Update:

This is a big thread that was getting everyone very confuzed

Finished characters part 1 is here .

ALternative version of part 1 (without the re-skinning) is here. (to do!)

Finished characters part 2 is here . (needs one piece of art)

Finished characters part 3 is here .

Original Post:

So, as we all now know there will be no-more official expansions, and thus any hope of official re-makes of the 28 “lost” characters from the earlier editions dies.

I’ve decided to take a shot at tackling them. I’m more about the mechanics of the characters, and fitting them into the game, rather than shoe-horning in, say a Space Marine, because that’s what the original character was.

This is the first of five blocs of characters. You’ll note that I don’t necessarily have character illustrations yet. I need to hunt down some creative commons art for this project.

Of course, these are just first passes. The Talisman community features a LOT of people far more talented than I, so I’m hoping that this can become a community project, with my initial work as a starting point. Speaking of which, thanks to Jon New for his help & advice with Strange Eons!

First up, Talisman: The Expansion for 2 ^nd edition. These are pretty straight forward.

The Hobgoblin is based on the BI version, but updated from 4 to 4R, nice and simple.

The Satyr is a plain update, nothing too special here.

The Gnome is an update of the Halfling, but by changing him to a Gnome, we avoid the Tolkien influence and can recycle the BI character illustration to boot.

The Hunter updates the Ranger, but give a broader interpretation of the character art-wise.

And the Friar updates the Pilgrim, but provides a better rational for ability.

Fun project, I want to help. Maybe we should make a complete list of rmissing characters first. That way I can do some stuff in parellel. Are we including 3e characters like Skaven? What about Timescape?

If it's possible, please provide text of original characters. It' hard to coment if you did good conversion without knowing the original.

Lets look at the Gnome.

- He's a weak character

- His first ability is barely useful

- His 2nd ability doesn't interact with fate mechanic but duplicates it

- His 3rd ability should be reworded (vampire bats sets an example), and it can safely be expanded to include strength

GNOME

STR 2 CRAFT 3, FATE 4, LIFE 4

Neutral, Village

Special Abilities:

1. When you end your turn on a Plains space, you may take an extra turn. You may only do this once per round.

2. When you spend fate to reroll a die roll involving your Craft, replenish 1 fate.

3. If you are defeated in battle or psychic combat, the attack counts as a stand-off unless your opponent's attack score wins by 2 or more points.

Fun project, I want to help. Maybe we should make a complete list of rmissing characters first. That way I can do some stuff in parellel. Are we including 3e characters like Skaven? What about Timescape?

If it's possible, please provide text of original characters. It' hard to coment if you did good conversion without knowing the original.

I actually have drafts of all these characters done. I'll be uploading them over the next day or two.

Good call on the comparisons. Here's what I've done thus far:

Your update looks good, but I'm concerned on this one, as it makles the ability weaker, since my version can still be used without Fate.

Your update looks good, but I'm concerned on this one, as it makles the ability weaker, since my version can still be used without Fate.

2. When you spend fate to reroll a die roll involving your Craft, replenish 1 fate.

Yes, technically it does. How about:

2. You may reroll a die roll involving your Craft as if you spent 1 fate.

Also, halflings aren't copyrighted by Tokien, hobbits are. But I'm ok with the gnome anyway.

Yeah, that's better. It's all about the wording.

Halflings are just Hobbits with the serial numbers filled off.

With a very slight tweak to make it read cleanly:

GNOME

STR 2 CRAFT 3, FATE 4, LIFE 4

Neutral, Village

Special Abilities:

1. When you end your turn on a Plains space, you may take an extra turn. You may only do this once per round.

2. You may reroll any die roll involving your Craft as if you spent 1 fate.

3. If you are defeated in battle or psychic combat, the attack counts as a stand-off unless your opponent's attack score wins by 2 or more points.

Yeah, that's better. It's all about the wording.

Halflings are just Hobbits with the serial numbers filled off.

With a very slight tweak to make it read cleanly:

GNOME

STR 2 CRAFT 3, FATE 4, LIFE 4

Neutral, Village

Special Abilities:

1. When you end your turn on a Plains space, you may take an extra turn. You may only do this once per round.

2. You may reroll any die roll involving your Craft as if you spent 1 fate.

3. If you are defeated in battle or psychic combat, the attack counts as a stand-off unless your opponent's attack score wins by 2 or more points.

Looks great

Satyr, another weak character, although I like how you improved his panic ability.

my proposal

SATYR

STR 2, CRAFT 4, FATE 3, LIFE 4

evil, crags

Special Abilities:

1. You need not roll the die in the Crags unless you wish to. If you choose to roll, you must accept the result.

2. If another character in the same Region and within 3 spaces from you encounters a Follower, you take that Follower instead.

