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    Tekumel Resources

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    DougNew
    This document summarizes the Tekumel roleplaying setting created by Prof. M.A.R. Barker over 70 years. Tekumel is an alien planet with cultures inspired by Mesoamerica, India, Egypt, China, and Arabia. It provides an extremely detailed world with over 60,000 years of history. The document outlines the major historical periods on Tekumel, from human colonization to the modern Second Imperium. It promotes a bundle of PDF materials for the Tekumel RPGs and support documents to introduce readers to this complex but rewarding setting.

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    Tekumel Resources

    Uploaded by

    DougNew
    221 views3 pages
    This document summarizes the Tekumel roleplaying setting created by Prof. M.A.R. Barker over 70 years. Tekumel is an alien planet with cultures inspired by Mesoamerica, India, Egypt, China, and Arabia. It provides an extremely detailed world with over 60,000 years of history. The document outlines the major historical periods on Tekumel, from human colonization to the modern Second Imperium. It promotes a bundle of PDF materials for the Tekumel RPGs and support documents to introduce readers to this complex but rewarding setting.

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    Resources for the Tekumel RPG

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    This document summarizes the Tekumel roleplaying setting created by Prof. M.A.R. Barker over 70 years. Tekumel is an alien planet with cultures inspired by Mesoamerica, India, Egypt, China, and Arabia. It provides an extremely detailed world with over 60,000 years of history. The document outlines the major historical periods on Tekumel, from human colonization to the modern Second Imperium. It promotes a bundle of PDF materials for the Tekumel RPGs and support documents to introduce readers to this complex but rewarding setting.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as RTF, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as rtf, pdf, or txt
    221 views3 pages

    Tekumel Resources

    Uploaded by

    DougNew
    This document summarizes the Tekumel roleplaying setting created by Prof. M.A.R. Barker over 70 years. Tekumel is an alien planet with cultures inspired by Mesoamerica, India, Egypt, China, and Arabia. It provides an extremely detailed world with over 60,000 years of history. The document outlines the major historical periods on Tekumel, from human colonization to the modern Second Imperium. It promotes a bundle of PDF materials for the Tekumel RPGs and support documents to introduce readers to this complex but rewarding setting.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Tekumel Resources

    FANTASY ADVENTURE ON AN ALIEN PLANET


    We present the Tékumel Bundle, featuring the astonishing science fantasy
    campaign setting Tékumel created by Prof. M.A.R. Barker.

