Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Most fantasy literary genre fans are familiar with J.R.R. Tolkein and his Middle Earth setting , a elaborated fancy world flesh out and portray through poems , novels likeThe Lord Of The Rings , maps , and even construct speech . few fan are as conversant with M.A.R. Barker , a linguist from Spokane who make a fantasy world calledTékumel . The world ofTékumelnever became a best - sell enfranchisement like other phantasy sagas , buts its colorful original background , elaborated worldbuilding , exotic ecosystem , and decidedly non - westerly phantasy civilizations wound up greatly act upon other forms of fancy media , fromDungeons & Dragonsto video game like TheElder Scrolls III : Morrowind .
Muhammad Abd - al - Rahman Barker ( 1929 - 2012 ) was , like Tolkien , an academic linguistic scientist , one who distinguished himself through his donation to the discipline of South Asian Studies . He instruct and wrote dissertations on Urdu culture , the Native American Klamath language , and various myth / unwritten history from across the humans . He also happened to be a huge fantasy fan and occasional author , inspire by theDying Earthstories and other 1950s/1960s works of fantasy – the same works of fantasy that happened to inspire Gary Gygax , thecreators ofDungeons & Dragons .
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M.A.R. Barker hoist up assembling the secondary cosmos ofTékumel over the class of 50 twelvemonth , describing it through created myths , history , artistic production , novels , a play game , and even five decided created languages . The result fantasy setting stands out from other lower-ranking man thanks to being utterly different from the classical fantasysettings seen inThe Lord Of The RingsorConan the Barbarian . Rather than being cheer by European cultural motifs , Tékumeldraws inspiration from Indian , Mesoamerican , Middle Eastern , and Egyptian mythology , then adds strong undertone of skill fiction lurking beneath the mount ’s veneer of illusion .
Tékumel, A World Of Magic, Aliens, And A Desolate Sky
In the far - remote past , Tékumelwas a vacation planet colonise by humans from an interstellar imperium , who terraformed the planet with advanced engineering , opened their resort cities to aliens from other galactic civilisation , and force back the autochthonous beings of the planet into desiccated reservations . Then the ace scheme ofTékumelwas sucked into an quarantined pocket dimension , cut off from the rest of the universe and debunk to the influence ofextra - dimensional entitiesfundamentally indistinguishable from Gods .
As technology conk out and civilization fall apart , the various races ofTékumel – humanoid , reptilian , and insectoid – reverted to a more ancient way of living , make empire with elaborate caste systems , worshipping the forces of Stability and Change , and treat psychical powers and technological artifacts as sources of thaumaturgy .
The " present - day " of the world ofTékumelcomes across as very unusual and foreign when compare to most works of Western Fantasy - not just because of the alien flora and fauna , but because the various country and cultures of this setting operate on values altogether foreign to modern Western sensibility . Caste systems delimit a person ’s social mobility , human ( and inhuman ) forfeiture is a cornerstone of many religious practices , being unaffiliated with a clan is seen as worse than dying , iron is a scarce resource , and certain Gods reward faithful worshippers by turning them into zombies after death .
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M.A.R. Barker’sTékumelfantasysetting ( and the various stories he wrote within it ) never quite achieve the global fame of other phantasy classics , but refreshing novelty and richness of item has now and indirectly inspiring many other works of " new weird " fantasy , ranging from theRiftwarsaga of Raymond E. Feist to the alien landscape ofThe Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind . Tékumel’sbiggest bequest , though , is arguably the huge impact it had on the earth ’s first playact biz .
Empire Of The Petal Throne & How It Influenced Dungeons & Dragons
presently after Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson released the first prototyperulesets forDungeons & Dragons , M.A.R. Baker took the groundbreaking auto-mechanic of the existence ’s first play game and created a ego - published RPG set in his human race ofTékumel . This RPG , titledEmpire Of The Petal Throne , lets player adventure through the vividly draw empires , landscape and culture ofTékumel , take on the roles of unfearing outsider who must earn the trust of the xenophobic civilizations they ’ve immigrate to by going on grave dungeon - delving expedition . Character class fall into the familiar divide of warrior , non-Christian priest , and magic - user , while leveling up increases a instrumentalist character ’s societal position in the Empire along with their personal power .
Besides expose gamers to a novel , non - Western science - fantasy background , Empire Of The Petal Thronealso introduced several innovative musical theme to the then - nascent tabletop roleplaying musical genre , such asCritical Rolls / Hits(PCs did extra damage with their artillery if they range the maximal amount on their twenty - sided dice ) and non - combat characters acquirement such as cooking , weaving , alchemy , animal - education , or perfume devising . Gary Gygax and his colleges at Tactical Studies Rules were so impressed with Barker ’s intricate world - building that they re - publishedEmpire Of The Petal Thronein 1975 as a tolerate - alone boxed game bent , micturate it the secondly - oldest official roleplaying biz in account afterD&D.
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root : Tekumel
