This page details the Talislanta game in progress, currently on its fourth chapter.
The campaign started with six players originally, but dwindled down to two during the first chapter. Maybe my GM skills need improvement.
Originally, I had two ideas for the game. The first was an adventure seed found in the book, about a Sindaran wanting the player characters to steal something for him. So was born the NPC Naj Taraj, a Sindaran collector with a shrewd eye for coin, and an unspoken ambition. The second was something I'd read in Colin Chapman's City Guide about the attempted Tanasian coup against Cymril: Three Wizards attacked King Azradamus: Naryx, Nymande, and Ebonarde. Naryx disappeared, Nymande was imprisoned in an impenetrable orb, and Ebonarde fled to parts unknown. I decide that Ebonarde must be out there somewhere, gathering an army for another assault.
Since I had a Thiasian in the party, I wanted a plot that would include her as an integral player. She didn't like combat, so I had to have a good reason for Naj to hire her. The solution soon presented itself to my puny brain: Naj would need her for a distraction. The Sindarans use a game of abstract logic to decide who their rulers are going to be, and Naj wanted to fix the game, to cheat to win, exposing his political ambition. Naj would also secure the services of an accomplished Wizard once back in Nadir to help the party. Of course, you can guess, this Wizard was Ebonarde in disguise. But the players didn't know that until it was much too late. I wanted a campaign to make the 'good' guy (Naj) not so good, and the 'bad' guy not so bad. Naj was cheating to win a position on the Council of Nadir, and get back at an old Sindaran girl that spurned him long ago, Sagara. To balance Naj's bad side, he had a good brother, Sidard, who was in the Nadir Watch as an officer. Sidard was bright where Naj was dark, smiling and friendly, while Naj was always scheming and planning.
On the way to Nadir, the players survived a huge swarm of sniper bugs, mostly by Merduk heroically driving a herd of ogront through them. The image of that scrawny Marukan so willing to throw his life away like that is still with me. Merduk can play a dismal hero to the hilt.
Anyway, the party camped at an inn, where a one time client of Naj's angrily returns a leaden amulet with curious glyphs on it to Naj. Naj thinks nothing of it, and gives it to Merduk, thinking it just a luck charm. (It was just a throw in then, but would become extremely important later.)
Arriving in Nadir, the lads decide to go wenching (as guys often do) and Kyrian ends up with a Muse girl with a smart aleck whisp companion. Merduk bags himself an Arimite Knife fighter girl named Relina. Relina was just a throw in at the time...
About this time, I had been thinking about that amulet, and why it wouldn't work for Naj's customer. I then had "The Idea." I knew what the amulet had to be, and what someone who knew the secret could do with it. This wouldn't be developed until later, but I started planting the seeds of it. The amulet caused strange, prophetic dreams in all who slept near it, and would gently heal the bearer if injured. There are other effects, but those took a long time to develop.
The party meets up with the Wizard Draysin (Ebonarde in disguise) who doesn't even bother pretending he's not a Tanasian. While Aurelie entertains the Council, the rest of the group steal a rival Trivarian player's game set (that has a distinctive crack) and plant it in Sagara's house. In the process, Draysin uses Archean magic, which Kyrian recognizes. Naj, who has been tediously studying Trivarian strategy for a long time, places third deliberately, and Sagara wins. Of course, the winning announcement merely precedes a member of the Watch producing the cracked Trivarian pyramid, revealing it was found in Sagara's home. She is disqualified, and Naj and the offended player play a final match, which Naj easily wins.
Afterward, Naj gives Draysin his payment, which is a not inconsiderable sum, and the party soon learns he is gathering a mercenary army to march on Cymril. Also, disturbingly, the players find that Draysin has an amulet much like Merduk's, except the glyphs are different.
On the trip back to Cymril, the party learns from Naj that Draysin is really Ebonarde, and that they should stop him. Course, he's an ubelieveably powerful Wizard, so that could be tough. Merduk and Relina are head over heels about each other at this point. Naj starts to feel a bit shameful about abusing his friends just for his ambition. Naj also warns Merduk that Relina is a member of the Revenant Cult, and that Sagara sent her to kill him once, but he had plenty of coin to save his own life. Merduk chalks this up to Marukan luck, or lack of luck.
