Designing Undercities

Giant subterranean cities piled out far under the sun-baked city streets. Byzantine, twisty layers of rubble-choked tunnels (nee roads), cavernous temple fanes, forgotten palaces piling on top of each other aeon upon aeon.

One of the elements I deeply love about Tekumel is that hot and forgotten world's vast undercities. In the core play area empire of Tsolyanu, a long-standing tradition called ditlana in which cities—at least in theory—are razed every 500 years and built over. Part sprawling megadungeon, part still-active underbelly of city life, they have had a fascinating pull on my imagination. Not surprsingly they have been long something I wanted to incorporate into my classic D&D campaign, yet I have never been quite able to pull it over the conceptual hump.

Why? Undercities on a Tekumelyani scales are seriously spatially-challenging beasts. I've had small-sized versions for many years, neighborhoods of cities conveniently bracketed off with cave-in's or very compact and sealed off little settlements (let me count the number of domed cities sitting in lakes I stole from the Holmes side-view example). But the truly sprawling undercity that matches and supersedes the larger environs of the city it sleeps under? Intimidating.

Just to give you an exact sense let's take a passage that Victor Raymond wrote in his ever-useful introduction thread to playing EPT “out of the box” about Barker's underworld under the port metropolis Jakalla:

“...The first level of the Jakállan Underworld is drawn on a 17” x 22” sheet of graph paper, 10 squares to the inch–and each square is ten feet in measure(!). Thus it is assumed to cover an area roughly 1700 feet by 2200 feet – almost 1/3rd by 1/2 a mile in size, centered largely under the ruined Temple of Hyáshra in the City of the Dead. If you consider the map of Jakálla, each hex has been said by Prof. Barker to be 50-100 yards across. To be fair, Prof. Barker has also said that the map is “semi-representational,” i.e. more important buildings appear larger on the map than they really are. Even so, the top layer of the Jakállan Underworld would require several 17x22 sheets to cover the entire city. This suggests that it would be difficult to actually map the entire Underworld...”

It's just not the horizontal hugeness of such a beast, you also have any number of other complications to conventional mapping to deal with: miles and miles of “empty space” (old roads, side-tunnels, etc.); the vertical dimension of historical layers that increase the total size many times; large numbers of entry points from the surface; and of course the potential active use of the upper levels by humans and other surface dwellers (thus also giving it the more complicated social dance of urban adventuring).

One could find a massive piece of architect's graph paper and laboriously fill each exacting section of your undercity in piece by piece, all the while trying to allow for the mental trick of knowing that your map still doesn't reach. I'm not going to do that.

What follows is less tutorial—as you can tell I am no expert—and more of me grasping for a method in designing undercities on a grander, more thoroughly thought-out scale.

Part I: Mapping the Layers

As much as I hate timelines and all the attendant setting-bloat whoha when tackling a undercity it undeniably makes for a practical starting point. I work better answering a series of leading questions while futzing with some kind of schematic.

How old is the city?

How many civilizations flourished here and for how long?

I am going to start with a young city by Tekumel standards, 5000 years, as my world is not quite as ancient. I am going to say perhaps five different civilizations each spanning a convenient millennium.

Who first founded it?

How did they order their city? What did they think was important?

Were they displaced or did they just evolve historically?

What lead to the city being buried? Was it a fiery cataclysm, a more gentle abandonment, or intentional process? Did anything survive on the surface?

How large of a surface area was it when it was abandoned? What structures survived being buried?

Who replaced these city-dwellers?

[Repeat question set above again and again until you have finished with each succeeding phase of the city.]

I take a standard piece of graph paper and start to draw out length wise the layers as I answer them. My squares I am going to say are roughly 250 feet a pop to give me room to work with. I would ratchet these upwards and downwards in scale depending how vast of a city I want, but the exact ground scale is really not so important to me as I am mostly just trying to grasp the overall vertical, horizontal, and historical relationships with this process.

The founding layer is naturally the bottom and I place it there. I color code it for use later (blue in this instance) to help distinguish it from the top layers. I am going to go with my perennial “lost civilization” favorites from the Hill Cantons, the Hyperboreans. They constructed a fairly compact city with cycolpean walls. The city was submerged by a vicious sorcerous deluge a 1,000 years into its life leaving the large stone structures encased in a preserving 30-foot thick layer of mud.

The original citadel, high on a bluff, survives and was incorporated into the next phase of the city (I mark it on the right and make sure it is visible in my next layer) by the Latter States who built a broader, yet less grand city on the site. I draw that layer on my side-view with an orange color and no space between the layers due to the relative shallowness of the layer.

Exactly 1000 years later, a Space Elf host burns and ravages the city near completely with only some of the larger, more durable. This city is larger and far grander than the other layers with giant plazas, massive pyramids, aqueducts, etc. Foul serpent women (from the future) encase this city again a 1,000 years into its life in a giant bubble of amber and collapse a mountain over it for good measure. I draw in a thick layer to represent the deep burying.

For mysterious reasons known only to their serpentine minds, the serpent women hollow out a space in the mountain rubble and construct a massive underground ceremonial space (colored in maroon) only to abandon it nearly intact after a millennium. The current human city of Dobre Rajetz rises on this spot.

And this is what I am left with (click to enlarge) a simple but functional cross section--and more importantly a conceptual idea of what structures, flavor, and size each layer of the undercity has (and roughly where they fit in relationship to each other). 

In Part II, I take up exploring how to use my pointcrawl ideas to capture both the sweeping horizontal and vertical dimensions of the space.  

MAR Barker Memorial Service May 5

From the Tekumel Foundation:

Mrs. Ambereen Barker and the Tékumel Foundation invite you to a memorial celebration of the life and work of Professor M.A.R. Barker

Saturday, May 5th, 2012

5 pm - 9 pm

Sheraton Midtown Minneapolis Hotel

2901 Chicago Avenue South

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55407

An audiovisual presentation will begin at 6:30pm, with stories and memories to be shared afterwards. Special announcements to follow. We hope that Prof. Barker's devoted fans, friends, colleagues and former students will be able to attend and share in this celebration.

Please RSVP to the Tékumel Foundation so we may keep you informed of any changes. E-mail: info@tekumelfoundation.org

A room rate of $99/night for Friday and Saturday evenings has been arranged; ask for "Barker Memorial" when contacting the hotel.

