Random Campaigns

These random campaigns have nothing in common, except the ultimate gameablity of the settings. I think either one would make a great campaign.

Sensei Von Helsing

(Horror, Martial Arts, Blood Types)

  With the help of a Shaolin priest, Von Helsing begins training a cadre of martial artists to combat the rising tide of vampires. A new weapon maneuver is perfected using a wooden stake.

East meets west against the vampires. I suppose they might run into Chinese hopping vampires, as well as the more usual Romanian ones. I've seen Buffy train in the dreaded stake maneuver.

Hero in Mirrorshades

(Conan, CthulhuPunk, Voodoo: The Shadow War)

Escaping from the ranks of the cyber-gladiators, a new street samurai takes on the followers of the Great Old Ones, aided by a Voudoun Hougan, a common thief, and Red Sonja, the handle of a beautiful and talented decker.

I seriously want to play in this one, and I don't even like cyberpunk. And Red Sonja has me intrigued.

Online Tekumel Community Resources

Tékumel has a long history of an active community. In the late 1970s through the 1980s, the official fanzines (Tékumel Journal, Journal of Tekumelani Affairs, Imperial Military Journal, The Imperial Courier) kept the designers in touch with the players. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the community went digital and the mailing lists (Tékumel Digest, The Blue Room, and the Tékumel  ahoo! Group) took over. Nowadays, Tékumel  has a pretty active set of communities online. This post will survey them.

Tékumel Website and Forums

The official Tekumel website is a gorgeous creation, one of the best game-related sites I've ever seen. It is a fount of information about the world and games of Tekumel. I has adventures, rules, encyclopedic articles, art, and more. 

It also has the Tekumel Forums, a place to discuss all things Tekumelani. The folks ther are friendly and helpful. Check it out, read some posts, and respond. 

Tékumel-related Yahoo! Groups 

A variety of groups exist on Yahoo. The main Tekumel group is active, and the miniatures group is pretty active as well. Many of the other ones need more activity. Check out the archives. 

• tekumel: The main Tékumel group. Active. The archives hold great amounts of fun discussion. Anything new gets announced here. This is a must-read list.
• apatekumel: Visitations of Glory, the Tékumel Amateur Press Association (APA). No issues since Feb 2008. The files section contains most of the issues of the apazine, as well as Tekumel.com. If you need an adventure, the issues have tons of great material.
• tekumelnovels: Discussion of Man of Gold and Professor Barker's other novels. Last message in 2009.
• tsolyani: For the discussion of the Tsolyáni language. This summer they had a VOIP teleconference.
• MightyImperialDeeds: A group for posting your game reports in the style of Imperial Dispatches, as was done in the fanzines of old. Only one message, but a new one is pending. (I just sent a Dispatch that I wrote for a recent game and posted on my website. When I saw the description of this group, I sent the Dispatch in to the moderator.)
• savage_tekumel: A group for developing a set of Savage Worlds rules for Tékumel. The author of this rule set posted drafts in 2009. Nothing has been posted since then.
• TekumelArt: For the dissemination of fan art related to Tékumel, as well as discussion of various methods of producing said art, such as electronic means. Not much traffic.
• TekumelMinis-War: This group is for talking about Tékumel miniatures and wargaming. The new figures have helped revitalize this group, which has recent activity.
• tenebrousplaces: This group publishes Tenebrous Places: The Magazine for People Being Pursued by the Undead, a stylish graphic magazine with a humorous slant, as well as other graphical constructs of the moderator. It's been a couple years since the last post of substance, but the archives are well worth looking at. Very funny stuff.

Tékumel Facebook group

The Tekumel Facebook group is gets a fair amount of traffic. If you use FB a lot, check it out.

Tékumel Google+ Community

The Tékumel Google+ Community is brand new and quite active. I really like how it's taken off and brought new people into the Bethorm of Tekumel. 

Archives of Previous Communities

The Blue Room Archive Search Engine -- a search engine into the Blue Room Archive, a mailing list maintained by Chris Davies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Massive amount of good content.
The Tekumel Digest -- mailing list maintained by me during the early 1990s.
Shadowlands BBS archive -- a BBS maintained by James Roach in the 1990s with some Tekumel content.
alt.games.frp.tekumel archives -- a USENET group from the 1990s.

So, there's no excuse if you are feeling alone and isolated in your love of Tekumel. There are many places to hang out with new friends.

Alternate Histories Past and Present

First into prehistory and then to the recent past, two alternate worlds are here presented for your reading pleasure.

