Eventually, all of the sub-topics, such as "The Characters" and "Acculturation,"
will be links to additional information.
Cultural and Social Issues
Starting a Tekumel campaign requires a fair amount of research and preparation. First, you
have to decide how you're going to bring the characters in; if they'll be native Tsolyani,
you have to find some way to get the players up to speed on the culture. Will they
all be members of the same clan? The same Legion? Different clans and/or legions?
Generally speaking, what social standing should they have? (You can't have them too far
apart, or they will only be able to communicate through intermediaries, which in play
will be a major source of annoyance.) Will they start in a small town? On a battlefield? In a
major city? If so, which one? The list goes on...
-
The Characters -- restrictions on character creation
Acculturation -- how we got the players squared away on Tsolyani culture
Departures -- how close our campaign is to "official" Tekumel, and the few
specific changes we have made from the canon
Game Mechanics
Once you've decided on the cultural factors, you have to roll up your sleeves/strap on your
armor/hold your nose/put on your Nomex body suit and address an ugly
mechanical question: which of the many sets of
ugly mechanics
developed for running Tekumel are you going to use? Just as high-class Tsolyani disdain exact knowledge of
numerical facts (like what time it is), hard-core
Tekumel buffs generally consider all discussion of rules systems ugly and impolite. You
can get flamed even for asking about them on the newsgroup, and they're a mostly
forbidden topic on the Blue Room list. Nevertheless, you will have to
pick one, develop your own, or decide to run "systemless."
This is mostly a lengthy way of justifying what this section of the Jakalla Nights web
site is for: here we will grapple with the indelicate administrative questions involved in running the Jakalla Nights campaign.
-
Character Generation -- how we used four solo adventure books to generate a
party of characters
Experience and Skills
-- the only areas we have heavily modified
Sources
I've been able to collect virtually everything written about Tekumel, so we've had a large
body of source material to draw from. Some sources we use for cultural background, others
for reference, and still others for game mechanics. Here are some of the key ones.
-
Orientation -- basic, intermediate, and advanced material to help players
understand the wild and wooly world of Tekumel
Reference -- where to go if you absolutely, positively, have to know what kind
of houses they build in Khirgar, or whether it's okay for your Chegarra-worshipping
character to partake of tekha-fish at a Jakallani banquet
Game Mechanics -- the canonical "physics" of our campaign, a mix of two official
game systems and some supplementary material originally written for a third one
