A Hobbit in Tekumel? (and a trip to Mexico)

[geoffrey]

James Maliszewski wrote this under "Genre Bending" on his grognardia blog:

"Even the supposedly stodgy setting of Tékumel has a hobbit in a zoological park and interdimensional forays to Mexico at the time of Pancho Villa."

I don't remember ever running into these two things before. Does anyone else recognize them? Where can I read about them?

[dwayanu]

I vaguely recall a mention of the hobbit on a Tekumel mailing list (the moderated one, I think). IIRC, it came through a "nexus." I don't know about the "nexus" to old Mexico, but it doesn't seem weirder than other destinations.

Maybe the hobbit was dead by the time you joined Barker's campaign?

[geoffrey]

Alas, I don't have the honor of playing in Prof. Barker's campaign. By "running into" I meant that I had never read anything of the sort.

[James Maliszewski]

The hobbit (and, now that I think of it, a dragon) are mentioned in one of the early issues of The Dragon. I'll have to dig up the reference sometime when I have a spare moment.

The Mexico/Pancho Villa thing is referenced in several places, most recently the first issue of Seal of the Imperium, where Prof. Barker talks about how interdimensional travel works in Tékumel.

[edsan]

I have a copy of the Seal here with me.

Apparently the whole Mexico thing happened when a character cast an inter-dimensional spell near the Pylons (mile-long structures of unknown origin that can be found in outermost explored regions of the space between the Planes).

Wild magic anyone?

As for the Hobbit, I recall something being mentioned about him on the Blue Room mailing list ages ago but alas, details are fuzzy. I believe it was something of a joke that latter became canon. The poor fellow was living in the Zoo, I kid you not! I assume he must have arrived on Tekumel via some sort of interdimensional means.

I *do* know for a fact that the Hobbit is now dead, having perished due to natural causes (old age? disease? despair?) and his stuffed body can now be found on display on the Governor's musem...or was it the palace?

Btw this is *light-years* beyond the stuff I'm running in my EPT campaign. I'm playing what the professor would call Tekumel 101. The basics that barely scratch the surface of the setting. Even then it sometimes gets pretty elaborate and immersive.

The esteemed Prof. has been doing 301: Advanced Studies with his groups for years.

There must really be some brain-shattering tales waiting to be told out there...