Inspired by Loudo & Vendark's custom character threads, I decided to whip up some ideas I've been mulling for awhile. Without further ado, I present 9 new characters:

Blessed Maiden

Here is a lady that proves it is often better to be lucky than good. Low stats, but bad things just tend not to happen to her, which allows for some normally risky behavior.

Chronomancer

Uh oh, a character that can turn any Spell into Temporal Warp. It's madness! But, doing so has a heavy price, either do it often and go it alone, or occasionally if you wants friends to come along for the ride. Not a natural spell cycler, this guy will need to figure out ways to fuel his time magics.

Cult Leader

Now we do have a natural spell cycler, and when he gets his cult following going, he can really hoard those miracles for a rainy day! Like many cult followers before them, they will find out that things aren't so great for them when the Leader gets a chance to pray!

Fallen Templar

Turning to the dark gods and pledging his service to them, the Fallen Templar can undergo quests in their name and receive powerful materials to do further evil deeds.

Gargoyle

Many myths related to the Gargoyle are based on its guardianship of places and warding off of evil spirits, so I wanted to use those as the basis. Plus, he is made of stone, so natural armor made sense.

Godborn

Here is the god that has become a mortal and must prove his worth to rejoin his kind in the heavens. While they will ignore his pleas while on this mortal coil, they do sneak him little trinkets when he makes progress towards becoming a "true hero".

Hermit

Here is the guy who has perfected the art of avoiding other people. Always careful where he goes, he does so slowly and methodically. Not a particularly friendly chap, he prefers the company of animals to man.

Lady of the Tempest

Now, here is a lady that could just beat you up or really ruin your day with her storm magics, blowing random Objects and Followers all over the place.

Racketeer

This is a nasty little man that likes to provide "protection" services for businesses and individuals, for a price of course. He'll need some muscle to help him out, but after he gets a gang together, he can really start cranking out the cash. With all of that gold, a trip to the Tavern could net him some nice baubles and more gang members.

Hello sanityismyvanity. Good job!

You've got some neat character ideas, so I'm going to give you my feedback. :-)

(One minor nitpick about the art. Character pictures in Talisman are usually full body, so pictures like the ones for the Chronomancer or the Racketeer don't feel right to me.)

BLESSED MAIDEN

I think you managed to make this character mostly balanced. The only thing I strongly suggest you is not letting her use her second ability in conjuction with normal fate use. A reroll + the ability to ignore even the second reroll really feels too much, especially on a character with basically infinite fate. Let it be a choice: you either spend a fate to reroll and hope to be lucky the second time, or you spend a fate to ignore a bad result.

CHRONOMANCER

I like the character concept.

I have to be honest though, I'm not a fan of using fate as a price to use special abilities. I don't think it usually does a good job at balancing abilities and it strongly encourages the character to change alignment to Evil as soon as possible. Plus, no official character really uses that mechanic.

I would personally suggest you to use Spells as the cost for his second ability instead of fate. It seems more in line with the character concept anyway, and it would further help prevent the Chronomancer from using his Temporal Warp ability too indiscriminately. The third ability, being a minor one, could reasonably be free.

CULT LEADER

This is the only character in the bunch that I feel is really too overpowered. Ability #3 alone already feels too powerful. Combined with Ability #2 is pure craziness.

FALLEN TEMPLAR

I like the character, but I would advice against letting him gain a Warlock Quest for free. Considering he starts in the Middle Region and he gets teleported there anyway every time he completes a Quest, why not let him go to the Warlock's Cave like any other character?

GARGOYLE

I really like the concept, excellent work!

GODBORN

Interesting mechanic and at a first impression he looks reasonably balanced.

HERMIT

I love the concept but I really dislike ability #2. Talisman isn't really conceived to let players move the exact number of spaces they want, especially not every single turn.

If you want to convey that this character is a loner, I would suggest something like: "Every time you would land on a space with a character, Enemy, Stranger, or Follower, you may land on the next space in the same direction instead."

LADY OF THE TEMPEST

I got to be honest, this character looks a little boring to play. Her abilities are all very circumstantial, her only strong point is her good stats. Her ability #2 has such a low chance of succeeding that I would never waste a turn like that except in the most desperate of situations.

RACKETEER

Nice character, I like it! Only one minor nitpick, I don't really understand what the different price for Treasure Cards is for. That ability only works if there is a Treasure Card lying around on the board. This situation is rare enough that it doesn't really warrant a different price IMHO.

