There are reports of a big book of Talislanta art forthcoming, a cool idea for an RPG that was so strongly defined by its art. Can Skyrealms of Jorune be far behind?
In the meantime, the first edition of Talislanta is available for download, so take a look. I never played the system (released at the height of my high school 1E days), but thumbed through it enough that I have a passing familiarity with it, and once witnessed a session at a convention. There were lots of "funny voices" used at that table, I recall, which did little to inspire me to investigate further, though that was probably an idiosyncracy of that particular group rather than the game itself. I hope.
Definitely some cool monsters in there, the kind of stuff you'd expect to see haunting the ruin-filled primal jungles of one of Moorcock's bizaare worlds... Download here.
Remember this ad from Dragon?
No Elves!
ReplyDeleteI never played Talislanta but remember that ad and was intrigued! Thanks for the link!
i ran a Talislanta campaign for about a year in the early-mid 90s. It was a blast!
ReplyDeleteI have that book and a few others. What I remember is it having a ton of playable races. Lots of good weirdness, but never got around to doing anything with it. Maybe I'll get it out and take alook at it again.
ReplyDeleteI love the creepy monsters from that game, all fangs and death.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big Tal fan, which I often felt was mis-characterized as Vancian, whereas I always got more of a Clark Ashton Smith vibe from it.
ReplyDeleteAs a game system, Tal is an evolution from Secchi's earlier Atlantis Trilogy, which was itself a kind if stripped down 1st ed AD&D. All in all, an really nice game system married to a great setting.
But just so everyone is aware: that pdf wasn't supposed to be up yet, because it is a miserably illegible scan. Not to say that yuo can't look at it, but it will be fixed up and made much better.
Nice! Thanks for the update, Matthew :)
ReplyDeleteTalislanta is pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Jorune, we will likely never see another Jorune product. I worked for the guy who designed it, and he indicated the IP is hopelessly tangled in an intractable legal mess.
Thanks for the link! I remember all those Dragon ads but I never actually saw the game until now. Awesome.
ReplyDeleteI loved the world of the Atlantis Trilogy as well!
ReplyDeleteWe have a stack of old Dragon magazines in my gaming group's space and whenever someone finds the "No Elves" ad they start laughing "..it's an advertisement for Blair's game!"
Dig those reasonable prices in the ad as well!
Very, very cool that the old material is being made available for free download.
I got to play in a Talislanta campaign in college with a GM who was seriously into the setting, and it was a blast. He ran it very pulp/S&S and I think that was pretty new for all of the players, who were more used to high-fantasy 1980s AD&D. A great game. I was an Ur warlord but never managed to get minions to lead into war.
ReplyDeleteThat no elves ad is what made me pick up this rpg. Although, 15-20 or so years later.
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