Only Vanilla Allowed Here

During my weekend trip we also managed to crank out a game of Talisman.

We used Cataclysm board, Reaper and Harbinger, plus a hidden ending. Prophecy was the one where magic fills the land.

Characters were Elf, Sorceress and Mutant. 

And damn that Mutant is crazy character. Well, it did get the best result from starting bonus so that might play a role in it. But it just seems excessive that Mutant can get one fate and heal one life on average rolls... and get two fates with a result just above average. That meant Mutant is able to roll one of the two mutation dice again too reliably, thus dodging negative results effortlessly. 

Or maybe it just seemed overpowered when two other characters were from base game... 

At least early on Sorceress found the Orb of Time that gave her an alliance of sorts with the Elf. She spent two charges and just happened to ditch the orb near Elf. Elf would then use last charge, transferring Orb back to Sorceress. Once, Sorceress did spend the last charge from Orb, but Immobilized Mutant so it couldn't use orb. Then she cast Acquisition, taking back Orb of Time now that it had replenished its charges. 

All of these shenanigans, however, did not lead into even one stat up for Sorceress. Elf had it rough too, and super early in the game Mutant went Craft 11, Strength 5. It looked like game over already, and even more so when Sorceress went to desert space to receive the absolutely worst possible item for the moment: Desert brought Sorceress down to one life, and she found cursed Key of Hades, healing her as other characters heal and damaging her as other characters get damaged. Next in turn order was mutating Mutant, who loses one life to mutate and kills Sorceress outright. Enter Priest.

However, things were about to turn worse for Mutant. It was perhaps a tad too greedy with mutations, and willingly went down to two Life remaining. Slowly, slowly Elf had been gaining strength and with Magic Belt was sporting Strength 7, Craft 5. After a time of exchanging blows with Mutant, Elf was down to two health remaining, Mutant one. 

Priest had modest stat gains, but managed to get everything required for a victory - Talisman, albeit a cursed one, Craft 6 and a Gnome. Mutant also had Ageless Talisman and a generic Talisman, but didn't dare to enter Inner Region with Life of one. If Priest wanted to challenge that monstrosity, it had to happen NOW. So, he got to middle region and entered Inner Region. There he was rather lucky, as he gained a generic Talisman from somewhere and was able to cast Alchemy on Cursed Talisman. Roll in the Mines was a six, and after only one turn of waiting, he rolled only one lost life while shivering in cold. 

As Priest was creeping towards Crown of Command, the Elf found Altar of Wrath and killed the threatening mutant by bringing himself down to one Life remaining. There were plenty of random terrain cards in the Outer Region, so Priest vehemently waited for his chance to cast a spell to choose the movement direction of a character. Before Elf healed, he just got that chance he needed! 

However, Mutant had been replaced with Mutant, and while she herself had no bid to the Crown, Elf would easily kill Priest, given the chance. And maybe Prophetess was a little sour from Sorceress/Priest allying with Elf to remove Mutant. Just as Priest cast the spell that brought Elf to it's doom, Prophetess saved Elf by replacing the Barrens terrain with only a Bog. Drats!

But, both Prophetess and Elf were too far away to actually threaten Priest, and either some weird Harbinger card or another spell gave Priest the Amulet, so he was safe from any attempts to Random his glorious victory.

And surely enough, Crown of Command he did reach. 

There was just one but. The hidden ending was Cult of the Damned, which turned game into "either everybody wins or everybody loses" -scenario. Oops.

And there were a lot of Denizens on the board. And characters just didn't seem to be able to land on spaces with cultists. Fortunately the amount of cultists was somewhat of a double-edged blade - at least it appeared that characters had a lot of time to kill them.

Elf had gained respectable strength by now, like eleven with Magic Belt. Even Priest had strength 5. However, neither of them did the major lifting. Oh no, it was the Prophetess with meager strength 3. Well, on the other hand, she did have the cursed Flail of Blood...

At least 3/4 of all of the cultists in total were killed by Prophetess. Majority of the remainder were killed by the Elf, as Priest botched most of his attacks despite drinking Potions of Strength and whatnot. Once the number of cultists ran down, they sped up so much that the trio was on the verge of losing. A couple of cultists managed to get past Portal of Power. And since there were now just three cultists remaining, this meant they would easily outpace adventurer characters in the Inner Region.

Elf killed a cultist in the Crypts, but a stack of two cultists - one Craft and one Strength - went to Mines. Earlier, Priest had managed to kill two cultists, and only one of them without a Psionic Blast. 

It was the very last turn heroes had their chance to win. And it all remained on Priest's shoulders, with Priest's track record. 

And while Strength 4 rolled kind of low, Priest managed to roll even lower. He did have one fate point remaining, so that had to be used. Such a relief! Cultist went down. 

Then there was Craft 3 cultist versus Craft 6 Priest. Easy, right? Cultist threw the dice before Priest dropped his, and rolled a six. Safe to say there was some tension in the air regarding that last dice roll that would decide the ultimate result of the entire game. A victory only on 4+.

Well, it was...

A six. Woo hoo, finally you did something right, Priest!

In this game, Harbinger was surprisingly benign. I don't think we got past third omen even once, as there were quite a few sixes and not a single one rolled in Harbinger encounters. All manner of angelic messengers also re-placed omens from their discard pile, so much so that our standing in revealed omens was so good even after at least four instances of selfish "discard omen to gain a boon" -type of things.