The Sheraton Midtown Minneapolis Hotel:

(612) 821-7600

M.A.R. Barker Homage Contest Winner

With a loud boom on the gigantic tunkul gong suspended above my writing desk, I am pleased as punch to announce the winner of the Barker Homage Contest, the first of the two-headed contest from last week (the HC travel tip winner coming in a couple hours).

And the winner is...Barry Blatt with his entry for the Gétlen, an ever-lovable arachnid found on that hot, metal poor planet. Just keep that nasty f*cker away from your skull cavity. Big congrats to Barry for this excellent bit.

Gétlen – The Phase Spider

NA: 1-6
HD: 2

AC: 2
T: nil

M: 12”/18”
L: 90%: 1-12

T in L: A:75

“One must beware the glowing eyes of the Gétlen; they hang in the dark and she espies all through their pallid light. Then she shall creep by way of the eighth corner of the Nexi, reaching grél-ward with her left claw and vráz-wise with the right and thus clutch the Báletl before extracting it and delivering it unto the Demon Chegéth…”

- Anonymous document on the Underworlds, found in the Library of the Temple of Qón in Khirgár.

“May a spider f**k your brain!”

- Traditional tomb-curse used by the Temple of Grugánu.

The Gétlen is usually only found in caves and in the underworld. It is the result of the wave of mutation that followed the fluxes of trans-planar power when Tékumel was isolated. It is 50-70 cm across, with eight very long and skinny legs, though when it runs it appears to have more than this and in repose it is hard to make out all its limbs at once as some project into other dimensional spaces.

It is usually a pale dirty white color, though it can change to black or any monochrome pattern it chooses using chameleon like color cells in its skin. Its dozen or so eyes are always a beady black, and have a disconcerting habit of disappearing and reappearing as the spider espies matters in other planes than our own.

They make labyrinthine webs up to 100m across in tunnels and caves, and even along especially dark and dank forest floors. These are hung every couple of meters or so with small glowing globules of transparent slime, each with a tiny black eyeball floating inside. These provide enough light for the spider to see normally, but are dim for humans. While the spider is hanging onto certain magically enhanced strands of its web they also enable it to spy on who is passing to and fro. Its sense of touch is also exquisitely sensitive and the merest breath of a draft from a moving creature will attract its notice and it will scuttle along its web to investigate.

The spider has two innate psychic abilities. It can detect invisible creatures and attack them at no penalty. It is alleged that some Gétlen have opened nexus points to escape foes or to summon demonic assistance and that they have driven people insane using magic.

Their poison induces hallucinations, terror and then convulsions and results in 3-18 hours of unconsciousness (see below). The fate of the victim depends on how hungry the Gétlen is; may insert its transplanar mouthparts through the skull and suck out the brain via the fourth dimension, leaving the rest of the corpse for scavengers or it may lay eggs inside the skull. A corpse with a missing brain but no visible sign of head injury is a sure sign of a Gétlen attack.

The host of a clutch of Gétlen eggs may not know anything about it, waking up in a dank underworld corridor or a grimy back alley in a city thanking their lucky stars that they are uninjured. Bit by bit they will succumb to a strange disease of the Pedhétl, losing emotional affect and becoming very placid and calm while also subject to random visions of the horrors and delights of the planes beyond, which they will relate in a deadpan fashion while stumbling around cross eyed. After a few weeks they will become possessed by an irritating urge to sneeze while being unable to do so.  When they do finally snort, the roof of their nasal cavity will collapse releasing what is left of their brain and dozens of Gétlen spiderlings from their nostrils.

The symptoms may be treated with Khapá cactus berries and even a mix of ordinary stimulant like Chúmaz with Mághz powder can keep a person awake and dull the intensity of the hallucinations. Treating the egg infestation itself is more difficult. Only an expert in psychological disorders will recognise the source of the problem, and those who know the spell Seeing Other Planes may perceive the infestation quite easily. A spell of Cure Disease will kill the eggs, which will then putrefy inside the skull causing the loss of 1d20 Intelligence and 1d20 Psychic Ability, requiring a Heal Serious Wounds spell and several months to repair. The priests of Meshmúr, the aspect of Thúmis who cures internal injuries, have a specific ritual to remove these eggs and expel them into another plane, but it requires many costly sacrifices and incenses to perform. The other alternative is brain surgery, an uncertain process in an age without antispectics, sterile operating rooms and anaesthetic.

It is alleged that the priests of Grugánu have spells that enable them to control these beasts and to use their webs as spying devices, and that some Thúnru’u keep them as pets. It is also thought by some scholars that the Gétlen is not native to Tékumel but is instead a demon, with the substance of Avánthe and the essence of Hrü’ü.

Those that know their underworld lore recognize that the presence of Gétlen is an indicator of high magical energy in the vicinity, perhaps a powerful magic item or a major protective spell on a secret shrine or tomb. It would appear that Gétlen require this kind of magical aura or an area of local interplanar weakness to survive; they have certainly never been encountered in any magically barren or semi-barren areas, and those who are very knowledgeable about the beasts know that surrounding it with a Sphere of Impermeable Quiescence will kill it outright, and a successful Dispel Magic spell renders the creature blind and stuns it for a few seconds. They induce utter terror in the uninitiated, but a knowledgeable sorcerer can handle them.

M.A.R. Barker has Passed to the Isles

Very sad news for us Tekumel lovers. I just received the following press release from the Tekumel Foundation about the passing of Phil Barker and my heart skipped a beat. More later on this beloved and creative man.

Excerpt from the release:

“Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 16, 2012: Professor Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman (MAR) Barker, known to his friends as “Phil,” died peacefully in home hospice on March 16, 2012 with his wife Ambereen Barker at his side.

A Fulbright Scholar (1951) of vast accomplishment, Professor Barker is probably best known for his creation of the world of Tékumel which he developed for over 70 years and which has been compared to Tolkein’s ‘Middle Earth’ in its scope, sophistication, and complexity. Barker was a Professor of Urdu and South Asian Studies at the University of Minnesota during the period when Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax were developing Tactical Studies Rules’ (TSR) first role-playing games in the Twin Cities and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

In 1975 Barker’s game “Empire of the Petal Throne” was the first role playing game published by TSR, Inc following the release of “Dungeons and Dragons.” Role playing games set in Tékumel, have been published every decade since the 1970’s, including the 1983 ‘Swords and Glory,’ 1994’s ‘Gardásiyal,’ and 2005’s ‘Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne.’ Beginning with “Man of Gold” in 1985 Barker published five novels, several game supplements, and a number of short stories set in Tékumel. In 2008 Barker established the Tékumel Foundation as his literary executor to protect and promote his intellectual property...”

