Photos from last Saturday's game session are now up on my blog; the players have told me that they want to come back to finish the adventure some time this summer. I had a good time, and I gather they did too...

Quote from: chirine ba kal;967619I still don't get the 'Real Tekumel' thing; all of the stuff that's been posted here by all of you is well within the lines of what Phil did in his games, and Gronana and I have the scars to prove it. Tekumel is where we play and have fun - Phil had a pretty wide view of how the place ran, and you bet he'd he'd have his Feshenga sunning themselves on the banks of the Missuma. Just 'cause it's in a D&D retro-clone written in 1974 and heavily modified by Gygax and Arneson to suit their vision of what 'gamers' were like and how they played doesn't mean that Phil did it that way in his basement.

End of rant; no offense intended, to anyone.

None taken here either. My point was only that "your" Tekumel (whoever you may be) is real Tekumel. And if you share an appealing idea from "your"  real Tekumel, then it may well become part of "my" real Tekumel as well.

I'll add as well that in my opinion it isn't even necessary to colour precisely "within the lines of what Phil did in his games,"  nothing wrong with diverging from "his" real Tekumel.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;967566Reaper's 'Dark Havens' #2730, "Cavern Crawler" was the one that I got (I have a pair, actually; the Feshenga Brothers, Jake and Elwood. I couldn't stop myself, sorry.) to annoy my players. I don't know if they made the transition over to the plastic 'bones' material or not, but you can get them on-line from a number of places. I'd also suggest that nice man, Howard Fielding of The Tekumel Project; he might have a little something in the pipeline...

D.A.D. is coming. Feshenga with 30 legs, including two swimming versions. Ghar, on land and swimming. Pachi Lei. (Very Nice!) Many others...

Quote from: chirine ba kal;967586Howard Fielding's Tekumel Project 'Tinaliya'.

Resin and metal castings, with various poses for the arms, and just too much fun to pass up. I don't know if he's got them in his catalog, yet, so I'd ask...

I ran into "technical difficulties". The result: a delay of what must be going on 3 or 4 years! :mad: Still not currently available.

Quote from: Shemek hiTankolel;967576I haven't communicated with Howard in some time. I need get some Ssu, and I'd like to know if he can steer me in the right direction, or perhaps he has some for sale.

Theoretically there are Ssu available. I am not 100% satisfied however. Need to get a better representation of their skin...

Quote from: altfritz;967747D.A.D. is coming. Feshenga with 30 legs, including two swimming versions. Ghar, on land and swimming. Pachi Lei. (Very Nice!) Many others...

Quote from: altfritz;967749I ran into "technical difficulties". The result: a delay of what must be going on 3 or 4 years! :mad: Still not currently available.

Quote from: altfritz;967750Theoretically there are Ssu available. I am not 100% satisfied however. Need to get a better representation of their skin...

All of this is great to hear. Thank you.

I still have a General Mrissa warband waiting to be painted by the (currently swamped) Muscovite pro-painter I hired at the end of last year to paint the Vrisa figure. She should get to them very soon. I will share photos of the painted minis as soon as she's done with them.

Chirine, I have a few questions, going back to the dates of the Professor's larger, more-developed drawings.

There's one I had forgotten about, and that's the procession of celebrants at the summoning of Ru'utlanesh, from the Book of Ebon Bindings. When I looked closer, I saw it was signed Firu ba Yeker, and dated 2,355 A.S. (i.e. 1976). Looks like he did rediscover his muse in the 70s, and that made me look back over the classic ones to see how they were signed and dated. The results were more confusing than enlightening.

1) Yilrana and Bazhan, from the EPT cover: This one is signed "P.B." and dated 1375. But it's accompanied by a separate script caption attributing it to Firu ba Yeker and dated 2,333 A.S (1954).

2) Nayari disposing of her husband, from EPT: This one is also signed "P.B." and dated 1374. But on the reverse is a script caption attributing it to Firu ba Yeker and dated 2,333 A.S (1954).

3) Mi'itlenish at the siege of Purdimal, from EPT: This one is signed "P.B." and dated 2,337 (i.e. 1958).

4) Nyelmu gazing at Ma'in, from the Sourcebook: This one is signed "P.B." with a (to me) illegible date; it appears to be only two digits.

5) Durritlamish sacrifice from EPT: No signature or date visible; possibly cropped out?

6) Functionaries at Avanthar, from EPT: No signature or date visible; possibly cropped out?

7) Serqu assault on Yan Koryani fortress, from EPT: No signature or date visible; possibly cropped out?

So what I'm wondering is:

First, do you know anything about that early dating system (1374, 1375). What does it mean? It seems to be something he abandoned sometime between 1954 and 1958, when the "modern" Tsolyani chronology appears (in the Mi'itlenish drawing)

Second, do you know anything about the script captions in EPT for the Yilrana and Nayari drawings? I'm guessing they were written later than the drawings since they use a different dating system than the drawings themselves, but are they written on the back or something?

