Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Buh?

Late one night in October of 2014, I'm on the phone with you-know-who, who's doing his regular weep-oh-wail-nobody-likes-me-everybody-hates-me-how-did-you do-it-all-back-in-the-day-and-please-oh-please-won't-you-run-the-Foundation-for-me-oh-woe-is-me call, when he unlimbers the notion that Phil actually created the concept of the RPG, and those cads Dave and Gary stole it from him to create their little D&D thing. I found this pretty bizarre, as he'd been working on a book about the early days of RPGs with Dave, and had told me that he was Dave's 'special friend', just like he was with Phil and other famous people we both know. So, I knew he knew better then this, and I reminded him of this as well as the existence of Jon Peterson's mammoth "Playing at the World"; the historical record just doesn't support the idea. I also pointed out the existence of "Beyond This Point Be Dragons", which Keith Daluhn found in a box of Phil's early gaming papers. The idea just won't float; all the facts and information says no.

The response was "If you were loyal to me and Tekumel, you'd find the information to back me up!" and I was also told never to speak to Jon Peterson or to give him any information. My response was to point out that he was telling me to lie for him, and that I would not do so. I told him that if he needed to have people like that working for him in the Foundation, then I was not interested in doing so; I gave him thirty days' notice of my intention of not renewing my dollar-a-year contract and did so on November 14th. I did one final inventory of Phil's collection, including photos of all of his miniatures, cleared all of the Missus' and my stuff out of the office, and returned the keys; we returned all of the Barker Estate items that the Missus had been working on here at the house to Ambereen on December 8th, and that was that. (Aside from having to work really hard to get the $516 that they'd run up on their tab with us; that took a while, and some lawyer action.)

I'd never gotten a formal contract like I'd requested, spelling out my duties and responsibilities, never got the confidentiality agreement that was discussed; I was told to write them up myself, never mind the conflict-of-interest involved.

I am still baffled by it all. I had genuinely thought that they had grown up since their antics of the 1990s.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Any computer that has at least 50 Gb of memory would do, which means almost any old machine can do it, and Linux is free to download.

Granted, since you have an index in your head and you're the only people with access to that information, you don't really need it at the moment!
May you not need it for 10 000 years yet!

I'm sorry, I don't have that technology, nor can I afford it or operate it. The MacBook I work on has 2Gb of memory, with about 10 Gb in the hard drive. All of the data here at the house is on separate hard drives, thumb drives, CD-R, and hard copy.

True, sad to say, and thank you for the kind words. I do look both ways when crossing the street, and am very, very careful with power tools...

Originally Posted by David Johansen

Wow, just wow, that's just low and ridiculous.

Welcome to my life! And people wonder why I'm pretty much a recluse...

Chirine,

What miniatures would you recommend as suitable proxies for Shunned Ones? Also in PoS the Shunned Ones have some type of hound. Any information on what this thing is called and if it has any specific attacks or ability? Thank you.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Chirine,

What miniatures would you recommend as suitable proxies for Shunned Ones? Also in PoS the Shunned Ones have some type of hound. Any information on what this thing is called and if it has any specific attacks or ability? Thank you.

Shemek.

I use the Shunned Ones from David Allen Designs - contact Howard Fielding from the Tekumel Project, as he may stock these. I am personally very fond of the compressed-air spigot mortar, as it's just the thing to discourage those pesky player-characters. Otherwise, West Wind made some kind of 'sand djinn' that look the part; I have some of them, as well. My original Shunned Ones were Minifigs SF aliens, now very (and I do mean very!) long out of production.

Hrugga asked about this beast as well; no data, aside from the quick mention in PoS. I use various animals for this critter.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I use the Shunned Ones from David Allen Designs - contact Howard Fielding from the Tekumel Project, as he may stock these. I am personally very fond of the compressed-air spigot mortar, as it's just the thing to discourage those pesky player-characters. Otherwise, West Wind made some kind of 'sand djinn' that look the part; I have some of them, as well. My original Shunned Ones were Minifigs SF aliens, now very (and I do mean very!) long out of production.

Hrugga asked about this beast as well; no data, aside from the quick mention in PoS. I use various animals for this critter.

Thank you sir. Some good leads there I'll follow up on. I forgot that Hrugga asked this a while back. For the meantime I'll keep using my cardboard minis until I can get a 3D one.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Thank you sir. Some good leads there I'll follow up on. I forgot that Hrugga asked this a while back. For the meantime I'll keep using my cardboard minis until I can get a 3D one.

Shemek.

Happy to help! I don't know what the status is on any of this stuff, so ask Howard. David is an old friend from the 1980s, who loves Tekumel miniatures as much as I do and is in the happy position - like Howard himself, bless him - of being able to do something about it. We trade ideas a lot, and it's great fun to see what he comes up with.

Agreed about the cardboard minis, too; I used some cardstock Swamp folk for years, and also a huge set of wonderful Hlyss - Talisanta's artwork printed out on clear acetate in color, and based up to attack our ship. Very effective to create a massive - and scary! - horde, I thought.

I forget - did she also do Shunned Ones in her wonderful set?

I'm waiting for the Missus' kaika to be done, so I dug out the Sakbe road set I did for the Battle of Anch'ke; I'm making a storage / travel crate for it, and trimming it down to my standard 120" table length - it's 140", in three sections, at the moment.

Or, maybe I'll leave it alone, and just do the crate. Castle Tilketl has one; first thing I did for that model...

Yum! Yum! Roast kaika with all the trimmings, just like Granny ba Kal used to make in the village!

"May you heartily stuff yourself until you are about to be sick," he said, giving the traditional well wish before a feast.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Welcome to my life! And people wonder why I'm pretty much a recluse...

Sigh. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

Considering Phil left a trail of documentation in his letters to various wargame magazines...

... and for that matter the fact that Dave T., Moose, and Olav are all still around and remember playing D&D with Phil with me reffing, and the creation of the green bound ditto sets...

Oy gevalt, as my dear Yiddish granny used to say.