These messages are the accumulation of the messages that were sent out on 
the Blue Room email list between May 1995 and June 2000.  A large portion 
of the information is directly from Professor M.A.R Barker. When the list 
members joined during the time the list was active, they agreed to refrain 
from sharing this data with non list members.  When the list ended, it was 
urged that the data be made available to non-list Tekumel fans, and it 
seemed like a good idea all around.

I only ask that if you download these digests, or have received them in 
some other way, please respect the agreements the list members made, and 
refrain from passing them around and instead point people to the Tekumel 
web site, www.tekumel.com so that they can download them for themselves, 
and see all the other material available on the Tekumel.com web site.

Many Thanks.
Chris Davis
Moderator:  Blue Room mailing list 

Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 
CC BY-NC-ND

BLUE ROOM ARCHIVE -- VOLUME 31  [30 January 1999 - 28 March 1999]

901: More on Peeking
902: Gods of the Pe Choi
903: More on Animals
904: Chaigari Maps
905: More on Pronunciation
906: Books and Distant Lands
907: How Professor Barker is Seen on Tekumel
908: More Observations of Current Events
909: More Creatures
910: Game Aid
911: Hlutrgu as Player Characters
912: Ssu and EveCon
913: Fenul Q&As
914: Disease Transmission
915: Various Subjects
916: Paper on Tekumel
917: Weapon History and Physics
918: Tekumelani Artist
919: Non-human's Star Systems
920: The World of Petal Throne Update
921: Administrative Notes
922: Professor's Character
923: Convention and Miscellaneous News
924: More on Disease Transmission
925: More on Non-human's Star Systems
926: Upcoming Convention Tekumel Events
927: Pronunciation CD
928: Guardians of the Sojourner
929: Medals and Awards
930: Hlutrgu as PCs Reply

*******************************

//901

[Moderator's Note:  Chuck Monson, Geof Stone, Chaz Tompkins, Bob Alberti and ]
[                   Joe Zottola comments on peeking at Professor Barker's    ]
[                   Tekumel goodies.                                         ]

Chuck writes.
Having in the distant past been privileged to visit the upper sanctum at the
Professor's house, I can attest that what any rational person would look at is
NOT some stats from a card in any cabinet one might discover there.  
And one should take heed of the numerological significance of the Professor's
own astrological chart hanging on the wall (when I last saw it)....  Immense
power held in check by a star on a horizon wasn't it? 

Oh, by the way, I remember a certain sword with an inscription not readily
determined at the time.  Was its provenance discovered and translated?
[Moderator's Note:  I don't know!                                            ]
--

Geof writes.
This is a subject I've often wondered about over the years.  Never in my
many years playing did I ever seen Phil reference any note other that a
small scrap of paper where he keeps track of the date from the last session.
Yet, he remembers the details of encounters that happened years prior with
amazing clarity.  (Such events having the habit of coming back to haunt the
characters later.) I have a pretty good memory, for Tekumel-related trivia
in particular, but mine is not nearly as good.  Thus, I would be quite
surprised if a large set of notes existed.

Even if such a tome did exist, it would likely NOT be in English (Urdu,
perhaps?).  The boxes of cards laying out in the basement have non-english
notations on some of the more interesting ones.  Now, some sneaky player
studying Urdu just to be able to read the cards, thats an interesting rumor.
(I have often wondered if this would turn out to be a great joke on whoever
went to the trouble.)

It would be interesting, some day, to know how accurate some of the
conclusions, predictions and such made by the players actually turn out to
be, though it would spoil the fun 'knowing'.  I think that there are a
number of players that have a good handle on things, at least in an abstract
sense, but of course, there are always the misdirections and such that cloud
such 'knowledge'.  In any case, it sure is a load of fun trying to figure it
all out, even though the temples, empires, etc. are always trying to prevent
it!

Osumetlu hi Vu'urtesh
Clan of the Golden Bough

On assignment in the wastelands of far western Mu'ugalavya

p.s.  Hi Phil!  Hi everyone!
--

Chaz writes.

Ah yes, the *dark* secrets hidden in the filing cabinet.

My first exposure to EPT was in high school as a miscreant and member-at-large
of the Flying Buffalo Club.

The mainstay of the club's activities was nuclear destruction, but we spent many
hours after school slaying Ssu and running away from the OAL.

In any case, the teacher who sponsored the club relegated one drawer in his
filing cabinet for club archives, including such important documents as which
player character launched ICBM's from the Kerguelen Islands and thus
initiated.....

I digress.

It was the LAW that only the 'Pharoah' and the 'High Priest' could access the
archives.  To enforce the law, a combination lock was placed upon the bare
handle of the cabinet drawer.  Before the drawer was pulled, the  lock was
dutifully opened.  Every time.  It was done with secretive gestures and scowls
at curious onlookers.  The combination was not let out.

During my junior year, the sponsor of the club took sick, and was replaced for a
few days by a substitute.  At some point he needed to access some of the
attendance sheets held in the second drawer of the file.  He waited until the
following period, when the class included the Pharoah, and asked him to unlock
the file, since he -the sub- didn't know the combination.

For all of my days in the classroom, I never learned a more valuable lesson.
--

Bob writes.
Additional notes on "peeking:"

1)  The person bragging about knowing "secrets" was also bragging about
executing a gross breach of ethics, hospitality and etiquette.  Even if he
or she did not actually do it, their judgement in making such a boast is
questionable...

2)  Professor Barker writes his secrets in Urdu.  Well, at least I think
they're secrets -- I can't read Urdu, so maybe they say "This'll keep the
snoopers busy!"  And of course his Urdu is of the same style used by
Southeast Asian doctors to write prescriptions, so even native readers
would have trouble with it...

3)  The Professor's comment about secrets being "in plain sight" is
frustratingly accurate.  I can't count the number of Homer Simpson "D'oh!"s
I've uttered when something astonishingly obvious became apparent in
hindsight.  Anyone who doubts me should go back and read Man of Gold and
remember that it was written ten Terran years before Dhichune seized the
throne...
--

Joe writes.

In regards to Peeking,
it has long been rumored that there is a Tome in Phil's attic that details
the time-line of Tekumel this has never been confirmed...

Phil does indeed have the "npc cards" in the basement and they are
accessible to the people in the basement..However there is one problem and
that is that on any of the "important cards" with the exception of the name,
any important info on the card is on  written in Urdu.....

Arumel Hichankolel
Joe Zottola
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//902

[Moderator's Note:  Al Muscielewicz offers to write up some info about the  ]
[                   Pe Choi.  We'd love to have it Al.                      ]

Noble Ones:

Hmmm...perhaps now that I have been revived I should write up a little about
"The Garden", that could be the Pe Choi's "heaven" or "home planet".  It could
be the Hh-kk-ssa that is mentioned by Bob.  But when helping my Pe Choi friend
find this place he referred to it as "the garden".   In the gardens of Onchash
Chairon, they have a plant that came from this garden and was tended by four
(?) Pe Choi.  I took a clipping back to Prince R who is an quite the collector
of rare plants.  I have notes of all of this somewhere in my warehouse in
Jakalla.  Matlor, where are you when I need you?  You can never find a major
domo when you require the services of one.  Oh well I suppose I could ask one
of the spies if they have found them.  They seem to have found out everything
else of mine, including the "gift" from that nice little priestess of
Dlamelish, but that is another story.....  for now, goodbye.

Tekunu hi'Qolyelmu  
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//903

[Moderator's Note:  Mike Wayne sends some info about Dogs in his campaign.  ]
[                   I add some experiences from Phil's campaign with a      ]
[                   friend that I made.                                     ]

Dogs (and Kuni's) on Tekumel revisited:

Wow! Lots of opinions on this subject.  Let me state a few
facts/opinions/assumptions that I'm using in developing this facet of my
version of Tekumel.  Some of these are in response to the various items
mentioned on this list.  As always it may not conform to the Real
Tekumel.

1) Dogs and wolves are cross fertile and do not produce mules (ie the
offspring are also fertile).  There is a small but dedicated set of fans
of these wolf-dogs on Terra.

2) Wolves and dogs (of any breed) are, so far, indistinguishable on the
basis of DNA.  Chihuahua's look just like Irish wolfhounds under the
microscope.

3) Wolves are not ancestors of dogs, they are both offshoots of a common
ancestor.  Common knowledge for years has held that dogs are
domesticated wolves,  but some recent research in various fields is
beginning to challenge this view.

4) Evidence has shown that dogs, when crossbred, tend to look the same.
They end up about 30 to 45 pounds, with a curly (spitz type) tail, and a
brown/black/tan coat like a German shepherd's.

5) In theory hip displasia could exist on Tekumel, I've decided that it
doesn't. I SAID THAT HIP DISPLASIA DOES NOT EXIST ON TEKUMEL!!.  I don't
like hip displasia in the real world, I'm not going to have on the
travels in my mind.  Besides Tekumel folk at one time had superb genetic
engineering and could have eliminated it.  Furthermore, in this world,
evidence exists that HD is the result of line breeding and failure to
cull in dogs bred especially for show.  German shepherd lines bred for
work have far lower occurrence of HD than lines bred for show.

6) Dogs DO exist on Tekumel.  I don't have my books handy, but if I
remember right, they are listed for sale in Gardisiyal.  I think I
remember them being mentioned for sale in the market in Adventures in
Tekumel vol 1.  I know they are mentioned in the hunting adventure in
Adventures in Tekumel vol 2 as being  'lead by muscular men in black
with leashes'.  Whether these men were just servants or members of a
clan specializing in dogs, or something like a cult, I don't know yet.
Anybody know?

7) While I don't remember for certain, I believe that some early post
Cataclysm experiments with Airedales and border collies may have been
responsible in part for the predjudice against blue eyes.  In an attempt
to breed a Chlen herding dog, Airedales and Borders were crossed with
the result being a large dog (150 pounds) with blue eyes (from the
collies).  They also possessed a keen if very quirky intelligence.  They
were smart enough to escape captivity and establish themselves in the
wild.  Legends persist of these wild dogs that are similar to the
'elves' or 'brownies' of this world.  They have been reported to do such
things as start chlen stampedes in the middle of a battle, or break into
wine houses and drink all the beer.  Like the dolphins of Terra they
have been known to protect small children in the wild. I'm sure someone
out there also has legends of these semi-mythical beasts.