3. When you land on a space with another character not in the Inner Region, or another character lands on your space, you may panic that character. If you do, on their next turn you make all decisions related to their movement.

4. When you encounter a Stranger card, you may choose to ignore it.

perfect picture

http://www.aidedd.org/dnd/images/satyr.jpg

A nice project, and certainly useful to have given the recent fortunes of Revised 4th Edition.

I'll post any thoughts a bit later, as I am sure there will be no shortage of 'I'd have done it this way...' posts. This is Talisman after all!

Have you thought about artwork yet? It will be very easy to just paste in anything found from a web search, but it might be nice to try and find CC artwork, unless someone fancies a painting gig?

A nice project, and certainly useful to have given the recent fortunes of Revised 4th Edition.

I'll post any thoughts a bit later, as I am sure there will be no shortage of 'I'd have done it this way...' posts. This is Talisman after all!

Have you thought about artwork yet? It will be very easy to just paste in anything found from a web search, but it might be nice to try and find CC artwork, unless someone fancies a painting gig?

I've been searching down CC artwork actually. I've thus far found 3 of the 25 I need.

I look forward to hearing some better ideas! Bludgeon has already proven his worth in analysys.

Pilgrim:

- First of all I like the name and think changing it to friar is unnecessary. Friar works too but i wouldn't change a character's name unless there's a sound reason for it.

- I would consider changing his 3rd ability to convert monsters into an ability to convert outlaws and cultists. There's less of those, but flavor wise it makes much more sense, and also allows pilgrim to build his craft more easily which would be very important for a craft based character.

my proposal

PILGRIM

STR 2, CRAFT 4, FATE 3, LIFE 4

good, chapel

Special Abilties:

1. You begin the game with 1 Spell.

2. You may choose to banish any Spirits without resorting to psychic combat. Move a banished Spirit to any space in the same Region not already occupied by a character.

3.Whenever you encounter a Cultist or an Outlaw, you may take it as a converted Follower instead of attacking it.

4. You may have one of your converted Followers add its Strength or Craft to yours for one fight, after which it walks off to the discard pile. You may only use one converted Follower per fight.

possible art:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/de/b3/01/deb3010bfa59ef1b8517b2b66dac1bb2.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b3/99/22/b39922a790d5dad958484996c59a812b.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/02/70/8c/02708c27b18d6079de810faf93a1e8ac.jpg

Something from outside the list

original:

http://www.talismanisland.com/mini_3rd_alt_chaos_dwarf_card.jpg

CHAOS DWARF

STR 4, CRAFT 2, FATE 2, LIFE 4

evil, ruins

Special Abilities:

1. You begin the game with Armour from the Purchase Deck.

2. You hatred-fueled attacks always strike true. If you win a battle against other character and choose to take a life, your opponent may not use any ability, Object, Follower, or Spell to prevent that loss of life. Enemies defeated by you may not use their abilities to prevent being killed.

3. Add 1 to your Strength in battle if you are using a Weapon.

4. Whenever you battle more than 1 Enemy at the same time, you mayadd 1 to your attack score.

art

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/a9/99/c0/a999c0d7b7c6bbecc72294a738b0da0c.jpg

or

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f6/dd/3e/f6dd3e43dd080f84c01c4bbad6a5b404.jpg

One that seems more complicatedthan it should:

With this ability, you then mess around with the other player's turn. With my version, the action is imediate, with nothing to track. Much cleaner.
With my version, Panic can also be used to avoid combat, which yours can't. Thus you complicate and weaken a character you claim is too weak.

I've updated the Pilgrim, Gnome, and Satyr in my notes.

Uploading firs for the next "wave" of characters.

Since there's the intrest, the list of stuff I've already got converted:

Halfling
Pilgrin
Ranger
Satyr
Hobgoblin

Centaur
Samurai
Orc
Soldier
Witch Doctor

Inquisitor
Martial Artist
Saracen
Zulu
Dark Elf

Héraut
Skaven

Witch Elf
Chaos Dwarf
Goblin Fanataic

And the eight Timescape Characters.

One that seems more complicatedthan it should:

3. When you land on a space with another character not in the Inner Region, or another character lands on your space, you may panic that character. If you do, on their next turn you make all decisions related to their movement.

With this ability, you then mess around with the other player's turn. With my version, the action is imediate, with nothing to track. Much cleaner.

With my version, Panic can also be used to avoid combat, which yours can't. Thus you complicate and weaken a character you claim is too weak.

Yes your version is cleaner, but also...what are its uses?

- it can be used to evade any character. Ever. That is too good for any ability for anyone, it completely shuts down an important portion of the game for all other players.

