Friday, March 8, 2024

Destinies Galore

 Since the longest of time, I played a three player game of Talisman. 

My character was the Scavenger, and the other players were the Alchemist and Totem Warrior. 

Early on in the game Totem Warrior found the Cataclysm Blade and went to wreck face in the Highlands. The Alchemist "found" a Flail in the city and went to wreck face, well, kind of nowhere. All manners of enemies seemed determined not to encounter him, or if they did they were of such high level that the battle turned into a stand-off. 

Scavenger was just fooling around without accomplishing much by herself, but Auctioneer encountered by other characters gave her a Greatsword and a Spiked Shield. A notable find for her was the Magic Wand.

As Scavenger's game didn't seem to be going anywhere, she made the drasic desicion to go to Woodlands and chose the Path of Fortune. And what a fortune it was to get the Alchemy spell from magic wand! However, Scavenger did n't rush to cast the spell and waited intead until she was closer to meet with her destiny. 

However... in the particular corner space where you draw cards equal to the difference between two die rolls, she managed to land on the maximum of five cards. And what an excitement it was. First Oberon robbed Scavenger of her fate and lives, and Urdr filled the lives back. Then it was time for Baba Yaga to torment her, but fortunately she did not turn into a toad. And then Leprechaun - again one opportunity to turn into a toad! Fortunately no, this Leprechauns was rather nice and gifted Scavenger with six gold. 

Scavenger had twice lost all of her fate during her time in the woodlands, thus being Fateless a tad too often. Nonetheless, I pushed my luck and was finally gifted with the destiny of The Champion.

Around that time Totem Warrior had come back from the Highlands, and entered Woodlands, too. His journey there was miserable, as right near the end of it with Path of the Wyrd he got turned into a toad. Heroically the little ribbit survived whatever the trees threw at it, and even landed on his stuff right after turning back into Totem Warrior. And his luck did not end there - he had a successful encounter with Queen Mab, gettinga free destiny before managing to score another destiny from Path of the Wyrd. One of them was the Wealthy, and the other one was one to replenish a fate whenever another player replenished fate, I think?

Throughout the fateful ordeals of Totem Warrior and Scavenger, Alchemist had played a weird game. He had not exactly had bad luck, no, not like that... at least in the way it is usually meant. He had nice items and a few followers, spells and stuff, but actual stat ups had evaded him all through the game. 

Totem Warrior had scary enough base strength via stats and items, so my Scavenger was in a hurry to go to Crown of Command before he'd come out of the woods. With ease she beat the Eagle King, managed to find the Arnkell, forced the lock of Portal of Power, ditched Arnkell after finding the Ageless Talisman from Plain of Peril, and teleported to the space before Crown of Command. Then, she won the game. Right? Nope. 

She only managed to cast the Command Spell two or three times, failing every time, before Alchemist attempted to play the kingmaker and summoned Scavenger away from Crown of Command with the Gongs of War. 

It was time for Totem Warrior's gambit of power. 

He shuffled about in the outer region until he managed to land on Woods space for a raft. With ease he passed the Portal of Power, and didn't have much of a problem in the inner region, having more than enough followers to feed to the Lich. Scavenger was following him just behind his steps, but got an unlucky roll in mines or wherever and got teleported to Crags.

So, Totem Warrior was able to reach Crown of Command without anyone opposing. However, once there, Scavenger opposed him indeed, as now her stats went through the roof due to Ageless Talisman.

Easily enough Scavenger passed the first two spaces of the Inner Region. However, even all the Totem Warrior's followers had not fed the appetite of Lich. Scavenger was to lose six lives even after trying to haggle to price with fate.

And, as a cruel twist of fate, that was Scavenger's last Bright Fate. I didn't take into account that Scavenger had Death Pact spell - by using that fate to redirect the loss of lives to Totem Warrior would have almost certainly won me the game.

Oh well. Scavenger died there, and Alchemist defied Totem Warrior by dying to a random enemy rather than the Command Spell.


No comments:

Post a Comment