"Might makes right" thought the Philosopher

Just finished a loooong game of Talisman.

It was 2-player game but somehow it managed to drag on for nearly four hours.

Characters involved were the Philosopher and Sorceress.

Game had a smashing start and I was anticipating a fast game because of it.

Sorceress' starting spell was "Strenght" and Philosopher's was "Spell Call" which meant instant strenght rise for both characters. Also, first card the Sorceress got was "Solomon's Crown" that straight-out gives +2 Craft. The Philosopher managed to get another Strenght rise very early in the game too.

However, the Philosopher found weapons and all kinds of cool items that raised his Strengh to around 10. Sorceress wasn't that lucky anymore. She managed to lose lives and was constantly searching for healing and trying to dodge any possible encounters.

It didn't exactly help when the Philosopher found the Gong of War and was able to call Sorceress to fight with him. Obviously Sorceress lost her crown.

A Mad Cap emerged. It's a Stranger that changes your alignment randomly. It resulted in a funny situation...

During the course of the game Sorceress was evil twice, good twice and neutral twice or thrice. That was because Sorceress was lingering with only one life and had to move to any and all spaces where it was guaranteed you didn't need to fight.

Also a happening worth of mentioning: Sorceress was evil when she found the "Sword of Light" which had a rule that no evil character can carry it. Within 2 rounds Sorceress visited Mad Cap and turned to good...

Anyway, Philosopher had found Riding Horses from killing a Fire Mane.

That made it possible for him to ride through the Highlands a couple of times.

Another thing worth of mentioning happened then. Philosopher had beaten the Eagle King twice and had got Rage Talon and Dreadwing. Dreadwing was a follower and Sorceress was able to steal followers from any character she lands on.

Dreadwing soon found a more loving home. However, last time I played Talisman same thing happened. Vampiress stole the Dreadwing from same person. History repeats itself, no?

One of these new places where you can buy stuff from stable deck happened to come around and Sorceress had 7 gold. Warhorse costs 6 gold and would have been amazing. But Philosopher paid back there and then all the years of laughing at his poor character special abilities! He had "teleport" spell. So he teleported to stables and used his skill to exchange that place to something completely else.

After the horse- or bird thievery the riding horses of the Philosopher were found out to be Werewolves though.

Sorceress was dropped out of the rat race about there and then. She didn't have quite enough strenght or craft to challenge Eagle King, though that was where she went.

Philosopher was already doing the Dungeon and killed the Lord of Darkness rather single-handedly, and weeping tears of joy carried off a Cloak of Feathers from the treasure chamber.

It looked like end game there and then. In no time Philosopher was in the Inner Region and used Cloak of Feathers to teleport to the talisman region there.

But the game went on and on... We had used the secret alternative ending and it happened to be this new Demon King guy with Craft 12 and 4 lives. Philosopher had only 10 Craft at that point so he decided to start backing off. It meant about 5-6 extra turns for Sorceress.

She tried to charm one dragon to fight for her with a trinket she found from Highlands. However, using the dragon wasn't an option, it had to be used in next battle. With that dragon by her side Sorceress went up to Strenght 15 versus Philosophers Strenght 14. So there was a good possibility of stealing his Talisman and flying off to safety with Dreadwing she had stolen earlier...

When Philosopher got out of the Inner Circle Sorceress decided to try such an evil scheme. Dice were friendly and made it possible for her to try to go to Tavern and try to get the boat ride to middle region from there.

Well, it just happened so that the Sorceress got a bit tipsy and got into battle with a farmer there...

And, uh.

The Dragon awakened. Slight overkill?

After that the Philosopher was fooling around in middle region because there were plenty of Craft monsters around, trying to get his Craft high enough to beat the Demon Lord.

Sorceress tried to build up her strenght and craft in the dungeon and managed to beat Lord of Darkness twice (first by using Energize spell she had from genie and second time by being good enough without any tricks).

But Sorceress was too slow.

Philosopher got his Craft up to 14 and headed off to kill the Demon.

Couple of times she lost or had a stand-off but it didn't buy enough time for Sorceress to even challenge Philosopher.

So, an amazing thing happened, actually. Philosopher won a game!