Professor Barker is survived by his wife of 53 years, Ambereen. Details on memorial services will follow. In lieu of flowers, memorials to the Tékumel Foundation are preferred, visit the Foundation website here. (Donations to the Foundation can be made via Paypal on the front page of their website.)

Petal Throne Manuscript Released Into the Wild

The pre-publication Empire of the Petal Throne is now officially available to the public for the first time. Only 50 copies of this mimeoed playtest version were produced. 

If you are interested in buying this and are familiar with TSR's EPT, you should be warned that according to Victor Raymond in “many ways is substantively similar to the later TSR publication, and is being produced more as a historical document than as a different product.”

In a conversation last week with Raymond last week he noted that the mechanical differences are pretty sparse, but there are some interesting differences with closer “textual analysis.” There are some interesting differences such as the lack of a Charisma/Comeliness attribute and the existence of playtest notes at the end of the document that show the evolution of EPT as an organic game. 

The final version is 230 pages, with the original mimeo version on the lefthand side and a clean OCR copy on the right. You can find it on RPGnow and on DriveThru as a PDF for $15. A print-on-demand version is coming next. 

My complete interview with Raymond that discusses the deep mysteries of Tekumel, the manuscript and other upcoming projects that will be released such as the much awaited Jakallan Underworld will be coming here this week.  

Pre-TSR Petal Throne Releasing Shortly

Big breaking news for Tekumel lovers: the eminent publication of the original Empire of the Petal Throne (the playtest version before the TSR-mandated publication changes) ain't just a sexy rumor. It's being released by the Tekumel Foundation in PDF on RPGNow and DriveThruRPG shortly.

According to Victor Raymond of the Foundation "there are some subtle and some not-so-subtle differences between it and the published version from TSR." The price is not yet set, but should be "under $20."

Above is "Mimeo EPT" pictured with one of M.A.R. Barker's original campaign maps. Click to enlarge and check out the Tsolyani map inscriptions. The Foundation is discussing how best to release the maps to the public.

Color me excited and expect more news shortly.

Welcome to Ma'arb, the Land of 500 Graces

The uncouth barbarian scum that make up the zrne-share of players in our Jakalla Petal Throne games on Google+ are said to be refugees from the obscure southern land of Ma'arb. Observing the Discrete Etiquette of Background Facts that Mean Little to Players, not much is known in the Five Empires of that distant, dusty place.

Ma'arb lies mainly on a thorn-tree covered hilly plateau punctuated by grassland prairies and labyrinthine box canyons. Around the two rivers draining it there are fertile bottom lands where most of the population resides in teetering fortified steads made from jer-dun, the mortar of the shells of gargantuan sand mollusks.

The capital city of Ber'jef, the Classical Ma'arbyani word for “Sanguinolent Fortress That Wraps the Sky in Apricity”, was founded as a remote Engsvanyali military cantonment and trading concession with the local hill tribes. In its heyday a millennium ago it was a flourishing trade center, but as the continent-wide demand for hu'uz (an allegedly-madness producing liquor brewed from Zibraan, the underparts of a local grub) shrunk so did the fortunes of the city.

The isolation and decline of Ma'arb in recent centuries was compounded by an incursion of the Kazs, an obscure branch of the dreaded Ssu that now lay claim to vast, cycolpean ruins near the single mountain pass off of the plateau--passes that would otherwise connect Ma'arb to the other nations of the so-called Southern Continent. The local Foes of Man are hunchbacked, mauve in complexion, and reek of stale cardamon.

Ber'jef today is but a dusty shell of its once glorious self.

Religion in Ma'arb is dominated by a Manichean system split between two god-heads, one symbolizing “Stability”, the other “Change”. The seeming unity of this doctrine is marred by an internecine factionalism.

It is said by wags that for every five Ma'arbyani there are six competing cosmologies--and in truth much of the nation's cultural and intellectual life is consumed by fervent debate of these matters of religion (questions such as whether Tekumel was created from the Top Down or Bottom Up or if life can be described as a fast-moving game or a loose, but grand narrative for example) .

Each school of thought is called a “grace”. One such grace is the Equipollent Idolaters, a school of thought that maintains that the deities of Pavar are in fact not just major aspects of the twin god-heads, but separate divine beings in their own right. Refugee priests of this grace seem to have little difficulty--once their atrocious barbarian uncouthness is overlooked--fitting into the local temple structures of Tsolyanu.

Jakalla and Nowhere: the Player's Perspective

I have noted elsewhere my phobia/disinterest around session reports.

Said pathology doesn't extend to my players. I always get a kick out of seeing the game as it is viewed through their eyes. On my better days even reading them I learn something about how to tailor games better to what they pick up on--and what they filter out.

A number of session reports have been coming back out of the Petal Throne and Domain Game II sessions on Google Plus as of late, so how about a little show and tell.

Tekumel fans may enjoy a quick account by the “high-functioning autistic” hunter-barbarian played by Jason K on his sojourn through the Jakallan Underworld here. Related through my EPT co-DM, Jeremy, is an account of last night's session by Evan on the happenings on that haunted isle just outside the City Half as Old as the World here (while you are at it you can pick up Jeremy's nice EPT character sheet here as a free download).

Finally back in Nowhere, Peter Robbins has a tale of frontier life to relate:

Jathur Ol Kadim slowly works his way around the fort on horseback, taking note of defenses that need building up. The recent attack by the hoard of undead white apes has left the newly settled community on razor’s edge. Nerves are palpably shattered amongst the settlers. They all share a simple but nervous greeting with Jathur as he makes his way through their rank and file. Each member of the community are seen pitching in--digging for new crops, clearing brush, removing chopped down trees; any way to keep their minds off the looming chaos spire still creeping into their thoughts.

Jathur himself looks with trepidation towards the previously “humming” apparition of a spire in the dark distant woods. If he listens closely, he can still hear it’s echo from recent past. A tell tale heart of darkness, pulsing their brains in the night’s sky.