8) In reading Adventures on Tekumel vol 2 I came across a short scene
about the "under people" of Tekumel.  Supposedly a loose confederation
of semi intelligent folks like the Renyu.  Any body run across this in
their travels?

[Moderator's Note:  Yes.  You can read all about it in MoG.  Harsan meets a]
[                   female Pe Choi whose mission is to contact the "Under  ]
[                   People" of Tekumel.  I also had personal experience    ]
[                   with them when I played in a Thursday night game.  A   ]
[                   creature usually considered an animal, a Mnor.  It     ]
[                   provided food, and accompanied me to my destination,   ]
[                   also staying on indefinitely.  As you can imagine, my  ]
[                   character became quite attached to his friend.  I took ]
[                   to wearing it draped around my shoulders.  It became   ]
[                   clear just what a good companion he was when some      ]
[                   creatures considered monsters were warned away by him. ]
[                   I went walking in places infested with Epeng, without  ]
[                   much fear.  This "Under People" thing is a very        ]
[                   interesting topic and could enrich regular adventures  ]
[                   in your ongoing Tekumel campaign.  Even the Ngoro in   ]
[                   MoG responded to the quest of contacting the "Under    ]
[                   People" (Harsan ended up involved in continuing the    ]
[                   task when the Pe Choi died (if I remember correctly).  ]

9) Based on others input and on the history of Tekumel, I suspect that
dogs on Tekumel fall into 2 rough groups.  One is the working dogs
familiar to Terra as I have previously described.  While changed from
their Terran form (imagine packs of Great Dane sized Rottwielers used
for herding Chlen) they couldn't be to changed because a) they still
have jobs to do and form follows function b) they genotype only changes
so far (Great Danes and Chihuahua's are examples of extremes on earth,
and both suffer from several complexes that drastically curtail their
life an working ability).

The other group is those animals that were engineered genetically
following the Cataclysm.  The ability to do this has since been (mostly)
lost, but is responsible for certain characteristics common in all
canids on Tekumel, such as enhanced heat tolerance and a (somewhat)
opposable thumb allowing them simple grasping and climbing abilities.
(NB This ability exists on Earth in a breed called Puffinhounds who use
it to climb cliffs in search of puffin eggs.)  Animals in this group
tend to be rare and have very unusual capabilities.  I look forward to
hearing folks descriptions of encounters with these strange beasts.

10) 60,000 years is not really long enough, I believe, for HUGE changes
to be brought about be evolution alone, but it is long enough for large
changes if "sparked" by even limited early days genetic engineering.  I
really like the idea of intelligent cats out in the bush (and I bet they
have psychic abilities!).

11) While 60,000 is short on an evolutionary scale it is a HUGE amount
of time to develop the knowledge of animal training and so this is a
very sophisticated skill, if not considered Noble. I recently lost my
copy of "The excellent training manual for the Majestic and Graceful
Kuni"  (which seems to have a bibliographic reference to Alex the Parrot
who uses sentences and his trainer Dr. Irene Pepperburg--great post
whoever sent it!)  but I seem to remember that Kuni's have a limited
counting ability (1 to 5 and many) and the ability to remember
individual faces.  In the companion book "The grammar, syntax, and
vocabulary of the the Sky Emperor known as the Kuni" I believe that the
subset of Tsolyani used for Kuni's is about 400 words. A World Book
article I read several years ago says that about 800 words is required
for a complete language.  So Kuni language is probably about as reliable
as a 2 or 3 year old child.  I wonder if they have ever been used as a
message courier service like homing pigeons?

Later!


Micheal K. Wayne
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//904

[Moderator's Note:  Andrew Lorince wants to compare Chaigari Campaign notes ]
[                   with Chris Vickers.  It would be interesting to see how ]
[                   two established campaigns in the same area had          ]
[                   developed.                                              ]

reading chris vickers message regarding chaigari info posted by michal
schwartz.
it might be interesting to compare are maps and resource info.
yuninash hi'ancholbel
governor of fenul
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//905

[Moderator's Note:  Many folk comment on the pronunciation thread.  Here are ]
[                   messages from Scott Maxwell, Brion Oliver, Chaz Tompkins,]
[                   

>I have a WAV file made from an old tape that originally was included in the
>Tsolyani Language books on my web site
>(http://www.io.com/~slocum/tekumel.html).

I have a PC with 30,000 (give or take 29,995) programs to run .WAV files and
all of them say "Unknown file format.  Pisses me off because I once got the
sucker to run on a 286 machine I owned many years ago.

--
Brion Oliver writes.
Greets.

If you are going to invest the time to record the Professor for
pronunciation posterity, you really should look into some kind of
digital recording. A tape recorder and magnetic tape will not offer
anywhere near the sound quality, longevity, and ease of
duplication/internet distribution that a digital recording will.

I'm not a sound geek myself, but have friends who are. A personal
digital recorder/player can be purchased, certainly, for less than
$300, and possibly more like $150. 

You shouldn't have to purchase one, though. I'm sure cheap rentals are
available at local sound stores, and even better, people who are into
this technology are like gamers -- they love their hobby and can think
of nothing better to do than do cool things with it. It shouldn't be
too hard by advertising at local music/sound stores to find someone
who knows what they are doing, with the proper equipment, who would
make a professional-quality recording of the Professor available for
free or a minimal cost. Or look for a music student at the University
who could use the project as an independent study project at school or
something.

You basically just need a portable DAT or Mini-Disk recorder, and a
good-quality microphone. If you do try to recruit someone to assist,
I'd recommend checking their work -- anyone with the money to buy the
equipment can call themselves an audiophile or even a sound engineer,
and in the theater world I've encountered people with expensive
equipment who didn't know what they were doing and produced awful
sound. 

Once you have something, let me know at brion@sirius.com -- one of my
best friends is the sound engineer for Real Audio and could offer
assistance with compression and processing for transmission over the
internet. He might even be able to find a host site for Real Audio
broadcast.

Don't waste your time with someone's portable tape recorder. Really.

Brion
--

Chaz Tompkins writes.

I hesitate to (and in fact won't) make the offer before I have the equipment in
place and the bugs worked out, but I am in line to get a new CD recorder.
Supposedly, the better models come with recording software that allows one to
easily edit out hiss, pop, and other such sound maladies.

If we (collectively) can figure a way to record a proper pronunciation guide, I
would be happy to transfer it to CD and distribute it at cost.

I'll update the list when the capability to record is confirmed.

Chaz
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//906

[Moderator's Note:  Professor Barker answers miscellaneous questions from ]
[                   Martin Howard.                                        ]


>   1.Would it be possible to provide some other book titles in languages
>other than Tsolyani? Subject matter is irrelevant, as they would be used
>as clan treasure, tomb finds, or non-player-characters study/hobby
>materials, etc.

There are huge libraries in many of the great cities of Tekumel! Just
giving titles at random seems quite impossible -- like asking your
university librarian to "name a few" of his/her books. Some histories are
named in the history sections of the Sourcebook, some demonological 
treatises are named in "The Book of Ebon Bindings," a few military treatises 
are mentioned in the article "Military Formations of the nations of the
Universe," and other titles are scattered around elsewhere. Almost every
title you can think of has been used over the millennia. Even "War and
Peace" (/qadardalikoi lel mazikikh/; this is not by a Russian novelist,
however, but is a thick volume dealing with political strategy (like
Machiavelli), written by Nikome hiQurondu, a priest of Karakan in Khirgar,
in 2003 A.S. I think Jakalla and Bey Su both have copies. The Governor's
library at Tumissa has a precis and a series of extracts. It has been
translated into Mu'ugalavyani in 2217.

>   2.How much is generally known about the human settlements on the
>Southern Continent [Naqsai lands] - by the Tsolyani - and, is this
>information restricted by the Imperium at all?

There are sailors' tales and reports from a very few wanderers and
explorers who have actually visited there. Not much else. These are all
archived at the Chancery in Avanthar. They are not "secret" or
"restricted," but a Tsolyani library is hard to use since it is
uncatalogued and depends upon the encyclopaedic memory of its librarians.
Most books also do not have titles printed on the spine, nor do many of
them have title pages. You open a scroll or a pile of dusty pages and read
the author's introductory words. A book usually begins with praise to the
author's personal deity, then mentions his name, his lineage, his clan, and
his patrons (if any). After that, with interminable elegance and formality,
he may get around to saying what he wrote and what the book contains. At
the end of this discussion he may sum it up with something like: "... And
for these reasons I hasve called this execrable scribbling  of mine by the
name 'Green Pillars of Delight' (a treatise on growing Mash-fruit trees).

>   3.Who lives in the Great Desert of Galai and the Plain of Towers,
>which lies beyond? Are they a known ethnic group or has this yet to be
>determined?

The Great Desert is practically uninhabited, except for the hostile
Churstalli; see the Mu'ugalavyani army list and the Bestiary. Beyond lie
wastelands and the barrens of the Plain of Towers. Beyond these, farther
west, are the relatively fertile, forested reaches of Tane (accent on the
"e" -- don't pronounce it like "lane" or "Shane!") There is an article on
Tane in one of the older journals, and I think it was reprinted later in
one of the "nest of..." volumes. Small villages and settlements of mutually
hostile tribes dwell in Tane and herd the great bumbling Bazhaq beasts,
using them for food, riding, their skins for warmth and garments, and their
dung for fuel. Still off to the west, at the very extremity of the
continent is a settlement of great Black Ssu. THese are inimcal to
humankind.

Regards,

Phil
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//907

[Moderator's Note:  Professor Barker answers a question about how the      ]
[                   residents of Tekumel see him.                          ]

>In the context of this conversation, supposing that the Professor is
>'seeing' an alternate dimension, I'm curious about how the denizens of
>Tekumel's plane of existence view the Professor. I seem to recall having
>read something by him in which he discusses this, but cannot recall it. Are
>they aware of him, and by extension, us and our plane? If so, are they aware
>that there is a faction of people on our plane who study theirs by enacting
>a game?

>Does the Professor ever talk about this stuff, or does he remain quiet about
>how he channels things Tekumelani? Or is he himself unsure of where this
>stuff comes from?

>brion oliver

My players have sometimes discussed this with me. I cannot provide an
answer. What I do is to concentrate on the area of Tekumel that I want, let
my mind go blank, and "see" its geography, its cities, its peoples. If I
want to get specific, I "zoom in" and look at an individual village,
clanhouse, or even a person. I have no trouble in "seeing" these things,
and if the player party ever passes that way again, they'll find only
logical changes and developments. Just last night, Lord Sanjesh hiKirisaya
returned from a long adventure to his home near Usenanu. He found his old
clanmaster gone, replaced by a younger man; he found the High Scholar
Priest in his temple of Thumis had died and the post has not yet been
filled -- and a lot of other minor changes.