Re: the Chronomancer, using fate as a resource to fuel an ability isn't foreign to the official rules. Not only do the Cleric and the Jin Blooded essentially do that already, there are a lot of cards that give characters similar options. Destinies are practically built around it.

Nice characters, sanityismyvanity. The Racketeer is particularly clever, though I agree with Loudo that a separate price for Treasures probably isn't necessary.

@Vendark

The Cleric and the Jin Blooded mostly just convert fate into some other expandable resource (lives/Spells). Besides, comparing characters to Destinies isn't a good idea, since Destinies are meant to be extremely powerful effects that you gain later in the game! :-P

More importantly, though, they all also provide you with a way to replenish fate. The Cleric, the Jin Blooded, the Destinies, all let you replenish fate in some unconventional way, in order to let you use your special ability.

The reasons I don't like using fate as a cost are:

> The worth of fate points is vastly different depending on your alignment. Good characters can't even realiably replenish fate at all unless you are playing with specific expansions, while for evil characters spending fate is trivial. And no matter the starting alignment you give your character, it can be changed by visiting the Mystic or the Rogue's Guild.

> The Woodland doesn't interact well with fate costs. Suddenly, your character wants to spend most of his time in the Woodland, waiting for a Path that lets him replenish fate easily.

> If you don't give your character an option to replenish fate easily, then using that ability becomes increadibly difficult (unless you take advantage of the two strategies above). If you give him an ability to replenish fate, then you could have just as well chosen another "currency" instead.

Of course, this is just my opinion. I'm not saying characters using fate abilities are unbalanced, just that I don't really like the mechanic and that a cost that varies so wildly depending on a few circumstances isn't really a good cost IMHO.

A few extra thoughts that occured to me.

BLESSED MAIDEN: You really want to add an exception regarding the Inner Region in her second ability. Otherwise she can waltz directly to the Crown of Command from the very start of the game.

RACKETEER: I'm not sure it is intended, but the Racketeer can make gold extremely easily when playing with the City expansion, almost putting the Alchemist to shame. Suppose he has 1-2 Followers. He visits the Apothecary and gains 1-2 gold. Then on his next turn, he visits the Magic Emporium, gain 1-2 gold. Then the Armoury, the Stables, and the Menagerie, 3-6 gold. The second time he goes around the City, he has enough money to buy anything he wants. Repeat as many times as you like.

Re: Destinies, that was just the easiest example off the top of my head. Take the Chronomancer's third ability; the Tome of Ages gives a character almost exactly the same power, and no additional ability to replenish fate.

But, no big deal, to each his own, etc.

That Racketeer exploit does seem like a problem. Maybe he needs some sort of chance to lose gold and get thrown in jail when he pulls shenanigans in the City. Possible wording, listed as a separate ability on his card:

"If you extort a space on the City board, roll a die afterwards. If your roll is less than the amount of gold you gained, you lose that gold and are thrown in jail."

This way he can still extort small amounts of gold in the City if he wants to risk it, but roaming the City streets with a huge gang is definitely going to get him caught quickly.

Admittedly as written he could still roam around with 1 Follower and extort 1g per turn as often as he wants (though that seems like a terrible game strategy to me). If that's still too much, change the wording to "If your roll is equal to or less..." and then he always risks getting nothing and being jailed.

Thanks for the feed back guys! I knew there would be some issues I'd overlooked with these rough drafts, and it is good to get some other viewpoints to get me thinking about alternate ways to make these characters more playable, interesting, correcting overpowered/underwhelming abilities etc. I have been thinking the last couple of days about how to fix these most of these characters, here are my thoughts, let me know what you think about these.

Blessed Maiden

Loudo, I see your point about reroll + ignore is probably a bit much...too many good results will occur with the combo. I am not opposed to this happening if through the match they earn it, so to speak, but it shouldn't be possible on turn 1. Also, while I don't think the Inner Region restriction is necessarily requisite, as the rules require you to successfully resolve the spaces in that Region to be able to move on, and ignoring the result isn't the same thing. And the character doesn't start with a Talisman either, so they couldn't try to go immediately that way either. But, places like dice with death are going to be confusing with this ability, so probably easiest to restrict it from that Region to avoid arguments.

My proposed solution would be to lower the Fate Value to 1, and change ability #2 to "You may discard 1 Fate to ignore the result of any roll resulting from an encounter with a space, Stranger or Place, except in the Inner Region." This clears up the possible Inner Region ambiguity, and since they generally only will ever have 1 Fate, they must choose to either reroll OR ignore the result. If the character gains Fate above 1, then they could do both, but only as long as they have extra Fate to use.

