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Regular visitors to Talisman Island will possibly remember how excited I was to stumble upon an old post by the multi-talented Delaney King of Darkling Games about the Spelltoads that she had sculpted a few years ago that were going into production.
Not just any toads of course, but a homage to a certain band of cursed adventurers from Talisman that were released back in the 1980s.
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| Here you can see the full range of Citadel Miniatures released by Games Workshop, taken from the rather awesome The Stuff of Legends. These miniatures form part of Richard Hale‘s outstanding personal collection, and were painted by Van Breuklens.
Originally the regular Toad (centre) was released, and shortly afterwards a range of adventurers that had met with the classic Talisman punishment of Toading were produced – (l to r) the Soldier, Pirate, Ranger and Wizard. |
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| Talisman superfan, Katie B, sent over some pictures of her set of Spelltoads that she had recently painted up, and has kindly allowed me to show them off on the site.
Once again, I think she’s done a great job on them, and now my unpainted examples look decidedly sad! |
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| First up from the set of 21 toads, we have Delmar, Pete and Everette. You actually get two each of these toads and they represent generic victims of the foul magics that exist in Delaney’s fantasy world of Skulldred, but will also go very well with a certain game of magical questing.
If you look closely, you can see that a couple of the toads shown further down the page are modelled on these original three, and you could even add a few accessories to them yourselves to create our own favourite cursed character. |
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| If you prefer your toads to be toad-sized, then you are in luck as you get a cute little chap by the name of Garp. You will get six copies of him in the set and that will also make for a fine toad “swarm” for your adventures.
He’ll even double up as a nice familiar for a Witch or Wizard in other fantasy games. |
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| The cursed adventurers start off with a couple of archetypes that have already been covered in the Talisman range, the Soldier and Wizard, along with a Rogue that will no doubt be getting up to all sorts of mischief. | |||||
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| Continuing the line are some more fantasy tropes, starting with the Witch Hunter who is clearly going to have an issue with a couple of undead amphibians, the Vampire and Zombie!
I thought that Vampires couldn’t cross running water though, so he’s going to be at a bit of a disadvantage! |
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| Finishing off the set we have a few references to the movies with three toads that bear absolutely no likeness to characters (living or dead) seen in The Terminator, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Rollerball…
Though they might… A bit… |
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| Not long after the release of the first set of Spelltoads, Delaney announced that she had been working on some concepts for a second set of 21 Spelltoads that will be launched on KickStarter at some point in the future!
Pirate, Dread Pirate, Swashbuckler (not left handed), Princess Buttermug, Ghoul, Elf, Tribal, Princess Starleaper, Satyr, Orc, Saracen, Ninja and Magician are said to be included in the line up. There is obviously a Sprite in there somewhere too, and a Zulu has been mentioned, though that might be the Tribal Toad referred to in the initial announcement. I think I’d like to see a Dragon Slayer Toad, with a big red mohawk! |
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| If you want to get your hands on a set of Spelltoads, or even some of Delaney’s excellent Chaos Dwerg miniatures, then you should head over to the Fenris Games webstore and get an order in.
I have been reliably informed that the Spelltoads will be back in stock on the store shortly, so keep checking back! In the mean time you should check out the other stuff that is there… it’s all rather good! |
Announcement on Talisman Island
Spelltoads 2 Preview on the Darkling Games Blog