Quote from: Batjon on January 29, 2023, 08:44:36 AM
What is the setting like for Talislanta? I really know nothing about it.

All the old editions are free downloads. 2e is quite good.
http://talislanta.com/talislanta-library

Definitely a setting worth checking out. I'm very surprised it didn't catch on.

Perhaps the lack of elves?

The setting for Talislanta is like this...

A race of Sorcerer-kings with godlike powers, living in flying cities, bending reality with their spells ends up casting one spell too many. The they blow up their world and enter into an apocalyptic dark age that last centuries. Some of them survive... alongside many of the servitor races they created, but they all descend back down to near barbarism. Centuries go by, empires rise and fall. Until finally... the modern era, new kingdoms, city-states with a LOT of sentient races that have all developed their own distinct cultures, now vie for power.

It's high/low magic (depending on where you start your game), Sword-and-Sorcery vibe. Lots of barbarian and high-fantasy cultures smushed against one another. Ancient ruins galore. Tons of exotic locales. There are no Elves (no humans either!) There's a lot of history to the setting but the current era is like near-renaissance for the "core" starting region (Called the Seven Kingdoms in the older editions). It's very much a massive sandbox that any GM can pick a location and just go wild. You don't have to know a lot about it, just find a spot and jump in.

Quote from: Dropbear on January 29, 2023, 09:17:16 AM
I'll be in on this. Nice to see the update coming. And a SWADE version will be cool to see. I'm glad they jumped off of the fucking 5E bandwagon. I was so disappointed at the first release's mention of it being a 5E product.

On a side note, I was shocked to learn that FFG/Edge's Midnight release was a 5e release and not Genesys. I loved that setting, but noped out as soon as I found out.

The "no humans" has been the hardest part for me to wrap my head around. That said, a lot of the races feel like humans divided in a more 19th century view of race.

Quote from: PulpHerb on January 30, 2023, 11:30:59 AM
The "no humans" has been the hardest part for me to wrap my head around. That said, a lot of the races feel like humans divided in a more 19th century view of race.

There is *definitely* that.

The Sorcerer-kings were called the Archaens, and they are what the Cymrilians, Phantasians, Tanasians, and a few others are originally descended from. Many of the other races in Talislanta were the creations of the Archaens, who lived in their flying cities high above the surface world, which they ceded to ther "Beastmen".

So when they brought the 'Great Cataclysm' down upon their world, those flying cities inhabitants died out in spectacular fashion... but there were survivors, who would struggle through the post-apocalypse (Talislanta: The Savage Lands is the edition that details that era), would eventually rise up again to create their own kingdoms and empires thousands of years later.

The current era has many of those non-Archaen servitor races now leading their own nations, or tribes... and of course there are the Beastmen tribes... which have their own subdivisions as well.

So yeah, there's "No Elves" (and no Humans) as tongue-in-cheek poke at DnD... but there is plenty here most DnD players will find to their liking. And a lot of stuff that will be "new". The setting pretty awesome and expansive. I like to call it "exotically familiar".

Quote from: tenbones on January 30, 2023, 03:47:39 PM
The Sorcerer-kings were called the Archaens, and they are what the Cymrilians, Phantasians, Tanasians, and a few others are originally descended from. Many of the other races in Talislanta were the creations of the Archaens, who lived in their flying cities high above the surface world, which they ceded to ther "Beastmen".

Yeah. I found if I think of the Sorcerer-kings as "humans" and Cymrilians, Phantasians, etc as just their descendants broken into different ethnicities it makes it a lot easier to ground myself.

They're kinda like "good" Melniboneans. Tall, beautiful, deep arcane tradition that includes planar travel and crazy feats of sorcery that dwarfs the imaginations of mere mortals.

But the rest of the game has a shocking amount of wild elements that were way ahead of its time. Ironically all the wild weird shit in modern DnD that exists without ANY cultural context, can be found here in Talislanta, with *specific* context and history.

Cat People - The Jaka. Very cool and interesting take on an evolved "beastman".
Tieflings - Na-Ku, Rajans may qualify.
Goth Edgelords - Xambrians
Blue Snowflakes - Mirin
Dark Blue Good Drow - Ariane
Good Bird People - Gryph, Aeriad
Bad Bird People - Stryx

+30 or more other cultures and races that no D&D player has yet dreamed up, all contextual to the setting.

Quote from: tenbones on January 30, 2023, 05:20:20 PM
They're kinda like "good" Melniboneans. Tall, beautiful, deep arcane tradition that includes planar travel and crazy feats of sorcery that dwarfs the imaginations of mere mortals.

But the rest of the game has a shocking amount of wild elements that were way ahead of its time. Ironically all the wild weird shit in modern DnD that exists without ANY cultural context, can be found here in Talislanta, with *specific* context and history.

Cat People - The Jaka. Very cool and interesting take on an evolved "beastman".
Tieflings - Na-Ku, Rajans may qualify.
Goth Edgelords - Xambrians
Blue Snowflakes - Mirin
Dark Blue Good Drow - Ariane
Good Bird People - Gryph, Aeriad
Bad Bird People - Stryx

+30 or more other cultures and races that no D&D player has yet dreamed up, all contextual to the setting.

Thanks for the mapping. It'll help me cut down who players can be.

Well the *problem* in D&D is not that these things exist, per se. It's that they tend to exist with no context for them in the setting.

Just like D&D is a freakshow because the party consists of all these weird things, in any setting, just because the race stats exist. Players assume that they can just play them. Noob GM's don't actually curate them. So it's weird shit, often in established settings that didn't have those things.

In Talislanta - nothing exists without a historical reason. So it's not really a problem (mostly) to have weird shit. Talislanta is full of weird shit on purpose. There are cultural issues with a lot of the races, that might preclude them from mixing in a party without the GM being really specific on how it might work.

But for new players that really want to get a taste of playing "oddball" races - Talislanta has them covered on much of it. And does it in a way that usually won't clash with the assumed gameplay in most regions.

Tenbones

Do you know what year they are advancing the timeline to? I know 611NA was the fall of the Quan and looking at the map see Kang empire on there.

I might give it a look when the new edition hits.

Quote from: drakinfar on January 30, 2023, 07:49:48 PM
Tenbones

Do you know what year they are advancing the timeline to? I know 611NA was the fall of the Quan and looking at the map see Kang empire on there.

I have *my* extrapolation based on the post-Submen Uprising. But I don't know what the "exact" date is as things are getting tidied up behind the scenes. But it looks like about 10-years give or take.

And yes, the Quan empire falls as the Kang take over. That was true even as of 4e. The Submen uprising results in a bunch of major shifts in the political alliances and even the existence of some major players in Talislanta.

Kickstarter or traditional publishing? Either way I'm onboard to purchase upon release. I played 1st and 2nd edition Talislanta, and it definitely scratches the itch when you want something completely different that is still internally consistent.

Quote from: Brad on January 31, 2023, 10:47:40 AM
Kickstarter or traditional publishing? Either way I'm onboard to purchase upon release. I played 1st and 2nd edition Talislanta, and it definitely scratches the itch when you want something completely different that is still internally consistent.

2E seems to be the favorite germline of the editions. It hits the sweet spot between 4e and 3e. Talislanta: The Savage Lands was using mostly a 2e design. I would think this new edition will likely be pulling from there too. But that is my speculation, as I'm more concerned with doing the Savage Worlds translation.

Of course I'll be all-in on both.

10 year advance should be nice. The sweet spot for me when I ran games was always starting around Quantrigue and Submen uprising shows players that the world is dangerous.