Duel of the evil brainwashers (Talisman)

During my trip to Kuhmo I played total number of three games of Talisman.

All three were played with The Dragon -expansion and Blood Moon's day/night mechanic.

Two games were played with three people, but I'm writing up now the game with only two players.

We didn't use the Werewolf, because as with earlier experiences in two player games, rarely moving "non-player characters" don't affect things much.

Inner Region was the Dragon Tower.

Characters drawn were the Sorceress and Magus; both evil manipulators of the mind.

Both of them quickly got a few raises in strenght & craft, so I thought we would have a quick game. Sorceress' Craft soared up in an amazing fashion, but Magus was left behind on the true statistics rises. He did find good items, but at one point he was left for a long time at just one life, trying only to survive. A couple of desperate battles were rather exciting, when Magus lost and needed to roll for 4,5 or 6 for Armour or die. Without any fate he still managed to do those rolls.

However, once Sorceress hit Craft 10 (her Strenght was still 3, though, but she had a couple of items to make up for that), Magus used the powers of his newly found Rod of Ruin and lowered her back to Craft 8.

She had collected quite a few dragon scales and was abusing them to "farm" the dragon lord's decks. Only problem game from Varthrax, because, well, she still had quite puny strenght and no red scales.

She would have probably been able to challenge all draconic lord except for Grilipus, but she was missing both Talisman and enough Strenght to beat up Sentinel.

Lake of Visions, with three somewhat easy quests, seemed like a good option then to get both Talisman and a way to middle region. However, just before reaching the lake, she picked up False Grail, which denied any Warlock Quests. Sweet.

She continued going through Grilipus' and Cadorus' decks, when she found Grilipus' altar or something like that. At that moment Grilipus was the Dragon King, which meant she was able to add up to 3 to praying score. And this is the story how Sorceress got her Talisman.

Now, her Craft was so high that she decided to aim for killing Eagle King and jumping to middle region and starting ascend the stairs of Dragon Tower.

Well, to add an insult to the multiple injuries of Magus, Sorceress found a stranger who was willing to exchange any dragon scales to Strenght or Craft points. She had, what, 9 scales then, and after a couple of exchanges her Craft was 13 and Strenght at least 6.

Needless to say, Eagle King screamed like a horrified little monkey when he saw the Sorceress approach. Sorceress was suprisingly dropped straight to Portal of Power.

Now, she needed to draw a card.

Eyrie Vanguard had placed a few Highland card on top of regular adventure deck.

Card drawn was the dreaded Lodestone. She had to drop two really good items, Rage Talon (from Eagle King) and Pharaoh's Crown.

So she was carrying a Talisman, Lodestone and False Grail. So, her loot was not really the best equipment around...

It seemed like an easy victory for Sorceress then. Magus, however, followed close by and made Eagle King lose his trusty mount, the Dreadwing.

Speeding with it Magus tried to gain some craft and/or strenght points in the Dungeon, and there was ugly possibility of him stealing victory from Sorceress by beating Lord of Darkness well enough and jumping straight to Crown of Command. However, luck was not in for him. Magus rolled something like 1 or 2, and Lord of Darkness rolled 6. It was a stand-off, so Magus was thrown back into the Crags.

Sorceress finally stepped down... or up? to challenge the Dragon King in its very own domain. We did not even need to roll the dice, because there couldn't even be a stand-off even if dragon rolled 6 and Sorceress rolled 1. So, a victory for Sorceress!