Walker World

A virus in the Pliocene Era wipes out Eohippus and all its relatives. The horse never survived to be the powerhouse to replace human power. Face it: a team of oxen just doesn't cut it when you want to go fast. Things in the Old World happened about the same as in our world, until the Roman Era. The barbarians never developed cavalry, and the Roman legion remained king. This just delayed the inevitable about 200 years. Rome fell due to internal decay. The desert tribes of the Arabian peninsula remained flea-scratching nomads, and Mohammed never started Islam, or, at least, it never caught on. The Crusades never happened. The Indian subcontinent retained much of its early culture well into the second millennia. No knights of chivalry. Countries are much more stable, since armies must travel at a foot soldier's pace. TL 4 prevails.

I've played in this world. It's Tekumel, only not. Oxen don't make very good riding mounts.

Assassin's World

Ronald Reagan dies from John Hinckley's bullet. George Bush is ushered in, appointing Alexander Haig as his V.P. Two years later, Bush is assassinated during the Presidential campaign, and Haig invokes martial law. A massive FBI investigation reveals Bush's killing to be the work of a conspiracy of crazed lone assassins. The public buys the obvious oxymoron. Haig lasts thirteen months before, you guessed it, another lone kook blows his head off, as well as that of the Speaker of the House. Control of the country falls to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two of which are killed within weeks. The Surgeon-General, C. Evert Coup, issues a report explaining that this rash of insanity is caused by a new virus that has infected the population: Acquired Insane Dementia Syndrome or AIDS. Anyone can carry it and pass it along in large groups, like football stadiums, religious rallies, corporate stockholder meetings, etc. No symptoms appear, until one day the victim wakes up in a homicidal frenzy. Coup's news conference is disrupted when he and many reporters are killed by a suicide bomber. Multinational corporations and tour guides carry this plague to the rest of the world. Chaos ensues.

Ew, where was my brain when I came up with that? Whew.

Illuminati Random Campaigns

Well from Illuminati University, the natural direction to go is the Illuminati. Here's a couple campaigns that are sure to illuminate.

Templars Against the White Brotherhood

(Martial Arts, Middle Ages 1, Illuminati)

A group of Knights Templar, Weapon Masters all, are sent on covert missions to combat the rising power of the White Brotherhood, a secret society of magicians, alchemists, diviners and necromancers, who meddle in medieval affairs for their own benefit.

This is on my list of campaigns I'd run in a hot second. I have the start of the White Brotherhood in my C&S notes. And building the Knights-Templar templates, the special forces of their day, would be amazing.

The Sons of Freedom - Squish!

(Illuminati, Goblins, Reign of Steel)

In this darkly humorous future, the robots have taken over from the Goblins. In their fight for freedom, the Goblins band into secret societies to combat the android mechanicals. Much slap-stick involved.

I have some weird friends that would be amused by this. I think I'd go nuts.

An Alternate America

Continuing my alternate history collection, this idea came from my friend, +John Finsrud, a long-time gamer and history buff. #alternatehistory #alternatehistoryfriday

Imperial Earth

This alternate starts with the Confederate States of America receiving much stronger support from Britain because the crop failure in the European wheat crop from 1860-62 never happened, thus removing British reliance on importing Union wheat. The Confederate Army, with better supplies of arms and food along with training, fight  the Union to a stalemate. They achieve sovereignty, and the Union abandons the War as too costly. One interesting thing that happened during the war was that during the Union siege and blockade of New Orleans, the Mayor of New Orleans asked the French for help in lifting the siege, and a small French fleet breaks the blockade and French troops reclaim New Orleans as French territory.

After the war, the Union's nose is bloodied and the National Ego is bruised. The U.S. loses its expansionist fervor, and turns inward. It never becomes the world power it did in our parallel. The U.S. stretches from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River. The vast expanse of the Louisiana Purchase is never heavily settled, and the Indians and what settlers there are strike a peaceful deal, since the settlers know there won't be any cavalry coming over the hill. Alaska remains in Russian hands.

Texas resumes its secessionist tendencies after the Civil War and leaves the Confederacy to become its own nation. Several border clashes occur between Texas and Mexico. A truce is settled and Texas and Mexico eventually form an alliance. Mexico keeps its original holdings in the Southwest and becomes a much more powerful regional state than on our timeline.

The forces that led Europe to World War I still exist. WWI arrives on schedule, but after the intense clashes of October, a hurried peace is made, ending the war but resolving nothing. The consequence of this is that the Great Empires of Europe never fall: Czarist Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans are all still around, as well as the British and French, conniving and scheming against each other.

This is a politically very interesting place to be. Lots of intrigue, diplomacy, espionage, etc. You've got multiple North American nations to deal with and Europe is very interested in the New World.


I created a GURPS character in this world: Jacques Devereux, Agent of France.