As for how the Tekumelani see *me,* I should note that I am invisible and
intangible to them -- like an "eye in the sky." When I want to play on
Tekumel, I have to choose a "character," just like other gamers do. My
earliest "player"-character is still alive and prospering (and i won't tell
you where he is now). I had another, later "player"-character: a Livyani
named Tarshaz Arrio, whose home is in Sraon. He's a younger brother of the
Arrio mentioned in "Man of Gold." Interestingly, what *I* see and what
Tarshaz sees are quite different: *I* can tell you who is waiting behind a
certain door; Tarshaz is limited by his own perceptions. He thus has no
special powers that are not covered by spells or talents.

Regards,
Phil
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//908

[Moderator's Note:  Peter Timko adds to the Observations about Current Events.]

Well, well, well.

    Mr. Snead may be onto something here, methinks. I recall certain 
adventures in the seas near Haida Pakalla where magic kind of didn't 
work, and even eyes were a bit off their respective games. Then, of 
course, there is my Haida Pakallan friend who discovered after his 
arrival in Tsolyanu, sorcery didn't work well in his presence, and 
made himself the even of a few Priests of the Worm.

   Anyway, I would suggest that since there are these other 
magically "dead" zones, the Tsolyani Imperium is at work on the 
problem, perhaps in a round about way. Let us not forget who sits 
upon the petal throne in Avanthar, and that the slippery Rereshqala 
is also ensconced somewhere in Avanthar. Wheels within wheels, I'd 
bet. Let the Red Hats try to reverse 2020, and I have a feeling some 
black counters will be revealed with great suddenness up there in the 
Chakas.

Peter
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//909

[Moderator's Note:  Peter Huston offers up some more creatures from his   ]
[                   campaigns.                                            ]

Some creatures from Ye Olde Tekumel Campaign 

This time I'm just going to go through and paste in a few things here and
there. 

The mock-Tsolyani names may or may not be appropriate - probably not - I
developed these things some time ago. (Although I now have the language
book, I don't claim any skill in its use.) Perhaps the names are in some
language of the far side of Tekumel where these things live.  Please
remember the bulk of these were created while I was in high school, so go
easy on them (and me) if they don't seem absolutely brilliant.  I've
included EPT stats. 

Ankheng - Yes, folks I went through the  AD&D monster manual and placed
this in the campaign. Make of that what you will. It looked sufficiently
alien to me. 

Name: Ankheng 
# of attacks: 1
Damage per attack: 2-16 (plus 1-4 per turn) 
Intelligence:  None 
Special Attacks: Squirt Acid (6 dice) 
Number Appearing: 1-6
Armor: 3
Movement: 12 (6) 
Hit Dice: 3-8
% in Lair: 15 
Treasure: c 
Number in Lair: 1-6 

Chneldro- A mutant offshoot of the mutant Chnel race. - inspired by that
spiffy Frank Frazetta Conan painting. Bigger, smarter, and much less
common. Not too huge. Only about 7 or 8 feet tall.   

Name: Chneldro 
# of attacks: 2
Damage per attack: 1-4 
Intelligence: low 
Special Attacks: weapons 
Number Appearing: 1-8 
Armor: 8
Movement: 12
Hit Dice: 4
% in Lair: 10
Treasure: c
Number in Lair: 2-8 

Dreefla - A large creature - Hippo legs, buffalo body, large, long tail with
club like knob on end , fanged tusk wart hog head, very long neck. The
Dreefla will only attack if surprise is involved or if it is approached. If
it is left alone it will leave others alone. 

Name: Dreefla 
# of attacks: 2
Damage per attack: 1-6 plus stun/ 1-6  
Intelligence: semi-intelligent 
Special Attacks: 50% chance that a tail strike stuns for 1-3 turns. 
Number Appearing: 1-3 
Armor: 7
Movement: 6
Hit Dice: 6d6 + 2 
% in Lair: 60 
Treasure: c
Number in Lair: 2-5 

Snelyu - A snake like creature with a suction cup on it's back and a
poisonous stinger on the tip of it's tail. It likes to hang in dark places
in caves, forests, the underworld, swamps and ruins. If  startled it
attacks intruders with it's tail. 

Name: Snelyu 
# of attacks: 1
Damage per attack: 1-6 / 1-4 +poison  
Intelligence: Animal 
Special Attacks: tail with poison sting 
Number Appearing: 2-8 
Armor: 6
Movement: 5
Hit Dice: 1d6 +3 
% in Lair: 40 
Treasure: - 
Number in Lair: 3-30 

Crocodile - An import from some place called "Earth". I thought that some
crocodiles would sit nicely and enjoy basking in the sun of Tekumel. I
thought they'd really like it in Livyanu. Why deprive them? 

Name: 2 
# of attacks: 2 
Damage per attack: 1-4/ 2-12
Intelligence: Animal 
Special Attacks: - 
Number Appearing: 2-24 
Armor: 6
Movement: 6/12
Hit Dice: 3
% in Lair: -
Treasure: -
Number in Lair: -

Hyashniya - Very rare, succubus vampire woman, very beautiful, her kiss
drains an EPT level from the players. She has the following powers: ESP,
telepathy, control person, shape change to any humanoid of her size, create
darkness with a 20' radius, and Infravision. She is classified as undead. 

Name: Hyashiniya 
# of attacks: 2
Damage per attack: 1-3/ 1-3 
Intelligence: Exceptional 
Special Attacks: Energy drain 
Number Appearing: 1
Armor: 6
Movement: 12
Hit Dice: 6
% in Lair: 5%
Treasure: I, Q, 
Number in Lair: 1

Fasinalishu - I believe I stole this from a D&D article in The Dragon
magazine. I'm not sure. Please remember these were not intended for
publication and written many years ago so if you find "borrowing" just tell
me and I'll fess up.  But here goes. Hoofed animal, badger's head (metal
plates for teeth) yellow and gray color, leathery skin, carnivorous and
they enjoy human flesh. They're rather cunning and have a voice imitation
ability similar to a parrot's. They enjoy yelling "help. Help." And eating
the helper. 

Name: Fasinalishu 
# of attacks: 1/ 2 
Damage per attack: 2-7/1-6/ 1-6 
Intelligence: Semi-intelligent 
Special Attacks: Voice imitation 
Number Appearing: 1-4 
Armor: 7
Movement: 18 
Hit Dice: 5
% in Lair: 30%
Treasure: - 
Number in Lair: 1-6 

Hypklikyani - Okay. I know fully well I "borrowed" this one from the great
story "Sand Kings" which has since been filmed as an episode of the Outer
Limits and shows up in some video rental stores. 
Giant, ant-like, telepathic, hive mind. Sometimes used as pets as they
will worship their owner. Roll on NPC table for reaction to strangers. They
come in three sizes. 40% small, 35% medium, 25% large. A hive of the small
ones has a value of 5d6 x 10Kaitars value to a pet shop owner. 

Name: Hypklikyani  
# of attacks: 1/1/1 
Damage per attack: 1/ 1-2/ 1-3
Intelligence:  Animal/ Semi-intelligent/ Intelligent 
Special Attacks: - 
Number Appearing: 3-18 
Armor: 6
Movement: 15 
Hit Dice: 1/3  /  / 1 
% in Lair: 80%
Treasure: * 
Number in Lair : 5d10 / 10d / 12 d 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Huston 
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher L. Davis       Systems and Network Administrator
The Principia                   PHONE:  (314)-434-2100
13201 Clayton Road                FAX:  (314)-275-3538
St. Louis, MO  63131         INTERNET:  cld@prin.edu

//910

[Moderator's Note:  Peter Huston offers up some more campaign aid stuff.    ]
[                   This submission is a bit more rulesy than I like, but I ]
[                   decided to include it.  Next time I'll probably opt to  ]
[                   announce it and put it in the contrib conrner on the ftp]
[                   site.  This message should be viewed using a mono-spaced]
[                   font (otherwise the columns will be messed up).         ]

Random Hexagon Interesting Item Generator

I came up with this a while back. I consider it experimental and not
something to be overly relied on. I would bet that any decent referee with
the time could  come up with his own points of interest just as easily.
There are parts of it that are borrowed from the great old game Bushido.
The intention was that players could be able to wander the countryside,
righting wrongs and meeting interesting people. Referees are able to play
with the results as they wish.  

Hexagon Type 

		Clear		Forest, 	Desert 		Mangrove Swamp 
				Jungle, 	Swamp 		Mountain Peak 
				Tidal Flats 	Mountains 
Percent Chance of 
An Interesting Item

Castle		40	 	20 		10 		- 

Town 		70	 	30		5 		-

Temple 		80	 	40		15		5

School 		40	 	10 		5 		-

Inn		90		60		1		- 

Mansion 	20	 	5		1		- 

Ruins or Underworlds	30	20		20 		10


Number of Villages 
Per Large Hexagon 
Determined by % dice roll


0			0-01    01-05 		01-30		01-50
1			02-04	06-10		31-60		51-85
2-7			05-10	11-20		61-80		86-95
3-18			11-15	21-50		81-95		96-100
3-30 			16-100	51-100		96-100		- 

Towns have a population of  4d10 x 100 for population. The population of
Villages is determined on a later chart. 

