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.  

Will the True Grognard Please Stand Up?

Preparing a series of posts on Heritage and Ral Partha minis--and my pre-D&D childhood lust for all things lead and 25mm from foot to head--I stumbled on these vids.

Note that all the figures are individually based still, not even on stands or movement trays, meaning that for all the hours (days?) spent setting up there really is no way to even conveniently move them around, let alone use them in a tabletop.

There really are times when I truly miss the bat-shit obsessiveness of historical miniatures.

The Hydra Cooperative is Abornin'

The rpg publishing coop is a breath away from lifting off—no, no that's not right it fired up engines and left a stream of mist days ago as it roared away.

Co-op membership is now a little over 40 and covers a wide-range of some of the most creative people I know in the hobby. Game designers, artists, editors, writers, programmers, bloggers and many wearing several of those hats are now all pitching in on over 15 projects.

And what a mind-bendingly cool assortment of projects are lined up including such things as a Stormbringer first edition automated generator (to be fitted to my hack project), an Oriental Adventures retro-clone, boardgames, miniatures rules (By This Axe I Rule), hexcrawls, megadungeons, automated gaming tools, and even a number of full-fledged games. We even have one or two possible large-scale projects in the hopper.

Formal organization is scrambling behind all that activity trying to keep up and make sure we are on the path to become a coop that is more than the sum of its parts. We do officially have a name, the Hydra Cooperative, and now several very nifty logo variations to be voted on.

Over the weekend the first formal proposal of our organizational structure and timeline was floated. Which is all to mean that in the next few weeks you are likely to see it cohere as a bona fide cooperative.

We still have room inside our big tent. If you missed the first push, but are still interested in such a project, drop me a line at kutalik at the gmail dot the com and tell us why you'd like to be a member and what you think you can bring to the table. Onwards and upwards.

Fear of a Black Hobbit

There's very short list of things that will make me drag my ass out of bed at 4:30 am—a chance to play in Jeff Rient's Caves of Myrddin just so happens to be one of them. That said as I booted up the computer and fumbled for my coffee mug in the wee hours this morning, I kept repeating to myself “what madness is this?”

It was a sentiment that only grew as the game when on.

We had one of Zak's infamous dogs gaining intelligence through magical thrones and going on about the delights of stinky cheese and defecation (really this entire post may exist just to lead you to click here). We had us rattling chains and making hooting ghost noises to scare off the rival NPC party. We had a disintegration bow blasting a hole through the dungeon only to reveal the outer wall of a thatched cottage in a secret valley—in the dungeon—in a green-lightening filled other dimension. (A 500 exp. bonus under the exploration wonders house rules.)

We weren't in Wessex anymore, Dorothy.

And of course what would be a Google+ game with me if I didn't have random, hyper-disruptive technical problems. The connection completely pooped out for a spell and then my mike made me sound like I was speaking through cardboard according to Jeremy the Younger.

Ten minutes later  it cut out altogether for half an hour and forced me to recast my oily, Chaos-lining Provencal--all halflings are Francophones by executive writ of Jeff—hobbit as a mime. (And yes I did the rope pulling thing, the hands on the invisible window routine and more on my webcam). Though he may wear the maligned white face, a badge of ceremonial honor in the hobbit kivas of the Côte d'Azur, the Black Ratter weathered it all.

In short, it was one of best sessions I have had the chance to play in since jumping back in this hobby. If you are still sitting on the fence about joining any number of the rollicking Google+ games being run, think about unsitting--you may be missing a heap of great gaming.  

The Sense of Place in Fantasy

The deepest and most satisfying fantasy worlds are often rooted in a profound sense of place. While many, many layers of pure imagination may be piled on top, at the bottom is usually a vivid, inner terrain. That mind's eye view is often a real world place dear to that creator.

It's not a particularly original insight—you can't throw a rock at a Tolkien biography without someone yammering on about rural Oxfordshire or talk about M.A.R. Barker without mentioning his time in South Asia—but always one I am interested in exploring. I have walked around the edges of this several times here on this blog.

