I’ve been a fan of M.A.R. Barker’s
Tékumel setting since
discovering it in my early adulthood. I regret it’s been a rather
solitary adoration; despite immersing myself in the world in its
several incarnations, I’ve failed to interest any player group in
trying it beyond a single game session. It comes to mind once again
as renowned game artist and industry luminary Jeff Dee is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to bring the rich, exotic land of
Tékumel back in its newest roleplaying game incarnation, Béthorm.
Tékumel
was one of Dungeons & Dragons’ earliest campaign
worlds, yet the first to fall by the official wayside in favor of
more western-oriented medieval fantasy game environments. The setting
combines two themes very alien to western audiences: exotic cultures
and “magic” from a long-lost, advanced science age (one of the
core elements of Monte Cook’s popular Numenera game).
Rather than draw on the “traditional” western paradigm of
medieval fantasy, Tékumel
relied on more exotic foundations, inspiration from Indian, Middle
Eastern, Egyptian, and Meso-American cultures. These historical
elements combined with a science-fiction plot in which the formerly
advanced interstellar resort colony was inexplicably warped into an
isolated pocket dimension, plunging civilization into a primitive
state which, over 50,000 years, produced an exotic, medieval-level
society with pseudo-science magic.
Because it’s based in elements still
very foreign to gamers, Tékumel
remains one of the more fringe game settings, yet one with a rich and
storied past and thus an extremely intricate depth. I’d consider
its creator, M.A.R. Barker, among the Holy Trinity of the D&D
game designers along with the revered Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson,
all of whom having now passed into the great Valhalla of the
adventure gaming hobby. Barker, a linguistics professor, incorporated
in his creation the same cultural and linguistic depth as another
founder of modern fantasy literature, J.R.R. Tolkien. The novelty and
intricacy of Tékumel and
the intensely creative personality of its author garnered a core of
devoted fans who’ve helped keep interest in the setting alive more
than 40 years and through several roleplaying game incarnations.
This love for Barker’s creation and
the vast opus of Tékumel
material engendered several “official” game interpretations and
numerous fan conversions.
I’d heard about Tékumel
and Empire of the Petal Throne in the general adventure gaming
lore I consumed as a kid immersed in fantasy roleplaying, primarily
Dungeons & Dragons. I’m not sure if I read anything in
the pages of the venerable Dragon Magazine, learned about it
from friends, or caught a glimpse of it at local hobby stores, but it
remained in the back of my mind well into my college years. Shortly
after graduating and starting my first job (as a reporter for my
weekly hometown newspaper) I ran my first game events at a local
convention (a linked series of D6 Star Wars scenarios); I
found a soft-cover, saddle-stitched edition of Empire of the Petal
Throne: The World of Tékumel
published by Different Worlds in 1987, a reprint of material
originally published in 1975 by TSR. I read it cover-to-cover and
immersed myself in the amazingly alien setting, though other gaming
endeavors commanded my attention. At some point – I can’t recall
when or where – I acquired one volume of Gamescience’s two-volume
Swords & Glory version of the rules.
At this point in my life I was working
full-time but had a host of college-aged friends who got together
over the summers for regular roleplaying game campaigns. At the time
these included story arcs for D6 Star Wars and Cyberpunk
2020, with occasional side-trips into Space 1889 and
Call of Cthulhu.
I recall experimenting with a few
games, notably Teenagers from Outer Space, The Morrow
Project and Empire of the Petal Throne. My
escapades in Tékumel did
not last much past a character-creation session and a brief, two-part
adventure introducing players to the setting. I quickly learned that
when players make up silly names for their characters the gaming
endeavor is doomed to failure. I relegated the Tékumel
materials to my roleplaying game collection on the shelf as a
personal interest without any intention to play.
In 1993 Theater of the Mind Enterprises
produced an impressive boxed game, Gardasiyal: Adventures in
Tekumel, containing several
books, folios, and a map, and later supported with several
supplements. At this point in my interest
with Tékumel
I might otherwise have let
this pass, except that most of this game incarnation focused on
solitaire, programmed adventures. I
put the game system and solo materials through their paces as
proven by several handwritten character sheets still tucked into my
rulebooks, but the rules and
setting still proved too complex to try with gamers used to more
accessible fare. Alas, the
game soon met an untimely and unsupported “death” and, like its
predecessors, mostly faded from the general adventure gaming hobby’s
collective consciousness as another blip in Tékumel’s
publication history.
The last incarnation of a game based in
the rich Tékumel setting – Tékumel: The Empire of the Petal
Throne – came out in 2005
from Guardians of Order. After much pre-release hype, previews of
illustrations, and some sample teaser PDFs, the 240-page
hardcover came out...and then Guardians of Order disappeared beneath
a flood of overwhelming debt (an unfortunate yet occasional
occurrence in the adventure gaming hobby). I
bought a copy when it released and read it, though it ultimately saw
no actual play and ended up on the shelf with the rest of my Tékumel
game collection.
A far more complete game history
resides at tekumel.com, a website devoted to the setting, and at The Eye of Joyful Sitting Amongst Friends. Copies of past games remain
difficult to find through retailers, though they sell at premium
prices on the secondary markets.
After Barker’s passing in 2012 his
fans helped establish the Tekumel Foundation, a non-profit
institution “to encourage, support and protect the literary works
and all related products and activities surrounding Professor M.A.R.
Barker’s world of Tékumel and the Empire of the Petal Throne.”
Barker left a host of notes and other world-related materials that
never saw publication, and the foundation seeks to preserve his
memory and maintain the interest in his innovative setting. Tékumel
fans remain a vociferous and productive minority in the overall
population of adventure gamers. They continue creating material for
and celebrating Tékumel
across the internet at such aptly named websites as The Tékumel Project, Skein of Destiny, and The Eye of Joyful Sitting Amongst Friends.
Why is Tékumel
so difficult for gamers to comprehend and enjoy? It’s a rich, deep,
intricately devised setting...so alien in its origins and
interpretation that gamers need to really immerse themselves in it to
identify and understand familiar roleplaying game paradigms. Aside
from a very different culture, Tékumel
incorporates a host of strange and often savage deities,
lost-tech-driven magic, and a bestiary of wildly alien monsters and
races with names steeped in Barker’s fictitious language. This kind
of ground-breaking originality can seem foreign to westerners raised
on European legends, medieval history, and the fantasy fare
perpetuated by books, comics, and films.
I’m excited to see – and to back –
the latest gaming incarnation of Tékumel,
Béthorm,
in the knowledge Jeff Dee can produce an outstanding game product
that receives the support and promotion Barker’s fantastic setting
deserves. I’m hoping the rules engine Béthorm employs strays more toward the rules-light end of the game mechanics
complexity spectrum. From what I’ve seen Jeff Dee not only has a
love for the setting but a keen and clear means of expressing it and
sharing the excitement it holds for adventurers.
Comments....
Want to offer feedback? Start a
civilized discussion? Share a link to this blog entry on Google+ and
tag me (+Peter Schweighofer) to comment.