Temples (Roll 1d6 for the number of priests in a temple.) 
1.	local temple		- 1d6 priests 
2.	medium size   		- 2d 20 priests 
3.	large temple		- 2-200 priests 	
4.	Monastery		- 1-1200 priests	
5.	special shrine 
6.	Extra large temple	- 1-1200 priests 

Villages Villages come in 6 levels and have 1d12 people per  level 

To determine level roll 1d12 on the following chart 

1-3	level 1
4-6	level 2 
7-8	level 3
9-10	level 4
11 	level 5 
12 	level 6 
 
 
Chance that Village has an item of special interest 
01-50	Normal village
51-53	Famous Inhabitant (roll 1d6) 
1.   Warrior 	
2.   Priest
3.   Sorceror 
4.   Scholar 
5.   Noble 
6.   Other 
54-56   Bandits This village is the base of a dangerous group of bandits. 
57-59	Bandits  This village is frequently raided by bandits. 
60-62   Slaver Base This village has slaves for sale. 
63-65	Merchant Center  An abnormal amount of goods on sale. 
66-68	Plague  This village is suffering from an outbreak of some nasty
disease.  
69-71	Terrorized by a notorious monster of some sort. 
72-74	Bullies There is a party of adventurers here bullying the peasants
and  citizens. 
75-77	The peasants are particularly restless, troublesome and prone to rude
behaviors in this village. 
78-80	Feud- There are two gangs struggling for control of this village. The
referee can determine the type of "gang." (Adventurers, priests, bandits,
etc.) The key thing is the adventurers are walking into the midst of a
power struggle.  
81-83	Large population of non-humans in this village. (About 30-100% of the
population. Referee determines the exact race and species of non-human.)  
84-86	Old Legend or Rumor- Who knows what the adventurers will do when they
hear this? Is it valid? I don't know. It's not my problem. 
87-89	This village absolutely hates wandering adventurers with a passion.
(They've had bad experiences in the past.) They might smile, but they're
scheming murder. Or maybe they'll just beat adventurers over the head with
their trusty peasant farming implements at first encounter. It's up to the
referee. 
90-92	This village has a fanatical religious society hidden in it. (Perhaps
they are devotees of the pariah gods!)
93-94	This village has a local Hirilakte arena. 
93-95	Some item of great magical or technological power is in the village.
It may or may not be in working order. 
95-96	This village has two things. (Combine.)  
97-98	This village has three things in it. (Combine.) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Huston 
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//911

[Moderator's Note:  Peter Huston offers up an interesting treatise on Hlutrgu]
[                   as player characters.  Again, this is a bit rulesy, but  ]
[                   there is enough source material in here to warrant inclu-]
[                   sion to the list.  I'll put this and your previous       ]
[                   message in the contrib corner, too.                      ]

Hlutgru as Player Characters (absolutely, postively, definitely unofficial
Tekumel game supplement) 

If I recall correctly, in some early version of the Tekumel game family
(probably EPT) the professor put in a note stating the player characters
could not be any of the hostile races unless of course the referee wished
to  set up a campaign specifically in which all players played hostile
non-humans and interacted solely with members of their own species. 

What a cool idea, I thought. 

So I sat down to create these rules for Hlutgru as PCs, but only in an
all-Hlutgru campaign. (Actually, I do suppose that you could use them as
written in a mixed race campaign but I can't imagine it would be a smooth
game, to say the least. Hlutgru after all hate everyone who is not a
Hlutgru.) I never got around to using them, and now, they are clearly
obsolete as everyone out there should note that the details of the Hlutgru
as I describe them don't conform to what was later published as "real
Tekumel". So read them. Enjoy them. Don't believe them. Feel free to borrow
from them and modify them to conform to reality. In short, have fun with
them  anyway you wish. These rules begin with a section on Hlutgru society
as I envisioned it. (Now much superseded by the release of new information
from the Tekumel pocket universe, I'm afraid.) and finish with the rules
themselves on generating characters.   

Hlutgru

Hlutgru society has three classes Upper, Lower and Slaves. 

Upper. 	
Includes all priests and hunting leaders. 

Lower. 
Includes all others such as messengers, hunters, swamp farmers, etc. 

Slaves.
Owned by the Upper class, includes scribes, servants, etc. 

Hlutgru are organized into tribes. Tribes are organized into loose
confederations. Confederations will choose their own leaders when necessary
by a combination of bullying and elections. Tribes are more equivalent to
towns than anything else. It's very easy to change tribes. 

Physically 
Tough hide, 2 hit dice, 4 limbs, arms and legs can double as each other,
(i.e. can throw javelins with legs.) Weigh 30 x (2d6)  pounds each.  

Linguistics
There is just one interintelligible Hlutgru language spoken in the swamps
of southern Tsolyanu although there are different regional dialects and
accents. In the unlikely event another group of Hlutgru is found on the
planet (or elsewhere!!) it may be assumed they will speak a different
language by this time. 

Religion
Varies by location but there are three main deities. Their names are 

"The Hostile One" and "The Swamp" and "Fertility"	
 
Note All Hlutgru deities everywhere advocate violence and hatred of all
non-Hlutgru everywhere. 

The Hostile One
Deity of War, hostility, non-mating and violence. Will not help his
worshippers (with divine intervention, etc.) unless they are in combat with
others, including Hlutgru, or just plain causing strife and confusion.  

The Swamp
The Swamp is the embracing, loving, feminine, wet god of the Hlutgru.
He/She/It controls all swamp creatures and swamp life, swamp creatures, wet
weather, and related phenomenon. The worshippers of "the Swamp" (say it in
a deep voice) tend to be more domestic. I.E. farmers and such. This God can
still be quite violent like the swamp itself and if you're a human, well
sorry, it hates you anyway!!!   

Fertility
Promotes expansion, reproduction and mating. 

There are a wide variety of other minor, regional deities and such
worshipped, but these are the big three. 

Hlutgru Reproduction
2 sexes male and female. There is little external difference and about 80%
are female. 

Males suffer from a "mate or die" instinct. (Please note the Hlutgru DO NOT
call this "Pon-far") Every 23 days they suffer from a need to mate. This
lasts one week. If the Hlutgru does not mate then he takes damage equal to
one half his hit dice in six sided dice spread out over the week long
period. (i.e. roll the dice, determine total damage, divide by six for the
six day Tekumelani week and zap the poor slug with that amount each day
until the poor guy gets sex or dies or his terrible week ends.) Some
Hlutgru temples devoted to the swamp have sterilized temple slaves who are
used to relieve such a terrible biological burden from the old and the
infirm males who have no mates but have earned a respected place in Hlutgru
society. 

Four days after mating the female Hlutgru will lay an egg mass. There are
about 50-60 eggs in an egg mass. However only about 1-3 of these will ever
hatch because these 1-3 hatchlings will then eat the rest of the egg mass
as their first meal. (yum. Yum.) They will then grow, gaining speech in
about a year and a half. They reach physical maturity in twelve years. 

Hlutgru Xenophobia

Hlutgru hate all non-Hlutgru. 

This instinctive hatred is so strong that when in the presence (or even
aware of) nearby non-Hlutgru, they must make a saving throw or attack them
no matter how poor the odds. The Hlutgru are an intelligent species however
so they do modify this roll by the odds against them. They do know that it
is foolish to attack large numbers of aliens, even icky looking humans, but
sometimes, well sometimes, you just gotta kill everything that walks and
talks but doesn't look like you. It's just the way life is. (In
pre-cataclysm days the Hlutgru hated everyone everywhere, but they did have
drugs to control this instinct. Unfortunately they were only adminstered to
satisfy tactical needs. Not diplomatic needs. So much for pan-Galactic
brotherhood stuff. Sorry!)  

The basic saving throw is 15+ on a 20 sided dice. (So they usually attack
non-Hlutgru a base 75% of the time. Although this may seem suicidal, it
should be remember that back on their homeworld this really wasn't a common
problem? After a few millenia with these guys, how many other intelligent
non-Hlutgru were likely to come visiting or, if indigenous, even survive on
the homeworld?) 

Modifiers 

Intelligence of the Hlutgru

06-20	-4
21-40	-2
41-60	-
61-80	+2
81-85	+4

Odds

Ratio of
Number of 
Hlutgru  /   Aliens 

3+    :    1		-6
2     :    1		-3
1     :    1		-
1     :    2		+2
1     :    3+ 		+4

Satiation 

Hlutgru are less likely to kill all the other non-Hlutgru they meet
After they've already killed a bunch. They become satiated and satisfied 
with a job well done. 

# of Aliens killed with the last week 

0	-	
1-2	+1
3-4	+2
5-6	+3
7	+4
8	+5
9	+6
10+	+7 


Creating Hlutgru Characters 


Social Class chart (1d10) 

1-2	Slave class (-30% from skills roll) 
3-9	Lower 
10	Upper (+20% to skills roll.) 

Sex
1-8 Female
9-10 Male 


Characteristics

Strength-	10-90 (rolled as 1-80 then adding 10)  
Intelligence- 	06-85  (rolled as 1-80 then adding 5) 
Constitution-	1-80
Psychic Ability- 	1-100 
Dexterity-	1-120
Comeliness- 	1-100 (Only among Hlutgru or hard core worshippers of
Hriyihiyal i.e. those Ox-like youth )

2 Hit Dice, Natural Armor Class of 7. 

I did make a large list of mundane skills Hlutgru can acquire but it's
pretty mundane. 

Professional Skills come in two types Priests and Warriors (The two
appropriate character classes.) 

Warriors
1	Spearman
2	Javelin
3	Sword/Axe
4	Mace user
5	Slinger
6	Blowgun
7	Bowman
8	Torture (new skill see special rules) 
9	Spear and dagger user (at once) 
10	Catapult/ booby trap expert 
11	Strategist 


Priests
1	Religious Ceremonies
2	Torture (new skill see special rules) 
3	rest of list as human/ other priests- 


New Skills 

Religious Ceremonies

Basically self explanatory. The Hlutgru has been trained to perform the
duties of his sect as expected by other Hlutgru. He can make people happy
and earn a living blessing the swamps and telling fortunes and removing
curses and correcting bad fortune and such. 

Torture 

Personally, I really don't like graphic descriptions of torture, but
Hlutgru do. I mean that is what Hlutgru do, after all. Therefore a Hlutgru
without torture is like a priest of Vimuhla without matches, right? I have
purposely, however written the following rules so that they do not produce
any more icky details than are necessary to provide a feel for how Hlutgru
behave. 

Hlutgru like to capture non-Hlutgru and torture them for long periods of
time. This is because they instinctively hate them all so much. The purpose
of Hlutgru tortures is non-rational. They simply wishy to take those icky,
ugly non-Hlutgru and make them suffer for as long as possible. Therefore a
Hlutgru who catches a non-Hlutgru and who has torture skill gets a % chance
equal to his % chance of succesful spell casting to keep a tortured
prisoner alive for another day (so that he can continue to keep torturing
him again tomorrow.) Hlutgru with this skill get extra experience points
for torturing prisoners instead of killing them outright. For each day the
prisoner is kept alive the torturer gets 10% of his expected experience
points for slaying him. When the poor prisoner finally dies the Hlutgru who
caught him then divvy up his normal experience point value. If he/ she/ it
should escape while being tortured then the Hlutgru only get the experience
from the full days successfully tortured. Note this only applies to
intelligent non-Hlutgru prisoners. Hlutgru do not sit around all day
tormenting squirrels and cats.    



