch their sacred texts from them and render their heavenly kingdoms ground to dust.

And then we can play Siouxsie & the Banshees in celebration!

I prefer Ss�xsie & the Banshees myself. I hear that their tour of Chaigari Protectorate is doing quite well

Shemek

Originally Posted by Hermes Serpent

Surely a watch of Planets of the Apes for inspiration would help with a campaign involving a crashed spaceship/pod. Substitute enraged locals for the titular Apes.

That would be a fun campaign and a great story arc to develop. You could have the characters be from pre Time of Darkness Tekumel.

Shemek

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Chirine,

I think that ultimately this is the crux of the matter. Tekumel needs to simplified and spiced up. Drop all the bloody accent marks, and simplify the names of the critters and what not. Hell, spell them phonetically if needs be! There are already a lot of good game systems out there that can be used, and a new set of rules is not really needed. As you said, let Phil do the talking, but let others freely add to the story. Also, I think Zirunel hit it on the head as well. The art in particular really needs to be updated. I think that a more realistic look would go a long way in selling it. Case in point. My group recently encountered a powerful and old undead in my game. I used this as the visual aid to describe what they saw (I believe the artist is "Tatarski Skandal"):

Attachment 356

Something like this instantly presents a much stronger impact than the majority of the standard black and white line drawings we get with Tekumel. I know that it ultimately comes down to cost, but an initial larger layout may result in a heck of a lot more attention and interest being generated. Why is the Warhammer universe so popular? Is it due to the great rule sets, or is it due to the "fluff", and a particular specific aesthetic? I personally think the latter two reasons are why.
Anyway, all of this wishful thinking. Until either the control of the IP is wrested away from the Foundation, or the current regime is purged Tekumel will, in my opinion, continue to languish and ultimately disappear altogether.

Shemek

I'd tend to agree with your points; simply republishing the old books simply because it's the easy way out may make somebody feel good, but doesn't cut the mustard in today's market. Yes we did a lot of very good line art back in the day - but that was because anything else would have been absurdly expensive. With e-publishing, this cost barrier is a lot lower - about the most money would be the artist.

(Warhammer is a sucess due to vertical integration, economy of scale, aggressive marketing, and tailoring the fluff and artwork to the market demographic.)

Could this be done for Tekumel? Yes. Will it happen? Dunno; I gave up trying to predict the future some years ago. It's saved me quite a bit of money I didn't have to spend, too.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

C.S. Lewis frequently condemned the human urge to be part of the "inner circle" or "secret coterie." Tekumel is a good example of what happens when this urge runs wild.

All too true. Which makes me wonder why getting into my basement is such a big deal with some people; I get the feeling that there are a lot of folks who derive a lot of 'status' and 'prestige' from being on some sort of 'VIP' list that I supposedly keep. Kind of like announcing that one is someone's 'special friend'.