The monster response to my last post showing a few Tékumel maps that I had gotten framed has prompted me to think about the history of Tékumel maps a little more systematically. Here’s a deeper dive, but please note that, as usual, a lack of time has led to sloppiness and my not being adequately thorough.

The original Empire of the Petal Throne (EPT) included two beautiful one-sided color maps each measuring 34″ x 22″ as well as a 28″ x 22″ map of the city of Jakálla. In addition, the EPT box cover was a stylized map of the capital of Tsolyánu, Bey Sü. In the rulebook (Section 1200 on page 65 of the original TSR EPT) there is a partial description of several of the places marked on the big map. EPT’s rear pages include a key to the Jakálla map. I am not aware of a key to the Bey Sü map, though some description is here and pages 6-7 of Theatre of the Mind’s later Adventures on Tékumel Part Two/Volume One: Coming of Age on Tékumel also might help situate you.

Barker said that each hex of the EPT map was 100 tsan (roughly 133.3 kilometers or 83 miles). Thus, the two maps span roughly 5,500 x 4,500 miles in total. It is certain, however, that Barker never thought about whether the map was a mercator or some other projection, though fans later would debate the issue. The Jakálla map is stylized and the depictions of the temples, for example, are not to scale. According to one person who knew him at the time, Barker used ChartPak and Letraset transfers to mark the terrain symbols and lettering on the original EPT maps by hand, which must have been horribly tedious.

Someone constructed a Tékumel globe (nfi), which is currently in the archives of the Tékumel Foundation. Barker or Barker’s group also made a map of the Southern Continent, which is also in the Foundation’s archives.

The Tékumel Journal #2 included a black and white map of the land of Táne, where Barker’s players discovered the Dnebian Bázhaq. The territory in this map borders on the Plain of Towers northwest of Mu’ugalavyá.

Adventure Games did three printings of The Northwest Frontier: Large Scale Maps for Campaigns in the World of Tékumel in 1979, 1981, and 1982. These maps expanded roughly 36 of the hexes on the original EPT maps. Tékumel Games in 1986 published a gazetteer by Thomas Thompson and Barker that included some details about the places depicted on the maps. These maps were aimed at players who wanted to game the military conflict with Yan Kor and the gazetteer provided some accompanying fodder for RPG adventures. For example, hex 4808 contains the “House of Zre,” where “there are … rumors of interior stairways that lead into an underworld.”

Lou Zocchi’s Gamescience included a nice color map with Swords and Glory Vol. 1 Tékumel Sourcebook: The World of the Petal Throne, published in 1983. The map’s four sections are printed on two sides of a 27″ x 21″ sheet. Like the original EPT maps, each hex is 100 tsan and the hex identification numbers correspond to those on the EPT maps. However, the map hexes are 3/8″ rather than EPT’s 5/8″ and the territory represented on the map extends a little further west and much further east, including all of Salarvyá and the Plain of Glass, spanning roughly 11,000 miles by 4,500 miles. Also, many smaller cities that are simply dots on the original map have place names on the Gamescience map. This is probably the single most useful map in the Tékumel canon.

The rare Swords and Glory Vol. 2 Tékumel Player’s Handbook for Adventures in Tékumel, published by Gamescience in 1984, has a simple black and white map of the southwestern Tsolyáni city of Úrmish in section 2.640.

The 1987 Adventure Games reprint of the Tékumel Source Book included four pages with atrocious reduced black and white reproductions of the large Gamescience map. More interestingly, this also included a “Provincial Map of Tsolyánu c. 2350 A.S.” on rough brown paper stapled into the center of the booklet. Some of the later maps included some of the provincial borders drawn from this map but no other map clearly delineates all the provinces of Tsolyánu near the time of the war with Yan Kor.

The Adventures on Tékumel (AoT) series, which included the Gardásiyal ruleset, was published by Theatre of the Mind in 1993. AoT included a two-sided 17″ x 22″ color map nicely drawn by Giovanni Fregni, an artistic member of Barker’s group. The map has a decorative border with symbols of Tsolyánu’s gods on one side and various clan symbols on the other.

In 1999, Peter Gifford published a set of maps reimagining roughly the same area as the Gamescience maps on his tékumel.com website. These include terrain keys and a scale. Not quite as much meat as the other maps, however.

In 2005, Guardians of Order published Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, which included a 19″ x 27″ inch map by Giovanni Fregni. This map is, in my opinion, more attractive and more useful than Fregni’s earlier AoT map but it doesn’t extend way to the west.

In 2008, Bob Alberti and James Maliszewski with Barker published an article titled “Terra Incognita: The ‘Other’ Side of Tékumel” in the Tékumel fanzine Seal of the Imperium Vol.2 Issue 1. This article includes maps and brief gazetteer-style descriptions of an area north of Yan Kor.

In 2009, Kim Kuroda with Christopher Anderson and Krista Donnelly wrote a long article in Seal of the Imperium Vol 2 Issue 2 titled “A Gazetteer of the Province of Pan Cháka and the City of Butrús.” The only map shown is a small clip of the hexes of Pan Cháka from the original EPT map. However, the article includes more than 60 pages of description of Pan Cháka, including the capitol of Butrús. I am not clear why this is called the “third edition.”

In 2014, Jeff Dee published RPG rules for Tékumel called Béthorm: The Plane of Tékumel. The rules, which are still available, include a reduced black and white map of Tsolyánu and a small city map of Katalál. Dee also published a 40″ x 30″ color hex map of the Kurt Hills and a 20″ x 16″ color map of Katalál, the latter drawn by Alyssa Faden. These two maps (which I recommend) are available on Deviant Art here and here. In addition, RPGNow offers a Katalál Area Map and Gazetteer by Jeff Dee, Barker, and Talzhemir Mrr (‘Manda Dee). The six-page booklet includes a black and white map of the area around Katalál and some descriptions of the places on the map. The Kurt Hills Atlas is a 225-page companion to the Kurt Hills map. This book, also written by Talzhemir (‘Manda Dee) includes extensive descriptions of the Kurt Hills. The Atlas can be ordered on Lulu, but is more cheaply available on eBay and Noble Knight. Finally, RPGNow has a short supplement also by Talzhemir listing the fiefs in the Kurt Hills and fascinating chart of how far one might see depending on their height.

Dungeon Maps: Many, many Tékumel dungeon maps are available. For example, in 1981 Judge’s Guild published an adventure titled The Nightmare Maze of Jigresh. In 1984, Tékumel Games published A Jakallan Intrigue by Mark Pettigrew, which included a dungeon map. There have been many others over the years, but currently the reigning King (Emperor?) of Tékumel dungeon maps is Dyson Logos, who has created, inter alia, a series of connected underworld maps called My Private Jakálla.

Battle Maps: Articles recounting various Tékumelani battles almost always include a map. For example, “The Battle of the Temple of Chanis: 2020 A.S.” in The Dragon Vol. 1 #4, includes a simple map, as does “The Battle of Ry” in Wargamer’s Digest Vol. 3 #5. These simple maps are also included in many issue of The Imperial Military Journal.

Other Maps: Many other maps appear on fan sites. Pála Jakalla, Sétnakh, and other cities have gotten treatments, some of which are attributed to Barker. These are not conveniently gathered in one spot, but a few are on the tekumel.com web site and a few are in the files section of the Tékumel IO group (formerly Yahoo! Groups).