For Spells, I was thinking of going in a different direction. I propose adding an ability #3 "You may not be targeted by Spells originating from other characters so long as you have 1 Fate." This creates a sort of On/Off Amulet effect, or Magic Shell of Luck, if you will. If you have not used up your fate using your ability #2 or making a reroll, Spells cannot affect you from other characters. But, if you use up your Fate on your turn and are left with none, this creates a window of opportunity for other players to cast Random/Toadify/etc. I feel this is balanced with the low stats, as this character will be very vulnerable to Enemies and attacks from other characters.

Chronomancer

I agree that using Fate as a cost to activate abilities isn't great, especially for Good characters, as it just reinforces the idea that going Evil is the best way to go. I also have been thinking about the synergy with things like the Spellbook, and many players saying "screw it, who needs Followers" and just spamming the Temporal Warp ability every round. That would be overpowered and also very annoying to the other players. I want them able to do Temporal Warps sometimes, but not have loopholes where they can spam it all of the time.

This fix I've thought about to hopefully make this ability have a high cost to do very often is to lower their starting Fate Value to 3, and change ability #2 to "At the beginning of your turn, before you move, you may discard 1 Spell, 1 Life and 1 Fate to take three successive turns instead of one before play passes to the next player. You may only use this ability once per round." With going with a three-headed cost, it is high enough to prevent spamming, but still good enough to try occasionally, which is the point. You just need to try and stockpile 3 different resources to fuel the time magics. Also, both Good and Evil are equally viable choices, and Neutral is mostly viable if you have good access to Gold.

For ability #3, I think going in a similar vein to the costs associated with #2 would be a variable cost. "Whenever you are instructed to miss a turn, you discard 1 Spell, 1 Life or 1 Fate to ignore the effect." As the effect is about 1/3rd as good as the ability #2, the cost should be about 1/3rd as much. This way, the character can flexibly use whatever they have the most of at the time.

Cult Leader

This guy is a bit much right now, agreed, but it is hard to really know how powerful hoarding Spells really is as a concept since it means they aren't spamming them. I think giving a simple max amount of extra limit should help. The prayer ability should have a higher cost as well. Here is my proposed changes:

Have ability #3 read "You may captivate any Stranger you have just encountered to become your cult follower. Take the Stranger as a Follower and for each cult follower you have, increase your Spell limit by one, to a maximum of +3 to your Spell limit." This caps it to a more reasonable level.

Have ability #4 read "When praying, you may discard all of your cult followers to choose two different results instead of rolling normally. You may only use this ability if you have at least 3 cult followers." Now, you can either use the cult followers to hoard Spells, or burn through them in a mass ritual suicide to get 2 prayer results of your choice. It becomes a hard decision based on where you are at in the game and what you feel would be a bigger benefit at the time.

Fallen Templar

Thematically, this character is gaining his Quests from the dark gods, so I don't really want them connected to the Warlock's Cave. I think I have a middle ground that works though. Plus, this character really has no other abilities of note, so gaining the Quests is his thing, so to speak. I did notice a major flaw though, since the character has no way of getting Quest Rewards, they cannot ever win the Sacred Pool ending as it stands. That needs to be fixed.

Change ability #1 to "If you begin your turn on the Cursed Glade, you may draw a Warlock Quest if you do not already have one. Upon completion of any Warlock Quest, instead of resolving normally, you must immediately teleport to the Cursed Glade and either gain a Talisman, a Quest Reward or draw 1 random Shop card from the Shop deck of your choice." This keeps the theme, while preventing them easily replacing lost Quests via the False Grail, etc without making another pilgrimage to the Cursed Glade.

Gargoyle & Godborn

I like these characters as is, I don't see any need for changes.

Hermit

I agree with the assessment that ability #2 is far too consistent and probably easily abused. I really like your suggested alternative ability Loudo, so I'll just replace it with that: "Every time you would land on a space with a character, Enemy, Stranger, or Follower, you may land on the next space in the same direction instead." This works nicely with the theme.

The evasion ability #4 is tied to the dreaded Fate cost mechanic, and I've thought of an alternate method for it as well that I feel is more thematic: "You may Evade any Character when on a draw card space." This exemplifies that he can avoid contact when in the open expanses, but when in a more specific and confined area, he can be tracked down by other characters. It gives him a reason to avoid Shop spaces, the Temple, Lost City, etc., which is thematic I feel.

