EPT, The Nazi apologist and me.
I was introduced to Tekumel in the 1980's with the books Man of Gold, and then Flamesong, by M.A.R. Barker (published by DAW).
I bought and collected several games that I never read (until years later) including Swords and Glory rpg close to when it was released by Games Science.
It wasn't until the late 1990's that my former roommate S. really got me hooked on the setting. He worked at our local Mega-Used bookstore and every Empire of the Petal Throne and Tekumel item that crossed the counter he gave me first crack at. That was a lot (A lotta Lot) of Tekumel rpgs, magazines, and books. I basically owned, at one time or another, almost every rpg set on Tekumel (with the exception Bethorm rpg).
The whole weird Science Fantasy setting of Tekumel sucked me in wholly. I finally Game Mastered, to the best of my ability a Tekumel game. I used GURPS 3rd ed. Revised since I was familiar with it. Brett Slocum, had written a really useful article on GURPS Tekumel and I used that as a base.
My players were the Red Clay Clan. A mid-level clan, they were the main mining supplier of Iron for the Tsolyani empire. They had to take over as heads of delivery for a shipment and then our game began. The players bumbled their way through successful delivery, and later a Demon Sword one possessed released it's Demon upon Jakala City.
Meanwhile in real life, later I sent away for, and received, Mitlanyal (apparently in 2005) to really get a grasp on the religions of the Tsolyani (the main Player culture for Tekumel and EPT). That was dense stuff.
I went through a phase where I thought I was done with playing TTRPGs, and I dispersed my collection, including everything Tekumel.
When I started online TTRPG gaming during Covid in 2021, I found a game of the classical Tekumel game Empire of the Petal Throne (here after EPT) Game Mastered by S. S. was deeply versed in EPT and Tekumel having gamed with one of M.A.R. Barker's players.
S. understood EPT as a version of OD&D, and so our group used milestone leveling. My original character Biku was milestone leveled after a year and a half to 4th level, as a priestess of Thumis (Stability God of knowledge). I probably played more OD&D as EPT games than at any other time then or since.
After about a year of gaming EPT, I had the good fortune to join a small proboard forum run by Chire Ba kal (J.), who was also a player in the M.A.R. Barker's games. Another forum member was Gronan (M.) who if I recall correctly was the player who introduced M.A.R. Barker to what is now known as OD&D (upon which EPT was designed). I heard a few stories of the Thursday night group (of M.A.R. Barker's game).
Life was fun in out little EPT campaign until I found this The Fall of Tekumel . I brought this to my EPT GM and we had a discussion on this, then we had a group discussion. Then we took an anonymous vote to see if we would continue to play Empire of the Petal Throne. We had a unanimous decision to quit.
We mostly went our separate ways as a group after a short while. I still text with one friend. I deeply miss being able to engage freely with the Tekumel material. And I do so infrequently now. I deeply miss it.