Play in Tuluk

[Patuk]

Knowing what Chuck Utep looks like is not very usual but okay at least, since Chuck Utep at least appears in public once in a blue(black?) moon. Kanked a noble is where staff tends to go 'Tuluki nobility will do no such thing,' though.

[HavokBlue]

Kinda like that as a way to come up with concepts. Except Patuk is right.

You can't assume your character knows what Muk-Utep looks like. (maybe their a religious crazy that claims to have had a vision from the Sunking, heresy typically doesn't last long though)

Kanked a noble is gonna be a no go as well.

Muk Utep has appeared publicly.

[Malken]

the tall, muscular man turning into Muk Utep is probably the best thing that ever happened on Arm. Ever.

[Desertman]

I always wondered if the whole "pyramids" and "Muk Utep" obvious Egyptian influence/theme is just something that got put in a long time ago that would be far too hard to get rid of at this point but we are just ignoring because it causes some serious "Wut?" issues.

Why is the leader of Tuluk basically a Pharaoh with a giant pyramid and an Egyptian name and everything....but that is pretty much the only Egyptian themed thing in the game?

It is like we all just kind of pretend and refuse to talk about the fact that Muk Utep is basically this guy.....for no apparent reason.

Was Mommy and Daddy Utep from Egypt? What is going on here?



Even the entire rest of Tuluk seems to have zero Egyptian influence in its culture/society....but the leader is a Pharaoh in a pyramid.

Makes me wonder if Tuluk was initially supposed to be more Egyptian but that vision got scrapped and redirected along the way and the whole Muk Utep-pyramid thing would have been too much effort to retcon and fix.

[Patuk]

I'm doubtful that Muk Utep is an Egyptian name. Egyptish, maybe, but I don't think any Egyptian ever held such a name.

And Tuluk does have an element of Ancient Egypt inside of it in its caste system, though other parts of it are un-Egyptian in turn. Egypt was a place of beer, not Tuluk's wine and tea.

[Nyr]

To be as specific as possible in as few words as possible, this thread does exist, and does detail some of the influences in official Tuluki garb.  There is definitely Egyptian influence in the new templarate as well as that of the Aztecs and Mayans.  In fact, when discussing this prior to the artwork requested, this is what I posted to Tuluki templars:

So with that in mind, yes, we were thinking that Tuluki cultural stuff should be more along the lines of Aztec, Mayan, Incan, and a bit of Egyptian thrown in (we DO have pyramids after all, though so did the aforementioned cultures--more ziggurat in structure though).  Does that mean we need to take things a bit more drastically in Tuluk?  I would say "no, not yet," and aim towards improvement and cultural shift (in playerbase/documentation) over time.  Having templars dressing more "the part" should inspire the rest of the playerbase, and once we decide on the uniform stuff, I will see what we can do to get some artwork lined up to show what this looks like.  There are a few player artists that might be willing to donate some work to us.

So to answer your questions, no one is ignoring it, it is not the only Egyptian themed thing in the game nor is it only Egyptian themed, and quite a bit of fun work was put into fleshing out this part of Tuluk, so I'm glad to see it brought up.  Once again, many thanks to the player artists that assisted in bringing that vision to life.

[Desertman]

Oh, well how about that. I guess I just never noticed all of the other Egyptian stuff in the game. I will keep an eye out for it.

[Malken]

Oh, well how about that. I guess I just never noticed all of the other Egyptian stuff in the game. I will keep an eye out for it.

D00d, nothing says Egypt more than a pit of clay right in the middle of your city.

[Desertman]

Oh, well how about that. I guess I just never noticed all of the other Egyptian stuff in the game. I will keep an eye out for it.

D00d, nothing says Egypt more than a pit of clay right in the middle of your city.

My new character concept.

The wizened, hunched mul.
Foses

"Sun King, let my people go!".

[Malken]

Oh, well how about that. I guess I just never noticed all of the other Egyptian stuff in the game. I will keep an eye out for it.

D00d, nothing says Egypt more than a pit of clay right in the middle of your city.

My new character concept.

The wizened, hunched mul.
Foses

"Sun King, let my people go!".

Why is Muk Utep the richest man in the Known?

Everyone keeps falling for his pyramid scheme.

[Trillmendous]

I always wondered if the whole "pyramids" and "Muk Utep" obvious Egyptian influence/theme is just something that got put in a long time ago that would be far too hard to get rid of at this point but we are just ignoring because it causes some serious "Wut?" issues.

Why is the leader of Tuluk basically a Pharaoh with a giant pyramid and an Egyptian name and everything....but that is pretty much the only Egyptian themed thing in the game?

