The last Talislanta book I have to share with you this week is my favorite, because monsters. A Naturalist’s Guide to Talislanta takes the same off-kilter approach Sechi used on the world and its magic and applies it to the creatures that live there. The hydra on the cover is about the most recognizable thing in the book, which is quite an accomplishment considering most RPGs are fairly reductive in their monster selection. Instead of orcs and minotaurs, you get the spooky Black Savants, the reptilian Araq, shaitans, winged apes and void beasts. There’s a lengthy section on fauna, too and, yes, some dragons. You can’t escape dragons, I guess.

All illustrated by P.D. Breeding, who is an astounding illustrator who, to my knowledge, didn’t do much work in RPGs outside of Talislanta, which is a shame (correct me if I am wrong, please!). The hydra on the cover of this book is one of my favorite RPG art works.

After Bard Games shuttered, Talislanta surfaced in a couple more editions backed by other publishers, but Sechi wisely retained the rights to all of it. Which means I can give you a little gift right now, dear readers. Sechi has published every Talislanta book across all editions under the Creative Commons license on Talislanta.com, so you can go download PDFs of all of them and revel in their glory without having to track them down in second hand stores or paying too much money for them on eBay. Go get ‘em!