Recently, in the Google+ pocket universe, our resident Hawaiian, Mike Fernandez, kicked off my thought train when he wrote about a D&D setting that was taking on a divergent evolution:

“this setting...has slowly been drifting away from its medieval/fantasy roots and towards something more inspired my Polynesian culture being that it is what surrounds me...Spent most the weekend sleeping off sickness and reading all those Hawaiiana books my wife and I have collected over the last few years. I get a much more vivid picture from reading those books than I have gotten from reading books with knights and castles. Probably since Hawaiian history literally took place in the places that I grew up in.”

That recognition of a more uniquely personal touchstone for his campaign is what got me thinking the the other day about Robert E. Howard and his sense of place with Texas—and my sharing with him of that. It was interesting to watch Evan riff on it too talking about the eerie swamplands of his Southern Mississippi home and how they have influenced his campaign worlds. There must be something there there. 

The Hill Cantons is an unlikely place to be situtated in this kind of discussion. I have written many times before that it's a fairly radical bottom-up world, so much so that outside of a couple hundred miles there is only grey space (perhaps stretching out to the edge of the WorldTurtle's shell). The layers and layers piled on top have only come out of play at the table and post-facto creation on my part.

Still underneath that is that vivid mental picture—a composite one of two motherland regions of the soul that have left their mark on me. Drawing on that picture helps me immensely when faced with the inevitable wandering off the reservation that comes with sandbox play. It's not just some hokey inner fantasy world, or some hoary leftover from 19^th century Volkstum, it has some hella useful practical utility.

I never really feel at a loss because I can “see” that land so clearly. Wander into a village and a town in the area and I am seeing the white-washed tight villages of the Spis region in Slovakia that I lived in for a time. This place...

Here again...

and this...

When the players wander the hills, I see those wooded Carpathian foothills again--or more likely I see another motherland, the rolling white limestone and mountain cedar-clad Texas Hill Country, aka REH's Cimmeria of the heart.

Here...

and here...

I can't post enough pictures to keep up with the inner snapshots, but I think you get the jist.

Where's your sense of place? Where do you go back to for that wellspring? 

Or is it someplace completely else, a world of your mind freed wholly from where you have been? A nowhere and no when?

Dirty Apes, Chaos Spires, Religious Coups, and the Rumor Mill of Nowhere

The Domain Game II is rolling along, with the third session going off early Sunday morning. Playing in my pajamas with a steaming cup of java in hand was a decided—yet fun—change of pace from our night games.

As some readers will remember we are playing with my Stormbringer first edition hack, which seems to get “hackier” as I tack on mods to fit with the domain rules. (If you care about such matters Mike D. of Sword+1 will be joining me as a co-writer/designer exploring ways to move the hack into something of possible use and interest to the larger gaming public).

Since it's a slow news day here in the HC, here's the recent tidings from Nowhere.

Two weeks ago, Duke Mraz and crew conducted a reconnaissance in force of the White Ape groves in the Forest of Whispers near the river crater. They wiped out one tree-platform and noted the presence of about six other ape lairs in the two hexes before withdrawing to the holdfort. No counter-raids or other activity has come from the White Apes since that time.

Jathur with his two new recruits, Zibran and Erlend (see roster below) undertook a mission from a black lotus-addled, high-ranking officer of the Satrapy to discover what happened to his missing nephew, an officer in charge of the small mudbrick watchfort to the south of the Duke's hold (hex 69.66). The three found the fort mostly abandoned except for a strange tentacled creature in the fort's cistern, bloated bodies, and a crazed survivor.

They investigated a strange humming, bulbous glass spire back in the woods and found the missing tunic and armor (gleaming and polished) hanging in a blackwood grove next to the spire. Attempting to chop the spire down they were psychically assaulted by the ethereal ghostly form of the missing officer. Hightailing it with the armor they made their way back to the holdfort.

Meanwhile back at the village, Zibran attempted a religious coup against Ehroon and the Elder Elemental Temple of the Ever-Unfulfillable Flame.