			*******************************



 Thank you for reading these. Feel free to share any comments, thoughts,
etc. However, as I said they are pre-Swords and Glory (the definitive
Tekumel source book) therefore many of these details are definitely not
correct on "real Tekumel" and would need much reworking to ever become that
way. I have no intention of doing this at this time, and merely share them
for their potential enjoyment value. Thanks to all who helped bring Tekumel
to my attention, and thanks to Professor M.A.R. Barker, the creator of this
fascinating science fantasy world. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Huston 
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//912

[Moderator's Note:  Andrew Lorince comments on the Ssu and reports how EveCon]
[                   went.                                                    ]

Re. The Ssu. I never claimed they used space travel to get to Tekumel.
The Ssu are accomplished sorrcers perhaps they had the ability to
manipulate the dimensional forces before coming to tekumel, but found
out it didn't work well there and had to develop space flight as a
result.

Re. EveCon.  I had an enjoyable time there and got a Tekumel rpg
started. As has been my policy I accept any Tekumel characters. The
first person to join me had generated a character about 6 years ago at
the con, Aenon hiKetkolel of the Amber Cloak clan was a scholar of
high cartography and follower of Thumis. His female  companion, who
had never played before, generated a character, named Chaskana
hiKetkolel, who became a scholar of Ssu chose Chegarra. The third
person to join had never played on Tekumel before rolled up a
character of the Dark Moon clan,  Tharl hiAvokian with generally good
stats, a follower of Hru'u but no magic or charisima. The governor
invited him to be a kasi in the legion of Shattering of Ssuyal. These
set the stage when they were summoned to the governor and asked to
investigate the barrier which has surrounded the city at about a
300 tsan distance since the death of Hirkane. Aenon and Chaskana were
to be the primary investigators and Tharl with his cohort were to
provide protection.

They were given a week to get ready and were to report back to the
governor at that time. about this time the next two players joined,
one was a woman i know only as Erika, who played in Phil's campaign, and
her companion. Saying that none of her previous characters were likely
to be in Fenul genereated Misa hiKetkolel also of Amber Cloak. Her
companion generated Migor hiVriddi an administrative priest of
Vimuhla. On a special roll both of these became OAL operatives. Misa
was to join the party using clan lines, Migor was to use his
administrative skills and  interest in Vriddi members of the cohort.
Thral joined his cohort to find that they were all new replacements
who had completed four weeks of basic training and had all their
weapons issued but lacked the required armor. Migor bought a few set
for his favored Vriddi and other clans offered inducements to Thral to
ease up on their favorites. This is about where we ended the first day
of gaming.

On the second day two other players joined the group but our scholars
were drawn away by other activities and the foul weather outside. Of
the two new players one had part of a previously generated character
who proved some use, but generated a new character Achan hiTuplangte
of the Dark Water clan and follower of Sarku and a Herekesa in the
cohort. The last player to join had a character who was a scout and
hunter named Achan hiArusa of the High Pinnacle clan and follower of
Thumis. He refused employment by the Kasi but after a short hunting
trip in which they killed a Kuruku near its lair. Upon searching the
lair they found an eye which tested out as an Eye of Indefinable
Apprehension.

The party finaly reported to the governor again and were told that
they were to travel to east as far as possible looking for the barrier
and to also observe Ssu agriculture if possible. After spending some
time deciding if the should use barges for travel. They decided since
the cohort needed additional training to travel by land and set out
along the third rate Sakbe, which doubles as a dike, along the river
of many cowardly men. (the river gained this name because it is said
that fury of the river during spring floods is enough to turn any man
into a coward).

They began there journay making about 15 tsan per day. On the second
day they noticed smoke to the north and upon investigating found a
Woven Mat clan house destroyed by what appeared to be attack from the
sky. They learned from an adjacent Green Pyramid clan house that there
had been an attack from about 70 Hlaka which then flew south. They sent
a message back to the governor reporting this, the next day a couple
of Hlaka came to them reported that they had a message from the
governor thanking them for their report and saying that this was not
the first. Hlaka from Fenul were looking into the matter and that
there were some indications that the attacking Hlaka were in employ of
Ssu. On the tenth day out they received reports of a Ssu raiding party 
in the area. They spotted a small group and kept them under observation
only to find that they had disappeared by morning.
Thus ended the second day.

Hopefully I will be able to keep this campaign going at future cons.

yuninash hi ancholbel
governor of fenul
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//913

[Moderator's Note:  Andrew Lorince answers some questions about his Fenul  ]
[                   campaign.                                              ]

re your questions resulting from the game at eve con.
you arrived at the village of ngalmessurakh (ssu crossing). the
village head dik hi zhigau of the green kirtle clan handels all
disputes in this village of about 3500 about 30% of these are of
salarvyani dessent (including surrounding areas). there are no palaces
here, a temple of dlamelish dominates the square with adjacent smaller
temples of avanthe and belkhanu. other dieties are worshipped in clan
chapels where all interested may attend services. there is no military
garrison area except about a cohort of militia can be raised if
needed. the third rate sakbe road/ dike along the river has maybe half
a semetlkoi of guards.
as far as building a cohort fort here there is considered to be no
need, their is nothing out here. your estimate of costs (9000k) is
probably low since the average cohort is supposed to make about 4000k
per month. the village produces a better than average wine but has no
other significant resources. they will report a small problem with
chnelh (ape mutants) in the area but they have handled it. back at the
junction with the ssu river whic you passed with no difficulty on the
third day. there is marble biulding stone and some gold paned from
river. there are probably other resources but the residents don't have
the knowledge to identify them or the manpower to exploit them.
the tower you saw 3rd or 4th day is actually in ssuyal but at the
junction of ssuyal / tsolyani/ salarvyani border.
re population questions the city of fenul has about 250,000 with the
rest of the province supplying about a million additional. there are a
large number of transients maybee another 100,000 who have fled
disruptions in tsolyanu and salarvya or ssu raids. these hang around
for a few months and move on. many of them have been put to work on
the new sakbe road.
re the potential of the province the governor is well aware of the
potential. and doesn't think you need to know about tax records to
carry out your mission.
re the armour you purchased the empire thanks you for your support of
it's legions.
re location of city salarvyani of tsolyani frontier whats th difference!
re fortifications along sakbe you are right that major roads have
towers every 5 to 10 tsan. there are towers at about the interval
mentioned, most will have a garrison of a 100 or so and contain
caravanasaries  plus exit and entrance ramps /stairs. you however are
on athird rate road which might have wide spots to get off every once
in awile but are lucky to have brest works around the mostly soil fill
structure.
re conscription this is not usualy done all soldiers are "volunteers"
who sign on for 6 years. press ganges and such would be considered
ignoble.

regards
yuninash hi'ancholbel
governorof fenul.
prepared 9 lesdrium  andar lurnoiss chief scribe
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//914

[Moderator's Note:  Gavin Reid, Scott Maxwell, Peter Huston and Leonard    ]
[                   Erickson discuss transmission of disease.  What was the]
[                   Tekumel connection here again?  I can't remember.  ;)  ]

>It's worth noting that, although diseases carried by the Europeans caused
>massive casualties in the New World, the reverse did *not* occur.  Anyone on
>the list know why?  I don't, offhand, and the answer might be relevant here.

According to a book I just read "Guns, Germs & Steel" the main reasons
were the higher population density and the larger number/variety of
domestic animals in Europe  which permitted the evolution of nasty
strains of bugs (many coming from the animals).  The dense population
let the bugs recur, but the locals had become (via natural selection)
partially immune.  Populations in the New World were much less dense and
they did not support the evolution of recurring strains.  The book is
well worth a read, or if I could send you a rather fuller version of the
analysis than this snapshot.
--

Scott Maxwell writes.

>It's worth noting that, although diseases carried by the Europeans caused
>massive casualties in the New World, the reverse did *not* occur.  Anyone on
>the list know why?  I don't, offhand, and the answer might be relevant here.

I think that it did actually happen.  There are soo many problems with
diseases changing names over the centuries (like gemstones) that we cannot
be sure if the disease we know and love today is the same disease that bore
that name centuries ago.

I have read on a debate concerning syphilis (Pardon my spelling, but I'm too
lazy to look it up).  From what this article said, the name "syphilis" was
popular since ancient times but that the current disease we call syphilis
most likely entered Europe through explorers in the New World.

There are a few other "New World only" disseases that ravaged the "Old
World" but most of them were more slow acting -- like syphilis -- so as to
not be so dramatic as an outbreak of small pox.

--

Peter Huston writes.

>It's worth noting that, although diseases carried by the Europeans caused
>massive casualties in the New World, the reverse did *not* occur.  Anyone on
>the list know why?  I don't, offhand, and the answer might be relevant here.
 
I'm writing in a field where my expertise is casual at best but here's my
understanding. 

1) It is controversial, but quite possible that syphillis was brought over
from the New World to the Old with Columbus. 
2) The Europeans had been exposed to many diseases of Asian origin, as well
as plagues of all sort. (i.e. the Black Death) They had been exposed to
many, many sorts of things that the Native American peoples had not. 
3) There were, by some estimates, surprisingly few people, numerically
speaking, in the Americas when Columbus, etc. arrived. The numbers are in
great dispute, but some authorities claim that there are now just as many
"Indians" living in the USA today as there were 300 years ago (although of
course the ethnic groups have changed a bit with some dying out. For
instance, some people claim that today's population of about 25,000 Mohawks
is about what it was 300 years ago. By contrast there were probably about
that many Navajos at that time, but there are now over 150,000 Navajos, and
most of the groups that met the Pilgrims at Plymouth are long gone. Let me
also state other experts argue that this is nonsense. They say there are
many, many less Indians today than there were before the Whites arrived.) 

Now the point of all this is that since there were fewer indians in the
Americas than there were whites in Europe, the Indians had less inherent
genetic diversity in some ways among themselves. This meant that pathogens
that would affect one group were likely to spread as the people had similar
susceptibility/ resistance.      

--

Leonard Erickson writes.

>>JUST what the epidemiologically isolated population of Tsolyanu needs. 

>But *are* they epidemiologically isolated?  They're isolated from Earth, but
>anything available in any of the planes of existence accessible from Tekumel
>has probably wound up there at one time or another.  (Hmm.  Maybe those
>"silver suits" are biohazard protection...)

