Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Cartomania




The Talisman Adventures RPG comes with a nice fold-out map of The Realm of Talisman - neatly derived from the layout of the board itself, putting the familiar locations from the board game into a more geographical relationship with each other. There is some good guidance for the GM about using this map - being flexible about distances and encouraging the GM to feel free to  add more locations as they please.

In my campaign I've run with this, and have at length provided players with the above zoom of the South Western  portion of the map. The heroes started out playing through "The Corpse Watchers" - an adventure which starts at the village of Haven on the edge of the Whispering Wood. Whispering Wood is shown on the official map, but not Haven, so I've thrown it in. For an idea of scale, it takes the heroes about 3 day to penetrate the depths of the forest to a barrow mound.

I then had my merry band make their way to Gladmeadow Fayre, and the locations thereabouts feature from the events they stumbled into. 

Jabbersnatch Gulley is the home of relatively benign Goblin Cabbage Farmers - it also happens to exist in an alternate Tunnels & Trolls universe  where I set the mini solo adventure Dark Deeds and Cabbages. If you visit, be sure to name-drop Grand Cabbage-Wallah Hurvle Tranglewhang.

Gladden Hall is the ancestral home of Lord Gladden of Gladmeadow - a stout, fortified manse, known to hold "The Luck of the Gladdens" - a crystal bowl, gift of the Fae, which guarantees the fortunes of the family and their lands. (Inspiration drawn from a legendary piece of glassware, The Luck of Edenhall, one of a number of such found in this part of England, and deeply connected to local faery lore).

The Fae Witch's Grave is an addition to the campaign map resulting from a combination of the hasty head-lopping of Gark the Troll Warrior, the pragmatic piety of Jewel the Ghoul Assassin, and the post-mortem ministrations of Perron the Dwarf Priest.

Thripsey Dingle is a Faery Glade, whose name may be hauntingly familiar to readers of Jack Vance's Lyonesse. Events in the campaign have revolved around mysterious machinations of Dark Fae. The heroes have started to get some answers by visiting, though it appears that the fairies have stolen a year from them (whether as a fee, a caprice, or entirely without regard is not yet known).

The Hark to Bounder is a country inn (by coincidence greatly resembling The Hark to Bounty in the Forest of Bowland). Magistrate Cannock settles dispenses justice and (somewhat arbitrarily) settles disputes there, holding court over cold fowl and a jug of dark ale.

Greyhaunt Cemetery might be the grave yard from the opening of a modified version of "Death's Messenger" which I have dropped plenty of plot hooks into, in anticipation of the heroes someday finishing with the current faery shenanigans. If so, one might imagine that the Enchantress makes her home somewhere on the south-eastern edge of Fallen Giant Wood... But campaigns have a habit of moving in new and unanticipated directions, so whether this is where things end up remains yet to be seen.

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