Quote from: AsenRG;843820What are the details of this weapon? +10 Strike and damage? Even worse:D?

In EPT terms, yes; +10 +10 would be a good description. It was rolled up in S&G, which uses different stats, and I think it was a +50 to hit on the d100 base roll, and +100 - the old 'double damage' for what it did to you. Add in the attitude problem that the thing had, and we just were very careful. it got along just fine with Vrisa, but the rest of us wouldn't go anywhere near it even in the most dire emergency. It could be very 'persuasive' about wanting to be used, and as such was a menace to navigation just about all of the time.

Quote from: Greentongue;843853I was under the impression that the "really good stuff" got claimed by "authorities".
Either your clan, your temple or the Imperium would contact you as soon as word got out you had such a thing and basically confiscate it/them.  

So, if you got something really powerful, basically it was "on loan".

Am I wrong?
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No, you have it down just fine. It's a function of how long these social entities have been around; stuff accumulates in the treasuries and armories for centuries. It's considered 'polite' (read prudent) to offer the 'good stuff' to one's clan or temple; you gets lots of benefits for being such a great person, I assure you. Confiscation is very rare, as it sets a bad precedent; you always get something in return, like the time I 'donated' enough steel and iron (I got it on a trip to Blackmoor), enough for four legions' worth of armor, to Prince Mirusiya, and got made an Imperial Governor on the spot...

And the clans, the temples, and the Imperium will be happy to loan you stuff, if you are doing a job for them. Yes, one does have one's personal property, but it's customary that if anything happens to you, the good stuff goes back to your clan or temple - for use by the next adventurer...

Quote from: Greentongue;843853I was under the impression that the "really good stuff" got claimed by "authorities".
Either your clan, your temple or the Imperium would contact you as soon as word got out you had such a thing and basically confiscate it/them.  

So, if you got something really powerful, basically it was "on loan".

Am I wrong?
=

Depends on who you are.

By the time I was a General of an Imperial Legion and a member of a high clan, I was GETTING stuff.  Handsome young hero winning great victories makes for good press.

Quote from: Bren;843863That would make sense for a culture that isn't anywhere near as individually focused as are most modern industrialized societies.

The attitude of being part of a group and really seeing and believing that the group is more important then the individual is something I find difficult to grasp emotionally. Intellectually I know that was the case in many socieities, but personally I just don't feel it the way I expect the vast majority of people in those cultures felt it.

It took me decades to get the hang of the pre-Enlightenment viewpoint.  But that was part of the whole fun of Tekumel, the discovery over years of just how different this place really was.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;843945It took me decades to get the hang of the pre-Enlightenment viewpoint.  But that was part of the whole fun of Tekumel, the discovery over years of just how different this place really was.

It wasn't easy to me either, but I got help from a professional historian when I started playing in his game. Then I remembered my own history lessons, and it all clicked.

I guess those values being explained to me in school at a relatively early age gave me a large advantage in understanding them, though.

In the picture of the map it looks like a dense, "World's Largest Mall".
Was this the feeling of the underground? That you were in a city with a ceiling?

Did the areas have segregation like the city above just not aligned to it?
This is an upper level, correct? Basically the connected basements.

Was there no city planning for drainage and sewage?

I had previously gotten the impression of vast distances between Places of Interest.
Is this true from being a labyrinth not from straight line distance?
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Quote from: Greentongue;844005In the picture of the map it looks like a dense, "World's Largest Mall".
Was this the feeling of the underground? That you were in a city with a ceiling?

Did the areas have segregation like the city above just not aligned to it?
This is an upper level, correct? Basically the connected basements.

Was there no city planning for drainage and sewage?

I had previously gotten the impression of vast distances between Places of Interest.
Is this true from being a labyrinth not from straight line distance?
=

It is very dense in spots, and then you get what feels like acres of blank corridors. Some of the areas, like the Temple of Vimuhla or the Temple of Hry'y, feel like a domed city. Other spots are really 'tight', and feel really closed in.

This is the upper level of the Underworld proper. The basements of the temples, clan-houses, and palaces are a level above this; these are aligned to the surface city, and I think you are right about this level not really being aligned with the surface - I think it's off to the east, a little bit, and centered on the City of the Dead from the way some of the entrances are aligned with the Jakalla surface map.

City planning? Sanitation? What? You are kidding, right?

Seriously, that's the level above this one.  What rudimentary sewers and drains that there are are all in the high-status areas of the surface map, and in general drainage is down into the river and thence out to sea. There just isn't much thought give to it, except to keep important areas reasonably dry. The Foreigners' Quarter has little to none of any of this, and can only be described as disgusting at best. High-status foreigners all live elsewhere , in their legations, clan-houses, temples, or even a villa or palace.

I should mention that it's pretty common for rain to be collected in cisterns off the roofs of buildings; Phil kept telling us about the Mughal Shah who built himself a huge new capital city, and then discovered that the site had no reliable water supply! It was abandoned pretty quickly, and still stands empty and silent to this day - it's now a tourist attraction - and this is where Phil got a lot of his inspiration for Tekumel; India is littered with abandoned and ruined cities, palaces, fortresses, and temples.

(Oh! Fatehpur Sikri, that's the city I was thinking of!)

This map is all the 'good stuff' that players like to explore; the levels below are the intermediate level, and then the Garden of the Weeping Snows as the lowest level.

Yes, I'd say you're right; the map has some separation between the 'Points of Interest', but not as much as there might be - it's all labyrinth, so you really can't tell how far anything is from anything. I suspect Phil did that this way to give himself some options - he always had a 'back door' or 'Plan B' for future expansions or adventures.

