For the first time in endless ages, the mystic Woodland has returned from beyond the mortal realm. Wealth and powers past comprehension can be found among the towering trees and along the twisting trails of the forest, but dangers skulk there as well. King Oberon and Queen Titania, ageless rulers of the fae, will not brook invasion of their realm lightly.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce The Woodland, a new expansion for Talisman Revised 4th Edition! The unearthly Woodland is the home of the fae, and beneath its watchful boughs, you’ll uncover treasures and threats beyond your wildest dreams. You’ll find new Alternative Endings as five new characters join the quest for the Crown of Command, but will your path through the Woodland lead you to your destiny, or does your fate hold something far different in store?

Into the Woodland

The Woodland introduces a new corner board to Talisman, inviting you to journey beneath the trees, encountering open glades and dense thickets, eerie witch trees and uncanny faerie villages. The groves and pathways of the Woodland are unlike anything you have ever encountered before. In fact, your characters will never encounter Adventure Cards while traveling in the Woodland, drawing Woodland Cards instead. Woodland Cards function the same as Adventure Cards, but instead portray the vast variety of creatures, monsters, and fae that you may meet on your travels.

The Woodland holds many strange Enemies within, including the Totem Bear. This monstrous bear is an Animal, but instead of fighting you in battle, you must engage it in psychic combat. Another Stranger your characters may encounter in the Woodland is the legendary Toad King. The King of all Toads possesses great power, and if you happen to have been transformed into a Toad, he will end the enchantment and grant you a raised Strength or Craft. If you are not a Toad, however, contact with the Toad King immediately turns you into a Toad!

Face Your Destiny

Your journeys through the Woodland are not aimless, however. A powerful motive inspires every character that sets foot to those verdant trails, guiding his wanderings. When you first choose to enter the Woodland corner board, you must choose one of three revealed Path Cards. This card determines the rules of your path to the birthplace of Destiny at the center of the Woodland. For example, if you enter the Woodland and choose the Runebound Path card, you can no longer cast Spells while you bear that Path Card. In addition, no Spells other than the Command Spell will affect you. When you reach the Meeting With Destiny space, every character must discard all Spells. If three or more Spells were discarded, you gain a Destiny Card and immediately move to any Runes space.

The Destiny Cards that you can gain offer a purpose to your character, helping to determine some portion of your future. Some characters destinies will lead them towards darkness, whereas others bring the character closer to righteousness. For example, you may receive the Destiny Card entitled The Dreaded. This destiny increases your Strength value and your fate value by one, and whenever you win a battle or psychic combat, you may replenish one dark fate. (Dark and light fate are explained below.) In addition, when you will engage a character in battle or psychic combat, you may spend one dark fate to force your opponent to lose a life!

On the other hand, your Destiny Card may be The Wise, increasing your Craft value and your fate value by one. While you hold The Wise Destiny Card, you may replenish one light fate whenever an event card is drawn, and when drawing Adventure Cards, you may spend a light fate to discard any of those cards and draw an equal number of cards to encounter. These Destiny Cards help to shape your character’s development, sometimes tipping them towards a certain style of play over another.

The Twists and Turns of Fate

The return of the Woodland to the lands of mortals has drastically shifted the natural laws of fate in Talisman. The Woodland introduces enhanced rules for fate, utilizing both light and dark fate. When a die is rolled, fate may be spent to reroll it, whether the die was rolled for movement, an attack roll, or for some other effect. Spending a light fate allows you reroll a die that you rolled, but dark fate allows you to manipulate your opponent and force him to reroll a die.

For fate that you receive at the beginning of the game and through some game effects, you may choose whether you wish to receive dark or light fate. Not only do your fate tokens interact closely with your destiny, but the type of fate tokens you collect has important ramifications in how fae creatures approach you.

Bound by Fate

A character with more light fate than dark fate is lightbound, and a player with more dark than light fate is darkbound. If you have equal numbers of both dark and light fate, you are unbound and immune to many of the effects that may plague other players. A player with no fate whatsoever becomes fateless, and has no control over how certain Woodland Cards will affect them. Many Woodland Cards have lightbound and darkbound effects, and you must resolve the effect corresponding to you. Unbound characters are unaffected by either darkbound or lightbound effects, but fateless characters must resolve the effect lower on the card.

An example of a Woodland Card with fatebound effects is the Breeze Sylph. If you defeat this enemy in battle, you resolve the effect corresponding to you: if you are lightbound, you will gain one light fate, but if you are darkbound, you will lose one dark fate. Another Woodland Card with such effects is the deadly Sidhe. If you are defeated by her and are lightbound, you must lose one additional life, but if you are defeated by her and are darkbound, you are killed! Manipulating whether you are darkbound or lightbound is vital to surviving the treacherous paths within the Woodland.

Between the Trees Fate and destiny alike run wild beneath the trees of the Woodland. Your character may walk his path to the end and face his destiny, but the dangers that wait within are unlike anything you’ve yet encountered. Steel your resolve and enter The Woodland in the third quarter of 2014!