Third, do you have uncropped versions of the sacrifice, Serqu and functionaries drawings that might show a signature and date?

Fourth, do you have a better copy of Nyelmu and Ma'in that reveals the date?

Sorry, long questions I know and possibly some effort to answer

one thing that surprises me is, I had assumed "Firu ba Yeker" was the Professor's nom de plume from way back, but if you look at this suite of drawings, it looks like he only adopted it in the 70s, then applied it retroactively to drawings he had signed quite differently back in the 50s

Quote from: Zirunel;967746None taken here either. My point was only that "your" Tekumel (whoever you may be) is real Tekumel. And if you share an appealing idea from "your"  real Tekumel, then it may well become part of "my" real Tekumel as well.

I'll add as well that in my opinion it isn't even necessary to colour precisely "within the lines of what Phil did in his games,"  nothing wrong with diverging from "his" real Tekumel.

I'd very strongly agree with this! Phil thought the same way, at least beck in the early days, and would include a lot of ideas from people in his game play. It's just the notion of some sort of 'One True Tekumel' with 'One True Way To Play' is a notion that has pretty much killed off Tekumel for a lot of people.

Quote from: altfritz;967747D.A.D. is coming. Feshenga with 30 legs, including two swimming versions. Ghar, on land and swimming. Pachi Lei. (Very Nice!) Many others...

Woo Hoo! Yea!!!

Quote from: Zirunel;967790Chirine, I have a few questions, going back to the dates of the Professor's larger, more-developed drawings.

There's one I had forgotten about, and that's the procession of celebrants at the summoning of Ru'utlanesh, from the Book of Ebon Bindings. When I looked closer, I saw it was signed Firu ba Yeker, and dated 2,355 A.S. (i.e. 1976). Looks like he did rediscover his muse in the 70s, and that made me look back over the classic ones to see how they were signed and dated. The results were more confusing than enlightening.
[snipped]
So what I'm wondering is:

First, do you know anything about that early dating system (1374, 1375). What does it mean? It seems to be something he abandoned sometime between 1954 and 1958, when the "modern" Tsolyani chronology appears (in the Mi'itlenish drawing)

Second, do you know anything about the script captions in EPT for the Yilrana and Nayari drawings? I'm guessing they were written later than the drawings since they use a different dating system than the drawings themselves, but are they written on the back or something?

Third, do you have uncropped versions of the sacrifice, Serqu and functionaries drawings that might show a signature and date?

Fourth, do you have a better copy of Nyelmu and Ma'in that reveals the date?

Sorry, long questions I know and possibly some effort to answer

No; I'd be willing to guess it's some historical dating system, like the Islamic or Hebrew one; I'd have to look through a datebook to find something that matched.

From what I can tell, he did these in about '74 for the published version of EPT. I'd have to go back and look at the photos I have of the original art.

Yes; I can go back and look at them.

Maybe; I'd have to look.

Quote from: Zirunel;967828one thing that surprises me is, I had assumed "Firu ba Yeker" was the Professor's nom de plume from way back, but if you look at this suite of drawings, it looks like he only adopted it in the 70s, then applied it retroactively to drawings he had signed quite differently back in the 50s

I'd agree with this; we have documentary evidence for Firu starting in the 1970s, but nothing before. I suspect he did it when he did up the 1,500 NPC cards; it'd be like him to slip a 'joker' into the deck...

Quote from: chirine ba kal;967837No; I'd be willing to guess it's some historical dating system, like the Islamic or Hebrew one

Aha! bet you're right, in the Islamic calendar 1374-1375 would be more-or-less 1953-1954


Which would make a lot of sense

Quote from: chirine ba kal;967837No; I'd be willing to guess it's some historical dating system, like the Islamic or Hebrew one; I'd have to look through a datebook to find something that matched.

From what I can tell, he did these in about '74 for the published version of EPT. I'd have to go back and look at the photos I have of the original art.

Yes; I can go back and look at them.

Maybe; I'd have to look.

thanks! I'm curious to know more. At the moment it looks like these drawings mostly or entirely date after his first trip to India, not before.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;967838I'd agree with this; we have documentary evidence for Firu starting in the 1970s, but nothing before. I suspect he did it when he did up the 1,500 NPC cards; it'd be like him to slip a 'joker' into the deck...

It almost seems like at first (when I say "at first," I guess I mean in the early 70s in "game" Tekumel), he adopted Firu as his in-country alter-ego/observer on the ground in Tekumel.....but it also seems like later, he shunted Firu off to the sidelines and reverted to unnnamed or unspecified "informants" to be his eyes and ears in the world.