A brilliant illustration by Russ for one of my Virtual Reality gamebooks, Necklace of Skulls. He had to Tipp-Ex out the little girl's face in the background and redraw it because the art director said the original looked "too oriental". I had just returned from honeymoon in Mexico and Guatemala, where I had seen a lot of Mayan kids, and Russ's original drawing was in fact spot-on.The same art director on the same series made Russ redraw the Gargan sisters in Heart of Ice. He had them in army-style muscle t-shirts and she wanted them wearing something big and baggy. Which made no sense at all; they were hardbody soldiers and proud of it, not the sort to favor dungarees that gave them the outline of an old floor cushion. If we turn Heart of Ice into an e-gamebook, that'll be the first thing I fix.
Coming up in the next eight weeks or so: the floodgates are open and you'll be seeing masses of Abraxas concept art and world background, followed by more of the Invaders & Ancients books including a never-before-published role-playing scenario. Plus lots more of Russ's amazing art on those and another couple of projects that we've got bubbling away at the back of the Fabled Lands Studio. Less than a week to go now before that all kicks off.
I'm eager to see those original pictures !
ReplyDeleteSadly, they no longer exist. Russ literally had to white over the first version of the pen work and redraw. If we could find the original pictures, though, and subject them to Turin Shroud-style x-ray analysis, maybe then...
ReplyDeleteI have posted a sketch version on my last blog post.
DeleteWasn't that image used in "The Eye of All-Seeing Wonder"? The meso-american features would have fitted there for the Tekumel background.
ReplyDeleteMark
Well spotted, it was indeed used for EoASW #2. I wrote Necklace of Skulls after getting back from honeymoon in Mexico, Guatemala and British Honduras. (Wiki says British Honduras is now Belize, but it was certainly British Honduras when we were there.) And then when Russ did that picture I immediately thought how it would work brilliantly for Tekumel too.
ReplyDeleteI'm just on a Tekumel kick at the moment, so I'm re-reading everying I can find. I don't suppose there's the merest chance of any more E0ASW or the like? It was a great production. Tekumel seems to be growing in popularity a bit again with the various miniature figure productions going on, and people re-discovering the old EPT rules. Maybe even a UK Tekumel get-together? Might get 3 people and a Renyu?
ReplyDeleteMark
Tekumel suffered from too many rule systems, most of them very expensive and aimed only at fans, where what they needed was one affordable book that introduced the world and got you adventuring. Steve Jackson US wanted to do GURPS Tekumel and offered a minimum of 3 books, but Prof Barker didn't like the deal and there it died. I hope the figurines give it a new lease of life; it's a great world and Jamie and I (and Oliver Johnson and Mark Smith) have spent a big chunk of our lives there!
ReplyDeleteYes, this is very true. It does seem to be somewhat cursed. I was recently re-reading Tirikelu in EOASW, which I like as a system. I'm currently trying to tidy up and extend Sandy Petersen's BRP/RQ version, basically because I like BRP! I'd heard about the GURPS version, shame it didn't go further. GOO EPT was ok but needed support which of source it didn't get (although it still theoretically could).
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking for ages that a one book of introductory/campaign starting Tekumel adventures would be a great thing. Michael Cule's Welcome to Jakalla, and Barry Blatt's These Mean Streets (from Visitations of Glory) tweaked a bit and some new stuff added are what I'm planning to inflict on some new players in a few weeks.
I don't think Sandy Petersen played Tekumel all that much, but I agree with you that RQ is a good choice of system for the setting. All they ever really needed to do was go back to the original EPT and rework it using GURPS or RQ. (That's why I called my system Tirikelu, in fact; it's the Tsolyani world for the Petal Throne.) Oh, and invest in Book of Ebon Bindings and Deeds of the Ever-Glorious if you can find them. All the other books are a waste of money.
ReplyDeleteHm, I didn't know that Tirikelu was the name for the Petal Throne - thanks! I have Ebon Bindings and DotEG, I agree great books. I have to admit that I think even S&G Vol 2 and Gardasiyal are not bad - there's lots of info hidden away in there if you already know something about Tekumel, although they could have done with more (well, some, in the case of Gardasiyal!).
ReplyDeleteGlad you approve of RQ. Now just to get it hacked together...
cheers,
Mark
Actually, Mark, you're right - I'd forgotten the S&G sourcebook, which is packed with useful material. Many's the time my players would announce their intention to go off to Sokatis or wherever, and a few paragraphs in the S&G sourcebook would give me the basis for an entire evening's gaming.
ReplyDeleteThe snag is that the sourcebook didn't come with an index (!) but you can buy a fan-published one separately. That's pretty much how it goes for most Tekumel stuff: great but not at all user-friendly!
Btw what I think stands out as Tekumel's great strength is that the world is so richly detailed that players do have real freedom of choice. They don't have to stick to the rails of a scenario, they can go anywhere and get embroiled in any story.
If you're going to be using RQ, then for magic I recommend using the EPT spells as the essentials and cherry-pick any from S&G that you feel add to the atmosphere. We spent a couple of years using S&G spells until we all agreed that "I'm casting Healing G9" just didn't have the panache of "I'm casting a Doomkill".
I have the Different Worlds S&G books, which I think the index doesn't work for!
ReplyDeleteThe detail is great, you're right, but it also seems to put quite a lot onto the GM to be "up to speed" on it all! Although I've read a fair bit, I'm still not sure that I could wing stuff off the top of my head at the moment. I like the fact that you can play at any level of society from dung-clearing clans right up to Sea Blue, and from straight dungeon bashes through to other-planar travel. I'd like to see a bit more info about the secrets, but I can see that the Professor has an interest in keeping them secret...
Spells, yes, I think that's the way to go. The Shaman spells are the most fiddly to convert, as most Temple spells just get better at doing the same thing at higher levels, but the Shaman spells do completely different things at different levels. The names from S&G and Gardasiyal are so very evocative.
I think it's important to get players on-board with establishing the atmosphere.
cheers,
Mark
Art is always a good way of invoking an atmosphere. I have been pleased to find, over the years, that a really good game will begin to attract players on the strength of the story and characters alone. Personally, I find that to mark the critical step from 'OCD rules monkey fodder' to 'entertainment'. Rules may (sometimes) help resolve decisions, but most games rules are insanely complex - they appeal to the far end the obsessive male personality spectrum, actively repelling 90% of the human race. As soon as a game session becomes a discussion of 'what the rules say', my view is that the game and the rules have both failed.
ReplyDeleteSo, when asked, I'd always tend to head for 'rules lite' or 'freeform' games with the simplest numerical wrapper. EPT suffered terribly from complex (and contradictory) rules mechanics in its early life, and that was compounded by factionalism in the heart of the EPT community. I always saw EPT as a 'rules free' game, and play it most happily in that form.
Which is back to the art of it. Who is not delighted by handling the Book of Ebon Bindings with its embossed cover? Who is not engrossed in the dust, heat, complexity and stinking humanity of Tekumel? Hearing a speech delivered in Tsolyani is a life changing moment, seeing the scripts sets the imagination on fire with ideas of secret knowledge and powerful religions. The art brings our imagination to play, and allows us to quickly ascribe motivation, cause and personality to the characters we meet in the game.
And before we leave EPT, what about the wonderful spell descriptions? Regardless of the dice roll mechanics, those spells stand out as a phenomenal work of imagination, worth the price of the rules book, even if you throw the rules away!