Talislanta

Talislanta is a fantasy role-playing game written by Stephen Michael Sechi and published by Bard Games in 1987. There have been six different English-language editions and several foreign language editions published. All English-language products of "Talislanta" are now freely available via a Creative Commons licence.
Publishing history.
1st edition (Bard Games).
In 1982 Stephan Michael Sechi, Steven Cordovano and Vernie Taylor formed the company Bard Games to produce their own "Dungeons &amp; Dragons" supplements. In 1986, due to personal and financial disagreements that arose after the publication of "The Atlantis Trilogy", Sechi sold his shares in Bard Games to Cordovano and left to begin work on a new role-playing game system and its supplements. Cordovano decided that he did not want to run Bard Games and sold it back to Sechi, giving Sechi the opportunity to publish his new game, "Talislanta".
After publication of the rules in "The Talislantan Handbook" in 1987, Sechi also published three supplements: "The Chronicles of Talislanta" , "A Naturalist's Guide to Talislanta", and "Talislanta Sorcerer's Guide".
2nd edition (Bard Games).
In 1988, Bard Games published a second edition of "Talislanta" starting with "The Cyclopedia Talislanta". This 88-page softcover book included continental and local maps; a listing of urban centres and important georographical features; and expanded list of flora and fauna; new character types; new types of transportation; and variant rules.
In 1989, Bard Games released "Talislanta Handbook and Campaign Guide", a 152-page softcover book that combined "The Talislatan Handbook" and material from the three supplements. The book included:
In 1990, Bard Games published "Talislanta Worldbook", a 183-page atlas of the world of Archaeus and the continent of Talislanta. Shortly after publication, Bard Games went out of business.
3rd edition (Wizards of the Coast).
In 1992, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) — at the time a new, small, and relatively unknown company — acquired the license to "Talislanta" Original designer Stephen Michael Sechi collaborated with Jonathan Tweet to produce the third edition rules that included:
WotC's final "Talislanta" book was the full-length campaign "Sub-Men Rising" (1994) by Robin Laws. In an announcement printed on the last page, WotC announced that this would be "the last "Talislanta" book from Wizards of the Coast"; "Talislanta" products would now be published by Daedalus Entertainment, a small Canadian company that had produced the game "Feng Shui". However, Daedalus went out of business before its version was published.
10th anniversary edition (Pharos Press).
In 1997, Pharos Press acquired the license to "Talislanta" in order to produce a new edition of the game in time for the tenth anniversary of "Talislanta". Pharos had an ambitious plan to expand and revise all previously published material, then combine it one book. Plagued by production delays, Pharos got as far as producing a few ashcans, but failed to publish a product by the end of the year. Because they had missed the tenth anniversary, trademark holder Stephen Michael Sechi rescinded their license.
4th edition (Shooting Iron and Morrigan Press).
A small company called Shooting Iron acquired the license and in 2001 produced "Talislanta Fantasy Role-playing", a 502-page 4th edition that was largely based on the never-published Pharos Press 10th anniversary edition. Shooting Iron also published the supplement "Midnight Realm" in 2005, a 152-page book detailing the plane of existence known as The Darkness, but then relinquished the license.
Morrigan Press acquired the license to "Talislanta" and published the following supplements under Shooting Iron's 4th edition rules:
d20 edition.
In 2005, Morrigan Press released "Talislanta d20 Edition", a new version adapted to the d20 System.
5th edition (Morrigan Press).
In 2006, Morrigan Press announced the upcoming release of a fifth edition that revised the magic system slightly and provided a variant character generation system. Over the next year, four books were released:
In 2008, Morrigan Press went out of business.
Translations.
Talislanta has been translated into several languages, including Italian (1997), German (1991–1992) and French (2005–present). The French edition, published by Ludopathes Éditeurs, is based on the 4th edition rules by Shooting Iron, and has resulted in seven books and seven PDFs.
Creative Commons.
Stephen Michael Sechi kept the trademark and copyright on all English-language "Talislanta" products, and in 2010, made all those editions of the game freely available under the Creative Commons license.
Contents.
Setting.
The game is set in Talislanta, a continent on the world of Archaeus. Magic is common and has reached a high level of technology.
Influences.
Creator Stephen Michael Sechi points to the "Dying Earth" fantasy novel series by Jack Vance as the primary influence, but there are many other sources of inspiration as well, including H. P. Lovecraft’s "Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath," Marco Polo’s "Travels", and Sir Richard Burton’s collection of the "Arabian Nights". As Rick Swan stated in "The Complete Guide to Role-playing", "It's as if H. P. Lovecraft had written "Alice in Wonderland", with Hans Christian Andersen and William S. Burroughs as technical advisors."
Character creation.
In the 1st to 4th editions, characters are essentially pre-generated, with over 80 character types defined by race, nationality, ability scores, skills, equipment and background. Players pick the type of character they wish to play, then individualize it by increasing one ability by three points; decreasing one ability by one point; and adding an additional skill.
In the 5th edition, a more complex character generation system was introduced that was similar to other role-playing games.
Task resolution.
All task resolutions, whether for combat, magic or skills/attributes, are resolved on a single table using a twenty-sided die. Five results are possible: Mishap, Failure, Partial Success, Full Success or Critical Success. The difference between the result gained and the rated difficulty of the task indicates how much of a success or failure was achieved.
Reception.
Stewart Wieck reviewed "Talislanta" for "White Wolf" #11, rating it 9 out of 10 overall, and stated that "The true strength of Talislanta is its uniqueness. Here is a fantasy world without orcs and goblins and all those "standard" enemies [...] I highly recommend this world as a place where your imagination can run wild."
In the March 1989 edition of "Dragon" (Issue #143), Jim Bambra called Talislanta "something out of the ordinary". Bambra found the art "visually appealing, and does an excellent job of conveying the atmosphere, places, and peoples of Talislanta. A flick through any of the four books reveals that Talislanta is special." He concluded, "Some may find the Talislantan game system thin on rules and mechanics, but it does an admirable job of handling all kinds of tests without interrupting the flow of the game. With only a few rules to learn, you can concentrate on role-playing rather than rule-playing."