>It's worth noting that, although diseases carried by the Europeans caused
>massive casualties in the New World, the reverse did *not* occur.  Anyone on
>the list know why?  I don't, offhand, and the answer might be relevant here.

Things *weren't* as one-sided as they are usually presented. It's
fairly certain that syphilis came from the New World. And as late as
the late 1700s it was a *lot* nastier than nowadays, because many folks
still had little in the way of immunity to it.

European diseases tended to be more easily spread, due to the crowded
conditions in European cities. Such diseases are *too* virulent for the
smaller, more spread out populations in the New World. 

Syphilis spreads more slowly because it requires more intimate contact.
Thus it's not as likely to wipe out the supply of hosts.

-- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//915

[Moderator's Note:  Andrew Lorince covers various topics.                   ]

epidemics: the people of polynesia and the new world were easly
infected with european diseases because they lacked any immunity. in
the more densly populated europe and asia people had more oppurtunity
to be exposed to weaker strains of diseases and develop immunities. 
it is ineresting that the peaks of some new world cultures seemed to
be about the same time as the vikings colonies in newfoundland. when
the english and spanish first started developing colonies many native
americans were killed by disease that had not even seen white men. we
still don't know why some of the early colonies failed, some
archeologic finds indicate disease and famine. it is interesting that
experienced farmers could not provide enough food in land that should
have been very fertile. then again some sources claim that the natives
of the new world were diliberatly targeted with infected trade goods.
then again still other sources claim that new world natives became ill
because the christrian missionaries made them wear cloths which
provided a good breeding ground for bacteria. as far as the lack of
reverse infection evidence is lacking, perhaps the long sea voyages
prevented the infected from getting back to europe. an interesting
circumstance from my own experience is that while i served with the
usarmy europe i was required to have annual plague inocculations.
 
hlaka eyes: there has been a lot of disscussion about weather or not
the hlaka third eyes gave them better three diminisional vision. i am
reminded that many land based creatures as diverse as hlyss, dzor, and
ngekka. and what about the ahoggya with eight eyes, the predators on
their home world must of been something else.
this also remindes me of modern radio and optical astronemy that uses
arrayed tellescopes to obtain better resolution. in this case the
effective size of the telescope equal to the greatest distance between
the elements.
 
obsidian: an article published in one of the scientific journals in
the last few years disscussed the advantages of obsidian knifes. it
seemed some docters were curious about how effective obsidian knifes
were. they either made some or borrowed some from a museam or both to
test. they found that they got sharper knifes that held there edge
longer than the best surgical steels. when these knifes were used in
surgary on living subjects there was les bleeding and wounds healed
faster with less infection. as a consequence some proceedures now use
only obsidian scalples.

when i visited phil in minneapolis and was allowed to sit in on some
of his gaming sessions i was told by some of the players that it
didn't do any good to look at his notes because they were in urdu. how
true this is i don't know.

yuninash hi'ancholbel
governor of fenul
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//916

[Moderator's Note:  Peter Gifford asks about paper on Tekumel.  I know that ]
[                   one type of paper is made from the Firya plant.         ]

A quick question for the list - what do people use for paper on Tekumel?
I've seen Tekumel illustrations of slate-like 'scrolls', and encountered
something like this as a menu in a Thai restaurant the other day. Is
parchment attached to these accordion-like plates or inscriptions made on
wood or other material? For simple messages, is rolled-up paper used or
envelopes? Are traditional-looking scrolls used? Any racial preferences?
How about book-making processes? Would an artist use a sketchbook in the
field?

Many thanks!
Regards
Peter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Gifford
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//917

[Moderator's Note:  Marco Subias has comments on weapon history and physics.]
[                   This has no direct connection to Chlen hide weapons,    ]
[                   really, but there is some interesting info.  I assume it]
[                   is accurate wrt his sources.  If others disagree, I'll  ]
[                   let you guys discuss it via email, and report to us what]
[                   you decide once you finish.                             ]

I usually just lurk (though I enjoy the list), but for once a subject
has come up that I feel I can address.

Chaz Tompkins writes.

Many years ago I had the privilege to study fencing under a former member
of the U.S. Olympic team.  At one point he mentioned that the shift from
broadswords to rapiers was not a brief episode of dilettantism before the
adoption of the gun, but a genuine improvement in warcraft based upon
advances in metallurgy.

There was no "shift from broadswords to rapiers" in war.  Broadswords
were (largely) military weapons used in the field, while rapiers were
civilian weapons used overwhelmingly by wealthy men. The golden age of
the rapier was the last half of the sixteenth century and the first half
of the seventeenth. As a matter of fact, after rapiers were phased out
in favor of smallswords for civilian use, cutlasses, hangers, and
similar heavy (mainly) cutting weapons were still in use by military
forces. Weapons such as these were used during the Revolutionary War,
and even until the U.S. Civil War, and after. Rapiers had gone out of
style  long before that time.

The fact that someone is an expert fencer does not by definition make
them experts on the history of weapons. A modern Judoka is not by
definition an expert on the unarmed combat methods of 16th century
Japanese warriors.

See "The Complete Encyclopedia of Arms and Weapons" by Tarassuk and
Blair, "A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and
Armor" by Stone, "Swords and Hilt Weapons" by Coe, Connolly, Harding, et
all, or any other good books on weaponry. I would also recommend any
good books on Shakespear's time period.

I of course found this a little hard to believe. Conan, after all, would
rather be in a mini-skirt and pasties than brandishing a glorified toothpick.

Some years later I joined the SCA and on a lark tried a bout or two of foil
vs.  broadsword.  I was stunned to find that in single combat the foil ruled.
At one point, I was up 11 touches to none.  It is a little hard to account
for variables such as armour, press in melee, etc. but I tell you what, it
does get one's attention when 4/11 touches leave a dent in your mask, one
inch in front of your left eyeball.

According to what I heard when I fenced, foils are not approximations of
any real weapon, and should not be compared to such in their
performance. Epees approximate smallswords (pretty well too), sabers
approximate cavalry sabers (badly, due to their much lighter weight and
far different balance), but foils are just training weapons.

Real late 16th century and early 17th century rapiers weighed the same
as broadswords of their time. Rapiers were _longer_, but weighed the
same, and were far less maneuverable than foils. This is part of the
reason rapier fencers used a main-gauche (an oversized parrying dagger)
or a buckler, or chain mail glove, or a lantern as a defensive device.
Despite Hollywood movies, rapiers were not weapons that one used by
themselves if one had any choice, since they were poor defensive weapons.

One simply can't draw conclusions about rapier fighting by comparing it
with foil fencing. Rapiers and foils are completely different in weight,
balance, strength, use (rapiers almost always were point _and _ edge
weapons) and application (sport vs civilian dueling), and the fact that
foils are used in a straight line, and rapiers were used with no
boundaries in a more circular style  .

See "The Art of Armo(u?)r: The Dresden Collection," for details on
lengths and weights of rapiers and swords.  "The Dresden Collection
might be the first part of the title. Its been years since I studied it.

It is also worth observing that in at least two historical sequences in
our own sphere, bigger did not prove to be better.  Both the Romans and
the Zulus found that close formations using short weapons (thrusting
swords and spears respectively) made mincemeat out of Conan and his ilk.

As long as they maintained their formation. The Romans were badly
defeated in Germany when they broke formation and fought one-on-one. The
Romans also typically softened up their opponents with javelins (and
sometimes sling stones and/or arrows) before getting into close combat.

For what its worth, I've done SCA (eight years or so), sport fencing
(just under two years), and (for a bit over two years) the Filipino
martial arts, which focus especially heavily on the use of knives and
short swords. I have also done a considerable amount of research on
martial and blade-related topics, and lived in the UK for several years,
and seen a good number of historical weapons close up in a few different
countries.  Two of my fellow students of the Filipino arts are fencers,
and one has has done extensive research on Spanish rapier fencing.

Marco
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//918

[Moderator's Note:  Peter Gifford asks for any ideas on a travelling artist]
[                   persona for Tekumel.                                   ]

Greetings Tekumel fans!

Big things are afoot for the World of the Petal Throne site!

There's a new set of maps on the way, a huge expansion to the Gaming
Section happening soon with the amalgamation with another popular Tekumel
site, and a new artist is busy creating some brand new visions of Tekumel
that will blow you away!!

Apart from just letting you know what's going on, I'm putting the call out
for a name and potted history for an Tekumelani artist character who will
be used as a pseudonym for this new artist's work. Just a paragraph or two
will do, but give him a history and reasons to be travelling the
countryside, risking his life to get sketches and paintings of the flora,
fauna, people and places of Tekumel. My limited knowledge of clans etc
makes me ask this of the more experienced and imaginative souls out there.
The 'winning entry' will become this new artist's pseudonym!

Many thanks!
Regards
Peter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Gifford
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tekumel: The World of the Petal Throne
Complex Cultures on an Imaginary World
http://www.tekumel.com
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//919

[Moderator's Note:  Paul Roser asks about the Tumissa map, and lists some ]
[                   information about the originating star systems of the ]
[                   non-humans.                                           ]

Ngangmuru!

First, a note about the Blue Room graphics file: Ive tried to
view/download the Tumissa map at the ftp site on several occasions -
from my Mac I was sometimes able to view it (but in a greyed-out form
that was only partially viewable) but not download it (I got an error
message about an unexpected file-break), and from my PC I wasnt even
able to view it. Just wanted to let you know there might be a problem
with the GIF file (?) -has anyone else mentioned problems with it?

[Moderator's Note:  I have a new copy of it from my last visit (I think). ]
[                   I'll try to get to rescan it soon (among other        ]
[                   goodies).                                             ]

Now for the content portion of this message:

First, my thanks to Bob for his fascinating account of his encounter
with the minions of Black Qarqa. I think a Cthulhu Mythos/Tekumel
crossover would be an absolutely fascinating scenario!!

