Shen Heavy Infantry

This was originally done for Armies of Tekumel, Book 6: The Shen.

The book got cancelled when Tekumel Games went through some (ahem) financial difficulties.

Years later the book did finally get produced...minus all the Shen like the one above.

Maybe we'll find a nice new home for these long-lost Shen...

Please Note: The helmet is adapted from a fierce swamp-creature native to Shenyu; no doubt as a discerning person of good taste in such matters, you have noticed the reinforced split in the top section to allow the Shen's spiny-bits to go all erect without interfering with little things like seeing through the eye-holes, stuff like that. The Shen consider this a design feature, a few fool-hardy monkey-types have tried to exploit this as though it were a design flaw, with mixed results. Usually to the chagrin of the non-Shen.

Mihalli

Hlyss: Straight-On

The Hlyss are 'cousins' to the Ssu. Quadripedal insectoid creatures who have the nasty habit of inserting their larvae into the still-conscious bodies of their enemies. I've seen several side-views before, so I tought that I'd try something a little different.

Composite Undead

Thanks to certain vats and other devices of the ancients, among other things, some sorcerers, priests and scholars have been able to cobble-together a wide variety of composite undead. Some are more akin to the Mrur or Shedra, but most are closer to the Hra in character. Some of these composite undead are composed of non-human pieces and parts. These sorts of undead are occasionally encountered in the deeper parts of older sections of the underworld. Certain temples have been known to send discrete expeditions to search through the regions where such things have been reported, perhaps they are hoping to find functional vats, or other such things...

Got Shen?

Thinking about drawing-up some new Shen...

Some Random Old Tekumel Sketches

All of this stuff is from the Eighties, except for the Hnalla glyph, that was done around 2000 or thereabouts.

The Swampfolk was done for Mr. Kaiser's Player's Guide to Tekumel, the undead guy with the spear was originally done for one of the old sourcebooks, if I'm remembering correctly. The 'Very Eighties Shen' was one of dozens of sketches done originally for Armies of Tekumel Book VI: The Shen...more than half of which was lost, and the remainder is on-file with the Aethervox folks for safe-keeping. The last piece is a Tsoggu. Nasty creatures, the Tsoggu. Tekumel has some very cool monsters. I'll keep digging and see if I can find my Ghar, Thunru'u, or Vorodla. I still have to finish the Serudla and the Sro I started when we were still gaming in Butrus. And Fluffy the Wonder-Zrne...I definitely want to draw a pack of Guard Zrne like the Shen are in the process of breeding/training...

Quick Swampfolk thumbnail-sketch

One of thousands of undead legions in service to Lord Sarku

A Shen with a feathery crest.
Some Shen can get as vain about their armor as any human...

An ancient form of the glyph for Hnalla

An old  Tsoggu sketch

Sketching Around (1)

An experiment with an old brush-pen I found in the box. Forgot I had the thing. Hmmm. Not sure I care for it, compared to a real brush, but it dried fast and it'll be good for practising on some of the squiggly-sigils, glyphs, seals, emblems, etc. I'll post things here as I do more.

Xeno-Sepoys at IX

You can see the fully-statted and ready to go Hyadean Xeno-Sepoy over at the IX blog. All-in-all, this was a fun experiment in resurrecting old designs left-over from our work on various Tekumel-related projects from long, long ago. It has likewise been fun to work on illustrations for The Drune's Humanspace Empires RPG.

But fiddling around with old sketches, re-assembling bits and pieces into fresh configurations has pretty much run its course for us now. The Drune asked us to do some new illustrations, of various classic Barkerian aliens and the like. So we did. And we are. Some of those will show up here, at this blog. Eventually.

Two Shen From Mars

Shen From Mars Number One:
Taliat

Warrior Level 1
STR: 16
DEX: 10
CON: 13
INT: 7
PSY: 7
CHA: 12
HP: 15
Background Skills
Basic: Brawler
Tech: Smuggler
Warrior Skills: Primitive Weapon, Space Swordsman, Space Axeman, Energy Pistol, Energy Rifle, Space Armor, Projectile Pistol
Credits: 1800
Gear: Space Axe, Space Sword, Vibroblade, Space Armor (light), Air Tablets, Communicator, Utility Belt

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Shen From Mars Number Two: 

Tabash

Warrior Level 1
STR: 12
DEX: 12
CON: 12
INT: 10
PSY: 5
CHA: 12
HP: 14
Background Skills
Basic: Brawler, Driver, Gambler, Survivalist
Tech: Air Pilot, Mechanic, Comms Tech
Expert: Spacer, Astronomer, Jack
Warrior Skills" Primitive Weapon, Space Swordsman, Space Axeman, Energy Pistol, Energy Rifle, Space Armor, Projectile Pistol, Projectile Rifle, Grenades, Heavy Weapons
Credits: 2800
Gear: Space Axe, Space Sword, Space Armor (light), Air Tablets, Vibroblade, Communicator, Rope, Utility Belt,Waterskin
Share with Taliat: Heat Ray Rifle, Z-Ray Rifle