Lady of the Tempest

This character is currently conflicted, since having a high starting Strength doesn't jive with ability #1 very well. It's probably better to take the Animal as a Trophy, rendering it a non-ability most of the time. Ability #2 is also problematic since it has a low success rate combined with no net-gain for the Lady herself when she is likely to be in a position to just beat another character up for a reward.

Proposed solution is this: Lower Strength to 2, increase Craft to 4. Change ability #1 to "You may conjure up a great lightning storm to chase away the creatures of the wild. Once per turn, you may discard all Animals and Monsters on your space. Any Objects, Followers or Strangers on the space are moved 1d6 spaces clockwise when you use this ability." With the lower Strength, ridding the space of certain Strength Enemies becomes more of a survival tactic, but doesn't just become a free pass to goodies that also reside on the space.

Change ability #2 to read: "You may call forth a great tempest to afflict a character you land on. Choose 2 Objects, 1 Object and 1 Follower or 2 Followers in the possession of the target character, and move them 1d6 spaces clockwise." While characters like the Thief and Sorceress take for themselves 1 thing from another character, this takes 2 things and puts them up for grabs. I feel this is balanced well as a slow down tactic to use against opponents.

Add an ability #4: "Whenever you are in battle with another character or creature, if you roll a 6 for your attack roll, you stun your opponent with lightning. When stunned, your opponent cannot add their attack roll to their Strength for this battle."

Racketeer

As noted by both of you, the Gold gains as it stands are rather huge mid-game and beyond, and too easy to pull off. I'm thinking of adding a more random element to it, with a fixed Gold gain for a successful roll. Also, the reason for Treasures having their own cost is because of the Deep Realms. The Objects and Treasures placed there at the beginning of the game are faceup on the space and eligible to be affected by effects from Spells and other abilities. The special rules governing when they can be gained are only in effect when encountering the space they are on. They need to be expensive because of this availability.

Change ability #2 to: "Whenever you visit a card or space that allows you to purchase an Object or Follower, you may extort instead. Roll 1 die. If the total is equal or less than the number of Followers you have, gain 3 Gold. If the total is greater, lose 1 Life and move to your hideout in the Forest as you flee the law, then end your turn immediately." Failed rolls here will cause the Racketeer and his gang to run far away from any Shops. This also forces him to build up his gang first before trying to extort all of the time.

Add an ability #4: "Whenever you encounter a Stranger, gain 1 Gold." This gives him some early game Gold gaining, as he shakes down random Strangers for a little coin.

Blessed Maiden

Also, while I don't think the Inner Region restriction is necessarily requisite, as the rules require you to successfully resolve the spaces in that Region to be able to move on, and ignoring the result isn't the same thing.

I was specifically thinking about the Crypt/Mines. All it takes for you to clear those challenges (which are the main challenges to the Crown of Command) is to be able to end your turn in those spaces. Since the Blessed Maiden had the ability to ignore dice rolls from encountering spaces, she was effectively able to just land on those places, not get teleported, and move on.

My proposed solution would be to lower the Fate Value to 1, and change ability #2 to "You may discard 1 Fate to ignore the result of any roll resulting from an encounter with a space, Stranger or Place, except in the Inner Region." This clears up the possible Inner Region ambiguity, and since they generally only will ever have 1 Fate, they must choose to either reroll OR ignore the result. If the character gains Fate above 1, then they could do both, but only as long as they have extra Fate to use.

For Spells, I was thinking of going in a different direction. I propose adding an ability #3 "You may not be targeted by Spells originating from other characters so long as you have 1 Fate." This creates a sort of On/Off Amulet effect, or Magic Shell of Luck, if you will. If you have not used up your fate using your ability #2 or making a reroll, Spells cannot affect you from other characters. But, if you use up your Fate on your turn and are left with none, this creates a window of opportunity for other players to cast Random/Toadify/etc. I feel this is balanced with the low stats, as this character will be very vulnerable to Enemies and attacks from other characters.

I really like the changes, they make the Blessed Maiden much more interesting. Excellent ideas!

(Just remember to add an exception for the Command Spell in her Spell immunity ;-) )

Chronomancer

While I agree that this is an improvement, personally I still don't like the fate cost. Your change doesn't really make Good and Evil equally viable, because while Evil characters can freely replenish fate and spend gold to heal (Graveyard and Village are conveniently placed next to each other too!), Good character can't replenish fate at all.

Personally I would suggest you to change the cost to... 1 Spell and 1 gold. Let's skip the middle man (i.e. paying to recover lost lives and fate). I think this is also more in line with the character concept, because the gold cost could be meant to represent the "material components" required for the time spell, and this change still prevents a Chronomancer with a Spellbook to use his ability infinitely.

