Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

From Dulahan:
This goes out to Chirine AND The Glorious General, as I am curious about both their answers to these about their time in the Thursday Night Group!

What would you say your favorite 'surprise' was? Either like, the biggest Matrix "Whoa!" moment, or perhaps the moment that left you feeling the biggest sense of wonder and awe?

The very first night I gamed with Phil, where we were in the hall of the Petal Throne itself. Talk about diving in at the deep end!
The tubeway system.
The First Temple of Vimhula.
The Spaceport.
The South Pole base.
Kashi.
The action at Castle Tilketl.
Third Mar.
Marrying Si N'te.
The Affair of the Malchairan Emerald.
The Battle of Anch'ke.
The Horokaingai adventures.
And a lot more; I'm only up to 127,000 words...

In a similar vein, what was the funniest moment?
Turhshamu the Wizard. Always.
Captain Harchar. Always.
Si N'te marrying her husband off to her friends, so they'd have a place to stay.
Nailing Tom's first PC into the crate, and loading him on to the Inexorable Cart of Chirine ba Kal, which became a decade-long running joke.
And again, a lot more...

Finally in this round: Any particular favorite recurring NPCs you loved to see return? (Even if loved to hate Because I fully know those can end up some of the most fun! Like the smack talking tank with an AC2 in a Battletech game I ran, kept getting away from the PCs. They hated that little shit, weak weapon, but always annoying. The day they blew that thing up they were calling the player who had to drop the game, and he too joined in the celebration!)

Harchar. Turshamu. Thomar. Eyloa the Blue Fish. Makesh. Deq Dimani. The Tlakotani family. And once again, lots and lots of others!

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

Hello everybody,

Although I visit often, it's been a while since I posted anything here.

I just wanted to mention (for the ones who are not part of the Tekumel Discussion Group) that I just uploaded a vectorized version of the Seal of the Emperor to that forum. The vector itself is not perfect yet, but the heavy tracing work is done. Just install Inkscape on your computer, download the file, and start improving it or start adding colors to it, etc. Useful if you need to create clean versions of the Seal for your games, in lo or hi-res, etc.

Hope you find it useful.

You can access this file at the URL:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...eal_vector.svg

Very cool! Thank you!!!

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

First, allow me to be a big ol' meanine poo-poo head and point it it's "whet" the appetite, not "wet." As in, to sharpen or hone to a fine edge. You're welcome.

Second, I agree absolutely. Remember, George Lucas introduced us to a whole universe with 93 words, including "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." People don't remember, or weren't there to remember, what it was like before the entire world knew what a Jedi Knight was, or what a lightsaber was, or an Imperial Star Destroyer, etc., etc.

Give 'em a taste, they'll be back for more.

"He gives the kids free samples
because he knows full well
that today's bright shiny faces
will be tomorrow's clientele."

-- Tom Lehrer, "The Old Dope Peddlar"

Yes; this. One of the big problems with Tekumel-as-game-setting is that there's the mythology that got started in the middling 1990s that one had to amass and absorb ALL of the materials that it took us over a decade to learn - and, by and large, were created due to our questions and adventures in our games with Phil. That's not the way we did it; all we had to go on was a copy of EPT - we had, what three copies between us, Gronan? - and that was it. Everything else came out of adventures; we simply wrote it all down, both players and GMs. I've been asked to give this kind of quick intro for a while, now, and in these post-"John Carter" days, I say "Barsoom with teeth."

I don't do prolix 64-pages summaries, language camps, or post-graduate studies. I just ask the PCs what they'd like to play, have them choose some skills, and set off. Just like we did at Gary Con two years ago; it seemed to work for all those people at my table, would you say my General?

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I don't do prolix 64-pages summaries, language camps, or post-graduate studies. I just ask the PCs what they'd like to play, have them choose some skills, and set off. Just like we did at Gary Con two years ago; it seemed to work for all those people at my table, would you say my General?

Yep. I wonder how many of those folks were wargamers; we went off like a well-honed commando team.

Also, I'm going to urge you once more to read Terry Pratchett's "Raising Steam." I mean, how can you not like a book with a character who delivers the line

'I am a liar for the purpose of amusement, publicity, trivial oneupmanship, personal profit and the gaiety of nations, but I'm not lying to you now'.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Yep. I wonder how many of those folks were wargamers; we went off like a well-honed commando team.

Don't be so modest. I thought that once they all absorbed just who you were - and for that matter, what they were about to play - I think that it wonderfully concentrated their minds. And they learned instantly, from their first encounter in the session, how things worked and why you were carrying on about tactics. They got really smart, really fast, and the net result was one of the very best game sessions I'd ever had.

(Normally, running the Jakalla Underworld as a convention game is dreadfully boring for me, as I've run the thing over and over and over again for some thirty-five years. This little outing, on the other hand, left me sweating and exhausted - it was, not to put to fine a point on it, the fight of my life as a GM.)

And an observation afterward that you made has stuck with me: "These people have had thirty years of RPG gameplay behind them, unlike what we had back in the day..." Which I think is true.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Also, I'm going to urge you once more to read Terry Pratchett's "Raising Steam." I mean, how can you not like a book with a character who delivers the line

'I am a liar for the purpose of amusement, publicity, trivial oneupmanship, personal profit and the gaiety of nations, but I'm not lying to you now'.

Thanks again; I'm put and about, today, and I'll see if Hugo's has a copy. I'm playing in a D&D game, run by Burl at The Source; it'll be the second time I've played, and I'm looking forward to it...

I am delighted to be able to report that I ha a wonderful game session yesterday! The party took a little side trip off to meet Lord Chirine and his family, using the 'get home' box that they found, and we had a lovely period of rest and recuperation for the party and I got to talk about Tekumel. Much funn was had, and then it was back to Blackmoor. The party was great - they applied some of the tactical lessons I'd talked about, and the creature that had nearly wiped them out got wiped out this time as the party applied their hard-won knowledge.

Longer report on the way; I stayed up way too late, so it's off to bed for me...

Thank you again, as always, chirine!

I see Turshamu comes up again, can you elucidate more on said wizard?