While I am not any sort of expert on astronomy or xenobiology, I have
always been interested in the non-humans, their home-worlds and original
star-systems and compiled the following list (I won't bore the list with
locational info, like right ascension and declination, as this is easily
discovered from star-listings). Most were easily found, but a couple,
Ensis in particular, are rather obscure names, and I am still uncertain
if the name Ensis was originally applied to the nebula (M42) or to one
of the stars within the nebula (I took a wild stab and selected Theta
Orion, since it was the largest):

Ahoggya       Achernar    Alpha Eridani         Blue Main sequence
Hlaka         Ensis       M42 or Theta Orionis  Blue Main sequence [1]
Hlutrgu       Algenubi    Epsilon Leonis        Yellow Giant
Hokun         Markeb      Alpha Persei          Blue Main sequence
Mihalli       Dorsum      Theta Capricorni      Blue-white Main sequence
Nyagga        Alhena      Gamma Geminorum       Blue-white Subgiant
Pachi Lei     Arcturus    Alpha Bootis          Orange Giant
Pe Choi       Procyon     Alpha Canis Minoris   White Subgiant [2]
Pygmy Folk    Mirach      Beta Andromedae       Red Giant
Shen          Antares     Alpha Scorpio         Red Supergiant [3]
Shunned Ones  Regulus     Alpha Leonis          Blue Main sequence
Swamp Folk    Unukalhai   Alpha Serpentis       Orange Giant
Tinaliya      Algol       Beta Persei           Blue Main sequence [4]
Urunen        Betelgeuse  Alpha Orionis         Red Supergiant [5]

(for comparison, Sol, our sun, is a Yellow main sequence star, also
referred to as a 'dwarf')

[1] Eclipsing binary, located within the Orion Nebula (M42)
[2] Binary, white dwarf companion
[3] Pulsating variable, binary
[4] Eclipsing binary
[5] Pulsating variable

I include the color and size of the stars largely as a point of
reference. I have dim memories of reading about various speculations on
possible biological development under other types of stars, and vaguely
recall someone drawing the inference that life on a planet orbiting a
blue or white star would likely develop vision extending more in the
direction of the ultraviolet end of the visible spectrum (assuming that
they _have_ vision as we understand it...) and a red star _might_
indicate a race with vision extending into the infrared...

I know that mention has been made of the Tinaliya's use of terms
indicating, for instance, speckling or patterning of individuals who
appear to be uniformly greyish to human eyes, which seems to indicate
perception outside the realms of our standard visual range. Similarly,
the Pygmy Folk may well see into the infrared, a feature that I believe
would have been highly valuable to a subterranean race.

Perhaps Phil has additional anecdotes pointing to other distinctions
between human and non-human senses? 

(Then there are the handful of biological/zoological specialists in the
temples of Ksarul and Thumis who might be able to provide
enlightenment...)

I have in the past asked about the languages of the nonhuman races, but
I would appreciate it if Phil could perhaps provide an overview of how
the nonhuman races sound to humans when attempting to speak human
languages?

For example, I am aware that the Pygmy Folk are characterized
(stigmatized?) by their peculiar high stutter (the 'two tongues' effect)
and a warbling, whistling quality and the Pe Choi are generally
perceived as speaking Tsolyani with a rather flat, nasal accent, and
apparently have trouble distinguishing voiced and voiceless stops (/p,
b/, etc. I am particularly interested in how the Shen, Pachi Lei, Hlaka,
and Ahoggya sound when prouncing human languages (I seem to recall the
words ghastly and grotesque used in the context of Ahoggya speech...)  

Many thanks for your help!

Regards, 
Paul Roser
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//920

[Moderator's Note:  Peter Gifford announces a new section at The World of ]
[                   the Petal Throne website.                             ]

I'm happy to announce a completely new section of The World of the Petal
Throne website, now at

http://tekumel.com

Remember to update your bookmarks.

Thanks to the suggestion of James Maliszewski, creator of the Jade Arch
Tekumel Gaming site, his site has now become the Gaming Section of
tekumel.com - "The Eye of Opening the Way". James' extensive gaming info
has been completely reformatted and is now an integral part of tekumel.com.
In addition to the new layouts, you can open convenient unformatted 'black
text-on-white' layouts from which to print information.

James will still be organising all contributions (his email address is on
the main gaming index page), while I will be taking on design and layout
duties. Contributions for this section are always welcome, and if you look
through the section you'll recognise many names from the Blue Room mailing
list. At last the background info on tekumel.com is balanced by a wealth of
gaming info as well.

Hope you enjoy this new expansion to the World of the Petal Throne. The
site is growing all the time, and very soon I'll be adding some exciting
new artwork from a professional artist to the Nonhuman Races section
(Professor Barker has kindly provided me with a pseudonym and character
background for the new artist). After that will come a new series of maps
of Tekumel.

Best regards,
Peter Gifford
PS As always, comments, suggestions and contributions are very welcome.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Gifford
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tekumel: The World of the Petal Throne
Complex Cultures on an Imaginary World
http://tekumel.com
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//921

[Moderator's Note:  Sorry for the long delay.  Been under the weather.     ]
[                   Here are a couple of short messages, but I have a bunch]
[                   of unread mail to go through.  Expect a burst of mail  ]
[                   to come out this weekend.                              ]
[                   This message covers some various administrative notes. ]
[                   James Maliszewski writes about the wav file on Brett's ]
[                   web site.  Peter Gifford updates us on the Tekumel web ]
[                   site.   (I apparently sent out some old messages from  ]
[                   him).  Rob (Unknown last name) also comments on on of  ]
[                   the graphics files on the Blue Room ftp site.          ]

James writes...
I had the same problem running the .WAV file for a long time as well.
However, I found a way that seems to fix this commonly-reported problem.

Simply start up the Windows Media Player and then open the file. That should
do it. Simply clicking on the file and hoping that an appropriate program
will recognize it and run it does not work. Believe me, I've tried.

Hope this helps at least some of you.
James
--

Peter writes...

Hi Chris -
thanks for putting that last message (918) about an artist persona on the
List. In the interim however, Professor Barker has kindly supplied me with
a wonderful character who does the trick perfectly. And when you get one
from the Man Himself, you don't need to keep looking!

Also, the Gaming Section (formerly James David Maliszewski's The Jade Arch)
is now all up and running - in fact I got a curious message from James
asking what the hell was going on!

Could you do me a big favour and post these amendments to my message so
everyone doesn't get confused??

Many thanks!
Peter
--

Rob writes...

>First, a note about the Blue Room graphics file: Ive tried to
>view/download the Tumissa map at the ftp site on several occasions -
>from my Mac I was sometimes able to view it (but in a greyed-out form
>that was only partially viewable) but not download it (I got an error
>message about an unexpected file-break), and from my PC I wasnt even
>able to view it. Just wanted to let you know there might be a problem
>with the GIF file (?) -has anyone else mentioned problems with it?

Yah, I notice it too.  It simply looks like a truncated file.  90+% of it must
be there, because it's fine down to about the last 6th of the file, however, it
must have been saved as interlaced, because so long as your viewer doesn't just
"bail out" on the decoding, there's enough image there to make out the details.

But yes, it is a "damaged" file.  (probably missing about 10-16k).  (Macintosh
users: GraphicConverter will happily open it, (it will complain about the LZW
decode error, but it will view what it was able to decode).

=R=
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//922

[Moderator's Note:  Steve Lopez identifies one of the Professor's Tekumelani]
[                   characters.                                             ]

> But one of your identites is Firu ba Yeker (sp?), right? I thought I
> spotted you in the company of a very comely woman, well-bred, from a high
> clan in one of the "Adventures on Tekumel" books.
--
Steve Lopez

Yes, Firu is one of my earliest characters. He has been out-of-play for
years now. He was in Yan Kor, then Avanthar, and back to some monastery in
northeastern Tsolyanu, where he is embellishing a beautifully calligraphed
book with little coloured drawings and patterns. He is not the major early
player character to whom I was referring, however; Firu is useful when I
want to "see" the region where he is through his eyes. Otherwise he is too
minor to play in the big leagues with Princes and mighty lords and ladies.
He does enjoy occasional bursts of good fortune: e.g. making friends with
the certain high-bred lady you mention. I'm sure she finds him amusing,
though not someone of major personal interest to her. She's been quite
helpful in many ways, such as acting as informant and accuracy checker on
the Tsolyani grammar (see the back of the title page). I think poor Firu is
hopelessly in love with her -- and perhaps may have gone off to the
monastery in Milumanaya to "forget" her!

You are close, Steve, but why not let my original character keep his little
secret? Firu -- and I --would appreciate it.

Regards,
Phil
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//923

[Moderator's Note:  Carl Brodt is thinking of organizing a Tekumel track at ]
[                   a Con in California.  Here are the details.  His email  ]
[                   address is included below.     Further note:  I was out ]
[                   of town all last week, and was without dialup.  I have  ]
[                   about 15 messages, half of them from the Professor.     ]
[                   Also, Peter Gifford writes that Ilanish Charea has pro- ]
[                   vided him with another spectacular portrait of a member ]
[                   of the Swamp Folk.  Head over to www.tekumel.com to see.]

Dear Tekumel Gamer,

I have been considering organizing a Tekumel Track for GameCon II in Oakland,
CA.  over Memorial Day weekend.  The Tekumel Track would involve at a minimum
a series of RPGs and, if I can swing it, one or two special events.   Since
the con is rather new and small, such an organized set of games and events
would be a big deal to its organizers (of which I am not one).

So please let me know if you might be interested in participating in such a
project either as a player or as a GM or a miniatures player.  Also, please
let me know if you would like to see any special Tekumel-related events there.

Thanks.

Carl
carlbrodt@aol.com
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//924

[Moderator's Note:  David Bailey adds a comment to the disease transmission ]
[                   thread.                                                 ]
>[Moderator's Note:  Gavin Reid, Scott Maxwell, Peter Huston and Leonard    ]
>[                   Erickson discuss transmission of disease.  What was the]
>[                   Tekumel connection here again?  I can't remember.  ;)  ]

>>It's worth noting that, although diseases carried by the Europeans caused
>massive casualties in the New World, the reverse did *not* occur.  Anyone on
>the list know why?  I don't, offhand, and the answer might be relevant here.

>I think that it did actually happen.  There are soo many problems with
>diseases changing names over the centuries (like gemstones) that we cannot
>be sure if the disease we know and love today is the same disease that bore
that name centuries ago.
 
>I have read on a debate concerning syphilis (Pardon my spelling, but I'm too
>lazy to look it up).  From what this article said, the name "syphilis" was
>popular since ancient times but that the current disease we call syphilis
>most likely entered Europe through explorers in the New World.

>There are a few other "New World only" disseases that ravaged the "Old
>World" but most of them were more slow acting -- like syphilis -- so as to
>not be so dramatic as an outbreak of small pox.
>--
>Peter Huston writes.
 