It is like we all just kind of pretend and refuse to talk about the fact that Muk Utep is basically this guy.....for no apparent reason.

Was Mommy and Daddy Utep from Egypt? What is going on here?



Even the entire rest of Tuluk seems to have zero Egyptian influence in its culture/society....but the leader is a Pharaoh in a pyramid.

Makes me wonder if Tuluk was initially supposed to be more Egyptian but that vision got scrapped and redirected along the way and the whole Muk Utep-pyramid thing would have been too much effort to retcon and fix.

Muk Utep actually sounds more like a Mayan name than an Egyptian name to me.

one of their main gods goes by the name of Ek Chuaj(chuka)... the names seem similar to Muk Utep.(another god went by ah peku)

Egyptian names had far more syllables from what I've seen (Ramses, Cleopatra, Ptlomey)

[BadSkeelz]

Cleopatra and Ptolemy are Greek names. Egyptian ones tend to be even longer and stranger sounding.

I also get a more Mesoamerican vibe from Muk Utep and Tuluk than Egyptian. At the very least, you could inhabit a Mayan or Aztec pyramid a lot more easily than an Egpytian one.

Why is the leader of Tuluk basically a Pharaoh with a giant pyramid and an Egyptian name and everything....but that is pretty much the only Egyptian themed thing in the game?

The easy answer is that Zalanthas is a post-apocalyptic setting and Muk Utep's seemingly unique cultural trappings might just be the last remains of some pre-fall civilization. He did come from outside the current Known World, after all.

(Muk Utep came through space from earth after building the pyramids, Meso- AND Egypto).

[IAmJacksOpinion]

(Muk Utep came through space from earth after building the pyramids, Meso- AND Egypto).

Wait a minute... Are we being punked? Is this a Star Gate MUD?

[Patuk]

The suffix -tep for a name is Egyptian just fine, as Amenhotep and Imhotep can attest. That's about it insofar naming conventions are concerned, though.

And as I said before in this thread, Tuluk has a caste system, much like Egypt once did. The caste systems themselves are very dissimilar, though.

[Desertman]

It always sounded like an ancient Egyptian name to me. *shrug*

Ahhotep I
Ahhotep II
Amenhotep I
Amenhotep, son of Hapu
Amenhotep-Huy
Anhotep
Djehutihotep
Imhotep
Khnumhotep I
Mentuhotep I

[Rathustra]

It always sounded like an ancient Egyptian name to me. *shrug*

Ahhotep I
Ahhotep II
Amenhotep I
Amenhotep, son of Hapu
Amenhotep-Huy
Anhotep
Djehutihotep
Imhotep
Khnumhotep I
Mentuhotep I

Fun fact: 'hotep' is a three-sound hieroglyph:
(Ignore the 'p' and the 't' beneath it, that's just to reinforce the reading).

It means what it appears to be (which is unusual in hieroglyphs as they're not actually pictograms as is commonly assumed) - which is an offering table. Indeed the picture above shows the symbol for 'offering'.

In terms of why it appears in pharaonic names - it's used there to mean 'to be satisfied' - the Pharaohs had names that read more like slogans or titles, e.g.: Sobekhotep means 'Sobek is pleased'.

So perhaps Muk Utep is a bastardisation of Muk Hotep which would mean 'Muk is pleased'.

I've been learning to read hieroglyphics and apologise to anyone with any actual knowledge of Egypthology, but here's my attempt at 'Mukhotep' (m3khtp):



(Shh, don't let the Templars know you can recognise Tatlum!)

Anyway, this took a lot longer to throw together than I expected so I'll post about my inspirations when approaching Tuluk later.

[Down Under]

Tatlum...

Is...

Squee!

[Rathustra]

Ok I'm kidding about tatlum - there's no documentation on what the script looks like. If it was hieroglyphic in nature, however - it would only appear like that in engravings and other art pieces. Written tatlum in more typical use would be in hieratic which is sort of like cursive hieroglyphics (but in fact was a system of writing that developed in parallel to hieroglyphics).

[Down Under]

Yeah, it was just a funny thought.

[Desertman]

I still found that to be very interesting and kind of neat. Thank you. 

[Rathustra]

So, it's interesting you mention the stuff about Muk Utep and the pyramids. When I started playing Armageddon, being a big Dark Sun fan I interpreted the two city states as mish-mashes of the various Dark Sun city states. You had Tektolnes (Tectuktitlay), who ruled from what was obviously Kalak's golden tower (ok I just knew he had a tower - who reads room descs anyway?).

Then in the North you had ziggurats and a dude called Muk Utep who had the same sort of Dark Sun mish-mash going on - possibly the Raam/Urik to the South's Tyr/Draj?