Jathur finishes his rounds, returning to the fort, hoping the weight of his new leadership role to this garrison will soon dissipate. The “Vermillion Lancers”, a rag tag group of mounted mercenaries supplied to Jathur and company to help buttress the garrison fort are far from professional grade. 

Over the past few days he has attempted to whip them into shape, using the skills he learned as a warrior of the Desolate Isles. Constant drills, day in and out : making charges at looped rings on horseback, letting arrows fly to target from mount and foot, and stabbing at large bags of unusable grain stacked and tied to stumps or low-lying trees. They’ll make good soldiers, some day, just not today.

Jathur settles in, leaving horse tied near the barracks. He looks in on a make-shift hospital area setup in the large barracks area. Several settlers have taken on illness, or hurt themselves with a loosened axe head; nothing critical. Needing shelter, Jathur allowed them to be settled into the fort instead of the budding encampment, for it cannot be called a “village” in any shape or form yet.

Jathur moves on from the barracks, passing through the smells of the unmanned kitchen, the dinner from last night still lingering in the stale air. He then makes his way into the previous warden’s office. Jathur still is not used to having his own room. He is not used to ordering men around either. He prefers the company of fellow warriors ; equals, under night desert sky to this predicament. Call them the Desolate Isles all you may, but at night, in the summer sky; a warm curved woman by your side - the freedom you felt cannot compare to these ‘civilized’ lands.

Jathur sits down to practice his recently acquired writing skills. Bringing ink to parchment....

The 20th Day Of Summer, Fort Va‘rok

Summoned to the Jade Quarter of Lyk Ku’tah, along with fellow explorers Hasan and Betkin.

Received new title Warden of the South Reaches. I will receive a 2000 LB (Large Bronze) stipend/budget yearly to garrison the fort.

Traveled back from Lyk Ku ‘tah to Duke Mraz’s Southlands holdfort. Attempted to discuss the new promotion with the Duke, but was summarily told to “bugger off, the Duke is busy!” by his attendant.

Re-provisioned the caravan, containing Hassen and Betkin, along with roughly 40 settlers and 7 mercenaries of the Vermillion Lancers.

Caravan traveled to Fort Va‘rok to begin establishing Hassen’s sub-sub-barony, and build out a village for Betkin and his fellow colony settlers.

The group notices that a previous mass grave of indigenous White Apes, very large 4 armed apes roughly 8’ in height, is now empty. The previous smell of DEATH in the area surrounding the fort is now gone. The humming of the nearby glass Chaos Spire however, still rings in their ears. Even more so then in past expeditions to Fort Va’rok and it’s surrounding area.

The group decides to start immediately to clear the forest in the two square miles south of Fort Va ‘rok, which was bestowed to Sub-Baron Hasan. Betkin takes the lead in helping the settlers split up into the infirm and the spriteful, taking the able-bodied folks to help hatchet their way through the mixed brush and trees nearby.

I establish the Vermillion Lancers into the main tower of the Fort, allowing the settlers to temporarily take the larger barracks.

That night, during second watch, an alarm is raised. Panic ensues amongst the settlers and warriors alike. A dozen great white apes, undead in nature, attack the fort. A long battle ensues, many of us injured.

One beggar, now known affectionately as “Beggarman”, acts heroically during the battle, taking on several white apes on his own, with little to no skills at his aid. Surprisingly, he survives.

All parties act heroically throughout the battle. The undead white apes were all killed, without loss of warriors or settlers.

It is noticed that the previous humming of the nearby glass-like “Chaos Spire” has ceased. It was determined that in the morning, the group would venture out and see what if anything is currently going on near the spire.

Hasan, Betkin and I, travel to the chaos spire to investigate. Hasan investigates the spire, prodding and poking about. Soon a ghost-like apparition appears from the nearby woods, the same long lost general of the Southlands Satrapy that the group prior had seen. This time, Hasan is able to take his anti Chaos amulet, and force the apparition to retreat. Throughout, Hasan nobly asks the apparition to leave willingly, to no avail.

Several days have passed without further attacks or activity of note...

Signed, Jathur Ol Kadim, Warden Of The South Reaches

News from the Petal Throne

I have been sitting on several juicy bits of news about projects coming down the Tekumel Foundation pipeline for a few months now. Seeing confirmation bubbling out of the Tekumel fandom circuits I am guessing it's kosher to start gushing enthusiastically about them.

First the biggie, a digital edition (PDF I assume) of M.A.R. Barker's pre-publication, playtest Empire of the Petal Throne is now “forthcoming”. Yep, that's right the original green-covered mimeographed, pre-TSR tinkered manuscript passed out on a hot, humid Minnesota night in 1974 to the first players. Rules nerds and rpg archeologists rejoice.

Remember back in June when talked with Jeff Dee about his Tekumel related projects? Well looks like he and others in the Austin crew are deep into a playtest of Bethorm (the Tsolyani word for “pocket universe”, a clever wordplay as it's intended for the rules-lite Pocket Universe system) and a contract/licensing deal being worked out with the Foundation.

In related news it looks like fellow Austinite artist Talzheimer is getting the Imperial seal of approval for some commercial strength versions of her wonderful paper miniatures for the setting. (Which I made use of in our New Braunfels mini-con.)

There is more news still out there that I won't comment on until we here more confirmation. But that trifecta of thumbs up should at least get your enthusiasm up.

Speaking of Petal Throne gaming, I have been a bit in the weeds going forward with the Jakalla G+ games as I have been running two groups through the epic swords & sorcery-inflected shenanigans of the Domain Game II this last month. But we will begin again running a fortnightly game again--likely after Thanksgiving. If you are interested drop me a line.  

If You are a Tekumel Fan...

I saw in today's post over Chirine ba Kal aka Jeff Berry's blog that he was pulling the plug on said blog and its related treasure trove of Tekumel miniatures photos tomorrow. 

Jeff has been an enormous inspiration and font of information for me in my Tekumel mania—that and Glorantha being the only real exceptions to my published setting-phobia—and it's hard to not be a little sad in seeing the blog travelling off to the Isles of Teretane. (Though I understand—and grapple with myself—the kind of continual weighing of costs and benefits that go into the mostly thankless work of maintaining blog day in day out over years).

Some long-time readers here may remember that a three-part interview with Jeff really ushered in 1. this blog's coverage, advocacy, and support for Tekumel-related; and 2. my first stab at kicking up the blog content to be something other than just an intermittently-updated spot for the Hill Cantons' campaign tidings and tinkering.

