Recaps & Roundups part 41: The Dragon #4

Cover dated December 1976, The Dragon #4 is a special issue devoted almost entirely to Empire of the Petal Throne. It seems like an odd move for a magazine so early in it's run, but TSR was selling EPT at $25 a pop, and no doubt were pretty keen to shift some units. Most of the articles in it were for EPT, and thus only of minor relevance to the Ultimate Sandbox; I do plan to use Tekumel as a setting, but only as a peripheral world that the PCs might visit, not as a central part of the campaign.

Articles not relevant to that project are: "Miscellaneous Oddball D&D Stuff" which presents a number of overtly comedic game elements, which I'm not including because they are very silly indeed; "Mapping the Dungeons" which has more names and addresses of DMs; and "Wizards Defined" which outlines the abilities for various levels of magic-user in an attempt at humour.

Relevant articles are listed below. I'm including them here for my own reference, but since they aren't D&D-related I'll gloss over them pretty quickly. I covered this in more detail some years ago.

"Reports Submitted to the Petal Throne" by M.A.R. Barker: This is a follow-up to a previous article, and features a number of reports to the Emperor about goings on in Tekumel. It's very dense stuff, but an intriguing look into the weird, alien world of EPT.

"Notes on Androids on The Starship Warden" by Jim Ward: An article detailing the history and use of androids on the Starship Warden of Metamorphosis Alpha, which I'm using as another possible setting for adventures in my campaign.

"Jakalla Encounters" by Steve Klein: A random table for generating encounters in the Foreigners' Quarter of EPT's Jakalla.

"The Battle of the Temple of Chanis" by M.A.R Barker: An account of a large-scale battle in Tekumel, complete with the fictional account of one of the soldiers. The battle is waged between an army from Mu'ugalavya and one from Tsolyanu, which the Mu'ugalavyani lost.

"Creature Features - The Mihalli": Stats and description for the Mihalli, a non-human race that hitched a ride with humanity to the planet of Tekumel (back when humans were still a star-faring race). Most of them were wiped out with fission bombs ages ago.

"Creature Features - The Vriyagga": A weird creature that trundles around on fleshy wheels, dwelling in the fabled subterranean City of Red-Tiled Roofs.

"Roads from Jakalla" by Jerry Westergard: Some adventurers are hired to transport a book to the Emperor, to prevent a plot to assassinate a prominent general.

"Wargaming World": Shows some of the earliest miniatures for D&D and EPT. The pictures are quite low quality, but it looks like the orcs are pig-faced (some of the earliest images of that style of orc). The pictures of the EPT figures might come in handy if I need to see what certain types of troops are meant to look like. It's not hard to find visual aids for D&D, but EPT is more difficult.

"Fantasy/Swords & Sorcery Recommended Reading" by Gary Gygax: This is a list of recommended books from Gary, a precursor to the one in AD&D. Some authors have specific works listed, and some dont. I'll list them below.

• Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson
• Algernon Blackwood
• Leigh Brackett
• John Carter of Mars (et al) by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Warriors of the Worlds End by Lin Carter
• The Incompleat Enchanter and Castle of Iron (et al) by deCamp & Pratt
• Gates of Creation (et al) by P.J. Farmer
• Kothar the Barbarian (et al) by Gardner Fox
• Conan the Conqueror (et al) by R.E. Howard
• Hiero's Journey by Sterling Lanier
• Swords of Lankhmar (et al) by Fritz Leiber
• H.P. Lovecraft
• Creep Shadow Creep, The Moon Pool, Face in the Abyss and Dwellers in the Mirage (et al) by A. Merritt
• Stealer of Souls and Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock
• Changeling Earth by Fred Saberhagen
• Margaret St. Clair
• The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Eyes of the Overworld and The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
• Stanley Weinbaum
• M.W. Wellman
• Jack of Shadows (et al), Lord of Light and Nine Princes of Amber series by Roger Zelazny

Of the above, I've only read the first five of Burroughs John Carter books, all of Howard's Conan, a good chunk of Lovecraft, the two Moorcock books, both Tolkien books, and both of Vance's books. Fritz Leiber is probably the most glaring thing on this list that I haven't got to yet. Alas, most of my youthful fantasy reading went on official TSR novels and epic fantasy from the 1980s and onwards. I need to check out some of this stuff.

