Indian Castes

TheTekumelProject · **Posted:** Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:10 am

I was reading up on India's Castes in an effort to guess at how much of Tsolyanu's population is from each status level of clan. (Very Low, Low, etc.) What I found suggests my assumptions were too simplistic as the population within a caste doesn't seem to relate to the status. I was looking for something like "Tsolyanu has a pop of 52 Million - or whatever - of which 15% are from Very Low status clans, etc. "

I found this list of Indian castes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_castes

The Charan are interesting - reminding me of the Vriddi Clan in many ways.

Gurkhal · **Posted:** Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:39 am

I agree that the Charan-caste looks very interesting and TÃ©kumel-ish. The castes are no doubt a great source of inspiration for dreaming up new Clans or fleshing established ones.

In regards to the population of TsolyÃ¡nu I heard the figure of 275 millions - which of course makes it alot of people but also brings it in line with my personal take on the setting which has minimized the amount of carnivores and dungeon crawls. If I would make a guess on the general distribution between the classes of TsolyÃ¡nu I would put it something like this:

Imperial: 0.0002% (or something like that since the Imperial Clan don't seem like a very numerous to me)
Very High: 3%
High: 8%
Medium: 13%
Low: 27
Very Low: 35%
Clanless: 9%
Foreigners: 5%

This does of course not take into account the number of slaves of the population.

Epengar · **Posted:** Sun Jan 23, 2011 11:26 pm

The population of Tekumel has been a recurrent topic on the email lists. Lots of learned speculation there. The Professor himself declines to comment, he's apparently not inclined to think about his world this way. The Sourcebook gives population densities ranges for the 8 types of terrain on the Sourcebook map. Some folks have calculated that way, and come up with some very large numbers.

Section 1.720 ("Social Classes") addresses the original point a bit. It says 85% of the population are rural peasants, mainly free-holders who work farms and plantations held by their clan, or tenant-farmers who work estates controlled by high clans, temples or the Imperium, along with some rural craftsmen, fisherfolk along the coast or the rivers, and herders in the hills and deserts. Townspeople make up another 10% (laborers, merchants and artisans, mainly), and high officials and wealthy nobles the rest. It's a little confusing though, because in the next section it says that slaves make up 10-15% of all workers. I guess that fraction applies to both rural and urban laborers. This doesn't directly answer the original question because clan status doesn't entirely track with economic status. Many high clans, even the Tlakotani, have rural clanhouses where clan members do the work. Conversely, the slaver clans (Collar of Bronze and others) are sometimes quite wealthy, but of Very Low status.

TheTekumelProject · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:05 am

Gurkhal · **Posted:** Wed Feb 02, 2011 6:57 am

TheTekumelProject · **Posted:** Wed Feb 02, 2011 1:29 pm

Gurkhal · **Posted:** Fri Feb 04, 2011 7:50 am

Epengar · **Posted:** Sat Feb 05, 2011 4:11 am

Here are some factors that contribute to a high diversity of large predators in my Tekumel:

--high overall productivity. Thanks to genetic artifacts of the Ancients, and magical technology, both wild and domestic ecosystems capture more solar energy, and convert it into living organisms. More plants support more prey supports more predators.
--more diversity of ecosystems. Since the planet was seeded with organisms from many worlds, the diversity of soils and plant is higher, and the degree of biochemical incompatibility (things that consumers can't digest) is higher than on Earth. That allows more different kinds of things to persist. It also means landscapes are more complex. One valley might be grassy and open, the next one covered with rubbery shrubs, even if they have the same minerals, climate, etc.
--The combination of clan-centered social structure (large groups with long tenure on the land), productive gen-engineered crops, and dangerously hostile and labor-intensive wilderness means that the pattern of rural in habitation is different. People live in clusters, surrounded by very intricately cultivated fields and gardens. It's a lot of dangerous work to convert wilderness into farms. Often clans, with their long time perspective, find it preferable to invest more into the land they've already got -- planting orchards, enhancing irrigation, terracing, creating complex polycultures of many different crops in the same space. You don't see a lot of "homesteaders" heading out to carve their own little piece of heaven out of the wilderness in the Empire of the Petal Throne. It's too dangerous, and what kind of idiot wierdo takes his wife and kids out away from the clan like that? All this means that there's a sharper boundary between the wilderness and cultivated countryside. That, in turn, means that the uninhabited areas within the Empire are really uninhabited, so again, more space for more and bigger predators.

Of course all of this is just special pleading, trying to reverse engineer what Barker wrote. I think it's pretty clear that he doesn't think about his world in particularly ecological way. He certainly wants it to be diverse and plausible, but he's not interested in being quantitative about, putting numbers on populations or drawing maps of distributions. Also, he did what pretty much game writers do, he wrote more about the scary monsters that make for exciting games.