If you feel that this might still be a bit too much, you could also reduce the number of extra turns the ability gives him from two to one.

Cult Leader

This guy is a bit much right now, agreed, but it is hard to really know how powerful hoarding Spells really is as a concept since it means they aren't spamming them.

I don't think the real unbalancing factor comes from hoarding Spell per se, but from the fact that the ability to gain 1 Spell per turn coupled with a really high Spell limit means that the Cult Leader can spellcycle like no other character. Drew a bad Spell? Who cares, you don't need to cast it in order to continue spellcycling.

He is a sort of Warlock with the added benefit that he can actually keep Spells until they are useful. And that he has extra special abilities as well.

I personally think that in order to make ability #3 sort of balanced, you absolutely need to drop ability #2. (He can still obtain the same effect by buying a Spellbook, but at least he needs to collect Stranger and gold before gaining such power).

Fallen Templar

I like the change!

Hermit

Nice idea, I like your changes.

Lady of the Tempest

Excellent changes, all of them. Just one minor nitpick, you shouldn't call her last ability "stun" because that word already has a different meaning in Talisman: http://www.talismanwiki.com/Lightning_Bolt

Racketeer

Also, the reason for Treasures having their own cost is because of the Deep Realms. The Objects and Treasures placed there at the beginning of the game are faceup on the space and eligible to be affected by effects from Spells and other abilities. The special rules governing when they can be gained are only in effect when encountering the space they are on. They need to be expensive because of this availability.

I see, thanks for the info. I don't own Deep Realms and I never played with that expansion so it didn't occur to me. :-)

I really like the changes to the character.

@Loudo

Thanks for the suggestions and tips again!

Blessed Maiden

Good call on the Command Spell reminder, I'll add that most definitely.

Chronomancer

This character is tough to get right, either the restrictions are too light or too heavy it seems. 1 Gold seems a little cheap and easy to me. Also, Good characters can easily replenish Fate at the Soothsayer in the City. But, point taken. I think perhaps the best plan is to reduce the number of extra turns at a lesser cost, as you mentioned.

Change ability #2 to "At the beginning of your turn, before you move, you may discard 1 Spell and 1 Life to take two successive turns instead of one before play passes to the next player. You may only use this ability once per round." This reinforces being Good instead of Evil, and if you manage to find a way to spam this ability, taking two turns every round is less annoying for other players than three. Thematically, the Life cost is justified by the advanced aging and the magic taking its toll on the body.

Change ability #3 to "Whenever you are instructed to miss a turn, you may discard 1 Spell to ignore the effect." This keeps it simple, and simple is good.

Cult Leader

This guy is perhaps in need of a more radical change. The + Spell limit idea is perhaps not a great idea.

Change Fate Value to 3. Change ability #2 to "During the game, you always have at least one Spell. (Gain a Spell each time you cast your last Spell)"

Change ability #3 to "You may captivate any Stranger you have just encountered to become your cult follower. Take the Stranger as a Follower. At any time during your turn, you may discard 1 Spell and 1 cult follower to gain 2 Spells." I'll leave ability #4 alone, and now the Cult Leader will be left with a choice of either using the cult followers for spell cycling out of bad spells or gaining through prayer in a mass suicide.

Lady of the Tempest

Forgot about stun being a keyword of sorts already, I'll switch the wording to "daze" instead. Gets the point across just as well.

Re: the Racketeer and the Deep Realms, you could consider putting in an exception that prevents him from grabbing cards on the Deep Realms board. Then you wouldn't need a separate price for Treasure items, and it would keep him from buying the Flail for 2 gold early in the game just because it happened to end up on the Rat Queen's space.

Re: the Racketeer and the Deep Realms, you could consider putting in an exception that prevents him from grabbing cards on the Deep Realms board. Then you wouldn't need a separate price for Treasure items, and it would keep him from buying the Flail for 2 gold early in the game just because it happened to end up on the Rat Queen's space.

I'm not too worried about this myself. About 25% of the time one or both Flails will be in the Rat Queens Lair at game start, and then the Racketeer has to spend 2-?? number of turns trying to get back to the Tavern to buy it. If we look at the Alchemist, he can buy the Flail in about 5-7 turns or so in 91% of games from game start (9% of the time both Flails reside in the Deep Realms), and the Alchemist will have Gold to spare when he gets to the Armoury, which he will always hit reliably thanks to the City movement.