Interlude #3: Empire of the Petal Throne

Released about halfway through 1975, Empire of the Petal Throne is the second RPG published by TSR. (Okay, maybe the third, I'm not sure when Boot Hill was released in relation. Regardless, it is definitely the first published RPG setting.) The game is the work of M.A.R. Barker, a university linguistics professor whose name is commonly started with three initials, and whose fantasy world has a strong basis in its invented languages. Gee, that does sound familiar...

Gary Gygax noticed the similarities as well, and in the introduction to EPT he declares Barker's work to be at least painstakingly detailed as Tolkien's. I think it's safe to say that Tolkien outstrips Barker in the field of literary merit, but when it comes to working as a game EPT may have the edge.

I've struggled with EPT and its setting of Tekumel for a while. It's all over the earliest issues of The Dragon, and I've never quite been able to wrap my head around it. Dungeons & Dragons, for all its weirdness, is firmly rooted in western folklore and mythology. With EPT, the influences are much further out of my comfort zone, drawing on Asian and South American influences, and everything is weird and unfamiliar.  Even so, the game is so prominent in TSR's periodicals that I wanted to include it as a part of the Ultimate Sandbox, so I've read through the original rules to see how compatible it is.

The answer is that yes, it's extremely compatible with D&D. In many ways it's just a D&D variant, albeit one that's much better defined and organised. There are differences of course. Players roll their stats on 1d100, and Wisdom and Charisma have been replaced by Psychic Ability and Comeliness (the latter of which would be added to the D&D stats, at least for a little while). Damage dealt in combat is dependent upon the Hit Dice of the attacker and defender, with stronger characters dealing multiple dice of damage against weaker ones. There's a skill system.  Players can score an "instant death" kill on two natural 20s, and any natural 20 deals double damage (probably the first appearance of that ubiquitous D&D house rule). There are innumerable small tweaks and adjustments to the D&D rules, but at it's heart it's much the same game.

The real interest lies in the setting, however. There's a lot of densely packed information in the game's 120-odd pages, and I know I've only got the barest sense of it, but I'll do my best here. As I understand it, the world of Tekumel was colonised by the human race during an era of space exporation far in our future. They terraformed the planet, which drove a lot of the native races into hiding.  After some time there was a mysterious event that shunted Tekumel's solar system into another dimension, one where it was discovered that people could wield mystical forms of energy (i.e. magic). A lot of mankind's technology was destroyed though, and they eventually devolved to a more primitive society. At the same time, Tekumel's native races started to fight back as well.  At the time of the game's setting, there are five human empires: Livyanu, Mu'ugalavya, Salarvya, Yan Kor and Tsolyanu. Tsolyani society is heavily traditional and ceremonial, with multiple intrigues and cults and sects. It's honestly all a bit dizzying to me on a first read; I'd need to go over it again pretty diligently to get a proper grasp on it.  It's all quite daunting, and that's just from reading it; I don't know how I'd dump all of this on my players.

That is mitigated somewhat by the assumed beginning of a Tekumel campaign: that the PCs are strangers from distant lands, and know next to nothing about Tsolyani culture. Thus, the players would be learning about things at the same time as their characters. It's a good way to introduce such an alien culture, and also sounds like a big challenge for players and DM alike.

What's easier to grasp is the standard mode of play for EPT: it's a dungeon crawl! All over Tekumel there are ruined cities, and subterranean labyrinths, filled with weird creatures, old magic and ancient technology. It's a great pulpy set-up. The monsters are suitably bizarre, with not an orc in sight, and will definitely be a surprised to any seasoned D&D player. Their stats are 100% compatible with D&D as well, so I can use them with no problems at all.

EPT is an impressive product overall, especially considering the state of D&D at the time. The text is organised and well-edited, the rules are tight and precisely explained, the interior art is flavourful and high quality, and the maps are the sort of thing that would have looked at home in a TSR product from a decade later. Here are the maps of Tekumel and the city of Jakalla below:

The City of Jakalla

Tekumel's northern continent

The question remains: will I include Tekumel in the Ultimate Sandbox? I think I will, perhaps via a portal in or near Castle Greyhawk. I'm already planning for portals to Barsoom, the Old West, Nazi Germany, the Starship Warden, and some others I've probably forgotten, so one more won't hurt. The rules are similar enough to D&D that I won't need to do much work on that side of things. The setting is a lot more daunting, but the prospect of dumping some PCs into the intensely stratified and ceremonial culture of Tekumel is an intriguing one, as is the notion of players being somewhere completely alien to baseline D&D.