Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Can you emulate it? Would it be "fun"? Too much Role playing or the wrong kind?

Yes. Yes. No. No.

I'm not arguing against playing people their PCs as being clan first, individual second (or maybe third). I'm just commenting that for me that is an intellectual exercise not one I can truly empathize with. I suspect that is true of many modern folks, though not all. Ironically, a lot of the folks who are most active and extreme in the social wars are closest to a old timey clan attitude with their nothing my side does is wrong, but everyone on the other side is awful because they do X, Y, and Z.

agree that it is a different mind set but thought that was part of its "charm".

Sure, I expect that in Glorantha or to an extent in Pendragon. A trait and passion system is one way to simulate that sort of behavior. Or players who understand and can act it out. I've just not found a lot of players that consistently do that.

What I don't yet know is where the group/individual balance should be.
That is one of the things I hope to determine through questioning.
At least as far as gaming is concerned as "The Real Tekumel" is something I won't be visiting.
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For that Chirine's POV is much better informed that mine . I'm just speculating based on what I do know. So if we disagree, you should probably listen to Chirine not me. Unless my idea sounds cooler to you. Then make your Tekumel the way that appeals to you.

Originally Posted by Premier

I love reading this thread!

Let me ask you a question, and please keep in mind this is coming from someone who's not very well-versed in Tékumel lore:

What's the relationship between Church (Churches? Cults? Sects?) and State?

I know about the very basics about the Gods of Stability and Change, but how does all that exist on an institutional level? Is there a "Unified" Church which comprises all worship in a single social institution? Are the churches/cults of the various gods independent of each other and sometime even hostile? To what extent is insitutionalised (or private) religion a part of the political machine? Is religion subservient to the Imperium in all ways, or do they lie outside secular jurisdiction in some way? Could a god's church, or a god's priest, or a god him/herself prosecute the Emperor or a high-ranking state official for violating religious tenets?

I would be grateful for any details you fine gentlemen would care to share.

Thank you for joining the discussion! Let me have ago at this, if I may...

There is no 'unified church', at least in the Five Empires; some places do have a single Temple devoted to one deity, like the theocracy of the Temple of the Goddess Mretten out east in the Nyemesel Isles. All of the Temples are ruggedly independant, and depending on political and other factors can very either very hostile, very neutral, or very friendly to each other - sometimes all three at once, which is why PCs like me can lead lives of such rich complexity!

Because of the way the place works, at least in Phil's campaign, the Temples are part and parcel of the political landscape - this is why we have the Great Concordat, which is the treaty between the Temples and the governments that regulates political (and social and economic) life; Put simply, "no open fighting between anybody, or the government comes down on you like a ton of bricks." The attitude is pretty much that you can do what you want in the underworlds or out at sea, where there is no jurisdiction by anybody, and in the really remote 'uncivilized areas' - of which we also have lots!

The only area in which the Temples - as well as the clans, the legions, or any other group - is not subject to the government is in their own internal affairs; this is part of the Great Concordat. So, a Temple could indict somebody internally for something, and if it wasn't 'an Imperial matter', the Imperium would not care. Ditto for clans, by the way. There is no extra-territorial enclave or anything; the Imperium rules everything, subject to what will work in the context - the Imperium is a master of the art of the possible, and is very pragmatic.

None of the Temples would even think of trying to 'prosecute' the current sitter-upon-of-the-Petal-Throne for any sort of theological crime; it would be a very bad precedent, and all of the other Temples would gang up on the Temple to swat it down. The recourse, is civil war, and nobody starts that kind of thing unless the situation is really out of control.

There is no 'church and state' dichotomy; it's all one big interdependent society.

Does this help? Please feel free to keep asking questions, too!!!

Originally Posted by AsenRG

What are the details of this weapon? +10 Strike and damage? Even worse?

In EPT terms, yes; +10 +10 would be a good description. It was rolled up in S&G, which uses different stats, and I think it was a +50 to hit on the d100 base roll, and +100 - the old 'double damage' for what it did to you. Add in the attitude problem that the thing had, and we just were very careful. it got along just fine with Vrisa, but the rest of us wouldn't go anywhere near it even in the most dire emergency. It could be very 'persuasive' about wanting to be used, and as such was a menace to navigation just about all of the time.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

I was under the impression that the "really good stuff" got claimed by "authorities".
Either your clan, your temple or the Imperium would contact you as soon as word got out you had such a thing and basically confiscate it/them.

