# M. A. R. Barker - Maker: Linguist - Date: 1929–2012 - Houses: TSR, Inc. - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/m-a-r-barker/ > The University of Minnesota linguist who spent decades building the alien, non-European world of Tékumel, and in 1975 published it through TSR as Empire of the Petal Throne. **Why it matters:** Empire of the Petal Throne was the first roleplaying game built around a fully realized setting, with its own languages, scripts, religions and politics. Barker showed that a game world could have the depth of Tolkien's Middle-earth while drawing on South Asian and Mesoamerican rather than European models. ## Quick answers **Who was M. A. R. Barker?** The University of Minnesota linguist who spent decades building the alien, non-European world of Tékumel, and in 1975 published it through TSR as Empire of the Petal Throne. **When was M. A. R. Barker born?** M. A. R. Barker was born in 1929 in Spokane, Washington and died in 2012. **What is M. A. R. Barker known for?** M. A. R. Barker is best known for Empire of the Petal Throne. **Why does M. A. R. Barker matter to fantasy and games?** Empire of the Petal Throne was the first roleplaying game built around a fully realized setting, with its own languages, scripts, religions and politics. Barker showed that a game world could have the depth of Tolkien's Middle-earth while drawing on South Asian and Mesoamerican rather than European models. ## Life Phillip Barker was born on November 2, 1929, in Spokane, Washington. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1951 and that year traveled to India on a Fulbright grant, where he converted to Islam, afterward taking the name Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker. He completed graduate work in linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, with a dissertation on Klamath, a Native American language of Oregon. His academic career was spent on the languages of South Asia. He taught at McGill University's Institute of Islamic Studies, spent two years at the University of the Punjab in Lahore, and in 1972 moved to the University of Minnesota, where he chaired the Department of South Asian Studies until his retirement in the early 1990s. He published scholarly courses in Urdu and Baluchi. He died in Minneapolis on March 16, 2012, survived by his wife, Ambereen. ## Work Alongside his scholarship, Barker had been building an imaginary world since childhood, reportedly since about the age of ten. Over the decades, sharing it with fellow linguists and science fiction fans, it grew into Tékumel: a far-future planet, cut off from the galaxy, whose human and alien inhabitants had forgotten their technological past and lived in elaborate empires ruled by priesthoods and ancient bureaucracies. Unlike nearly every fantasy world of its time, Tékumel drew little from medieval Europe. Its cultures owed more to India, the Middle East and Mesoamerica; its central power, the Tsolyáni empire, had a complete language with its own script and grammar; and its gods, clans, cuisines and social codes were worked out in the detail of an academic monograph. When [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/) appeared in 1974, Barker, now in Minneapolis near the Twin Cities gamers around [Dave Arneson](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/dave-arneson/), saw a way to let others live in his world. He self-published [Empire of the Petal Throne](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/empire-of-the-petal-throne/) later that year, and [TSR, Inc.](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/tsr/) released a revised boxed edition in August 1975, one of the company's first publications after D&D. Built on D&D-style mechanics, it came with color maps of the empire and a rulebook that was also an encyclopedia of Tékumel society, from its currency to its underworld of ancient tunnels. Arneson became a friend, and his company Adventure Games later published Tékumel material. Barker supported the setting for the rest of his life through a series of publishers and editions, sourcebooks and grammars, and he brought it to fiction in a series of novels, beginning with *The Man of Gold* (1984) and *Flamesong* (1985) from DAW Books, the house founded by [Donald A. Wollheim](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/donald-a-wollheim/). His long-running Minneapolis campaign continued for decades, and in 2008 he established the Tékumel Foundation to look after the setting. ## Legacy Empire of the Petal Throne showed early on what a [Campaign setting](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/campaign-setting/) could be. Where most 1970s campaigns were a dungeon with a village attached, Tékumel was a civilization, and its example of total [Worldbuilding](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/worldbuilding/) fed the lavish settings of the decades that followed, from [RuneQuest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/runequest/)'s Glorantha to [The Atlantean Trilogy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-atlantean-trilogy/) and [Talislanta](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/talislanta/). Its deliberate turn away from pseudo-European fantasy also looks newly relevant as later designers and writers have sought other cultural sources. Barker's legacy is complicated by facts that have become widely discussed. Under the pseudonym Randolph D. Calverhall he had written *Serpent's Walk* (1991), a novel issued by the white-supremacist publisher National Vanguard Books, and from 1990 to 2002 he served on the editorial advisory committee of the *Journal of Historical Review*, a Holocaust-denial publication. Admirers of Tékumel have had to weigh the achievement of the world against those associations, and discussions of Barker's place in gaming history now generally acknowledge both. ## Facts - Born Phillip Barker on November 2, 1929, in Spokane, Washington, he converted to Islam during a Fulbright-funded stay in India in 1951. - He wrote his doctoral dissertation at UC Berkeley on the Klamath language of Oregon and later published textbooks of Urdu and Baluchi. - He began imagining the world that became Tékumel at about the age of ten. - He self-published Empire of the Petal Throne in 1974; [TSR, Inc.](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/tsr/) issued its revised edition in August 1975. - DAW Books, founded by [Donald A. Wollheim](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/donald-a-wollheim/), published his Tékumel novels *The Man of Gold* (1984) and *Flamesong* (1985). - He founded the Tékumel Foundation in 2008 to protect his literary works. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._A._R._Barker) - [Wikipedia: Empire of the Petal Throne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Petal_Throne) - [Wikipedia: Tékumel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9kumel) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.