Heres one game nut who's wondering if Guardians of Order can actually get Tekumel out this christmas.
I've been excited for about two years (ever since the product was announced) but feel like the book will never be finished.
Tekumel, for those of you who dont know, is a game world developed by M.A.R. Barker a professor who taught linguistics and South Asian Studies at the University of Minnesota. The world he created is a dynamic and interesting alternative to the European cultures of D&D.
The Five Empires (one of which is the titular Empire of the Petal Throne, Tsolyánu) have technology about on the level of the European Renaissance (aqueducts, good roads, simple mechanics, wheeled carts, siege engines, crude surgery and slightly more advanced pharmacology, crossbows, water clocks, etc.). Their governments are greatly hidebound and bureaucratic, like those of ancient China. They have mighty, well-organized legions like those of the Romans. Their gods are like those of the Hindus, with a heavy dose of the bloodthirsty Aztec or Mayan deities. Their legal codes and sciences are much like those of the Arab philosophers of the Middle Ages; they are obsessed with personal and family honor, much like the medieval Japanese. The societies presented with the game are very intricate and very old (the youngest governments are some 2,500 years developed, and they have histories, traditions, and myths stretching back some 25,000 years).