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Background

Taliat and Tabash are clone-shen bred on Mars as part of the private army of a petty Lordling who has since been dispossessed of his holdings due to the retaliation of a small consortium of his enemies who took it upon themselves to ruin him once and for all. Many of this Lord's clone-shen are now out of a job, and abandoned. since they belong to a foreign egg-group, they smell bad to the other clone-shen and cannot easily enter into another Lord's service. There was talk about possibly working towards avenging their fallen Lord, but since this was never specified in the contract of their service, and seeing as the Lord will no longer be able to pay them, nothing has come of this and indeed most of the clone-shen have all moved on to other things.

So now they salvage things, loot things, and act as freelancers and mercenaries operating from the seedy underbelly of Mars. If they ever accumulate enough wealth, perhaps they can set up a freehold amongst the asteroids and possibly start a nice freefall fern farm, centrifugal-trellis melon-ranch, or something like that.

They have found that they rather enjoy looting old abandoned estates, investigating ruins,and  exploring grotty old space hulks. No shen dies of natural causes, so they are less than finicky about what types of odd jobs they take on in order to pay the bills. They also enjoy Opera, long walks by the dry sea bed, and pickles. Lots of pickles.

Shen From Mars: Humanspace Empires PbP Game

Two Shen from Mars are in the process of selecting equipment, weapons, sarmak jerky and more weapons as they prepare to go Looting In Space with The Drune and his band of Space Adventurers.

Details on the two very different Humanspace PbP Games can be found at the IX Blog.

Both games are now full to over-flowing.

We'll be posting character sheets for the two Mars-Shen momentarily.

This looks like great good space-fun, with much lootings to be had all around.

How much do explosives cost?

A Domain-Game Summary: What Was Down In The Hole?

Shen go for a nice walk. Very sunny Spring dayshine. Much good smells. All our hunters very happy with all the good game running around waiting to be eaten. Much lumbers coming in, many buildings getting builded. Patrols out in the woods and along the swampy-bits but not much to see yet. Watch tower getting built. Make it much easier for monkeys to spot bad things at distance. Earthworks getting dug and piled and set-up righty-right by expert shen siege engineers. Smoke house going day and night and another one getting built closer to hunter's main campsite. Root cellars dug, cisterns getting dug, all sorts things getting dug. Much digging going on. Buy more shovels in Butrus.

We send back first load of trade goods. Oh-boy-dokey those go over well. Of course they do. We say they from Shenyu. Who want to call cranky egg-layer shen liar within her hearing? We send shens most likely get good dealings, not one get into fights so much. Need fighting ones here. Wherever 'here' actually be.

Much moneys made on first trip. We hire more experts. Get some more carts, hire wheel-wright. Get a book-keeper. Send encrypted messages back to Shenyu. Tell them we struggling toughly against much odds in wilderness. Need more troops, more engineers, cheap labor, lots of melon seeds and more settler-shens.

While merchant-shen go back to markets in Butrus, we two boss-shens and a small group of crossbow-shens go take looksee at small talus cave under 2 miles away from our encampment.

Nice walk.

Could make a road later, if cave worth anything. Might use for storage. There's a small river flowing into cave, maybe a grotto. We okay with that.

Shen explore cave. Find markings, bits of pretty-glass, digging around and we find a pair of nicey-nice decanters. One goes into our office. Sell the other one, or use as a gift-bribe if needed. Good lootings, not a lot, but a start.

Then we smell something.

Kitty!

Not Mister Sprinkles.

We find big cave-beasts with long-long teeth. Dumb big stinky cave-cats. Rotten things kill some shens. We kill them back. Skin them and make armor for chieftain of the hunters who come along with us to this place. Eat the meat for dinner. Stringy. At least the skulls look good over our gate.

We get engineers to examine cave. Too crumbly-unstable to make fortified, but might work for storage and a nice resource depot. We go explore other interesting area next time. Maybe we can capture some cave-beasts, make them guard-kittys for the camp? They might make nice pets for the childrens, once they learn no eat shens.

This good place. We make a good life here.

Moneyspace Empires: Now With 60% More Shen

Shen working much busily on long overdue and suspiciously missing portions of Monkeyspace Empires by The Drune. Why Shen no have psychic powers? Simple. Stupid monkeys completely misled by Shen Telepaths from Bureau of Business Accomodation and Annexations. Also most monkeys like to think that Shen no have psychic powers because most egg groups encountered on backwater worlds are warrior-shen, not thinkerer-shen. No let them out much-often. They make messes. Kind of messes that make Empress send out much-many hoo-biggy-huge starfortresses and largerer ships to smack things around until it all okay for Shen again. We no want to reduce your homeworld to radioactive slag. But if it is a good business move, then no worries, we'll get over it fairly soon. Oooooh look--coppper monies!