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Product Overview
This is a fanzine that happens to be large enough to function as a small supplement (later volumes are considerably larger). It weighs in at 64 pages with few ads (total count of ~4 pages worth of adverts, plus an additional two-page article that's essentially another advert). The table of contents is on the inside of the cover, and is not included in the page count.
There isn't much art, but aside from the Guardians of Order version of Tekúmel: Empire of the Petal Throne none of the games has featured large amounts of art. The artwork that is there is of varying quality - the cover art is outstanding (if mildly trite), while the interior art is generally fairly good.
In terms of editing, it's a bit mediocre. One can detect several typos, and the articles all look like they were proofread by the same people who wrote them. The layout is easy to read, and they didn't do anything fancy (or particularly eye-catching, for that matter).
The articles are of varying length. The shortest, technically, is a single-page handout given out at a convention for people looking at the miniatures wargame. The other shortest is a one-page overview of the Tekúmel setting, intended to be shown to new players. The longest is 15 pages, about a town called Setnákh.
The product is staple-bound. While this might normally be an issue, one of the articles is designed to be pulled directly out of the book and carried in separate binding. It has a stiff, gloss cover and the pages are of good paper. There are no notable printer errors in my copy. There may be such errors, but they would be of a kind that I might overlook, such as a page whose contents are vaguely off center.
One minor-to-moderate gripe is the cover art. The description of the cover art on the interior front is: "An Aradáni warrior defends her Clan's slave caravan from Milumanayáni bandits who have shed their desert cloaks to blend in as porters along the Sákbe road near Khirgár." While I have no difficulty with the idea of a setting in which there is no cultural taboo against nudity, one might question the value of having the cover art feature a knight guarding a group of screaming, naked woman from a group of raiders in loincloths. Some people's "Puritan radar" might go off. While plain nudity on a cover isn't especially significant, the screaming slave girls probably deserve to remain hidden within the book.
The Articles
As I am coming to learn, most of the articles about Tekúmel, be they in this product or any other, can get fairly special interest. This product is fairly good about including many general-purpose items, and even the specialized articles may come in handy in any campaign and contain some useful data overall. The writing quality is consistent, though the style naturally varies from one author to the next. They are all well written.
The articles are listed below. Those with asterisks ("*") are considered "official canon", while the others "may well be consistent with official canon, or they may represent individualized variations".
- Tekúmel 101: Introduction to Tekúmel (a primer on the setting, though really the single page provides almost nothing for an explanation of the setting)
- Khirgár: Defender of the North* (a description of a militarized northern border city)
- The Churstálli (a species of Inimicals found in an out-of-the-way nook of Tekúmel)
- On N'lüss (a race of humans reminiscent of the Norse)
- Tekúmel 301: Intermediate Studies* (an interview with M.A.R. Barker where he chats about technological developments and the otherworlds of Tekúmel)
- GURPS Tekumel (I hate the GURPS system, and so can only comment that this article exists)
- Redefining the Sword (An article on how and why the unique shape of the Tsolyánu sword came into being)
- Setnákh* (a town that lies in a convenient spot to use as a center for campaigns)
- Mitlanyál: La! Our Prayers are Answered!* (a two-page advert-disguised-as-article for Mitlanyál, a supplement for any of the four systems Tekúmel has been written in)
- Battle Kibitzer's Guide #1: Armies of the Five Empires (a copy of a page of a handout given out at GenCon 1982 during Tekúmel miniatures wargaming events)
The Bad
Most of these articles are extremely well-written. The only real low points are Tekúmel 301 and Mitlanyál. The first article I didn't like because I don't like the interview format for an article that's trying to impart information. It rambled, as any human conversation might, and was impregnated with severely off-topic information. The Mitlanyál article I didn't like because it failed to convey any really useful information, and its only value really was to tell you to buy Mitlanyál.
The Good
Most of the articles are written without game statistics at all. The one instance is in the article on the Churstálli, which contains information for three of the four versions of Tekúmel.
The remaining articles generally contain useful information. I know that there are a number of players who start out playing N'lüss because they have a more familiar culture to Westerners, and the longer details about their culture comes in handy, especially in the small, easily-digestible format that it's in.
Khirgár and Setnákh are both written with a preference for civic information. Setnákh has more details about prominent individuals and more "nuggets of adventure and role-play" that dominate most city/town descriptions for other games. Neither of these places has goblins in every basement and demons in every attic, the way they always seem to in other games.
The Churstálli are presented more as an NPC race than as a species utterly inimical to human life (as they are). The writer does an excellent job underscoring why the Old Life hates humanity, and why humanity really does deserve to be hated by them.
Redefining the Sword is a useful article (but see my quibbles about it below), containing explanations as to why the Tsolyáni might carry around such bizarre-shaped swords (the blade hooks are used to deflect spears, the curve at the top is a variation on the axe-curve of a khopesh, etc.). It also describes how the blade is constructed, how it is carried, and how an individual can stylize their own blade without really altering its functionality or considerably affecting its cost.
Gripes and Quibbles
These are minor issues that I have that didn't significantly impact my review, but are worth noting.
Tekúmel 101 wasn't especially informative, and while it might be mildly supportive to the brand-new never-read-the-books-before player, it is a single page document that conveys only the most vague of generalities about the setting. A four or five page version would be considerably more useful.
Redefining the Sword contains some considerably useful work. However, he makes a number of gaffs, such as the age of the "longsword", what part of a khopesh-shaped blade slices and what part shears, etc. He also overlooks the note that it is impossible to thrust properly with the Tsolyáni sword, which makes close order fighting with shields extremely difficult.
Overall
The fanzine's content is fairly on-point and relevant. Most people who play in Tekúmel will find at least a few of the articles useful, even if only to model their own work (especially for cities and towns).
