So I'm hoping when I write this article I can inspire other people to write a guide on how to play their favorite characters. Talisman is a casual game and fun for all ages, but it can be competitive as well if you get the right group of friends. Nothing is set in stone with a game with so many random factors, but I feel the design of Talisman and the turns it's taken with development of many expansions have opened up quite a bit of strategy.

My personal group of friends likes this game so much we get around to playing it about once a week. We always manage six players and once in a blue moon we have five. We always play with all the expansions and all of the content. We don't have access to Danse Macbre, or the Standard Crown of Command Ending cards or the two promotional cards but everything else is there.

We used to decide on an alternate Ending. The Basic Crown of Command Ending has been very unpopular with us, so we use Crown and Scepter sometimes. The most popular ending with us is Pandora's Box, followed by the basic "Confront the Dragon King." Space on the Dragon Realm board that replaces the Inner Region. That being said, Alternate Endings are a wild card that will most often have the biggest impact on the game when it's 80% finished. If you play with Hidden Endings as my group has now progressed to, the random factor increases triplefold as a player and as far as strategy is concerned, there is very little prep you can make with so many variables. (Stocking up on Gold for Thieves Guild, stocking up on Fate for A Hero Rises, being the guinea pig that's afraid of flipping over the Horrible Black Void, etc. )

So you mileage may vary.

Now the only other thing we do, is we draw three random characters. But our houserule spin on it is that you can trade your character cards with someone else, if they want to trade. We haven't had any real problems with this, as everyone always seems happy with what they get, while players that dislike certain characters, can sometimes veto them from being used. (Alchemist). This is how i've manged to play the Dragon Priestess a lot. My initial reason for using this character was I drew the card and thought to myself. ".... Errrr... big boobs I can look at all game. This game is so random whatever character I draw will matter little." and I went on to a world where I discovered how powerful and annoying this character can be, while the rest of the players at my table overlooked the threat of this character time and time again.

So with the introduction out of the way, I'm going to begin my blog on the actual character below

=====The Dragon Priestess Stat Block=====

Character : Dragon Priestess

Start : Temple

Well well welll, right out the door we have an advantage. We start in the Middle Region, but ON the Temple. Meaning two turns before you can land on it at least if you even want to stick around in the Middle Region. Over the course of expansions being released we have a few character that start in the middle now, but I still see this as a bit of an advantage. Why? You don't have to worry about another character paying you a visit unless you leave. However, it's a dangerous place to be and you'll find yourself hugging the bottom and right right lanes of the region unless you can somehow net yourself a Water Bottle or similar item that makes travel in the deserts safe. Also watch out for the Reaper and Werewolf and try and evict them from the Middle Region as soon as possible.When starting in the Middle Region everyone's game play is different is different. For me, I give the odds of surviving there with starting stats about a 1 in 3 chance. if I can hold up there after about 5-6 turns of game play, I stay. If you are down to one or to lives, do not stay, it's too risky and you will die. Take the southern trip past The Sentinel space and live to fight another day. I know it's hard to say goodbye to the Temple but you can't visit the temple if you're dead.

Alignment : Evil

Out of your three alignments this is the one I like the most. Why? Fate replenishment at the Graveyard space on the bottom of the board and as far as restricted items go, I tend to like the ones that are restricted to characters who can not be of Good alignment the most, like the classic ole Runesword. THe Dragon priestess has Fate 5 and being able to get it all back in one visit to the Graveyard is fantastic.

Strength : 2

Strength 2 is your classic amount of Strength for a typical 2/4 high Craft Spellcasting character. But it's a little bit more deadly for the Priestess. Why? No Psychic Combat. The good news is you have some mechanic to fall back on which will allow you to increase your Strength, like praying.

Craft : 4

Ahhh nice! The four means when you encounter a Craft Enemy/Spirit you will usually win the fights if the dice are in your favor. But again, you do not have a Psychic Combat ability, so beware of PVP you start, because it's going to be with your Strength of 2. You also are in the realm of having two Spells on you.