In Zibran's belligerent words:

“[My] plan with the priest, stage a religious spectacle in the centre of the village, use Ignite to create a 'sacred flame', assert the primacy of Thakan over this weak 'flickering embers' shite, grab any scriptures he has and stick them in the flame, along with my hand, using control of self to avoid pain. Heal said hand using healing spell. Challenge the priest to do the same, mock him when he can't do so, imply his faith is weak. Debate theology with him by shouting slogans then downing shots of spirits, smashing the glasses against my forehead (control of self!), invite him to make prayers to his feeble deity and do the same, last one standing gets the temple (and hopefully the acolytes). 

When I win I declare his god dead, and sanctify the new temple of Thakan by setting fire to him, offering him the chance to cut his own throat when the suffering gets too great and painting the sign of Thakan on the back wall in a mixture of his ashes and blood. Greet the following dawn with rattling sistrums, firey libations and drunken screaming, declare to all and sundry that the sun looks brighter. They call him 'the Calm' only in comparison with the other priest of his religion.”

Though he escaped near-immolation, a visibly shaken Ehroon has since holed up in the longhouse he inhabits with his acolytes—even missing the weekly Bonfire of the Febrile and Resplendent Flame ceremony--to the scandal of his small, demoralized flock. All queries by village busy bodies have been turned away by his lovely assistants with the vague excuse that the elderly priest is “ill”. A village teen was seen leaving his longhouse with a small satchel early yesterday, before galloping off to Lyk Kutah.

Three families—all shockingly bald and of a primitive and warlike countenance—have taken up residence in the village since the incident.

The Rumor Mill

In other news from the Colony's capital: the House of the Middle Path, a local brewing guild producing the Colony's hu'uz,(a strong spirits that allegedly produce visions and madness) is offering substantial rewards for securing a source for vol, a yellow-orange shelf fungus that grows under forest canopy.

A less-than-discreet source in the sequestered Jade Quarter is saying that the eunuchs will be issuing a recall order for the Westlands Satrap. Other loose tongues hint at a possible elevation in fortune of a certain nomad in the employ of Duke Mraz.

Meanwhile on the northern border Colony patrols have made contact with a strange beetle-riding race of diminutive nomads calling themselves the Khalik Vhar, compounding fears that the Colony was in for yet another round of bush wars.

Placating the waning Sun. 

Roster Additions

Zibran the Calm (Barry B.). A priest of Thakan the Bloody Sun of Nuk-Mir, a warlike deity who requires blood to fuel the sun, preferably that of might warriors defeated in battle, but any schmuck will do in a pinch. Zibran's first task in this new land is to make converts and/or capture slaves and get himself a sacrificial altar built as fast as possible before the sun goes out.

Erlend (Patrick W.): Erlend is from the Howling Moors. He carries with him a selection of axe handles, axe heads of varying sizes, sharpening stones, and a few other accoutrements customers might want.  While Erlend can make a living this way, he is always looking for a way to make a faster profit where being large, strong, and blunt in manner are useful traits.  Adventuring seems like it might be the thing.

Elrend purchased an indentured servant, Rheged, six months prior to traveling. It is unclear if he considers the young man to be his apprentice or servant or possibly both. It is also unclear what trade, exactly, Erlend is teaching.

PCs Waiting in the Wings

Kol (Jason K). Born into a family of wealthy merchants he was sent out, as all third born sons on the island of Koz-Ath are, to seek riches in a foreign land. A tall overweight man Kol would be considered by some to be deceitful and untrustworthy, features on his native island that are considered of high value. Respect is given among his class and faith to those who can use people and situations to their advantage. Rom’Zhe, the God of the Koz-Ath merchant class, is said to give favor to those who ruthlessly extract coin and treasure by any means possible. It is not of Rom'Zhe concern if others are exploited.

Ochar of the Endless Hills (Sean N). Ochar hails from the Endless Hills, A land of constantly feuding merchant clans. Ochar himself belonged to the Deiru family, a fairly low caste clan of butchers and leatherworkers. He fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful Yani of the Xotheo family. Normally Yani would be far above Ochar, as her family works in metal. However, as fate would have it, she was enslaved by the evil Count Kamyr that villain retreated from his foes into exile. Ochar's path seems clear. All he has to do is travel to Nowhere, kill Count Kamyr, rescue the beauteous Yani, and make his fortune. Not necessarily in that order.