Wednesday, January 06, 2010

draft EPT adventure intro

Tekumel is a planet where the human soul rots in fetters. Daily life groans under the myriad restrictions of tyrannical rulers, harsh laws, ossified caste systems and entrenched clan relationships. Each of you has emigrated to Jakalla, one of the jeweled cities of the Empire of the Petal Throne, in order to escape wretched conditions back home. The Empire’s strictures are no better and perhaps worse than those of your various homelands, but as foreigners you stand outside the local class structure, affording you a possibility of upward mobility otherwise denied to you by your native societies. Through a combination of bravery, luck and skullduggery, you each plan to carve out your own place in Jakallan society. Each night your dreams are haunted by glittering palaces with resplendent gardens and bounteous feasts served by gorgeous slaves.

At least those are your dreams on the nights when sleep is possible. Your humble bedchambers in the Tower of the Red Dome were sufficient when you first arrived in Jakalla penniless and unable to speak the local tongue. But after months of acclimatizing to life in Jakalla’s foreign quarter and a few profitable adventures, you are quite ready to vacate that slimy, vermin-invested flophouse. Each of you deposited a small fortune with Birruku the Allaqiyani to reserve a room in his more amicable hostel. Your meager belongings were packed. All that remained to move to comfortable new rooms was to obtain the necessary transfer permits from the Jakallan bureaucracy. That of course, is where things went wrong.

A minor functionary in the Palace of the Realm, one Gulanqi the Fetid, has blocked each of your applications for permission to relocate. Through an underling he has made it known that the only way to secure less wretched lodgings is to perform a small service for him. It seems Gulanqi’s mistress, Ch’rea of the Lethal Curves, is a member of the Cult of Hyashra, a minor religious group devoted to a goddess who was ejected centuries ago from the state pantheon in favor of Hrihyal, the Dancing Maiden. The local temple devoted to Hyashra has been little more than a heap of monster-infested ruins for nearly as long. The Fetid One will approve your transfer permit only if you venture into the catacombs below the ruined temple and bring him the golden idol of Hyashra, legendary for its craftsmanship and glowing gem-eyes. Success in this mission would no doubt increase your standing with this powerful government official, which may prove useful in future endeavors.

Gulanqi has put at your disposal three slave-boys who have led you to the ruins. They will serve as torchbearers for your expedition to the underworld of Jakalla. The adventure begins outside the temple a few hours after sundown.

24 comments:

  1. Oh man. Oh man, oh man... this is gonna be SWEET!

    Will you have pregens or is chargen fairly straightforward?

    (Word verify: mingshot - you know someone just has to have one of those in your game...)

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  2. I have generated stats. I just need to get the poor blighters some equipment and put them down on proper charsheets.

    Chargen is fairly easy, but I wanted to get dungeoneering right away.

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  3. Anonymous3:20 PM

    Sounds very cool, Jeff. Makes me want to play it.

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  4. Anonymous3:54 PM

    I already feel sorry for those slave-boys.

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  5. @stirgessuck - sssh! ixnay on the anplay ootay akemay the eatshieldsmay ogay irstfay...

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  6. Im baffled.

    Jeff does EPT confronts me with an image of an old gran nodding and clacking her teeth to death metal in her favourite tea & cake shop.

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  7. Its sounds freaking awesome! You should start writing intros for OSR adventures...

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  8. Jeff does EPT confronts me with an image of an old gran nodding and clacking her teeth to death metal in her favourite tea & cake shop.

    I don't see a problem with this. At all.

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  9. Wow, Jeff! That gives me a clearer feel for EPT than any of material I've found on the internet.

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  10. Ooooo... EPT solo adventure? I'll second Palmer - evocative!

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  11. Anonymous5:58 AM

    I kill the bureaucrat, loot his stuff, and forge the permissions we need - plus a few extra, if you know what I mean :P

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  12. Dude, you weren't paying attention to the boxed text. You just killed the underling, as you never met the bureaucrat face-to-face. The agents of the the Fetid One have you declared an outlaw subject to immediate impalement upon your capture. Anyone else want to go into the dungeon or would you rather play Escape from Jakalla with myrystyr?

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  13. Anyone else want to go into the dungeon or would you rather play Escape from Jakalla with myrystyr?

    Uhh, that depends. Can I play Plake'Snisken, kill myrstyr, keep all the crap he found and then get out?

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  14. Chogwiz: I don't see a problem with this. At all.

    I made no criticism but there is an incongruity here worth noting. Jeff champions lightness and laughs on his blog. Always. EPT is a place of horror and it requires study and attention from players.

    If an obsevation like this cant be made without someone bristling then the OSR is fukked up worse than I thought with pointless twee.

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  15. @Kent - Apparently my comment's lightness and humor was lost. It's hardly a reflection of the OSR in general. (If I'm the reflection, I want a RAISE!)

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  16. EPT is a place of horror and it requires study and attention from players.

    Professor Barker's World of Tékumel may be a place of horror requiring study and attention, but EPT is just this crazy D&D variant from nineteen-seventy-who-gives-a-crap.

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  17. Man this looks good.
    I know tothing about EPT but now I want to play it.

    Word verify: Dismso
    EPT character: Dismso the unlikely.

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  18. I've got no problem with horror and laughs at the same time in the same game.

    Also, I vote we do give Chgowiz a raise. Lets double what we pay him!

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  19. A strike of enlightment triggered by this post: original EPT is the migrant worker fantasy game.

    Why didn't I see this before?

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  20. So Tekumel = WFRP in sarongs?

    Sifu Jeff strikes again. And suddenly Tekumel doesn't look all that intimidating...

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  21. You know, having played in Prof. Barker's campaign for many a year, let me share a BIG SECRET with all of you: Tekumel is what you make of it. We've had light-hearted dinner parties, death-defying epic adventures, confrontations with deep cosmic horrors, and picaresque swashbuckling adventures. And Tekumel is a big enough world for ALL OF THAT. Even Jeff's Big Dumb EPT Campaign - I so want to play in it!

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  22. Coming to this ages late as I trawl the archives*, but I gotta say, I'll probably swipe this, change the names, and use it as the opening adventure in a Weird Barsoom campaign I'm thinking about. Cool stuff!

    * Also: you are brilliant and awesome. Keep blogging forever.

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