Here, folks, we have a blast from the past.
Jump with me in the way-back machine, and return to the year 1975.
Two years before the release of Star Wars, two years before the death of Elvis Presley, two years before the discovery of fire…we are talking
history here folks.
We are talking about the original release date of the second RPG ever published (
Empire of the Petal Throne), and
Tekumel, the setting on which it hung it’s coat.
Now what I can recall of
Empire of the Petal Throne is mostly positive. Firstly, it was nothing at all like Tolkien. Nothing.
No Elves. No Dwarves. No feudalism. Even the swords are made from specially-treated Dinosaur hide rather than steel.
The culture was very complex, well-detailed and unique almost to the point where it defied summary. Which I will grant you, makes reviewing it prety tough
Though decidedly low-tech and high-magic—which would lead you to think that this was a sword and sorcery genre piece—it was set in the distant future following a cataclysm and thus, highly advanced technology was still present and semi-available to the characters.
The setting was human centric, but there were some
truly non human races detailed for use as player characters (no “pointy-eared graceful” humans or “small humans” made the cut).
Examples from the pear-shaped, artichoke-headed
Pachi Lei, to the radially-symmetrical four-armed/four-legged,
Aghoyya give a better idea of what was presented under the banner of “Non-Human” and are not any more or less odd than the others half-dozen presented…consider them a “Strangeness” baseline reading.
Humanity, as presented, had a culture I was unsure I had ever seen described anywhere in the real world. I’m told by a friend who has a much greater knowledge of the setting, its pedigree, and anthropology in general than I; that the human culture presented contains elements of Aztec theocracy, the Indian caste system and the clan/honor systems associated with feudal Japan. I’ll take his word for it.
But toss in the presence of magic, high technology, active Gods (who seems to be largely without stated direction or purpose), an incredibly hostile ecosystem including monsters and it sounds like you would have had the “Kitchen Sink” setting to make
World of Synnibar look like
Harn. Right?
Wrong.
The setting is airtight; the effects of nearly every peculiarity of design are properly extrapolated into the larger society. And given how freaking
odd a lot of the setting elements are, that is quite a feat. I suppose this is what 50-odd years of development by a university professor can drum up in terms of consistency and coherence.
The University Professor in question is one
M.A.R. Barker, a linguistics Professor from Minnesota who, according to
www.tekumel.com (which I assume is an authority on the subject), first started writing material for Tekumel in the late 1940's. According to the introduction to this new edition by
Guardians of Order, the good professor still runs a weekly Tekumel game (known colloquially as the “Thursday Night Group”), and has done so since the game’s creation.
And this, loyal readers, is where the wheels could leave the wagon. Tekumel.com’s “summary” of the background of the setting alone stretched into 1200+ words, and many of the assumptions we as gamers make about settings (and this product has brought into focus how many assumptions we—or I at least—do take for granted) simply do not apply here. So I will attempt to
radically summarize the million, billion-year backstory of the setting.
The history, as written, spans 10 eras, the third oldest of which is described as occurring some 25,000 years in the past…the dates associated with the earlier two are lost to antiquity. Suffice to say that the earliest dates in the setting are some thousands of years in
our Earth’s
future.
Mankind’s starfaring civilization at the side of its alien allies, colonized and terraformed an alien planet and segregated the native inhabitants. After millennia, “Something Bad” happened (I swear to God this is part is canon), and Tekumel was shunted into a pocket dimension, marooned from Galactic civilization. The natives freed themselves, civilization collapsed, anarchy reigned...
If all of the above hasn’t piqued your interest, I’m not sure what will. This is a vast, richly-detailed, and totally alien setting. I was going to say that it reminded me of
Skyrealms of Jorume in tone, but given their respective publishing dates, I think saying the reverse would be more fair.
The book itself is up to
Guardians of Order’s normal, high standards: Well done, evocative black-and-white art, Easily readable layout with liberal use of sidebars and suchlike for clarity and “Feel” (much appreciated), and the Map!
The map is a thing of beauty. I didn’t think that RPG products really shipped with poster-sized, hand-drawn full-color world maps anymore. This one is drawn by
Giovanna de Fregni who, from a quick Google search on the name, appears to have been associated with Tekumel products for ages now. I laughed to my wife that the artist “had a girl’s name”
She pointed out that the artist might, indeed, be female (as turned out to be the case).
I wonder sometimes why she married me.
Anyway.
The system is another reworking of
Guardians of Order’s Tri-stat system, used in
Silver Age Sentinels,
Ex Machina,
Big Eyes, Small Mouth amongst others. As a system, Tri-Stat certainly seems capable of modeling a wide variety of settings, many more than I would’ve ever guessed when I first saw it at work in the aforementioned
Big Eyes, Small Mouth lo these many years ago.
This time, the system is a bit more mechanics-heavy than we usually see. A point based system with six stats (which makes you wonder why they slapped the “Tri Stat” logo on it) Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Psyche, Charisma and Willpower, with other purchase options (like Attractiveness, Flunkies, or Friends in High Places) and defects (like Clumsy, Addicted or Bad Reputation) which give you more points with which to build your character. The skill list is remarkably complete with a several examples of setting-specific skills and uses.
I found it strangely akin to GURPS during character creation (Advantages, Disadvantages etc.), and I say that as one of the highest compliments I can give.
One of my favorite system presented here is the “Special Items” creation rules, which allow very specific customization of equipment. The setting taken into account all of the product, though the authors seem well-aware of the difficulty involved in getting new players into the “feel” of this very non-standard world and have spread liberal helpful hints, sidebars and suchlike all though the book (including two separate examples of character creation: One built with a deep involvement in the setting, and the other being a generic “Swashbuckling Swordsman” deftly illustrating the flexibility you are presented with.
Opposition is presented in abundance. There are demons, Monsters, powerful secret (and less-than-secret) societies with unfathomable, arcane (not like that) goals, and a whole lot more.
There are some editing and proofreading gaffes, but the only one that truly stares out at you is on page 95, under the heading
To Roll or not to Roll. It gives what I believe to be the exactly reversed advice on the subject claiming, for instance that you
should roll “when the character’s success in not in question”, but
shouldn’t “when random chance plays an important role in the outcome of the action”
It’s more funny than anything, but I could well see a less experienced gamer getting somewhat stuck on it.
In closing, this is a very deep and exciting read. Absolutely unique in my experience, and very,
very well done in comparison to previous editions.
Guardians of Order have managed to tie together a lot of the disparate strands that
were Empire of the Petal Throne and turn out what must be called the definitive handbook for the setting.
& Avanthe.