It turns out they don't have to defeat the mercenary army, it snuck in by ones and twos into Cymril, and was making trouble all over, scattering the Watch and the Guard, leaving the castle relatively unprotected, except for the Honor Guard. This was Ebonarde's distraction to get into the castle itself. Naj is nearly killed, he takes a monstrous wound to his side and only has 2 hit points remaining. The party find Ebonarde trying to free Nymande, which was his goal all along. Just as they're about to get gacked by a master Wizard, Azradamus himself enters, and combined, they fight Ebonarde. In the highly tense battle, Merduk and Ebonarde tie for initiative, and Ebonarde rolls a success on a huge attack spell against Merduk. Merduk rolls a critical attack success, incapacitating Ebonarde, but not before his spell goes off. Relina jumps in, and sacrifices herself to save the scrawny Marukan. It wasn't nearly as smooth and fast as I just described it, it was tense, and then you could almost hear Merduk's heart breaking.
Ebonarde is slain, by Azradamus himself, as he's vowing that "Death is not the end!"
Thus ended Chapter One. It was a great campaign, but not due to me, the GM. I had great players who really made the story.
Chapter Two began shortly after Chapter One ended. We were down to just Laj and Merduk, but I wanted to flesh out the Amulet story, and the pacing of gaming online is slow enough that the story wouldn't suffer. Laj and Merduk had spent the winter as mercenaries, fighting a peripheral battle between the Seven Kingdoms and Aaman, which was a plot drawn from the first Tal game I had GMmed (This campaing was the second). Aaman was in the middle of a civil war, and nearly went to war with everyone around it as the raised spirit of the dark Eighth Founder of Aaman tried to take over, using his hidden cult. After the war (that wasn't a war), Laj and Merduk were summoned by Azradamus, who also wore one of the amulets. He sent them to interview one of his agents in Aaman, who supposedly knew something about the amulets and where they came from.
Our heros traveled to Aaman, meeting Aarion, an Aamanian farmer who had found a Diablomancy book, and learning quickly, had summoned a demon. He had no idea how to banish it, however the demon didn't know that. I play demons as very alien, very inscrutable entities. He wasn't an 'embodiment of evil,' he was simply an alien in our world, and our laws and customs had no meaning to him. He was malevolent, however, and would have eaten the party if it wasn't afraid of Aarion.
They traveled north to Aamahd, and entered via the sewers, and learned something of the amulets from Rudael, the spy, who made them rob a tomb first to retrieve a very special artifact. The amulet was one of seven, and only an Ariane knew the secret. A secret he told Rudael, who then decided that it was so terrible, he made the choice to have the knowledge removed from his mind. Now, a word about Rudael, he was hardly a likeable guy; quite the opposite, he was haughty, arrogant, conniving fellow, who had a daughter just as bad himself. His servant was formerly in love with the daughter, Saranael. He'd helped her escape, but been caught by Rudael, who promised not to kill him slowly and painfully if he performed his duties well. He was a bit bitter about Saranael, since she'd only used his adoration to help herself escape.
The party left, Laj now bearing Rudael's amulet, and went north, to Zandu, where Aarion cut loose, and chose to live life freely instead of a slave to Aaman. Rudael's servant presented Laj and Merduk with a gift, the artifact that Rudael had been so keen to get for himself, and also a warning: Saranael was living in Cymril, and probably after the artifact as well. The artifact was a piece of an ancient powerful Necromancer's skull, possessing the shard increased your Necromantic power. The more shards you had, the more power you accrued.
Our heros made their way eventually back to Cymril, through some tough encounters, and presented their findings about the amulets to Azradamus, who then, because he was having prophetic dreams himself, sent them east to the deserts, where Chapter Three began.
Side Note: On the skull fragments, I'd borrowed that idea from the first Tal game I played in, GMmed by Jason Leinen, and played in by none other than Mark "Tipop" Williams himself, author of the Midnight Realms book. It's from Tipop that my feel for the magic system in Talislanta got it's start. The very brief appearance of Tipop's character Vixil from that game in my own is my tip of the hat to him. Thanks, pal!
Now, I started saving the logs in this chapter, which I should have been doing all along. You can follow the adventures yourself, with my comments at the top. I can't give away any spoilers yet, like what the amulets really are, but I can give you one big hint: The amulets are tied with what the Ariane really are. Not much of a hint, but you'll understand in a few more sessions...
And if you're curious, we use OpenRPG to play, it's like an IRC for gamers. It's free and highly recommended.