Anyway, as I played exclusively in the South for the majority of my player years I assumed that the pyramid in the north was stepped and the places was an obvious nod to mesoamerican civilisations. I mean - conquered tribes forged into a dominion by a charismatic emperor who lives atop a pyramid beside a jungle? Seemed obvious.

More obvious though was that as Armageddon isn't a visual game, everyone projects what they pick up when they glance at room descriptions. We also project our own assumptions and ideas about culture, fashion and badassery which inevitably shape the feel of the world. There's certainly a disconnect towards my own bronze-age, sandals and sorcery vision for Armageddon than the one which our very talented artist-players portray with their visions of an equally valid world of much later, A.D. inspired dresses and military garb.

But my draw to Dark Sun has always been that it doesn't care about Europe, western fantasy or myths outside of the mouldering ruins of the past. Interacting and experiencing a world that's entirely foreign and doesn't care about your assumptions is what I love about the setting. I wanted to try and inject some of that into Tuluk when I took on adminship of the North.

So yes - I look to first and middle kingdom Egypt and scraps of Mesoamerican empires from much later for inspiration along with a big helping heaping of Mesopotamia. Here's an album I put together when we were discussing new gear for the Templarate and Legions: http://imgur.com/a/XdvNC

Again this might be really at odds with your own 'vision' of Armageddon. We're quite punky - desertpunk? We take rather familiar institutions, concepts and themes and change the materials to chitin and obsidian and revel in that look. That's still valid. I think that look can sit alongside other imagery too.

As an aside though - a lot of people when they think Egypt think the late kingdom - or Cleopatra and the like. The Egyptians of the early and middle kingdoms (~4000BC to ~1200BC) were basically Armageddon incarnate. They were a totalitarian regime headed by a king who enforced his divine position ruthlessly. The Pharaohs of Egypt carved out an empire, overcame foreign occupation, pushed back southern aspirations from their long time rivals from Nubia - and all this without horses/mounts or iron of any kind. Tek and Muk could learn a lot from them.

Also they had the first tall, muscular man in Pharaoh Ahmose (Which means 'Child of the Moon' - SPOOKY) - proof that there's no glass ceiling for commoners.

If any of these ideas appeal to you - given that Armageddon is mostly a player-developed game in terms of imagery - I'd say the vast majority of our most iconic items are products of player MCs or staff calls for objects - maybe look up some ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian or whatever, weapons and jewelry and consider cribbing some designs. I mean look at this stuff: http://imgur.com/a/nfjht (Literally 1 minute searching randomly on google).

[Desertman]

I picked up a couple of Dark Sun books and tried to read them a few years ago. I found I just couldn't enjoy them.

After many years of playing Armageddon and recognizing everything in the books but trying to associate our twist on everything to the familiar references in these books, I felt like "the books were wrong". If that makes any sense.

I really wanted to enjoy them too. Your breakdown makes me want to try and read the books again, but I think I have already ruined myself on that "version" of Dark Sun because I'm so accustomed to our own little world.

[Rathustra]

I picked up a couple of Dark Sun books and tried to read them a few years ago. I found I just couldn't enjoy them.

After many years of playing Armageddon and recognizing everything in the books but trying to associate our twist on everything to the familiar references in these books, I felt like "the books were wrong". If that makes any sense.

I really wanted to enjoy them too. Your breakdown makes me want to try and read the books again, but I think I have already ruined myself on that "version" of Dark Sun because I'm so accustomed to our own little world.

Yeah - I've never read any of the novels. I've only really gotten into the setting through the original few resources for D&D and then I came to Arm and now I feel the same way about a lot of the material that was released after the first edition of the setting. I'll have to try and run a game of Dark Sun some time for Armers.

[Desertman]

I picked up a couple of Dark Sun books and tried to read them a few years ago. I found I just couldn't enjoy them.

After many years of playing Armageddon and recognizing everything in the books but trying to associate our twist on everything to the familiar references in these books, I felt like "the books were wrong". If that makes any sense.

I really wanted to enjoy them too. Your breakdown makes me want to try and read the books again, but I think I have already ruined myself on that "version" of Dark Sun because I'm so accustomed to our own little world.

Yeah - I've never read any of the novels. I've only really gotten into the setting through the original few resources for D&D and then I came to Arm and now I feel the same way about a lot of the material that was released after the first edition of the setting. I'll have to try and run a game of Dark Sun some time for Armers.

I'm there. (if it is online)

[Rathustra]

Sort of related: http://kamazotz.deviantart.com/art/Lowland-Maya-Postclassic-Fashion-Set-343999681