How many "clanless" are there usually?
Especially in the Foreign Quarter?
Are they common and is it obvious what they are?
Where does drinking water come from in a city (such as Jakalla)?
Are there clans that distribute it or does each procure their own?
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In 'polite society', not many; what you see are hired mercenaries and such, or low-class folks that the servants boss around.Originally Posted by Greentongue
They are thick as flies in the Quarter; most are just off the boat, or something.
Yes, very much so - everybody wears their clan glyph, so the 'Nakome' ?clanless really do stand out in a crowd.
Drinking water / all water comes from where ever they can get it. In Jakalla, you don't see many wells in clan compounds, but you do get some water in from aqueducts (which a lot of towns and cities have) run by the city authorities. Water carts / 'tankers' are also to be seen, run by traditional - often Avanthe - clans, who sell water to clans, temples, etc. You also see buildings with extensive roof collection systems, which feed cisterns under the buildings - which, in turn, have to be checked and maintained; think of a Nshe in the bathtub, and you get the idea for adventures. Have a look at the cistern system under ancient cities; some of them are still in use after centuries.
Generally, one does not drink the water from the rivers that are downstream of urban centers...
Wow! Your ensamble is very complex indeed. Your decription read like one out of an Osprey Elite Warrior book on the Legions of the Petal Throne. A quick question about the device on your buckler. Is it a symbol of your legion or of The Lord of Flame(I can't make it out clearly from the photo)? Also to which Legion do you belong?Glad you found the article!
We're talking about costuming on theRPGsite? I hope the server doesn't explode!
My armor is steel and brass for the metal parts - the convention was that things that should be gold were done in brass to give the right metallic effect. The plates - breast and back, pauldrons, grieves, and helmet are all metal. I am wearing a linen undertunic, padded cotton over-tunic, and then a leather jerkin to protect the cloth from the mail. The mail hauberk is steel, with brass accent rings along the edges, and small brass shoulder plates attached by steel rings. Lappets, short cloak at the back, and the aventail are all satin with trim. Belts and pouches are all leather. The buckler is wood with a copper face, and the big sword is actually made of pine that I carved to shape. The assorted daggers and knives are all steel, however.
The mail is real. 1/4" rings, 16 gauge steel wire, which are normal for Western mail and a little large for South Asian, and all run off on my hand lathe. The resulting coils all got cut up, and then it's linking every ring to every four others; repeat 15,800 times. This is simple butted mail, by the way. My neck guard is six-on-one mail, and quite impervious to pointed things.
The suit is very accurate to the drawings; I was working at the Guthrie Theater here in the Twin Cities at the time, and we had a rule that costumes had to look good at three feet. We went a little further then that, as we were into historical re-enactment and so if you look in my belt pouch, you'll find all the stuff I'd normally be carrying on Tekumel. Flint and steel, Kevuk dice, a little money, the usual.
Tekumel costumes are actually pretty easy to make; you break down the ornate costumes into their component parts, and it's a lot simpler. We did about twenty costumes for our groups, back in the day, and we had a lot of fun making and wearing them.
If you'd like more - we have patterns, and such! - please feel free to e-mail me directly: [email protected]
I could go on and on and on and on and on about costumes; I used to do them professionally as well as for fun...
I think that two of the non-human races in EPT didn't get included in T:EPT for reasons of space; Swamp Folk were one, and I'd have to look it up to see which the other was.
Oh, yes, we found all sorts of creatures in our adventures, some of them sentient and quite deadly. There's a race of reptilians under Tu'umnra, for example; I'll dig out the drawing.
Phil threw everything up to and including the kitchen sink at us. I mentioned some of the SNS items and creatures in a previous post; I can list a lot more, if you like. He had one heck of an imagination, I tell you!!!
I really should do a list, but for GMs; wouldn't want to spoil the surprises for the players...
I know that Chirine Ba Kal has been your alter ego for many years, but have you played any other characters that you are fond of?
If you could please a few more of the SNS encountered from your adventures.
