Do not trust the Wee Faeries

At the GAMA trade show, Tim Huckelbery teased the news that there are a number of sourcebooks in the works for Talisman RPG, and expected to follow the publication of the game some time this year. "Tales of the City" and "Tales of the Dungeon" were mentioned. The sourcebooks will have more material about running adventures in those settings, more character classes and kindreds, and a GM adventure in the setting. It seems reasonable to speculate that these sourcebooks are following the structure of the game's "corner board" expansions - leading me to also be keen to some material from the "small box" expansions get into print (Harbinger campaign book plz?)

There are a lot of reasons why it makes sense for the RPG to follow the pattern set out by the board game - doing service to the popular elements of the board game setting, using a ready-made structure for releases that will make sense to (hungry hungry) consumers, and making use of the work that has gone before on the setting.

My connection to the Talisman  board game has largely been a nostalgic one to the early days of the game, but exploring the RPG has also made me pay a bit more attention to the material that was developed by Fantasy Flight for the 4th Edition.

The campaign I am currently running for the RPG has been using a lot of the Faery elements of the setting, gradually emerging in the story as part of the conflict between Titania and Oberon, Queen and King of the Faeries. They are probably most familiar to the general public as characters in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, but were introduced (as far as I am aware) into the world of Talisman in FFG's Woodland's expansion to the game. Woodlands included a whole slew of elements from the lore and legends of faeries, including a lot of the darker elements and creatures in Irish and British mythology. These have been carried over and worked into the background of Talisman RPG.

For the GM of Talisman RPG, this is particularly useful. It means that you can go to the boardgame to look for further ideas (concerning which more in upcoming posts!), and also gives a pointer to elements of mythology to look into for inspiration. In my own game I was particularly drawn to including Fomorians, Sluaghs, and dark and mysterious Sidhe, from avid childhood reading of the Slaine the Barbarian in 2000ad, and also playful but sinister pixies and fairies drawn stolen wholesale from Jack Vance's Lyonesse - both of which works were based on roots in Irish mythology. 

I cannot pretend to know enough about the source material to point in the best direction to go on this, but a quick search on Gutenberg throws up Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens, which needs no better recommendation than the illustrations by the incomparable Arthur Rackham., and the delightful Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry by William Butler Yeats - if you only read the opening of "The Trooping Fairies" you will be richer for it:

"Do not think the fairies are always little. Everything is capricious about them, even their size. They seem to take what size or shape pleases them. Their chief occupations are feasting, fighting, and making love, and playing the most beautiful music. They have only one industrious person amongst them, the lepra-caun—the shoemaker. Perhaps they wear their shoes out with dancing. Near the village of Ballisodare is a little woman who lived amongst them seven years. When she came home she had no toes—she had danced them off."

I can add one fragment of faery lore from my own experience - well, second hand experience. I recall hearing an elderly gentleman on a radio phone-in in Ireland. Asked by the host "And do you believe in the Good Folk yourself?" he replied: "No, but I wouldn't trust the wee feckers either."