That series and other contributions he made here with his personal, detail-conscious observations of play in Barker's original campaign--and many, many other related subjects to the world-setting--were personally invaluable and I would recommend people going back and reading some of them here, here, here, and here.

Even more importantly I would highly recommend people go and check out the content on his blog in it's last day. Make sure to drop him a note of appreciation too--or raise a glass of mash-brandy--for the work he has put into it and keeping Tekumel on the tabletop and preserved with Aethervox.  [Editor's Note: the link to Photobucket is down on his page but can be directly accessed here for the next 48 hours according to Jeff's last post.]

A big thank you, Chirine, from the HC. 

Blood and Tinkering Under the City Half as Old as the World

The last session of the Jakalla underworld Tuesday Night group was a hoot of a finale.

A garbled case of Tekumelyani “telephone” between Zak S's forked-tongue medium and dead members of the previous ill-fated party boiled over with two players suddenly throwing it down and reaching for their nasty barbed blades. In a flash of a die roll, one killed the other in a mighty chop.

To be sure, there was an in-game context: to get beyond a sealed door they had to commit to a blood sacrifice on the nearby altar of one of Sarku's major aspects, Ku'un the Corpse Lord. And the game rolled on all the same; successfully even with the party (finally) managing a short ten minutes later to pry the steel chime macguffin out of the cold, dead fingers of their predecessors and return to the blisteringly hot sunlight above.

Hopefully you will soon be able to check out the sordid details of that session and others on the upcoming blog clearinghouse of session reports, campaign news, and adventure hooks that co-ref Jeremy Duncan and I are working (more on that later).

Switching gears, much as I love the rules of Empire of the Petal Throne I can't seem to leave well enough alone. I've been trying to think through some house rules that may help smooth over some of the rough edges of our explorations—and, well, my own tastes too.

Experience Points

Experience points for opponents killed are equally shared between surviving characters (not by the character who landed the killing blow as EPT states) at the end of each session no matter the ending point. Characters may only advance in level between sessions however.

Characters will not suffer experience point penalties at higher levels as stated in the rules.

Weapons

Priests and Magic Users may use any weapon deemed “noble” to their religion by the referee. A battle axe for a priest of Chegárra, for instance, would be wholly appropriate. However due to their lack of combat training, Priests can only inflict 1d6 damage and Magic Users 1d4 damage maximum with any particular weapon.

Warriors may use any weapons. They receive a +1 to hit with any weapon they have a professional skill in.

Character Inheritance

Since starting characters in the campaign are assumed to be high-caste refugees from the same island-nation of the South, Ma'arb, it is entirely possible, nay probable, that replacement PCs would be relatives of the deceased.

Further given the tight, honor-laden proscriptions of that distant land, surviving party members are duty-bound to provide a “fair inheritance” to the new character. What constitutes “fair” is entirely up to the survivors of the previous adventurers, though an amount lower than 30 kaitars times the level of the deceased character is considered to be ill-omened.

Swords & Glory Equipment List

The high crunch of EPT's successor did have some highly useful things including a nice long expanded list of equipment and other things to spend your hard-earned kaitars. I am thinking of adopting this—minus the annoying variable costs and fitted to the lower price range of EPT—for use in the campaign.

Certainly not wed to the above variants—they don't (yet) constitute “Jakalla Sub-Protocol Azure”—but I am interested in hearing what Petal Throne grogs and the players/refs of our little shared pocket universe think. Do these seem workable? What else should we fiddle with, if anything? And for the sake of conversation, what quirky variants have others used in their own EPT campaigns? 

The Jakalla Protocols

Though we had some scheduling problems this week, Empire of the Petal Throne gaming continues apace in the Google+ pocket universe. If the sessions go off today, the two groups being referred by yours truly and Jeremy Duncan will be joined by two more refereed groups --doubling the gaming bang for your kaitar.

We have had a lot of chatter both there and elsewhere about having open world play where characters float between sessions and campaigns freely. It has already worked in practice with the two EPT groups as I pointed out here last week.

This week Jeremy and I met and hashed out some loose guidelines for such open world play, an agreement we tongue-in-cheek are calling the “Jakalla Protocols”.

The Protocols

1. That we attempt a loose coordination of a shared world experience between EPT sessions running in Google Plus. The shared published setting and similar start premises (barbarians from the Southern Continent living in the Tower of the Red Dome in Jakalla) lend themselves well to this coordination.

2. The size of the city and its underworld (plus close-by adventure sites) allow enough space for each referee to carve out particular adventure areas of their own. Each referee has full reign to develop and run these areas.

3. Players from each group are free to travel between sessions to adventure in each participating referee's sites and scenarios. Players are also free to take their characters on adventures through nexus points to other Google+ worlds (but not to bring back iron, steel, or magical items). Because of the particular limitations of Tekumel as a setting, characters from other settings are not likely to be allowed to “immigrate”.

4. That time between sessions runs on a one real day = one game day basis for the sake of congruity--and sanity. Most adventure sessions must thus end at a stopping point where characters can move to the next session freely--or at the least handwave this passage of space-time.

5. Character deaths, experience point awards, treasure/equipment acquisitions, events etc. happen chronologically in real time order. Thus if Matt's priest falls to his death in Jeremy's site between expeditions in Chris's underworld he is dead at the beginning of Chris's next session. Players are responsible for alerting refs to any changes to their characters that occurred in other ref's sessions.

Back to the Arena

Let's take back up where we left off in riffing on what might go into a gladiator mini-game set in Tekumel's Hirilakte arenas.

Jeff Berry, who can't seem to make a comment here without getting my attention, added some colorful details on what a day at the Hirilakte arena would look like in the original campaign:

“You are indeed correct that the various areas of the audience are treated to a variety of bouts that take place in front of them. This gives the stage managers' time to set up the central 'spine' with the special layout for the wizards' duels, which are billed as special attractions. The gladiator bouts can be run as simple fights or as tournaments, with frantic betting on how long a favorite warrior or team will last. There's also light entertainment, such as jugglers and tightrope walkers, and the betting on these acts can get just as intense.”

Adventure Hooks. Since this is primarily an RPG blog we should have an eye for hooks for Hirilakte action as a hook generator.

The most obvious route is the all-important missions chart, which provides the barbarian PCs stuck in the sealed zone of the Foreigners Quarter opportunities to interact with the broader Tsolyani society.