One more question for now. Can you please talk a bit about the tubeway system. Are there different size tubeway cars? As far as the tunnels go are there separate tunnels for different directions, or is there one big tunnel allowing cars to go in both directions? Have you ever explored the tubeways without a car(on foot)?
Thanks,
H :0)
PS I hope I'm not keeping you too busy. Thank you for your responses.
Last edited by Hrugga; 08-13-2015 at 01:32 AM. Reason: SP
When you break down the costumes into their separate elements, they get to be pretty simple. We built all of this out of metal because we have all the technology to do it - and it looked cooler that way!(I have a lot of Ospreys in the game room...)
This is the outfit of a military priest of the Temple of Vimuhla; the blue trim and Seals of the Imperium on the pauldrons indicate that I'm an officer. The device on the little buckler is that of the Temple of Lord Vimuhla; Phil drew the original.
I am carried on the rolls of Searing Flame and M'nashu of Thri'il as a staff officer, and collect a stipend for each - I am a sort of 'reserve' officer, on-call for any campaigns. I also command my own legion, the Legion of the All-Consuming Flame; this is not an Imperial Legion, but a survival of an Engsvanyali one - and we may be older, dating from the Bednjallan Imperium - that I was given by Phil right before we marched off with our comrades in Translucient Emerald to the Sirsum micro-campaign. We're organized like Storm of Fire, which is also a 'mixed' legion used for 'special' operations.
I have four cohorts of line infantry; two of heavy pikemen, two cohorts of medium sword and shield troops, a cohort of missile troops (half bowmen, half crossbows) a cohort of mercenaries of various types, and about a cohort's worth of the usual odds and ends of sappers, commissary, medical, and other specialists.
We were originally raised as local defense troops around Hekellu, but due to the politics of the late civil war we're now serving as 'instruments of foreign policy' in foreign lands. (Basically, we do odd jobs for the Imperium.)
No. I pretty much always played Chirine, just as the rest of the group played their characters the whole time. We all had 'alternate' PCs, as Phil would on occasion want to try something a little different, but it never 'gelled' either in the game or in the group, and it always was abandoned after a couple of game sessions. I don' think I can even remember their names, frankly; they made that little an impression.
Well, let's see. The lizard people under Tu'umnra; the masses of Undead in the Temple of Sarku commanded by the Worm Prince; Deq Dimani and baron Ald; Lord Fu Shi; the ancient military base at the South Pole; the planetary defense fortess on the moon; the ancient spaceport; hordes of Ru'un and Yeleth; the Black Ssu; The Hlyss nest-ship; Gij and Sons of Dlash; The late king of Salarvya; The Temple of Vimuhla plasma-people; the telepaths of Bayarsha and the Nyemesel Islands; the Brotherhood of the Half-human; Grey Ssu with energy weapons; the Hokun, in all their mounted nastiness; the Nom; the 'city sickness'; the Affair of the Malchairan Emerald; the Great Orrey in the Tsolei Isles; the Egg of the World; Avanthar.
We got around.
And your questions are always welcome - it's what I'm here for!
Yes. There are your usual cars, which are spheres with (usually) an upper passenger compartment, and a lower machinery space. (Do not mess with the machinery. It's bad.) The hatch is normally round or oval, about the 'waistline' of the car, but they do vary; think all the models of automobiles, and you get the idea.
There are the larger 'troop carrier' cars, which are the same diameter as the personal cars, but longer - like long 'pills' or medicine capsules. These can go anywhere in the system, but will only stop at the stations with the long platforms - they will not go to the usual stations, as they won't fit. They go to the main stations at the old installations of the Ancients, where they pull up at dual level platforms; the upper is for passengers, the lower for cargo, and there are often automated cargo-handling machines present.
The tubes are single tubes, and all of them operate bi-directionally under the control of the AI that runs the system. It's one car per tube; no 'multi-lane' affairs. There are huge interchange points, basically big chambers with lots of holes in the walls, where the cars transfer from tube to tube. There are also repair and service stations, where the cars are held for use and maintained - and there are also 'private stations' where personal cars are stored, waiting for their long-dead owners.
