Talislanta:Relics and Merchants

As a means of introduction here is a Video (As a side note the video is from the late 90's so that may account for some of its outdated qualities)

A robed figure sits at the back of a large library. The figure curled up on a desk among scores, upon scores of books, maps, charts, and scrolls. The whole room is filled with an immense collection of knowledge. You wonder how in the seven kingdoms did a private person acquire such immense amounts of trinkets and knowledge. You don't have too much longer before the figure looks up from his writings, smiles and lifts himself up from that heavy wood desk.

"Oh good you have arrived! I have gathered you all here for a purpose. Have you ever wondered what it was like for those that came before our time? I certainly do. Just imagine the wonders of those bygone eras, what knowledge they had, what memories they left for us to find! I have a task for each of you, and I do hope you will join me. You will be well compensated of course, both monetarily and... with other means as befits each of you. So I ask you, shall we delve into the past for the wonders of yesterday?"

Talislanta is a fantasy world unlike any that you have seen before. A long standing tagline for the game was "No Elves!", and it has continued to stay true to that ideology. The primary inspirations for the Fantasy world that is Talislanta sit far away from the Tolkinian styles of Fantasy. Commonly known inspirations for the world were: The Dying Earth novels by Jack Vance (which admitedly I have not read, but plan to.), The Dramquest of Unknown Kadath by H.P Lovecraft (Which I have also not read), The Elric Novels by Micheal Moorcock (Of which I have read a few), and the true life voyages of Marco Polo.

For all of its differences, Talislanta is still a wonderful Fantasy setting filled with Daring, Danger, and Drama. It uses its own system, and each edition of the game can be found at Talislanta.com. Oh, and did I mention that you can download any edition of the game FOR FREE from that website.

With the Talislanta: The Savage Land kickstarter in full swing, it has reminded me of how much I want to play a game in this setting. Sadly, due to my own inability to have free time I was forced to bow out of a Game of Talislanta run here some time ago. Still, While I am rereading the setting and rules I figure that the best way to get comfortable with it all is to commit to running it.

We will be using the Talislanta 5th Edition material ***** Note: This is not Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. Talislanta has its own rules and mechanics that are different from the classical fantasy roleplaying game. If you are interested in trying out a new world, as well as a new system then this is the place for you***. Do not worry too much in advance about making a character or any of that as I would like to have a session or two to go over the basics of the Setting, talk about the rules a bit, find out everyone's comfort level and to give you the low down that I am a fairly story focused GM and not always mechanically savvy. This will give us time to learn about the Group and its dynamics as well as creating characters so that no one has to create in a vacuum.

The Core starting premise will be that a wealthy individual from the Seven kingdoms has assembled an odd cohort of adventurers in order to seek out the fabled wonders of the ancient past. The ones from just after the cataclysm that decimated the Archean age. In order to better facilitate this he has given the group a cover of being merchants so they can travel from place to place unnoticed. The adventures will take the characters all over the Map of Talislanta and feature everything (hopefully) from fights, dungeon exploring, as well as sneaking into the palaces of the wealthy to gather trinkets of unknown origin.

The Session time frame will be a placeholder until the group can come to some form of consensus on when a game should occur.