I was noodling about RPG setting material I’ve always meant to read, and I remembered a truly excellent thing: Stephan Michael Sechi, creator of Talislanta, generously makes available virtually ever Talislanta product ever published in PDF, with permission granted to download, modify, and print for personal use only, for free. That’s over 30 PDFs spanning the 2nd through 5th edition of the game — plus a separate library just for maps.
What is Talislanta, setting-wise, and why might it interest you? I can’t think of a better summary than this Stephan Michael Sechi quote from the introduction to the 5th edition Player’s Guide:
“My main objective was to create a fantasy world that was not based on Euorpean [sic] mythology, as most other RPGs had done; hence the “No Elves” slogan, which we used in Talislanta ads that we later ran in Dragon Magazine.
I read all of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth books, Lovecraft’s The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, Marco Polo’s The Travels, and back issues of Heavy Metal magazine (especially Druilette’s Salambo, in which if you look closely enough you might find the inspiration for the Jhangarans). And I confess to partaking of one of Turkey’s finest products nightly, which helped inspire most of the visual elements of Talislanta, and some remarkably lucid dreams I had of actually visiting Talislanta.”
Now that is a setting.
Where to start
If you’re totally new to Talislanta, P.D. Breeding-Black’s amazing cover to the 2nd edition Talislanta Handbook and Campaign Guide — reproduced above — makes a fantastic first impression, and that may be all you need. It illustrates a Talislantan Thrall, a member of a race descended from an army of magically-created warrior slaves. Thralls of the same gender are 100% identical; you can only tell them apart by their tattoos.
For a second impression, though, download that book from the Talislanta site and turn to page 46, Character Types, where you’ll find several pages like this:
And this:
Looking at all of those wonderful possibilities, from Xambrian wizard hunter to Yitek tomb-robber to ice giant to Za bandit, with all that they imply about Talislanta as a setting, piques my interest like nothing else, and it may do the same for you.
And then . . .
If your interest is piqued, check out the Talislanta site’s Help, I Have Questions! page, which is excellent. That FAQ recommends Talislanta Fantasy Roleplaying, 4th edition, as the best jumping-on point for folks new to the setting. The 4th edition core book compiles almost everything written for 1st-3rd editions into a 500-page doorstop of a tome. (There’s also a 60-page sampler for 4th edition, available on the same page, specifically designed as an intro for newbies.)
To their advice I’ll add that the 24-page overview of the entire setting in the 5th edition Player’s Guide book is fabulous, well-organized, and presents a ton of information in an easily digestible format. That’s hard to do, particularly for a setting as quirky as Talislanta!
If all of this material sounds like too much, take heart. Here’s an excerpt from the FAQ:
“Talislanta focuses on breadth instead of depth. While there are so many different lands and cultures in the book that I won’t even attempt to count them all, due to the time and effort it would take, each of these lands or peoples is described in an average of about 3 pages. […] Gamemasters should view this as a good thing. What it means is that you are given a vast world with limitless possibilities and well-defined cultures. At the same time you are spared the minutiae and laborious detail that other settings focus on.”
Despite being interested in it ever since I was a kid — when I saw their famous “no elves…” ads in Dragon Magazine — I’ve never actually read much Talislanta stuff. Having rediscovered this library, I can’t wait to dig deeper. Happy reading!