You can't go in the tubes and survive; there's no air in them. They are maintained at a very low pressure, almost a vacuum, and there's also usually a very, very long drop to get past at the station opening. There is also only very faint, very dim lighting in the tunnels, so it's very hard to see. And you can't use magic, either; the tubeways are lined with metal plates. And the cars move at supersonic speeds, so you can get squished really easily.
The cars all have their own internal gravity engines, so you get no feel of motion when you are zipping along. You want to test that this feature is working, before you get into the car and go on a trip...
There is normally a sort of control panel at the 'front' of the compartment; this normally has ten destination selector buttons, which can be custom-programmed by inserting a memory disk into the slot on the panel, Unfortunately, the disc programming machines are long lost, you if you do find one of these, you have to use trial and erro to find out where they lead to. Do Not Lose Your Notes; This Is A Bad Thing.
The cars, are, of course, a great way to find adventure...
My understanding is that Tekumal is very metal poor, or at least iron poor, so what are crossbows made of, particularly the lath/prod. Or for that matter arms and armor in general.
How much of an advantage is having iron weapons in Tekumal?
You are correct. The Lords of Humanspace mined away a lot of the iron deposits, so what we have are the more obscure ores that were not valuable enough for the Ancients to exploit. We do have placer deposits, and some bog iron - but the stuff is very rare.
Metals in general are a sign of wealth and status - having a brass bowl shows that one is a high-status and probably wealthy person. Most people make do with perfectly serviceable pottery products, as well as the universally common Chlen hide...
Most crossbows and bows are composite ones; see also Payne-Gallway's wonderful book, "The Crossbow", for examples of these. Prof. Barker used this book extensively when he was working on EPT, and you'll find some real surprises in there. The author tested quite a few actual examples, and gave quite a lot of detail on his experiments and the construction of the things.
The most commonly-used material for armor and weapons of all sorts is the hide of the dinosaur-like Chlen beast. This large animal is used as a draft animal - slow, but steady - and is has the property of growing multiple layers of hide; this is 'peeled' off in sections, and the resulting material can be shaped and hardened very easily. The Professor said that the stuff is about as heavy as a modern 'engineering plastic', like Delrin, and about as hard as bronze; I had brought him some samples of the various plastics that my dad, a production engineer, was kind enough to supply.
What you get is a material as moldable as boiled leather, about as light, but tougher. It gets used for the vast majority of things - everything from the decorative collars and belts of plaques that we wear, to the plates of warriors's armor. You can also make blades from it, which are light and easy to use, but they are a little brittle - see next:
Iron and steel arms and armor are a big status symbol on Tekumel, no matter the culture. Having a steel suit of armor marks one as a very high-status and wealthy person, and (hopefully!) a mighty warrior - the high cost of the suit will make the owner a high-value target, as the suit is worth a fortune! Steel or iron weapons are also a status symbol, and just as expensive.
Metal weapons are very effective in combat; most Chlen-hide weapons will not penetrate steel, and most steel weapons will be very effective against Chlen-hide. Steel can also be imbued with the power of other-planar energy, making it even more effective. I have a steel-headed mace, which is a +4 to hit and a +5 to damage in EPT, and I use it for really serious killing. It's a great chitin-cracker, making it especially useable against foes like the insectoid Hylss. (Bugs. I hate bugs.) I also have a nice little round steel buckler, which is very effective; I've had opponents' Chlen-hide blades shatter when they hit the thing.
Does this help? And welcome to the thread, too!
The EPT rules list large numbers for "Number Appearing".
Up to a dozen of rather nasty things not being uncommon according to the lists.
In some cases I see up to a hundred or more as possible.
Was this what you experienced in the beginning of your adventures?
Having to take on hordes of monsters?
Did that represent the population of an entire area that could be picked off a few at a time?
If this was the case how did you deal with it?
Were things provided in the surroundings that could even the odds?
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Was that the equivalent of numbers in lair, i.e. a village of whatsits might have a hundred or more whatsits or numbers for a raid-in-force?
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