The Pale Murderer

The Serúdla is a large semi-intelligent dragon-like creature found in the deep forests of Tékumel. The typical specimen is about 15' long, but they can grow up to 25' or even 35' in length.

The creature has been dubbed "The Pale Murderer" by the peasantry, but they are not intrinsically hostile to humans. The tribes of the Ghatóni confederacy in Tékumel's north-west have discovered a method of training the Serúdla for use in war, and units of armored Serúdla are fielded by the Ghatóni.

For some reason, I was under the impression that they were often encountered as mated pairs, but maybe I mixed them up with some other creature since I can't seem to find that reference in any of my Tékumel materials.

No company has made a Serúdla in miniature (as of yet), but a kind reader graciously sent me a pair of Serúdla that he created using 3D printer technology.

There are two versions of the Serúdla, an unarmored one (left), and an armored one (right). I particularly like the way the beaked appearance of Tékumeli creatures is faithfully captured by these models. I'm not sure what the proper term is, but there is definite "pixelation" on the models. For the Serúdla it looks nice, since it gives the appearance of fine scales to the creature, but I'm not sure how well the printing works if smoother surfaces are required. In 1/72, these Serúdla scale out to about 21' in length.

The arms are on a separate sprue, and come with empty hands or holding swords.

These particular models were made of a material called Nylon 12. It is fairly flexible, so delicate features like these claws can withstand some slight bending without breaking.

Unfortunately some of the digits did break off, and after they were glued back on, they did in fact become prone to re-breaking.

Next, I tried reposing some one of the hands using a hairdryer. Unlike plastic, Nylon 12 did not shrivel up under heat, and I was able to change the finger position of the model.

It worked so well, I tried straightening out the armored Serúdla's tail with my heat gun. The tail was much thicker, and as usual I overdid things and ended up melting a couple of the left rear claws, which I had to recreate with Kneadatite. But other than my overzealousness with the heat gun, the tail was re-positioned without any problem.

After figuring out how I was going to pose the arms, I assembled the miniatures. Nylon 12 is very porous, and soaks up CA glue like a sponge. Large smooth surfaces do not seem to adhere very well without pinning, but the ball joint on the arm and the socket were made with a bit of texture, which allowed the parts to be affixed.

Next, I painted the miniatures. The acrylic paints seemed to soak right into the material as well. I tried to add a bit of opalescent sheen to the Serúdla with a wash of Ceramcoat Pearl Finish, but I was unable to capture the sheen by photography. I also cut some bases out of plastic card, and glued the models on to prevent the damaged claws from breaking off.

I was really impressed with these models, and seeing them made me want to try my hand at creating some 3D models for rapid prototype printing. I hope that the Serúdla from The Tékumel Project will be as nice as these.

The Enemies of Man

My interest in the world of Tékumel began after reading The Man of Gold, and Flamesong. A friend who had also read the books purchased the RPG, and our gaming group played a couple of games that I found quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, we found the rules rather kludgy, and the world was perhaps too alien to the other players, so it never became a mainstay for our group.

One of the aspects of Tékumel that I liked the best was that the alien races were like nothing that I had encountered in RPGs at the time. I was intrigued by the 2x4 limb arrangement of many of the creatures, and in particular with the aboriginal creatures of Tékumel, the Ssú and the Hlüss.

I think I was only vaguely aware of Tékumel miniatures back when I was actively gaming, and it is only recently that I've been able to buy some of these miniatures. I'm not sure about the exact history of these sculpts, but the Legions of the Petal Throne line was originally produced by Old Guard before being bought up by Ral Partha, and eventually transitioning to PHD Games (and from there to oblivion). The image below shows a Gray Ssú, and two Black Ssú.


All of the miniatures come with the front pair of legs cast as a separate piece. The Gray Ssú is a fairly rough sculpt, and does not have the tattered appearance or oval mouth that are attributed to the Ssú. The Black Ssú are larger, and much better sculpted. Different versions of the front pair of legs allow the figure to be posed either with raised legs, or lowered legs.

Next is a Hlüss miniature fitted together to show how the basic miniature looks. It is really crude, with a thick neck and narrow head that only vaguely resembles the picture of the creature in the books. It will definitely take a bit of work to make this particular figure look good.


In trying to find out how well the miniatures work for 1/72 scale, I found some discrepancy in the size given for the Ssú between different Tékumel sourcebooks.

Table 1. Height when on four legs.

Creature	Swords & Glory	Tékumel Bestiary
Gray Ssú	1.71 to 1.9 m	1.52 to 1.68 m
Black Ssú	1.83 to 2.41 m	1.73 to 1.98 m
Hlüss	1.22 to 1.6 m	---

When I use the Swords & Glory heights, the miniatures scale out as 1/72. If I were to use the heights from The Tékumel Bestiary, the creatures would be too big. However, the heights listed in The Tékumel Bestiary, are in scale with respect to 28mm figures. I kind of wonder if this was a case of retcon to make the size of the Ssú miniatures consistent with that of the human miniatures. In any event, I'm obviously going to go with the original Swords & Glory values for my Ssú.