    In the roleplaying hobby, home to the Forgotten Realms, Glorantha, Jorune,


    and other detailed settings (to say nothing of Middle-earth), Tékumel has no
    parallel. Tékumel is the tabletop peer of computer games like Dwarf Fortress
    and EVE Online -- not so much a pastime as a field of study, a lifestyle. Its lore
    beggars comparison. An entire room in the late Professor Barker's house
    holds the filing cabinets stuffed with setting minutiae he diligently compiled
    starting at age nine. For 70 years Barker mixed influences from Mesoamerica,
    Moghul India, Egypt, China, and Arab cultures to create a setting that is
    exotic, bizarre, intensely flavored, and incomparably intricate.
    The prehistory of Tékumel, its ancient unrecorded past, starts 60 millennia in
    our future, when human explorers discovered the planet, conquered the
    native Tékumelani (the subterranean Ssú and the insectoid Hlüss),
    terraformed the world, and colonized it alongside a dozen alien species. But
    when Tékumel's entire star system fell through a spacetime warp into a
    pocket dimension, technological civilization collapsed. After several titanic
    wars, each species withdrew into enclaves.
    Following a Time of Darkness lasting some 30,000 years, new empires made
    contact with enigmatic, amoral planar beings: the Tlokiriqáluyal, the Five
    Lords of Change. These powerful entities infused some of Tékumel's races
    with magic-like psychic powers. For 1,500 years the Lords of Change
    supported princelings in countless petty wars that culminated in the 3,000-
    year rule of the splendid First Imperium.
    When a lone human accidentally contacted a new pantheon of beings -- the
    Tlomitlányal, the Five Lords of Stability -- a wave of religious schisms swept
    aside the First Imperium, and a new caste of Priestkings established Éngsvan
    hla Gánga, "the Kingdom of the Gods." After ten thousand years, this
    flourishing empire perished suddenly in a planetary cataclysm. A worldwide
    interregnum, the Time of No Kings, spawned legendary figures: Subadím the
    Sorceror, great Thómar the Ever-Living, fumbling Turshánmu the Summoner of
    Demons, and many more.
    Modern history begins between six and ten millennia later with the Second
    Imperium, the glorious Empire of the Petal Throne that rules the continent of
    Tsolyánu. The first Emperor wielded an ancient technological device, the
    Seal of the Imperium. The modern calendar dates from his succession, "After
    the Seal" (A.S.). In the present year, 2,369 A.S., a many-sided civil war has
    just ended. The continent of Tsolyánu seethes with intrigue and factional
    politics. Emperor Mirusíya, "the Flame Everlasting," faces the monumental
    task of repulsing invaders and restoring the Empire of the Petal Throne.
    If this epochal history made your eyes glaze over, you're not alone. Though
    universally respected, Tékumel has always been a tough sell. There have
    been five different official Tékumel RPGs, all short-lived and rather
    haphazard. It's hard to communicate the setting's signal virtues. Many of its
    most devoted fans are the players privileged to participate first-hand in
    Barker's own long-running Thursday Night Group. And believe it, these fans
    are devout. They write monographs about Barker's pantheons and
    constructed languages; they build scale models of Tsolyáni temples; and
    they've set up the nonprofit Tékumel Foundation to protect Barker's works.
    The Foundation kindly approved this offer that gathers .PDF image scans of
    the Empire of the Petal Throne RPG (TSR, 1975), its successor Swords & Glory
    (Gamescience, 1983-84), plus maps, histories, and treatises for a bargain
    price. This thorough introduction to Barker's world showcases its attractions.
    And if you fall in love with Tékumel, as so many already have, a lifetime of
    exploration awaits you.
    Any gathering of published Tékumel material, no matter how comprehensive,
    is perforce a "starter collection" -- but for just US$6.95 you get DRM-free
    .PDF image scans of all six titles in this particular Starter Collection (retail
    value $37), including the complete Empire of the Petal Throne RPG, plus the
    Five Empires maps and the Jakálla city map; two lengthy histories, The Ever-
    Glorious Empire and Deeds of the Ever-Glorious; and a compilation of lore from
    Professor Barker's own long-running campaign, Notes From the Thursday Night
    Group.
    And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $16.95
    to start, you'll level up and also get our entire Bonus Collection with five
    more titles worth an additional $50, including Swords & Glory v1 and S&G v2
    (as well as the Combat and Sorcery Summary); two language books (a first for
    the Bundle of Holding!), The Tsolyáni Language and Tsolyáni Primer; and Tékumel
    Journal #1 and Journal #2.
    Most of these files are .PDF image scans of the original 1970s and '80s
    hardcopies. (This is most obvious in Empire of the Petal Throne and Swords &
    Glory, where Barker went through the printed pages and manually added
    accent marks.) The text is crisp and readable, but no optical character
    recognition has been applied.

    TÉKUMEL RESOURCES
    • Start with Tékumel, The World of the Petal Throne, its Gaming on Tékumel
    page, and its page of Tékumel links
    • Intro to Tékumel by Patrick Brady (.PDF link)
    • Empire of the Petal Throne TVTropes page
    • The Tékumel Foundation
    • Brett Slocum's Tékumel Site
    • James Maliszewski's Tékumel-related posts at Grognardia
    • Chris Kutalik of the Hydra Collective (a frequent Bundle contributor) has
    lots of good Tékumel material on the Hill Cantons blog
    • Howard Fielding's blog, The Tékumel Project
    • Tékumel Collecting

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