So, if you got something really powerful, basically it was "on loan".

Am I wrong?
=

No, you have it down just fine. It's a function of how long these social entities have been around; stuff accumulates in the treasuries and armories for centuries. It's considered 'polite' (read prudent) to offer the 'good stuff' to one's clan or temple; you gets lots of benefits for being such a great person, I assure you. Confiscation is very rare, as it sets a bad precedent; you always get something in return, like the time I 'donated' enough steel and iron (I got it on a trip to Blackmoor), enough for four legions' worth of armor, to Prince Mirusiya, and got made an Imperial Governor on the spot...

And the clans, the temples, and the Imperium will be happy to loan you stuff, if you are doing a job for them. Yes, one does have one's personal property, but it's customary that if anything happens to you, the good stuff goes back to your clan or temple - for use by the next adventurer...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

I was under the impression that the "really good stuff" got claimed by "authorities".
Either your clan, your temple or the Imperium would contact you as soon as word got out you had such a thing and basically confiscate it/them.

So, if you got something really powerful, basically it was "on loan".

Am I wrong?
=

Depends on who you are.

By the time I was a General of an Imperial Legion and a member of a high clan, I was GETTING stuff. Handsome young hero winning great victories makes for good press.

Originally Posted by Bren

That would make sense for a culture that isn't anywhere near as individually focused as are most modern industrialized societies.

The attitude of being part of a group and really seeing and believing that the group is more important then the individual is something I find difficult to grasp emotionally. Intellectually I know that was the case in many socieities, but personally I just don't feel it the way I expect the vast majority of people in those cultures felt it.

It took me decades to get the hang of the pre-Enlightenment viewpoint. But that was part of the whole fun of Tekumel, the discovery over years of just how different this place really was.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

In the picture of the map it looks like a dense, "World's Largest Mall".
Was this the feeling of the underground? That you were in a city with a ceiling?

Did the areas have segregation like the city above just not aligned to it?
This is an upper level, correct? Basically the connected basements.

Was there no city planning for drainage and sewage?

I had previously gotten the impression of vast distances between Places of Interest.
Is this true from being a labyrinth not from straight line distance?
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It is very dense in spots, and then you get what feels like acres of blank corridors. Some of the areas, like the Temple of Vimuhla or the Temple of Hry'y, feel like a domed city. Other spots are really 'tight', and feel really closed in.

This is the upper level of the Underworld proper. The basements of the temples, clan-houses, and palaces are a level above this; these are aligned to the surface city, and I think you are right about this level not really being aligned with the surface - I think it's off to the east, a little bit, and centered on the City of the Dead from the way some of the entrances are aligned with the Jakalla surface map.

City planning? Sanitation? What? You are kidding, right?

Seriously, that's the level above this one. What rudimentary sewers and drains that there are are all in the high-status areas of the surface map, and in general drainage is down into the river and thence out to sea. There just isn't much thought give to it, except to keep important areas reasonably dry. The Foreigners' Quarter has little to none of any of this, and can only be described as disgusting at best. High-status foreigners all live elsewhere , in their legations, clan-houses, temples, or even a villa or palace.

I should mention that it's pretty common for rain to be collected in cisterns off the roofs of buildings; Phil kept telling us about the Mughal Shah who built himself a huge new capital city, and then discovered that the site had no reliable water supply! It was abandoned pretty quickly, and still stands empty and silent to this day - it's now a tourist attraction - and this is where Phil got a lot of his inspiration for Tekumel; India is littered with abandoned and ruined cities, palaces, fortresses, and temples.

(Oh! Fatehpur Sikri, that's the city I was thinking of!)

This map is all the 'good stuff' that players like to explore; the levels below are the intermediate level, and then the Garden of the Weeping Snows as the lowest level.

Yes, I'd say you're right; the map has some separation between the 'Points of Interest', but not as much as there might be - it's all labyrinth, so you really can't tell how far anything is from anything. I suspect Phil did that this way to give himself some options - he always had a 'back door' or 'Plan B' for future expansions or adventures.

The Tsolyani don't do maps like we do; they have what are pretty much 'conceptual' maps, where you know you have to go from A to B to C, but the details in between don't really matter and so are not on the map. When I think of the Jakalla Underworld, I 'know' where everything is on my mental map, but I don't really know what all the stuff in between the interesting stuff is...

Am I explaining this well enough? I worry...