The Tsolyani don't do maps like we do; they have what are pretty much 'conceptual' maps, where you know you have to go from A to B to C, but the details in between don't really matter and so are not on the map. When I think of the Jakalla Underworld, I 'know' where everything is on my mental map, but I don't really know what all the stuff in between the interesting stuff is...

Am I explaining this well enough? I worry...

So, surface, then basements, then this map, then the levels below are the intermediate levels, and then the Garden of the Weeping Snows as the lowest level.

How are these levels transitioned? Do the wall embellishments give a sense of depth as you go further into places Man Was Never Meant To Be?
Like rock strata in the earth.

With the huge establishments as shown on the map and the lack of a Concordant in the Underworld, is this a multi-front battle zone?

Are there pass documents (and passwords/items) that can be forged? Secret routes that bypass outposts?
Storage for disguises? Supply and armory stashes? Neutral zones?

If a "war zone", are new characters recruited as replacements in this or is it ritualistic and static?
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It's however you want it to be.

On Phil' s version of Tekumel other than immediately under the temples And the tubeway car port, nobody much bothered with the underworld.  Grave robbing was low status.

Quote from: Greentongue;844041So, surface, then basements, then this map, then the levels below are the intermediate levels, and then the Garden of the Weeping Snows as the lowest level.

How are these levels transitioned? Do the wall embellishments give a sense of depth as you go further into places Man Was Never Meant To Be?
Like rock strata in the earth.

With the huge establishments as shown on the map and the lack of a Concordant in the Underworld, is this a multi-front battle zone?

Are there pass documents (and passwords/items) that can be forged? Secret routes that bypass outposts?
Storage for disguises? Supply and armory stashes? Neutral zones?

If a "war zone", are new characters recruited as replacements in this or is it ritualistic and static?
=

Yes. There is only one intermediate level, in Phil's maps. labelled "level Two" on the hard copy. There's also a tubeway car station, but that's below and part of the palace of Nyelmu, in the Garden of the Weeping Snows.

Yes. Each of the historical cultures of Tekumel has a  distinct visual style, and the deeper you go the older the style. Players can instantly recognize how deep they are, even if they can't read the inscriptions.

Yes. The place is full of mutually hostile and mutually allied factions.

Yes, to all of the above.

Again, yes. New people are always welcome. The 'furniture' might be static, but the occupants are always very active and a background against which one has adventures of all sorts.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;844066It's however you want it to be.

On Phil' s version of Tekumel other than immediately under the temples And the tubeway car port, nobody much bothered with the underworld.  Grave robbing was low status.

Yeah, I'd say that was the case; after the very early days in his games, after we'd survived a few jaunts into the Underworld, we'd 'graduated' and spent most of our time up top. I did do a little Underworld exploration when I was in Hekellu, but that was as much for political purposes as anything else. Did find the most amazing things down there, though, including one of Phil's most secret and astonishing SNSs...

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;844066It's however you want it to be.

On Phil' s version of Tekumel other than immediately under the temples And the tubeway car port, nobody much bothered with the underworld.  Grave robbing was low status.

Clearly I'm missing some point.
There is this HUGE map and "nobody much bothered with the underworld"?
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Quote from: chirine ba kal;844094Yeah, I'd say that was the case; after the very early days in his games, after we'd survived a few jaunts into the Underworld, we'd 'graduated' and spent most of our time up top.

With all the restrictions on conflict above ground, what did you do in the early games?
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Quote from: Greentongue;844099Clearly I'm missing some point.
There is this HUGE map and "nobody much bothered with the underworld"?
=

Um, I'm not sure how to approach this. Please remember that we gamed with Phil every Thursday night, with only one or two nights off a year, for the better part of fifteen years. In my time with Phil, we spent maybe eight months of real time in the Jakalla Underworld at the beginning of my time with him; these adventures are in Volume One of my book, and take up about 40,000 words of a total 300,000 words in the whole book.

We did spend time down there, early on, but after a while we moved on to other things. We did go back very now and then, when Phil wanted to do a simple 'dungeon crawl', but he didn't like repetition; he like to explore his own world, as near as I can tell.

Quote from: Greentongue;844100With all the restrictions on conflict above ground, what did you do in the early games?
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It was a combination of things. Imperial politics, getting the war with Yan Kor started, visiting the First Temple of Lord Vimuhla, exploring some of the Jakalla Underworld, long boat trips on the missuma river with hot Livyani courtesans, assaulting the palace of Bassa, King of the Black Ssu, exploring the tubeway car system, making out with hot princesses, visiting the South Polar Space Marine base, looking in on the planetary defense fortress on the little red moon, seeing the two hobbits in the Bey Su palace gardens, meeting some of the Undying Wizards like Nyelmu, Thomar, and Turshamu, revealing Prince Mirusya and Prince Surandano, getting poisoned by hot Livyani courtesans, sight-seeing, discovering a new non-human race under the town of Tu'umnra, being chased around the Temple of Sarku by hordes of Undead, that kind of thing.

You know, all those 'adventurer things' like what John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Fafhrd, and the Grey Mouser do.

Seriously; Tekumel is a pretty busy place. The locals get up to all sorts of larks, and I got dragged along on most of them. It was pretty hectic, and I was glad for the long boat trip with Harchar to the Southern Continent to invade the Shen settlements there; very relaxing and peaceful, aside from fighting the Hlyss nest-ship and Arneson running the boat into the Southern continent - he was a superb sailor, but a lousy navigator.

The first couple of years were pretty frantic, but after we got the war going it quieted down a fair bit. Battles, sieges, that kind of thing, an it all seemed pretty relaxing...