"Tekumel" Topic

I'm very interested in the Tekumel series as a comparison to the Tolkien world. I've not read the books, but those that have could you tell me if they are an easy read? I've read some of Tolkiens work, so is the writing style similar?

Also gaming Tekumel, who makes the figures and is there a rule set?

Try this tekumel.com

So seek ye the Holy Grail of fantasy gaming do ye?

The books are an easy read but are not a great epic in the sense of Tolkien. I don't want to say this disparagingly, but the books are more like an extended RPG session. You would probably learn more about The Empire of the Petal Throne from the various role playing games and supplement that have been created about it. You can find out more about those at the link that Dave provided above.

For miniatures there is a budding rebirth of the various armies in 28mm and they are gorgeous. Eureka markets them. You can see the link here: link

There are some older rules specific to wargaming Tekumel which can be found at Tita's House of Games tekumel.com/tita/items.html which you can see is linked off of Tekumel.com. Personally I think Warhammer Ancients Battle could probably be modified to provide a good game.

The best way I can describe the difference between the worlds that Tolkien and M.A.R. Barker built is that between a high end concept car (Tolkien) by Porsche and the actual production model (Barker). Both are beautiful but one just has more grit and detail than the other.

Both Tolkien and Barker came from using philology as a tool to build a world, and Tekumel shows the influence of Prof Barker's study of Eastern cultures just as Prof Tolkien's shows the influence of Norse.

Prof Tolkien is the better author, in my opinion, but I don't see if as being an either or. Get both, read both, enjoy both.

I read , hmm, The man of gold (???) years ago. Ineresting, deep world, but no Tolkien

The two good novels, IMHO, are The Man of Gold and Flamesong. I also have Prince of Skulls, Lords of Tsamra and A Death of Kings, which are very much RPG write-ups and rather disjointed at that.

I actually think the cultures on Tekumel are more fully developed than those of Middle Earth. The first two books are the best: "Man of Gold" and "Flamesong".

As stated above, our figures are available from Eureka Miniatures. The sculptor is working on 14 Shen figures at the moment. And there are Hlaka and Ahoggya in the works as well.

I post to a blog at:

thetekumelproject.blogspot.com

There are links to various Tekumel sites and ongoing information about what is happening with the range.

Rules-wise, I think WAB or WFB would work. HOTT already has a published army list. I have personally used both Command & Colours/Battlelore and Crusaders rules.

A skirmish set of rules is in the works – see blog for info.

Regards,

Howard Fielding – The Tekumel Project

green27@sympatico.ca

I enjoyed reading Man of Gold mostly due to the protagonists' total lack of comprehending his actions in the end.

I realize that I'm going to get flogged out of fantasy fandom for this but… I find Tekumel is VASTLY superior to Middle Earth. There is a rich, other-worldliness to Tekumel with it's strange customs, alien gods, and dusky-hued women with few to no sexual/nudity taboos… but I digress. On the other hand, Middle Earth is the standard Medieval, "fairy tale," Caucasian-European setting hashed and rehashed by just about every fantasy novel or game since.

I feel Barker treats me as an adult (in more ways than one), while Tolkien treats me like a 4-year-old. It a shame that more people can't break themselves out of their ethnocentrism and give Tekumel the chance it so richly deserves.

Actually, I would give Tekumel a chance if I knew anything about it. This thread, of course, is a help.

I find Tolkien to be rather..bland. I think the LotR film series was solid, but the more I consider the stories that I haven't read in years, the more I look at Tolkien's world like a world in ending. I mean, the Elves are gone/leaving. The Dwarves seem to be leaving. The bad guys seem to be history. It's over as a story essentially.

It's strange but until now, I haven't thought about that aspect too much. I have to admit, this is probably why I am drawn to WHFB's setting, but Tekumel's miniatures are certainly an inspiration for wanting to look at Tekumel. Thanks for this thread and its info.

Augustus, that is the point in Middle earth, the Age of Man is come.

Teukemel is a very interesting gameworld, and much fun to find all the info you can on.

Thank you for all this information! Its been very useful.

I am sad that the last 3 books from Professor Barker were mediocre. "Flamesong" and "Man of Gold" were evidently written under some quality editorial control. The last three seem not to be. They read more like disjointed gaming sessions. They lack direction and characterization. Lots of interesting tidbits and plot hooks just seem to go nowhere.

I hope that Professor Barker writes again.. though he is in his twilight years…. I also hope that a good editor guides him. I would love to read some more quality Tekumel stories.

Joe Collins

The Tekumel world is very detailed, almost to the point where there is too much detail. The last RPG rule book Tekumel:Empire of the petal throne printed by Guardians of order, was very good It was a solid, a really good RPG design. I would recommened to anyone… if it wasn't so tied in with it's world background. From a Tekumel point of that that certainly isn't a problem, but the game design is so good that parts of me wants to run other genras in using the game system… but to port it to another genra means pretty much redoing 80% of the game so you are pretty much remaking a game system from scratch. Sigh.

If you read Barker's later stuff, and thoughts on Tekumel it starts to get really strange… There is a undercurrent of ideas that seem to suggest that the author and others are believing that the world of Tekumel is somehow real. It starts getting kinda new age hippy trippy, so be prepared to put a reality seatbelt on!

Middle-Earth may seem "bland" because it is the standard and basis for so much Western Fantasy since.

Tekumel might seem a bit less gosh wow if you had been reading Raymond Feist and were exposed to a shedload of Asian culture

Which Feist might one recommend? I have never read anything Feistish, so this intrigues me, La.

Funny Raymond Feist should come up in a thread about Tekumel.

I never realized that Magician was just a mashup of a Blackmoor and Tekumel campaign until I picked up the Guardians of Order book a couple years ago and started reading some of the background…..

kokigami,

Heres a short review of Feist's Riftwar Saga:

link

Kelewan (Feist's Japanese-and-other-cultures world) does bear some resemblance to Tekumel, but since it does have many of the same non-European cultural bases that Tekumel does, this isn't all that surprising. That it was even closer during play and had to be toned down for print is also not surprising.

The other side of the Rift War (Midkemia) was set in a homebrew. Feist's D&D group published chunks of it as Midkemia Press many years ago, before his fiction hit the market. I own some of them, even. Great stuff for the day. Sure it looked rather Blackmoor-ish. So did everyone else's…

Kelewan (Feist's Japanese-and-other-cultures world) does bear some resemblance to Tekumel, but since it does have many of the same non-European cultural bases that Tekumel does, this isn't all that surprising.

It's even less surprising when you realize that Feist's GM was in fact using Tekumel as the basis for Kelewan. I don't think the convergence of geography, fauna, material culture and religious pantheons of these two settings was a mere coincidence.

Which is probably why the "Empire" novels leaned more strongly towards the Japanese. Realizing that you want/need to write in someone else's world without being hugely blatant about it can't have been a fun realization.

"some resemblance to Tekumel, but since it does have many of the same non-European cultural bases that Tekumel does, this isn't all that surprising."

Well considering it's based on [stolen] from Tekumel it isn't surprising either. He even has the nerve to "trade mark" Yankora as one of his nations!