Lovecraft had written Alice in Wonderland, with Hans Christian Andersen and William S. Burroughs as technical advisors." Character creation In the 1st to 4th editions, characters are essentially pre-generated, with over 80 character types defined by race, nationality, ability scores, skills, equipment and background. Players pick the type of character they wish to play, then individualize it by increasing one ability by three points; decreasing one ability by one point; and adding an additional skill. In the 5th edition, a more complex character generation system was introduced that was similar to other role-playing games. Task resolution All task resolutions, whether for combat, magic or skills/attributes, are resolved on a single table using a twenty-sided die. Five results are possible: Mishap, Failure, Partial Success, Full Success or Critical Success. The difference between the result gained and the rated difficulty of the task indicates how much of a success or failure was achieved. Publications The Chronicles of Talislanta (1987) A Naturalist's Guide to Talislanta (1987) The Talislantan Handbook (1987) The Cyclopedia Talislanta (1988) Talislanta Cyclopedia (1988) Talislanta Sorcerer's Guide (1988) The Cyclopedia Talislanta II, The Seven Kingdoms (1989) The Cyclopedia Talislanta III, The Wilderlands of Zaran (1989) The Cyclopedia Talislanta IV, The Western Lands (1989) The Cyclopedia Talislanta V, The Eastern Lands (1989) Talislantan Handbook and Campaign Guide (1989) The Cyclopedia Talislanta VI, The Desert Kingdoms (1990) The Cyclopedia Talislanta VII, The Northlands (1990) The Cyclopedia Talislanta VIII, The Central Regions (1990) Reception Stewart Wieck reviewed Talislanta for White Wolf #11, rating it 9 out of 10 overall, and stated that "The true strength of Talislanta is its uniqueness. Here is a fantasy world without orcs and goblins and all those "standard" enemies [...] I highly recommend this world as a place where your imagination can run wild." In the March 1989 edition of Dragon (Issue #143), Jim Bambra called Talislanta "something out of the ordinary". Bambra found the art "visually appealing, and does an excellent job of conveying the atmosphere, places, and peoples of Talislanta. A flick through any of the four books reveals that Talislanta is special." He concluded, "Some may find the Talislantan game system thin on rules and mechanics, but it does an admirable job of handling all kinds of tests without interrupting the flow of the game. With only a few rules to learn, you can concentrate on role-playing rather than rule-playing." References External links Creative Commons-licensed