- i don't see any other uses, as moved character doesn't do anything after he is moved.

And my version isn't that much complicated.

What's a heraut?

The second group of Characters are those from Talisman: The Adventure for 2nd edition

The Orc is a pretty straight conversion.

The Centaur is an update which switches from the somewhat shonky 2 ^nd ed version of ranged combat, to that presented in the 4R version of The City.

The Watchman is an update of the Soldier, with a slight change of theme to tie him into the game better.

The Pugilist is based on the Samurai. Like the Centaur, I adjusted the ranged ability of the character. I also updated the theme to fantasy medevil Europe, to match the rest of the game.

The Pixie was based on the Witch Doctor. Again, the theme was updated to make it fit better, and the rules where somewhat simiplfied. Plus we get the last of the BI art assets back out!

Nooo, we need to have either a Witch or Witch Doctor character in the game finally. It's such a cool archetype.

I see a problem with Orc. He's got next to useless abilities but if you improve him, you end up with Ogre Chieftain. The same is true for Hobgoblin.

Proposed Hunter artwork:

http://nathanparkart.deviantart.com/art/Archer-534517668

One that seems more complicatedthan it should:

3. When you land on a space with another character not in the Inner Region, or another character lands on your space, you may panic that character. If you do, on their next turn you make all decisions related to their movement.

With this ability, you then mess around with the other player's turn. With my version, the action is imediate, with nothing to track. Much cleaner.
With my version, Panic can also be used to avoid combat, which yours can't. Thus you complicate and weaken a character you claim is too weak.

Yes your version is cleaner, but also...what are its uses?

- it can be used to evade any character. Ever. That is too good for any ability for anyone, it completely shuts down an important portion of the game for all other players.

- i don't see any other uses, as moved character doesn't do anything after he is moved.

And my version isn't that much complicated.

What's a heraut?

OK, you're right, I was over-thinking this, and I'm an eejit.

The Herault/herald was a 2nd ed character from a French magazine.

I remember the herald, a master character from White Dwarf. Possibly same thing.

Do we want Watchman to be dependant on the City expansion? If yes, I have few ideas for his abilities.

I remember the herald, a master character from White Dwarf. Possibly same thing.

Do we want Watchman to be dependant on the City expansion? If yes, I have few ideas for his abilities.

No, it predates the Master Level Herald. The Heraut and the Skaven were in Le Heraut Citadel, a French magazine.

Centaur - the creature is quite unique among other characters because of his anatomy, but I look at the original and all I see is abilities pasted from other characters. Also, he's not true at all to his Greek roots. I propose we deviate and make him more unique.

CENTAUR

STR 3, CRAFT 3, FATE 1, LIFE 5

neutral, any Plains

Special Abilities:

1. You begin the game with a Bow from the Purchase deck.

2. Instead of rolling for your move, you may gallop . Roll 2 dice and move any number of spaces equal to or between the lower and the higher result.

3. You may not use any Objects or Followers that alter your movement. You are still affected by Poltergeist.

4. You are prone to fits of rage. As long as you have less life than your Life Value, you add the difference to your Strength in battle.

I remember the herald, a master character from White Dwarf. Possibly same thing.

Do we want Watchman to be dependant on the City expansion? If yes, I have few ideas for his abilities.

No, it predates the Master Level Herald. The Heraut and the Skaven were in Le Heraut Citadel, a French magazine.

Cool, i had no idea

Possible centaur:
http://syllynce.deviantart.com/art/Sagittarius-594323413

Do we want Watchman to be dependant on the City expansion? If yes, I have few ideas for his abilities.

No, we don't.

You'll note i added compatibility with The City, but his abilities don't depend on the City.

http://www.talismanisland.com/?page_id=4263

The box is only in expansions, which is why I made it a native ability.

Your move variant is hidiously powerful in Talisman terms.

I do like your point 3. Point 4 is interesting, and I think it could work nicely if it's not allowed to combine with the bow ability.

Centaur - the creature is quite unique among other characters because of his anatomy, but I look at the original and all I see is abilities pasted from other characters. Also, he's not true at all to his Greek roots. I propose we deviate and make him more unique.

CENTAUR

STR 3, CRAFT 3, FATE 1, LIFE 5

neutral, any Plains

Special Abilities:

1. You begin the game with a Bow from the Purchase deck.

2. Instead of rolling for your move, you may gallop . Roll 2 dice and move any number of spaces equal to or between the lower and the higher result.

3. You may not use any Objects or Followers that alter your movement. You are still affected by Poltergeist.

4. You are prone to fits of rage. As long as you have less life than your Life Value, you add the difference to your Strength in battle.