Being approached by a patron to become a champion in the ring is one of the 11 available missions that the rulebook lays out to get refs up and running with scenario ideas.

The matching sub-table that gives different identities for the patron from local officials to merchants to foreigners creates enough subtlety that each may have an entirely different motivation—and a different scenario in the baking.

It's not a stretch to riff other hooks out of play activity. Players get into hot water with a major gaffe, a common occurrence in the byzantine system of mores and etiquette of Tsolyani society? Why not have them enslaved--rather than merely impaled—and forced to win back their freedom by dint of becoming popular and wealthy in the arena. And there there is always the possibility of a duel (see below).

Higher-levels yield even more options. According to the rules, “Citizens of the Empire (beings of 6th or

higher level) may hire and sponsor their own fighters.” Given the chances for all kinds of intrigues around symbolic warfare (see back to Champion Warfare) this opens up all kinds of in-game possibilities.

Long and the short of it we will definitely want to provide guidelines for how mini-game activity can feed back into an ongoing EPT campaign: rules for handling PC activity as champions; generating relevant adventure hooks; etc.

We will also want guidelines to help higher-level PCs with the purchase, training, equipping, and advancement of their sponsored gladiator. And why not some suggestions on how to handle opposing owners whether they be individuals, clans, temples, factions or the like?

Duels. Like champion warfare the arenas also serve another function as an internal safety valve by providing a big-ticket venue for duels between citizens. Such duels are “common” according to the text—a fairly normal outcome of negative reaction rolls.

We will need some guidelines for affairs of honor (as opposed to the arranged gladiator matches).

Equal Footing and Honor. Unlike the Romans more Tsolyani spectactors seem to put more emphasis on ritual, honor and an equal fight than purely bloodlust entertainment. The rules state explicitly that “opponents are evenly matched” in level ability or equivalent hit dice ability if it a non-human or animal. Other sources (I cheat a little here) also state that the weapons and armor should be similar or equal.

According to EPT:

“...Gladiatorial battles are under the strict control of the Charukel, the hereditary clan of major domos of the arenas, and fouls or unfair advantages are swiftly and permanently punished, to the great delight of the crowds. All battles are to the death, although an occasional round of fisticuffs is accepted as light relief, and the loser's dead or unconscious body is auctioned off by the winner to the former's relatives or friends . It is considered good manners to permit the loser's kin to have the body in return for a small fee, and crowds have been known to stone an over-greedy winner.”

I would imagine that this rules out “dirty tricks” like kicking sand in an opponent's eyes, a common tactic in Roman times. Our game should reflect this set of values in generating or matching opponents—and in meting out punishment for transgressors.

Betting. Betting on just about anything that happens in a Hirilakte arena is a reoccurring theme. In fact it's one of the few features that get explicit mechanical treatment in the rules. (Note that the rules explicitly state that players do not get experience points for kaitars won in bets at the arena—though they do win experience points for leaving behind a trail of broken bodies.)

Mostly I'd use these straight from the book with some extension to cover events other than one-on-one combat bets. I would also throw in some modifiers or a sub-table based on some of the factors we have been discussing here.

What Else? On the big-ticket list is an elegant, but crunchier set of combat and sorcery rules to give more tactical options to the otherwise quick and abstract OD&D-based rules. Something that will model tactical maneuvers, types of attacks/parries, and the fireworks of offensive/defensive magic in a way that doesn't go too far afield yet yields a more satisfying tactical mini-game.

I love also to see any number of other campaign guidelines like the different levels of arenas from the backwater towns to the main attractions in the major cities.

Gladiators on Tekumel

It was bound to happen. A few days into playing my Roman Gladiator solo campaign, I found my thoughts—and game-designing urges—wandering over to the Five Empires of Tekumel. Victor Raymond's comment yesterday was the tipping point.

For the uninitiated, gladiatorial spectacle is as much a part of Tsolyani (the setting's default starting country) everyday life as it was for the Romans. In the Empire of the Petal Throne cities sport massive Hirilakte arenas.

The importance of Hirilakte arenas in gaming Tekumel is underscored with a big, fat black marker in the EPT rulebook—where it gets an entire section (Sec. 800) and some scattered related rules--and following canonical material.

But while it gets emphasis and some supporting detail info on what goes in in the arena still has some large unpainted corners—and the obvious tantalizing mini-game that could be spun out of it. 

Barker teases us by pointing to a long out-of-print, now nearly-impossible to find set of English gladiator mini rules and to his marginally easier to find, but hella expensive War of Wizards board game. Flashing Blades-designer Mark Pettigrew also took a stab at this bitd (now found in the Pettigrew Selections), but it's one of the few sub-systems that he put together that I don't like over much.

Which, of course, adds up to awesome for tinkering souls like us that want to make Tekumels of our own. Bumping its way now up to the top of the post-Borderlands project list is now a Hirilakte gladiator mini-game built open-game design right here on the blog.

Not one for delayed gratification let's get a jump on it in the here and now.

First, let's start with what we know about things gladiatorial on that hot, isolated planet before we dive into what kind of game we want. Keeping with the spirit of Victor's “drive it out of the EPT box” approach I am going to contain this to the rulebook itself and mostly ignore the other material that followed. (Which is fairly easy as it gets the most extensive treatment in EPT proper, perhaps a comment on the unfortunate move away from “gamey” Tekumel in later years.)

So whadda we know?

Arena Size. When I said earlier that the arenas were massive, I wasn't exaggerating for dramatic effect. On the Jakalla city map included in the box set, the arena takes up a whopping five hexes (750 feet) lengthwise by three hexes (150 feet) wide. By comparison the famous Colosseum of Rome, which could seat 50,000, extends 615 feet. So we are talking very large affairs capable of seating over 50,000 in the major cities.

The immense size and extended oblong shape of the arenas seem too awkward in providing sight lines for spectators especially for small one-on-one matches. An "educated" guess is that perhaps the larger one such as Jakalla's would be sub-divided for multiple, simultaneous matches.

Our rules will have to make sense of the size, shape, and possible sub-division of these arenas for its ground scale.

Champion Warfare. We know from EPT that the arenas aren't just blood-lust entertainment, they also play a social function as both ritualized warfare between nations. War in the Five Empires is portrayed as highly-static and conservative affair that invariably ends in stalemate. (A notion smashed on the rocks by the highly-decisive and volatile wars advanced by canon in later years—something akin to the shenanigans of Greyhawk's late-canon Götterdämmerung—but I digress.)