>>It's worth noting that, although diseases carried by the Europeans caused
>>massive casualties in the New World, the reverse did *not* occur.  Anyone on
>>the list know why?  I don't, offhand, and the answer might be relevant here.
  
>I'm writing in a field where my expertise is casual at best but here's my
>understanding. 
 
>1) It is controversial, but quite possible that syphillis was brought over
>from the New World to the Old with Columbus. 
>2) The Europeans had been exposed to many diseases of Asian origin, as well
>as plagues of all sort. (i.e. the Black Death) They had been exposed to
>many, many sorts of things that the Native American peoples had 
>not. 
>3) There were, by some estimates, surprisingly few people, numerically
>speaking, in the Americas when Columbus, etc. arrived. The numbers are in
>great dispute, but some authorities claim that there are now just as many
>"Indians" living in the USA today as there were 300 years ago (although of
>course the ethnic groups have changed a bit with some dying out. For
>instance, some people claim that today's population of about 25,000 Mohawks
>is about what it was 300 years ago. By contrast there were probably about
>that many Navajos at that time, but there are now over 150,000 Navajos, and
>most of the groups that met the Pilgrims at Plymouth are long gone. Let me
>also state other experts argue that this is nonsense. They say there are
>many, many less Indians today than there were before the Whites arrived.) 
 
>Now the point of all this is that since there were fewer indians in the
>Americas than there were whites in Europe, the Indians had less inherent
>genetic diversity in some ways among themselves. This meant that pathogens
>that would affect one group were likely to spread as the people had similar
>susceptibility/ resistance.    


See also "Ecological Imperialism", a really great book that examines 
all of the times germs, weeds, rats and bugs have helped Indo-European 
travellers dominate in foreign parts.  Although I adore stories such 
as the Indian Givers in the US who infected blankets with smallpox, 
there was really no need.  European invaders carried with them a 
veritable army of co-colonists, sufficient to displace or disrupt 
pretty well any eco-system on earth.  Why were they so successful?  It 
does not do the book justice, but the gist of it is "because more of 
us lived closer together, and we were better adapted to our bugs, and 
us - and them to us".

In tekumel plane (does it have co-ordinates?), the equivalent would be 
the servitors of She Who Must Not Be Named tramping through normal 
space carrying their plagues, madness and evil.  Motto: never accept a 
blanket from a pariah go worshipper.
DAvid BAiley
(sometimes Emra hi Gangassa, others, Midori Ito)
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//925

[Moderator's Note:  Leonard Erickson comments about the Non-human's star    ]
[                   systems.                                                ]

>[Moderator's Note:  Paul Roser asks about the Tumissa map, and lists some ]
>[                   information about the originating star systems of the ]
>[                   non-humans.                                           ]

>Ahoggya       Achernar    Alpha Eridani         Blue Main sequence
>Hlaka         Ensis       M42 or Theta Orionis  Blue Main sequence [1]
>Hlutrgu       Algenubi    Epsilon Leonis        Yellow Giant
>Hokun         Markeb      Alpha Persei          Blue Main sequence
>Mihalli       Dorsum      Theta Capricorni      Blue-white Main sequence
>Nyagga        Alhena      Gamma Geminorum       Blue-white Subgiant
>Pachi Lei     Arcturus    Alpha Bootis          Orange Giant
>Pe Choi       Procyon     Alpha Canis Minoris   White Subgiant [2]
>Pygmy Folk    Mirach      Beta Andromedae       Red Giant
>Shen          Antares     Alpha Scorpio         Red Supergiant [3]
>Shunned Ones  Regulus     Alpha Leonis          Blue Main sequence
>Swamp Folk    Unukalhai   Alpha Serpentis       Orange Giant
>Tinaliya      Algol       Beta Persei           Blue Main sequence [4]
>Urunen        Betelgeuse  Alpha Orionis         Red Supergiant [5]

>for comparison, Sol, our sun, is a Yellow main sequence star, also
>referred to as a 'dwarf')

>[1] Eclipsing binary, located within the Orion Nebula (M42)
>[2] Binary, white dwarf companion
>[3] Pulsating variable, binary
>[4] Eclipsing binary
>[5] Pulsating variable

>I include the color and size of the stars largely as a point of
>reference. I have dim memories of reading about various speculations on
>possible biological development under other types of stars, and vaguely
>recall someone drawing the inference that life on a planet orbiting a
>blue or white star would likely develop vision extending more in the
>direction of the ultraviolet end of the visible spectrum (assuming that
>they _have_ vision as we understand it...) and a red star _might_
>indicate a race with vision extending into the infrared...

Alas, such speculations ignore a very important detail. Blue stars are
only on the main sequence for at most a few *million* years. Nowhere
*near* long enough for life to develop. So types O, B, and probably A
are unsuitable for homeworlds. Stick to F, G, K, and M.

Likewise, red giants have already *left* the main sequence and if the
planets had developed life, once the star entered the giant phase
they'd be in *big* trouble as at the very least the planet would get
*much* hotter (as in shifts from Arctic conditions to hotter than
Tekumel!) in a period of a thousand or less years. Planets in the "life
zone" before tend to get engulfed by the star as it expands. 

Red *dwarfs* on the other hand will stay on the main sequence for times
that are truly incredible. Like several times the current age of the
universe! There will be noticeably oddities about lifebearing planets
around such stars (details upon request).

-- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//926

[Moderator's Note:  Andrew Lorrince will be at several cons running Tekumel ]
[                   oriented events.  Sorry I was so late with this Andrew, ]
[                   I didn't get the word out for the first 3 or 4 Cons.  I ]
[                   apologize for that.                                     ]


for any body interested in meeting the governor of fenul i hope to be
at the following sf or gaming cons
BASHCON game con Feb 26-28 University of toledo, Toledo OH student union
COSCON game con mar 12-14 days inn butler pa about 30 miles north of
pittsburgh.
neovention gaming con mar 19-21 univ of akron akron oh  student union
babel con 3 mar 26-28 sf con (babeylon 5 and trek) holiday inn
pittsburgh international airport
capcon game con apr 9-11 ohio state university student union
marcon SF Con may 5-7, 1999 i've been juried out of this one as a
dealer but may instead attend as gm
three rivers game fest may may 28 -31 memorial day weekend.
michicon game con jun 25-27 no other information.
castle con sf con jul 9-11 fredrick md.
my usual policy will apply i will run a tekumel game if i have at
least 2 players
yuninash hi'ancholbel
governor of fenul
_____
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//927

[Moderator's Note:  Chaz Tompkins comments on making a pronunciation CD.  ]

A couple of months ago, I offered to transfer to CD the old tape of the
Professor's guide to Tsolyani pronunciation.  I have the CD burner up and
running, and the audio input works on some of my old scratchy cassettes.  I
can't guarantee that the hiss and pop editing will transform crow into
nightingale, but it may help.

If someone is willing to send me the cassette version, I will run it through
the mill and see what comes of it.  Carl Brodt, of Tito's Games
[CarlBrodt@aol.com], has offered to distribute the CD for a nominal
handling/royalty fee.

For what it's worth, a blank CD costs $1.00 and will hold  ~74 min of audio
and/or ~650 MB of data.  If there is anyone out there who wants to share
scenarios or maps or audio or ....May as well stuff the disk full.  Of course
if there is a clamour, the Professor has priority: who knows how many rare
8-track recordings he has has of .....Tiniliya!

Chaz
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//928

[Moderator's Note:  James Maliszewski adds some information about the Temple]
[                   of Ketengku from his campaign.                          ]

Here's a nice little addition to our knowledge of the Temple of Ketengku,
provided by George Hammond. The Guardians have become an important part of
my play-by-web game, "The Plain of Towers."

The Guardians of the Sojourner
The Guardians are a special group of warriors within the Temple of Ketengku.
There are two guiding principles for Guardian behavior.  First is the
nobility of sacrifice in protection of the priests and Temple.  To take a
blow meant for a priest is to "join the Company of Neshkiruma the Mighty" (a
somewhat mythic figure who supposedly gave his life while successfully
preventing a band of Ahoggya from ravaging a field hospital).  One who dies
this way is assured of a special place in the afterlife, and special care by
the Temple for ones dependents.  Second is "Anticipation of
Inconvenience"--Guardians are expected to anticipate trouble so it can be
avoided, and thus prevent the need for combat or other dire actions.
Consequently they may travel ahead to scout, frequently talk to locals to
get information, be on the lookout for ambushes, and are expected to learn
geography and the lore of places they are operating in, including that of
creatures that may threaten. (serving the God of scholars *and* travelers
can be demanding <g>).

The Guardians wear the equivalent of medium infantry armor,
and all have a missile weapon as well as melee weapons and shield.  They
fighting in 3 modes: as archers; with medium or short
polearms (thrusting spears, halberds) and perhaps small shields; and with a
close combat weapon (typically a long sword or scimitar, but perhaps other
light one-handed weapons) and a medium shield.  Heavy weapons are not
usually used (too heavy for constant traveling), and the polearm/spear mode
is used primarily to fend off beasts.  If the situation is at all risky,
there will be one or more Guardians carrying shields and staying close to
the priests of Ketengku.
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//929

[Moderator's Note:  Brett Slocum asks about medals and awards.           ]

I'm aware of the Gold of Glory, given to soldiers who perform outstanding 
service to the empire. What other medals or awards are given by the Tsolyani 
government or military?

---
Brett Slocum  --  slocum@io.com  --  ICQ #13032903
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.

//930

[Moderator's Note:  Professor Barker replies on Peter's message about Hlutrgu]
[                   as player characters.                                    ]

You are welcome to have an "unofficial" Tekumel campaign with whatever
characters you wish -- Hlutrgu, Shunned Ones, etc. I have never favoured
such a campaign because such creatures' mentality is too different, and
also because they lack interesting (to us) material culture -- weapons,
castles, palaces, cities, organised military or religious features. None of
this should deter others.

I do try to keep things a bit serious and "realistic"; nothing less
interesting for me than having Americans or Europeans "dressed up in
Tekumel clothing." Humans can usually play other humans quite well, but
trying to role-play a Hlutrgu is a tough one!. Your adaptation is
interesting, however, and might be fun to try.

Regards,

Phil
-----
Chris Davis      Moderator, The Blue Room        blueroom@prin.edu
The Blue Room's FTP site:  http://nexus.prin.edu or  ftp://nexus.prin.edu
Available 24 hours a day, except when my PC is down, or unavailable.
