Editing Empire of the Petal Throne (section)

==The Plane of Tékumel==
===Pre-History===
In the distant year of 2013 (later editions would change this to 20XX), humanity did what humanity does and nuked itself to near extinction. America, Europe, and Asia were all devastated, but Central America and the Middle-East survived mostly unscathed. As a result they became the de facto centers of human civilization. Then some friendly aliens called the Pé Chói came by and granted the survivors the secrets of faster-than-light travel. And so, humanity joined a great community of space faring species and began to form its own empire, known simply as Humanspace. 

===The Discovery of Tékumel===
Skipping ahead to the 61st millennium, one day some of these humans were exploring the star Nu Ophiuchi, and found Tékumel, a nice little planet full of primitive alien life, including a pair of sentient species, the Ssú and the Hlüss. Presented with this, the humans did what humans do best. They genocided the shit out of them, forced the survivors to move to reservations, and began the process of colonizing and terraforming the planet, replacing most native plant and animal life with genetically engineered species based on those from Earth and going so far as to alter the planet’s very rotation to simulate a 365-day year. Tékumel quickly became one of humanity’s greatest possessions, a paradise world attracting settlers from all across Humanspace, and even the various other intelligent alien species, both friendly or otherwise. If there was one thing that you could say against Tékumel, it was that the planet was unusually poor in metals, especially iron, but since any needed materials could be imported from off world, who cares? This state of utopia continued for 50,000 years.

===The Age of Darkness===
Then for like, no reason, Tékumel and its entire star system was whisked out of reality and placed into Béthorm, an inescapable pocket dimension. As one would expect, this did not go over well on Tékumel. Tidal waves, earthquakes, and volcanoes destroyed much of civilization, and the Hlüss and Ssú, still a bit miffed from that whole genocide thing, waged war on humanity and the other sentient races in a quest to regain their homeworld. Eventually, things settled down into the time known as the “Latter Times”, during which humanity retained most of its scientific knowledge, though soon even this would be lost. The scientists of this time made a great discovery that would change the course of Tékumel’s history. The ‘walls’ of the pocket universe were thin, and it was found that with great mental strength, one could tap into the energy that flows through the space between universes. And so, magic was invented.

===Modern Day Tékumel===
It is now 50,000 years later, give or take. Humanity and friends have sunken down into a feudalistic pre-industrial society, having forgotten most of the knowledge of their ancestors, to the point that they now believe that the planet is flat (hence their referring to it as the ‘plane’ of Tékumel), and that their ancestors were gods who brought magical gifts. The lack of metal has not helped this fact, and now the most commonly used material is the tough and malleable hide of an alien rhino species called chlén. The only thing that humanity has gained from getting stuck in this pocket dimension is magic, but even then their knowledge of the mystic arts is less than that of the humans who lived in the Latter Times.
Long story short, the world is filled with alien monsters and about 50,000 years of ruins for you to loot. Tékumel the planet is bigger than Earth, and the setting focuses on a small region called the “Five Empires”, especially the Tsolyánu Empire, which is the titular Empire of the Petal Throne.