Tekumel

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Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne is a fantasy world created by Professor Muhammad Abd-el-Rahman Barker over the course of several decades. In this imaginary world, huge empires with medieval levels of technology vie for control using magic, large standing armies, and ancient technological devices.

Contents

1 Sources
2 Setting

2.1 Tsolyáni

3 Published works
4 Role-playing games
5 External links
6 Further reading

Sources

Professor Barker, like the better-known J.R.R. Tolkien, initially approached the building of his fantasy world as a linguistic exercise. In other words, the setting provided a context for Barker's constructed languages.

The most significant language created by Barker for his setting is Tsolyáni, which resembles Urdu, Pushti and Mayan. Tsolyáni has had grammatical guides, dictionaries, and even a complete language course developed for it. In order for his imaginary languages to have this type of depth, Barker developed entire cultures, histories, dress fashions, architectural styles, weapons, armor, tactical styles, legal codes, demographics and more, inspired by Indian, Middle Eastern, Egyptian and Meso-American mythology in contrast to the majority of such fantasy settings, which draw primarily on European mythologies.

Setting

The world of Tékumel was first settled by humans exploring the galaxy about 60,000 years in the future, along with several other alien species. Their extensive terraforming of the inhospitable environment disrupted local ecologies and banished most of the local flora and fauna (including some intelligent species) to small reservations in the corners of their own world, resulting in a golden age of technology and prosperity for humankind and its allies. Tékumel became a resort world, where the wealthy from a thousand other stars could while away their time next to its warm seas.

Suddenly, and for reasons unknown (but possibly through hostile action on the part of an unknown party or group,) Tékumel and its star system was cast out of our reality into a "pocket dimension," in which there were no other star systems.

Severed from vital interplanetary trade routes (Tékumel is a world very poor in heavy metals,) and in the midst of a massive gravitic upheaval due to the lines of gravitational force between the stars being suddenly cut, civilization was thrown into chaos. The native species broke free from their reservations and wars as destructive as the massive geographic changes seized the planet. Several other significant changes took place due to the crisis: mankind discovered it could now tap into magical forces, the stars were gone from the sky, dimensional nexi were uncovered and pacts with “demons” (inhabitants of dimensions near in n-dimensional space to Tékumel's pocket dimension) were made and a complex pantheon of "Gods" (powerful extra-dimensional or multi-dimensional alien beings) discovered. Science began to stagnate, the belief that the universe was ultimately understandable slowly faded, and a Time of Darkness descended over the planet.

Much of Barker's writing concerns the time when civilization on Tékumel is rebuilding itself from a state of primitive barbarism and focuses particularly on the Five Empires which control much of the world's northern continent.

Tsolyáni

Tsolyáni is the language spoken on the world of Tékumel, and was the first conlang published as part of a role-playing game. It is inspired by Urdu, Pushti and Mayan, the latter influence can be seen in the inclusion of the sounds hl and tl.

Published works

Barker was a Professor of Urdu and South Asian Studies at the University of Minnesota during the period when David Arneson, Gary Gygax and a handful of others were developing the first role-playing games in Minneapolis and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Barker tapped into this tradition to explore and develop the Tékumel setting. His "Thursday Night Groups" were some of the first roleplaying sessions anywhere and provided what was, at the time, a unique, week-by-week development of the setting.

In 1975, Tactical Studies Rules, Inc., the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons, published the Tékumel setting as a standalone game under the title of The Empire of the Petal Throne (a synonym for the Tsolyáni Empire). It brought a level of detail and quality to the campaign setting which had previously been unknown in the RPG industry, and could be considered a turning point away from the tactical roots of RPGs. The game was the subject of articles in early issues of Dragon Magazine, but factors including inconsistent support from TSR led to its decline in popularity. Over the subsequent thirty years several new games based on the Tékumel setting were published, but to date none have met with commercial success.

In 1984, DAW Books published Barker's Tékumel novel The Man of Gold. This was followed by Flamesong in 1985. In 2003, Zottola Publishing published three additional novels: Prince of Skulls, Lords of Tsamra, and A Death of Kings. In 2004 Zottola Publishing produced the 2 volume Set called Mitlanyal this 2 volume set deals with the Tsolyani pantheon and provides much back round regarding the Tsolyani culture all Zottola Publishing products are available from Amazon.com

Role-playing games

Tekumel has spawned four professionally-published roleplaying games over the course of the years:

Empire of the Petal Throne, published in 1976 by TSR, Inc.
Swords & Glory, published in 1983 by Gamescience.
Gardasiyal: Adventures in Tekumel, published in 1994 by Theater of the Mind.
Tekumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, published in 2005 by Guardians of Order.