Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

I'm assuming this Cheln monster can be continuously peeled without needing to be slaughtered for its hide? Sounds like a truly versatile beast and material.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

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?
=

Yes, to all of the above. Tekumel is a dangerous world, and adventuring in it is a very dangerous occupation.

Specifically, sometimes we'd get vast hordes of horrible creatures, and sometimes we'd just get a few at a time in waves. The only thing we noticed was that Phil tended to throw the hordes at us when he had smaller creatures, and the 'packets' would be of the larger ones.

We killed them. It was that, or be killed - and usually eaten, hopefully after we were dead - by them.

Nope. We had what we had, and that was about it. We'd have to use any surroundings as tactical points; we never had any 'equalizers' given to us. It was all about how smart and how fast we were.

Originally Posted by Bren

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?

Yes. The threat level depended on how good our opposition was. Animals, not so good and pretty easy to kill; sentients, very good and very hard to kill.

Originally Posted by AxesnOrcs

I'm assuming this Cheln monster can be continuously peeled without needing to be slaughtered for its hide? Sounds like a truly versatile beast and material.

Thanks.

You're welcome!

Yes, they peel like an onion. They moan a lot while the peeling is being done, but it doesn't injure them. Chlen hide is incredibly useful - you can make anything you need out of it.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

In fact, one might argue that Tekumeli people already are doing anything they need out of it.

Oh, yes; very true!!! Everything from buckets to plates - a Tekumel version of IKEA, really...

And I do get some really great gaming stuff at my local IKEA - the little LED light domes that we used in the night battle, for example, or in Underworlds. They make great 'lantern simulators', and they even come in six colors...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

When you say "we" how many does that represent and what mix?
=

Oh! Great question! Let's look at a sample of the original Thursday Night Group from the late 1970s and early 1980s - this is pretty much at random, and is a very non-scientific sampling:

"regulars":
Jim Danielson - magic-user
Rick Bjugen - magic-user
Erica Simon - priestess / magic-user
Mike Bakula - priest / magic-user
Greg Klett - priest / magic-user
Kathy Marshall - fighter
Ken Fletcher - fighter
Mike Mornard - fighter
Jeff Berry - priest / fighter-magic-user

When we had visitors, they usually were fighters and occasionally magic-users, but never more than one and maybe two at any game session; there just wasn't the physical space around the damn ping-pong ball table for any more people. Nine was tight, and ten to eleven was pack in like sardines.

So, four fighters, four priests, and six magic-users; some of us 'doubled up' as needed.

We did hire twenty marines for Ken when we shipped off to adventure with Arneson (fighter), mostly to keep Dave and his merry marauders honest and on course. later, when Gronan got his legion, we had plenty of fighters. Much later, I got my legion and guards, so I had my own set of ruffians to look after problems.

Phil B., dramatically: "You encounter six bandits!"
Jeff B., unimpressed: "We have 6,000 infantry, Phil."
Mike M., interestedly: "Do I get Experience Points for reading the report?"

Whereupon there was a sandstorm. Just a coincidence, of course.

BWAAAHAHAHA!

I remember that. Phil damn near swallowed his horrid little cigar, clenched his teeth, and said "Very funny."

You know, it was interesting in sort of a grim way to remember how things went when we got shifted from the western front near Khirgar to the eastern front in Milumanaya -- shifting the game, in my mind, from "You're In The Army Now" to "The Thin Blue Line." (Tsolyanu's national color is blue.)

Milumanaya is a freakin' desert filled with small nomadic tribes and tiny villages. All they have in common is approximately the same language. The "King" of Milumanaya was perfectly content to get rich presents from both Yan Kor and Tsolyanu for "permission" for troops to pass through "his land." The truth of the matter was that the tribes didn't give a rancid lump of Chlen shit for what that clown in the one big city in the desert said, they hated everybody who wasn't them.

"We hate you. We hate the Yan Koryani too, but you're here today and they're not."

We saw it as the locals accepting our coin for supplies and "guides" and betraying us.

The locals saw it as guerrilla warfare against hated outsiders.

It reached the point where I was on the verge of

"Excuse me, Glorious General, our scouts located a village three tsan in that direction."

"Kill everyone in it and burn it to the ground."

Not because I wanted to be "evil" or even "harsh" or "oppressive"... it was just that the ONLY way to secure the flanks of the Legion was to make sure that we were the only living creatures within two days' march.

It never QUITE reached that point because we actually talked about it, and decided it was time to shift the emphasis of the game.

Can you tell that Phil spent time in Afghanistan?