According to EPT: 

“Open warfare has thus been replaced to a great extent by 'champion warfare,' a phenomenon which suits the need for ritual, display, and social stratification of the nations of Tekumel. At designated cities throughout the four major empires, therefore, champions come to do battle and win (or lose) not only great sums of money for their patrons, but also great glory for themselves and the groups they represent.
The four great empires each put up their own official champions, and lesser patrons--nobles, temples, clans, and other groups--spend their fortunes to procure, train, and present their own gladiators. Opponents come from neighboring lands to take up these challenges and win glory for their homelands.”

Further we know from the intro that:

“Every major city has an arena, and safe passage is guaranteed for these ritual warriors. Battles are normally to the death, although fist-fighting can be arranged as a side event. Wizards and priests also come to fight magical duels.”

Ever have that real-world fantasy that wars would be decided by putting a few aggro members of each nation into the ring? Well here's your chance to make it so (at least as much as you can in fantasy gaming.)

Make a note for rules for ritualized warfare in the game. Also make side notes that we should include rules and guidelines for unarmed combat, magical duels, and patronage.

So far plenty to mull on. I will extend our analysis and working notes for Hirilakte in Part II either later today or tomorrow.

New Google+ Hub for Petal Throne Gaming

A short PSA before the next “meaty” post—and yes, I am rolling up shirt sleeves and getting back to work post-kerfuffles.

Peter Robbins, the fellow who just put up the Tekumel clearinghouse Skein of Destiny, has a new site up for coordinating and scheduling Google-Plus EPT (and other Tekumel-related role-playing): G+ Tekumel. If you are interested in running or playing in sessions hop on over there post-haste.

Note to all on the now-longish alternate and waiting lists for our EPT G+ games, Peter has four open seats for the first session of his own EPT underworld game on September 10 at 10pm EST.  

Field Notes from the Google+ Nexus Point Under Jakalla

As we roll toward September, online Empire of the Petal Throne gaming seems to be still rocking the clan-house.

Potential players still outstrip game-master capacity, but new fronts are opening with new games. Victor Raymond has worked some revivification magic on his play-by-post game and his ever-useful thread on running Tekumel-by-careful degrees is still trucking along with new entries too. There's even a brand spanking new blog, Skein of Destiny, vying to become a Tekumel news clearinghouse.

The deep well entrance into my section of the Underworld
 being around that first "a".

Getting back to the expanding capacity, thanks to Jeremy Duncan of Dandy in the Underworld, who some of you may remember as one of the winners of the maritime contest here, I finally got a chance to kick my feet up and actually play the game.

Despite nagging technical difficulties, the game didn't disappoint. (I will be doing a post on some of my on-the-job observations about how to run both smoother, more effective Google+ sessions and “entry-level” EPT later this week, but interested readers should familiarize themselves with Constancon--under which Kaing standard we march--organizer Zak's weekly-updated list of tips and suggestions here. )

I will spare you most of the blow-by-blow, but one of the interesting development is that our Google EPT parties are now officially in an open, shared world where the uncouth barbarian PCs wander in out and of adventures in our mutual pieces of Jakalla (in this case Jeremy has taken up shop with a creepy manse-fortress on a nearby island).

As I have written before  this a style of playing I have been really hungry to keep experimenting with.

It's not without its headaches though. Zak S's all-thumbs, official-party-speaker-to-the-dead sorcerer and Matthew Miller's one-climb-too-many priest of Thumis both had managed to mosey their way out of the underworld campsite back to that vermin-teeming flophouse, the Tower of the Red Dome, and into our party with a wave of the hand.

Some serious congruity questions were posed and then realized in the course of the game, such as what happens when a character who should be uneasily asleep outside a mysterious incinerator in my game (and thus “on pause”) gets killed in the other session? Are the characters from the last adventure carrying the swag they found in the depths? Are they in an alternate Tree of Life timeline?

Part of me, the KISS part, just shrugs. A little incongruity and handwaving has never particularly upset me--my home campaign's games have been drop-in/out to accommodate busy lives for going on three years now. But with Matt's character living up to that adjective above and plummeting post-death-ray to his death from the manse wall, that's a hole too many not to address. Did he just go poof from that cold underworld floor or did he travel on to the Isles of Paradise during his “breaktime”?

If we add more refs running linked EPT games—and I hope we do—then we will have to develop at least a few hard and fast rules governing this.

Any suggestions from you fine folks about what you would do if you? Mostly I am inclined to simple fixes such as “it happens in sequential real-life order and between each session the party travels back to 'town' kinds of solutions”, but perhaps there is a better way that I am not seeing.

Revving Up a Petal Throne Mini-Boom on Google Plus

My cup seems to runneth over right now when it comes to that previously rarely-scratched gaming itch, Tekumel.

In fact in about a week’s time, thanks to the recent small wave of video-conferencing games on Google-Plus, I went from 0 to 60 in Petal Throne gaming.  (More accurately it was more like 15 to 60 if you throw in my limited activity in Humanspace Empires, the Shen expedition in the Domain Game’s Nowhere, and the scratching here on the blog, but why keep stretching metaphors.)

Right now we have a good kind of problem in this regards: too much demand and too little “supply”. When I put out an all-call last week I thought I might scrape together 2-5 players for an evening or two’s fun. I was a pleasantly surprised that within a day that we had nine people sign up, by a week’s time 21.  

My usual more-the-merrier attitude is a bit challenged by Google’s technological—no matter what they claim you can’t accommodate more than four player/cameras at this time without things going bat-shit crazy. And there-in lies the rub, I have two parties already running now in my version of the Jakallan underworld—but that’s only accommodating eight slots. (One of our first party players, Jeremy Duncan, is organizing a third EPT outing of his own too.)

Rather than just turn people away, I’d rather take a stab at upping our “organizing capacity”: recruit more refs. Basically I am looking for 2-4 more people who want to GM EPT sessions in and around the usual Jakalla stomping grounds with the bog standard barbarians off the boat start. (Perhaps eventually we can even start coordinating the various sessions into some free-wheeling open world type action.)