Life : 4

Almost everyone starts with this amount of Life. If you have more it's part of the schtick of your character. (Troll, Dwarf, Vampiress, Ogre Chieftain)

Fate : 5

I think when the game was released, besides Fate doing what it does and making the game have a bit more of a tactical aspect, it also "balanced" characters who did not have abilities that pushed them above and beyond other characters, like the Minstrel who also has Fate 5. Or the Monk. When they slapped Fate 5 on the Dragon Priestess and I try to get inside the mind of the developer and understand why. The answer I give myself is that the Dragon Priestess would be able to be played if the Dragon Tokens and Dragon Decks from the Dragon Expansion were not being used. Still I feel Fate 5 is pretty crazy and the strengths of this character were overlooked if giving her high Fate was intended to be a crutch. I suppose I'll never know, but I will tell you, with Fate 5 you really have a shotgun hidden in plain sight as far as the random factor of Talisman goes.

=====The Dragon Priestess Abilities Block=====

* You begin the game with two Spells.

This is pretty nice but hope to draw something good and useful, because you are starting in the Middle Region and your Spell replenishment mechanic is one of the harder ones to pull off, especially in the early game. These two cards that you draw will play the biggest factor on if you will be able to hang in the Middle Region for a prolonged time or not.

*Whenever you encounter a Cultist, you may take it as a Follower instead of attacking it.

Welcome to half of the reason why you'll quickly become the table's antagonist. Every expansion has one or maybe two Cultists cards, so fishing them out of that giant Adventure Deck is near-impossible and in big games they tend to get smashed to bits when they appear because most of them have very low Strength or Craft. So even if one shows up, your chance of encountering (And taking it as a follower)it is not good. But the Dragon deck is full of them. I mean loaded to the teeth on Cultists. You are going to want to pull from the Dragon Decks as much as possible and every time you mange to get a Cultist Card from one of those decks, you're going to want to take it as a Follower as well. They allow you to do two things: Ignore encountering a Dragon Card by praying to it if you don't have something else to ditch, cant kill it or don't want to sacrifice a Life. And they give you +1 to Praying. More to come on this below.

*After rolling the die when praying, you may use all, none, or some of your Followers to perform a ritual. Each Follower used in the ritual adds 1 to your score.

Wow....just wow. Here is how you win the game. Once you have three Followers, you can really stack the odds at the Temple or a Dragon or a similar card working as a Temple (Idol), or other Place you can Pray as well (Verdant Alter). Four or more Followers is not hard to achieve and it just becomes downright silly at that point. Between having Fate 5 to re roll one of your prayer dice (Sometimes you may even try to roll down, when you roll two that are too high.) You can pretty much hand pick from a plethora of options when praying. Welcome to a huge amount of Life, Strength and Craft. Milk the gods with you personal cult and do it from the feet of a Dragon while feeding one of your Cultists to it. More on this in the strategy section below.

*Whenever you encounter a Dragon, you may offer a sacrifice instead of attacking it. To do so, discard one of your Followers, Objects, or Spells and roll two dice to pray with the same results as at the Temple. If you are enslaved, you must miss your next turn instead.

So you encounter a Dragon and you don't have the Strength or Craft to defeat him or you just flat out know the odds of rolling against it are not in your favor. But you have that lousy Spell in your hand and you've been trying to get rid of it. So pray to the Dragon. And what's this, you get the added befit of only being stuck there on a roll of a 5 for one turn? Well that's not going to happen if you have even one Follower anyways. You are going to get +1 Strength instead. But the real nasty benefit to this ability, is loading up your tble with tons of Dragon, and leaving them there for other people to deal with. Yes, that's right, you are the Dragon Troll. You land on a nice Dragon Scale and pull from the Dragon Deck and you get a cultists and keep it, an item and keep it, or a nasty Dragon, and Pray to it, then leave it on the table for everyone else to try and navigate around. And then another, and then another. All this time you are becoming more powerful and the table is screaming "Why are all these dragons on the table!" and you'll be surprised when it takes them a while to figure out it's you. And that by loading the table up with Dragons and safe places for you to land, you are effectively also creating bad place for your opponents to go, until they can kill of the dragons. I had nine on the table at one time and people still could not figure out I was trolling them I just kept sying "Ah an I pulled another Dragon, I have to ditch my spell again." Then would roll myself up a nice +2 Life, + 1 Strength or +1 Craft and leave that mess for somebody else