A History

= History of Tékumel = The history of Tékumel strides across eons. The oldest written records date back only some 25,000 years—and this dating is doubtful at best. Before those records stretch millenia—the Latter Times, the Time of Darkness, far back to the distant age when Tékumel was first discovered by explorers from Humanspace.

The world of Tékumel, Nu Ophiuchi d (a.k.a. Sinistra d), was first settled by humans exploring the galaxy about 60,000 years in the future, along with several other alien species. Their extensive terraforming of the inhospitable environment, including changing the planet's orbit and rotation rate to create a 365.25-day year, disrupted local ecologies and banished most of the local flora and fauna (including some intelligent species) to small reservations in the corners of their own world, resulting in a golden age of technology and prosperity for Mankind and its allies. Tékumel became a resort world, where the wealthy from a thousand other stars could while away their time next to its warm seas.

Suddenly, and for reasons unknown, Tékumel and its star system (Tékumel's two moons, Gayél and Káshi, its sun, Tuléng, and four other planets, Ülétl, Riruchél, Shíchel, and Zirúna) were cast out of our reality into a "pocket dimension" (known as a béthorm in Tsolyáni), in which there were no other star systems. Gravitic stresses nearly tore the planet apart, and destroyed many cities and installations. Interstellar trade was immediately and permanently severed, and a Time of Darkness descended over the planet.

One hypothesis is that this isolation happened through hostile action on the part of an unknown party or group. Another is that the cosmic cataclysm was due to over-use of a faster than light drive which warped the fabric of space. No one knows, but the inhabitants of Tékumel, both human, native, and representatives of the other starfaring races, were now isolated and alone.

Severed from vital interplanetary trade routes (Tékumel is a world very poor in heavy metals) and in the midst of a massive gravitic upheaval due to the lines of gravitational force between the stars being suddenly cut, civilization was thrown into chaos. The intelligent native species, the Hlǘss and the Ssú, broke free from their reservations and wars as destructive as the massive geographic changes ravaged the planet. Civilization fell rather messily, and the Time of Darkness descended.

Sometime after the disaster, human scientists/philosophers (perhaps aided by the some of the more psychically gifted nonhumans) discovered that in the new dimension, the power of the human mind alone, unaided by technology, could draw power through from extra-dimensional space, and ‘magic’ developed. The sorcerers of the ancient Empire of Llyán of Tsámra mapped nexi between various dimensions and made pacts with various dwellers of other planes, called ‘demons’ by the uninitiated, inhabitants of dimensions near in n-dimensional space to Tékumel's pocket dimension, by those knowledgeable, were made.

Contact was also made with a race of extremely powerful beings that were for all human purposes ‘gods’. These powerful extra-dimensional or multi-dimensional alien beings subtly encouraged human worship and dependence; great unchanging religious bureaucracies developed, and after several millennia of religious warfare, the temples agreed upon a Concordat which disallowed open religious conflict, which further exaggerated the Tékumelani tendency toward stagnation.

The people of Tékumel lack the anthropocentric belief that the universe is knowable and conquerable; they know that there are races and beings which dwarf them in power, and that there are magics and sciences which are far beyond their grasp; intellectual and scientific curiosity is rare and even subtly discouraged. Science began to stagnate until ultimately knowledge became grounded in traditions handed down from generations long ago, the belief that the universe was ultimately understandable slowly faded.

Great empires rose and fell over the next 30,000 years; the presence of ‘magic’ (really psychic phenomena), along with the obvious superiority (and near-complete inscrutability) of the sciences of the Ancients (whose technology was largely irreparable due to a lack of necessary raw materials) led to a stagnation of the sciences, and to societies which depended largely upon tradition, precedent, and the bonds of family and clan for stability.

As a result of these historical processes, there exist upon the face of the great primary continent of the northeastern hemisphere of Tékumel the Five Empires, all of which are monarchical/theocratic oligarchies in which precedent and tradition hold the strength of law, and many smaller states which balance themselves between two or more of their larger neighbors. There are small enclaves of nonhuman races, most of whom owe allegiance to a human empire, and several states ruled by the inimical races, who still hate humanity and its allies with a passion, but are outnumbered by the more invaders. 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).

Since the societies are so intricate and formal, political maneuvering and subtlety, combined with the right amount of heroic action and appropriate posturing, are the keys to power, thus deal mostly with intrigue and plotting between the various power groups, combined with expeditions after some bit of lost knowledge or some sorcerous object from an ancient tomb. There are bits and pieces of ancient technology, which still function (many are self-repairing within limits, others have been maintained carefully by human and nonhuman sages or by robot servitors); these are fought over as powerful tools.There are mighty legions of thousands of soldiers wearing brightly-lacquered armor, wearing great Kheshchál-plumes, and beating huge Karéng war drums, sorcerers calling on terrible demons with secret names, giant pyramidal temples thousands of years old upon which hundreds of war-captives are sacrificed to Vimúhla, the Lord of Flame, etc.

Tékumelani culture is very baroque, with titles like Reader of the Peerless Scrolls of Martial Glory, huge statues of the 97th Aspect of Lady Avánthe, Tánule the Patron of Lovers, and twenty-three forms of the pronoun ‘you’, to be used when speaking to individuals of varying status and profession!