We’re trying to use Victor Raymond’s introduction-by-careful-degrees approach, which I have found myself has dramatically ratcheted down the intimidation level for both players and GMs. If you’ve ever wanted to run your first stab at this setting, here’s your chance with a ready-made swarm of eager newbies.

Takers?

(In other news, when I get back from SoCal at the end of this week and have time to do them proper justice, two great interviews coming your way here--including an absolute blockbuster with one of our hobby's first pioneers, Rob Kuntz.)

The Missing EPT Underworld Chart

Yesterday, I mentioned that I had used Mark Pettigrew's handy Empire of the Petal Throne underworld generator in designing half of my own Jakallan underworld. Mike D, one of the brave souls that played in last week's Google Plus game, reminded me that a vital table was missing from the article--the critical one apportioning the types of room complexes you can find on each level of an underworld on Tekumel.

Since the table is a bit hard to find, I am including both a link to the PDFerrata  file at House of Tita (where you can pick up an affordable reproduction of the Best of the Journals) here and a jpg reproduction that Planet Algol ran below. Useful stuff.

A Jakallan Underworld of My Own

Stick around one of the internet watering holes for things Tekumel and you will hear a curious and persistent drumbeat of certain lines. Among the most cyclical are the ones declaiming why such and such person doesn’t run a game in that world--despite their appreciation for it from afar.

Until a Google plus Empire of the Petal Throne game two nights ago I was one of them.

Those claims persist because there are big honking grains of truth in them. Tekumel is a highly personal affair. It is M.A.R. Barker’s world, one that has existed for many decades for him. But is also been OUR Tekumel too ever since a hot and sticky Minnesota summer night in the mid-70s when it became a playable game.

Gamer common sense would have it that the people closest to the Barker tap, the old players of his home campaign, enjoy sitting behind walls of canonical exclusion. If anything my experience has been exactly opposite.  

I spent a few hours jawing with Victor Raymond, one of those old salts, the night before I ran the Google game I mentioned the session. I told him I was trying to run it “straight out of the box” (a theme he is taking up in an incredibly useful, practical way here on the OD&D Board) in about as bog standard fashion as you can get: the players are barbarian refugees fresh off the boat from that conveniently vague Southern Continent, living on their last kaitar in the stereotypical squalid flophouse of the walled-off Foreign Quarter.

Of course, there was also a sweaty, officious patron there, one leading them by carrot and stick—or impalement pole in this case—to the vast layers of buried city upon buried city that lie beneath the City Half as Old as the World.

Victor to my great delight on hearing this had pulled out one of those famous index cards that Barker kept track of the many, many NPCs gracing his world and voila I had the gaunt, tall, tattooed Livyani con-man owner of their flophouse, t he Tower of the Red Dome, as a living, breathing character.

A tingle of “isn’t that cool” went over me, but there was that old apprehension about it being Barker’s world standing right behind it. But then Victor said something that just liberated me: he told me to make the Jakallan underworld my own. 

Yeah sure, I’m with many of you in wanting some day to see that magnificent “mega-dungeon” make the light of published day—just getting a peak at that famed massive, laminated sheet of tiny-squared aging graph paper at NTRPG Con had sent me off in an embarrassing and rare bit of fandom swooning—but truth be told I have a hard time running any adventure let alone all encompassing and well-detailed world setting.

It’s not that I am a snob about being DIY—or rather it’s not that I am just a snob—but that my brain as a GM isn’t wired for working that way.  The winding alleys, jagged hills, claustrophobic depths of the Hill Cantons or in the Domain Game’s Nowhere run smoother for me because there is a internal vividness inside my head.  As such, I rarely find myself looking at my notes in a session, no matter how many of them I pour out in my campaign brainstorm notebooks in between.

Long and short of it is that I decided that I would try and meet Tekumel half way. I dusted off Mark Pettigrew’s  nifty EPT underworld random generator article (which you find in the Best of the Journals booklet here) --which is one of the best such generators I’ve ever used because  it breaks down dungeon levels into themed room complexes—rolled up half of a section of the first level.

Then to really make it my own, I pulled out one of the maps of my own HC tried-and-true campaign dungeons bolted them together, filed off the serial numbers, daubed on Tsolyani setting dress and there you go: a Jakallan underworld of my own.

I’d be lying if I didn’t make some mistakes in the Google session. The exposition and set dressing featured way too many minutes of me yakking without pause, the train tracks leading to the underworld a little too obvious. Something I hate in the main because without fail as a player will make my eyes gaze over in less than five minutes time.  (At some point Zak S, one of the players mentioned that he had cast “Sense Plot”.)

But once we got down into the murky depths though it just really started clicking. It became increasingly not just mine but the players as the hours went by, something I anticipate growing with repeated play.

Speaking of that play, I am astounded on how much potential Google Plus is opening up for us an inter-connected group of gamers with the free video-conferencing. Once you plow through a few hurdles of the medium (check and play with your mike and camera before you leap into it), it’s a qualitatively better way to game online than Skype or chat.

Beyond the joy of laughing and playing with people I only have known from the distant authorial voice of their blogs, it really opens up doors beyond the confines of geography. Always wanted to play Esoteric Game X and couldn’t muster enough players in your usual digs? Well here you can. Brave new worlds and all that.

Now off I go to enjoy some of this fabled California sun.

Getting Your Petal Throne Game On

It's a simple truth--yet one that seems to get lost in the mix of our collective blah, blah, blah--but actually playing a game beats the pants off talking about one nine times out of ten.

I have been throwing up a lot of blah, blah, blah in the last week about Barker's Tékumel collection, so I felt like I should direct readers' attention to two attempts to help kick-off play in that weird and wonderful world.

Over on the OD&D boards, Victor Raymond is laying out an excellent multi-post thread of guidelines and resources for starting an old school Empire of the Petal Throne game "straight out of the box" and with a minimum of canon. Check it out here for inspiration. 

Jeff Berry also has a good list of free online resources for starting up a game here on his blog.

On my own end, I am planning on getting some game on in two areas in the next month:

1. Running an EPT underworld game session at the South Texas Mini-Con August 20. I will be using Amanda Talzheimer's excellent, free paper minis for the session, maybe mixed with some painted lead if I can properly motivate.
   
   
2. Trying to help kickstart an effort to get a video-conferenced online game (hopefully one that we can press gang a more knowledgeable person into GMing, ahem) on Google Plus. If interested look me up there, I am hiding in plain sight under my real name.