I have no idea if anyone even remembers Tekumel or Empire of the Petal Throne or the other gaming or fiction materials spawned out of it, but MAR Barker died last week at the age of 83. For people looking for an alternative to the standard "D&D" world backgrounds, Tekumel was the original "other option." My friends favored the somewhat easier to comprehend Glorantha and I remember Tekumel as a world that was completely out of my comfort zone and felt like I needed a graduate degree to just understand. It was just as fully realized as Middle Earth, but very foreign and all Silmarilian and no Hobbit. I finally got a taste of what it was all about in his novels and it was pretty incredible.
If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
Yeah, it is pretty strange stuff. It does that sci-fi/fantasy crossover thing that I don't especially care for personally but it is certainly immensely detailed and pretty interesting if you like world-building.
The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT. Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
I don't know how I missed this entirely. Tekumel, I mean.
Why am I homeless? Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question. They called it The Prayer, its answer was law Mommy come back 'cause the water's all gone
Yeah, it was basically about 20 years ahead of its time as far as getting a wide audience. For the 70s it was fucking weird. After a couple decades of a million other settings that each have a handful of strange things to acclimate one to non-medieval-europeness, not to mention the bits and pieces of Tekumel leaking out into other genres, the Tekumel Parade of Weirdness has moved up to 'pretty neat' imo.
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