Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

It's however you want it to be.

On Phil' s version of Tekumel other than immediately under the temples And the tubeway car port, nobody much bothered with the underworld. Grave robbing was low status.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

So, surface, then basements, then this map, then the levels below are the intermediate levels, and then the Garden of the Weeping Snows as the lowest level.

How are these levels transitioned? Do the wall embellishments give a sense of depth as you go further into places Man Was Never Meant To Be?
Like rock strata in the earth.

With the huge establishments as shown on the map and the lack of a Concordant in the Underworld, is this a multi-front battle zone?

Are there pass documents (and passwords/items) that can be forged? Secret routes that bypass outposts?
Storage for disguises? Supply and armory stashes? Neutral zones?

If a "war zone", are new characters recruited as replacements in this or is it ritualistic and static?
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Yes. There is only one intermediate level, in Phil's maps. labelled "level Two" on the hard copy. There's also a tubeway car station, but that's below and part of the palace of Nyelmu, in the Garden of the Weeping Snows.

Yes. Each of the historical cultures of Tekumel has a distinct visual style, and the deeper you go the older the style. Players can instantly recognize how deep they are, even if they can't read the inscriptions.

Yes. The place is full of mutually hostile and mutually allied factions.

Yes, to all of the above.

Again, yes. New people are always welcome. The 'furniture' might be static, but the occupants are always very active and a background against which one has adventures of all sorts.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

It's however you want it to be.

On Phil' s version of Tekumel other than immediately under the temples And the tubeway car port, nobody much bothered with the underworld. Grave robbing was low status.

Yeah, I'd say that was the case; after the very early days in his games, after we'd survived a few jaunts into the Underworld, we'd 'graduated' and spent most of our time up top. I did do a little Underworld exploration when I was in Hekellu, but that was as much for political purposes as anything else. Did find the most amazing things down there, though, including one of Phil's most secret and astonishing SNSs...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Clearly I'm missing some point.
There is this HUGE map and "nobody much bothered with the underworld"?
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Um, I'm not sure how to approach this. Please remember that we gamed with Phil every Thursday night, with only one or two nights off a year, for the better part of fifteen years. In my time with Phil, we spent maybe eight months of real time in the Jakalla Underworld at the beginning of my time with him; these adventures are in Volume One of my book, and take up about 40,000 words of a total 300,000 words in the whole book.

We did spend time down there, early on, but after a while we moved on to other things. We did go back very now and then, when Phil wanted to do a simple 'dungeon crawl', but he didn't like repetition; he like to explore his own world, as near as I can tell.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

With all the restrictions on conflict above ground, what did you do in the early games?
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It was a combination of things. Imperial politics, getting the war with Yan Kor started, visiting the First Temple of Lord Vimuhla, exploring some of the Jakalla Underworld, long boat trips on the missuma river with hot Livyani courtesans, assaulting the palace of Bassa, King of the Black Ssu, exploring the tubeway car system, making out with hot princesses, visiting the South Polar Space Marine base, looking in on the planetary defense fortress on the little red moon, seeing the two hobbits in the Bey Su palace gardens, meeting some of the Undying Wizards like Nyelmu, Thomar, and Turshamu, revealing Prince Mirusya and Prince Surandano, getting poisoned by hot Livyani courtesans, sight-seeing, discovering a new non-human race under the town of Tu'umnra, being chased around the Temple of Sarku by hordes of Undead, that kind of thing.

You know, all those 'adventurer things' like what John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Fafhrd, and the Grey Mouser do.

Seriously; Tekumel is a pretty busy place. The locals get up to all sorts of larks, and I got dragged along on most of them. It was pretty hectic, and I was glad for the long boat trip with Harchar to the Southern Continent to invade the Shen settlements there; very relaxing and peaceful, aside from fighting the Hlyss nest-ship and Arneson running the boat into the Southern continent - he was a superb sailor, but a lousy navigator.

The first couple of years were pretty frantic, but after we got the war going it quieted down a fair bit. Battles, sieges, that kind of thing, an it all seemed pretty relaxing...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Clearly I'm missing some point.
There is this HUGE map and "nobody much bothered with the underworld"?
=

After third or fourth level, yeah. Or about a year or two. And as Chirine said, we played for well over ten years almost constantly, and by the end we weren't even counting levels any more.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

After third or fourth level, yeah. Or about a year or two. And as Chirine said, we played for well over ten years almost constantly, and by the end we weren't even counting levels any more.

One trip to the garden of the Weeping Snows was quite enough for me, thank you; Nyelmu has some really serious issues. I think we spent most of out time in the underworld in the top level, and those trips tended to me 'mission-based', being spawned by some intrigue going on up on the surface.

I'd agree with you; the last five to eight years out at Phil's, I think all we were doing was being our alter-egos. Game mechanics were really minimal.