The street is narrow and winding, with little room for the small, handdrawn carts much less the great chlen drawn wagons bringing food and supplies in from the villages outside. The buildings are short, no more than two or three stories tall at the most, and whitewashed so the street is bright.

The people are of middling height and slender. Their skin is a dark reddish bronze, their hair is long, black, and straight. They have no facial hair, and little body hair overall.

Infants and young children play naked in the mud. The small children also race and tumble about the stalls, carts, and people. Their older siblings wear a loincloth if a boy, a kilt if a girl. Both with a simply embroidered hem. The men wear a more ornately decorated loincloth, while the women wear a skirt with patterns of its own. Unmarried women go barebreasted. Married women wear a loose blouse. When there's hard work to be done the men will go nude, but everybody wears some sort of adornment. Metal being rare and precious jewelry is most often made of wood or leather decorated with feathers, shells, or dried peppers. Even the smallest babe napping in a hammock will have an anklet of plaited reeds.

Slaves are easily spotted, for they have no adornment, no decoration. The women wear kilts, sometimes with a simple blouse. Men wear a loincloth. It's not unusual to see slaves of both genders nude as they go about their master's work.

Regardless of what is worn, of how it is decorated, all clothing is predominantly a brilliant white. For these are a clean people. They bathe often, they wash their clothes often. They would much rather be skyclad than see their apparel become stained and filthy.

Indeed, this is a hot land. Even in the shade of the numerous trees that grow among the whitewashed buildings it can get stifling. Better to dress lightly than grow weak from sweating.

Here and there of course one can see officials. Minor ones for the most part, but there is a priest in his cloak of parrot feathers, watching as his personal slave dickers with a stall keeper over the price of a sacrificial dove.

Animals abound here. Dogs barking at passersby, parrots squawking for attention. There are monkeys and opossums and other creatures gathered long ago from alien worlds. Fruits and vegetables hang from poles, and beans boil in clay or leather pots as corn tortillas fry on flat stones.

There are flowers everywhere. In pots, hanging from lines. Even slaves wear flowers, for only a demon would deny the beauty of flowers to the lowest.

The street is with rich with smells. The sweat of hardworking laborers, the odor of boiling beans, ripe fruit, or frying tortillas. Fresh laundered garb for the discerning to admire. Woods and leathers and peppers to prove the potency of the amulets and charms all but slaves wear.

It is a busy street, a noisy street. People engage in arguments and make deals. Assignations are agreed to for later in the night, while the sounds of a newly married couple deepening their bonds can be heard for blocks around. (And everybody knows about her secret birthmark now.) People are born here, people die here. It is a street in a Tsolyanu city.

• Apocalypto Trailers. Start with the teaser trailer, then the theatrical trailer (which has a lot of street scenes).:popcorn:
  
• For more, take the 300 teaser trailer, swap out dinosaur chariots or sentient giant lizards for the rhino, exchange units of battle wizards for the horses, add in some female warriors*. The last stand of a Yan Korani unit of Baron Ald's elites or a N'luss barbarian tribe's fighters against a sea of Tsoylanu legions seeking to punish those who dare to defy the Petal Throne. :pundit: Already has creepy silver masked dudes for priests of Secrets. :cool: Easily add in priests of Undeath or Destruction (and this being Tekumel, such priests are fine as player characters AND an accepted part of society, right alongside their fellow priests of Wisdom, Afterlife, and War).
  Add Seal of the Imperium#1 for the writeup of the Minis Tirith of the North, Khirgar, info on swords, and the article on the N'luss barbarians.
  
  “The 1000 cities of the Petal Throne descend upon you-” “Yan Kor will be burned to the ground.” “Madness? This is Yan Kor!”
  
  
• National Geographics were nigh universal back in the day and there are some good tv specials on the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incans. And D&D had several Meso-American/Jungle type adventures. Sure it’s not medieval Europe but Aztecs aren’t that obscure & Tekumel doesn't require knowledge of them anymore than D&D requires of Medieval Europe & Bulfinch.


• Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar[/i] books are/were popular (I've not kept track). The Tsurani that invade Midkemia from Kelewan are pretty much Tsoylani with the serial numbers filed off, since Feist's GM used Empire of the Petal Throne in the campaigns that'd later form the books. (art from Daughter of Empire to Mistress of Empire 2 & the cover from Magician: Master)
  
  That's a thought, plop a party of D&D types through a rift onto Tekumel, or have one setting invade the other. :eek:
  
  
• Barker has written five Tekumel novels so far. Flamesong is standalone, the rest focus around the same character (who's on the cover of T:EPT).
  
  • Man of Gold[/i] (out of print)
    
  • Flamesong[/i] (out of print)
    
  • Prince of Skulls[/i] (ZotPub)
    
  • The Lords of Tsamra[/i] (ZotPub)
    
  • A Death of Kings[/i] (ZotPub)
    
  IMO Man of Gold & Flamesong should've been reprinted and available with T:EPT's release. :mad: Used copies can be found (or see above link) and I've loaned out my copies before. The other three are in print & available from the above link or Amazon.com. Some find the novels *very* helpful in understanding Tekumel and they're not bad, not really game fiction.
  

* Tekumel allows for female characters without the usual fantasy problems as female priests, sorcerors, warriors, etc. are available to women who are of the same legal status as men.