Gurkhal · **Posted:** Tue Feb 22, 2011 2:17 pm

Epengar · **Posted:** Wed Feb 23, 2011 3:41 am

TheTekumelProject · **Posted:** Sat Jan 31, 2015 8:14 pm

My personal view, when I read Tekumel's creature stats, is that I am reminded a great deal of the D&D Monster manual. Monsters always attack and always fight to the death, etc. There are a lot of canon Tekumel creatures that I either completely ignore or have or will modify to suit. Example, the Rust Monster. I forget the Tekumel name. Why does that exist? It's main weapon is an acid spit that dissolves metals? On a metal-poor world? Not much of a weapon, is it? Unless it is made specifically for attacking super-charged PCs. That is bullshit gaming IMO. The description is crap. I'm not getting rid of the creature but in my way of thinking it is a creature that feeds on metals. Maybe it's spit makes them more digestible. It can go a long while between feeding and is always looking for more sources. So...guards are often posted around mines to kill the beasts and one of the duties of Temple Guards and priests is to make sure one doesn't run rampant around the temple. It also means that if you find one in the wilderness or some ruin it may mean there is some source of metal about, so it might be worth tracking it to find out...

Feshenga are Tekumeli crocodiles, IMO. Or maybe Ghar should be...I haven't decided my opinion on Ghar yet.

Gurkhal · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2015 4:16 am

TheTekumelProject · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2015 2:51 pm

I am seriously considering introducing some of the various Cthullhu models available as Tekumel beasties. ie, RAFMs Moon Beasts as some kind of herd animal. They would lose whatever "normal" Cthullhu powers they had (maybe... ;-)

) and just become "wierd looking beasties."

I was reading the Beastiary in Bethorn last night and I don't understand why there is what is essentially a sea snake that has small arms which it uses to throw stones with. Come on?! Then there is a creature that lurks in deep lakes and streams but appears to need several metres of water to make its attack. What stream is that deep? Some of the descriptions are just wonky. Or somebody has to expain how it would work. Cause I just don't get it. Sooo...I am beginning to view the bestiary descriptions as guidelines at best. Perhaps I should view them in the same light as one views similar manuscripts from the Dark Ages? I mean, how many of the scribes compiling the bestiary have even seen one of these creatures? They are mainly relying on the [often] erroneous tales of travellers who may or may not have actually seen the beasts themselves.

Howard

Epengar · **Posted:** Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:02 am

We have strayed far from the original topic of this thread.

In my not so humble opinion, your criticisms are apt. Creatures, monstrous or otherwise, have gotten short shrift in Tekumel publications. I don't think Barker had much interest in natural history. Consider the remarkable absence of creatures as symbols in Tsolyanu. Hardly any legions have creatures in their names (the only one I can think of is Vrishtara the Mole. Only one or two clan names have anything to do with animals. Only two deities have creatures as important symbols (Ksarul's beetle and Sarku's worm) but neither are there for their qualities. Many deities have one or more monstrous, non-human aspects, but very few of these, if any, correspond to creatures otherwise known. Compare that to the way that pre-industrial human societies used symbols of real and mythical creatures in their art and culture and literature, it's a strange omission. Cats and dogs are present in the Five Empires, but even these never, or almost never, appear in the novels.

Most of the creature text in the Bestiary is taken directly from the original Empire of the Petal Throne game, with no elaboration, so you might judge them by the standards of 1975. In EPT, Barker mentions "Saturday Night Specials", referring to "unique creatures dwelling here and there in the Underworld guarding especially valuable treasures or other items." Not exactly an ecological mindset.

regarding the Haqél, the large predator in "deep lakes and streams," I think there "stream" is being used as a synonym for "river" and is not meant to imply a small watercourse. So in my Tekumel, Haquel are found in the navigable portions of rivers, with big ones only in the lower reaches of the big rivers.

regarding the Nenyelu (2-5 m long eels with a neurotoxic bite, rudimentary hands and arms that can throw rocks, and high animal intelligence). Who knows? Maybe a wizard did it? Since the entire ecology of the planet is artificial, we don't have to restrict ourselves to natural evolution to explain the origins of species.

TheTekumelProject · **Posted:** Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:33 pm

You make some good points. Some legions do incorporate beast imagery into their armour. There is one obscure MI that has helmets fashioned in the image of a Serudla for example. And the Yan Koryani standards seem to be representative of beasts. Also, the shield emblems occasionally see to incorporate beasts. But I think they are a minority. Many of the legions seem newly raised - I presume to accommodate players in the campaign.

Indian Castes

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