UPDATED 10th December 2010!!

Strange Eons is a tool, created by Chris Jennings, which enables mere mortals (like me!) to create custom content for FFG's Arkham Horror board game.

Recently Chris made a series of updates to Strange Eons that gave it the capability to create custom content for other games. As an example of this new DIY capability, it was decided that Talisman was a prime candidate for inclusion as, in common with a lot of FFG titles, the cards were only slightly different from a number already included in the program. The card types of the Revised 4th Edition of Talisman have a sufficiently broad range of variables so people might learn from the documentation.

The latest version of Strange Eons is 2.00.8 as of 27th June 2009 and you can get hold of the original Talisman extension from the plugin page of the SE website. There is also an experimental release (2.1 alpha 7) which I am currently using without any problems. I'd recommend doing a full install of the program, and also make sure you get hold of the the Plug-in Authoring Kit and give it the once over. It's a very cool piece of kit!

I've updated the Revised 4th Edition extension to take advantage of some of the new features of Strange Eons, but there is still a lot that I want to do with the extension. For instance, I am looking at board making and cards where you can change the background. These are nice features, but I haven't quite got to grips with them as yet.

I have yet to update the extensions for early editions of Talisman, but will get around to those soon enough. They will not really change much, given that they are no longer under development.

You can download the latest extensions below, but beware Internet Explorer automatically renaming the files as .zip files. If this happens you will need to change them back to being .seext files to install them.

NOTE - In order to use the translated versions of the Revised 4th Edition expansion, you MUST have a copy of the English version installed. This is because it includes all of the images and fonts required. Hence why the translated versions are so small!

Card Options                      v2 13-01-11 2136 KB                        v2 13-01-11 5428 KB          v1.083 02-07-09 2215 KB                                                    v2.9 25-08-12 21.3 MB                              v2.0 14-02-10 44 KB                              v2.0 24-01-10 44 KB                              v2.0 24-01-10 44 KB                              v2.0 24-01-10 42 KB                              v2.0 24-01-10 44 KB                                        v2.2 10-12-10 47 KB                              v2.05 25-03-11 111 KB                                        v2.2 25-03-11 114 KB      v1.0 10-12-10 21 KB

Special thanks go out to Chris Jennings for creating Strange Eons and introducing the DIY component and for all his help with the revised extensions, JemyM for his original 3rd Edition PS Templates that I plundered and updated, JC Hendee for his critique and the creation of the Neutral Alignment card & cardback and graphics work for the cardback tool and Nemomon Nemo, Dominik Hiob, Diego Perez, Nicolas Meunier, Francesco Capello, Miroslav Veselý and z3rg for all of their hard work in translating the Revised 4th Edition extension and for further testing!

Even though the extensions are pretty intuitive, I have made a couple of screenshots to help get you started with them. I have used the Revised 4th Edition extension for these examples as they are all based on this -

NOTE - I will update these pictures with some new examples as I go along, so just try out the extensions and send me an email if you have any particular problems, or indeed wishes!!

After installing Strange Eons and the extensions you will need to restart the program and you will be presented with this screen where you select what it is you want to create.

You will notice that all of these extensions are in a new category called "Talisman (All Editions). Any future releases will also be categorised this way for ease.

If you decide to try and make your own version I would suggest changing the category so as to avoid potential problems.

After choosing Revised 4th Edition Card from the menu, the example card will launch and you will be able to start creating content!

The different areas of a card are quite easy to fathom - Altering the TITLE alters the card's title, adjusting the SPECIAL TEXT adjusts the special text and... Well, I think you get the idea...

The various drop-down menus change different parts of the card, depending on the type of card chosen and a number of other factors -

DECK alters the card template and back used, as well as changing various text areas or disabling them completely. Selecting SPELL for instance, will disable the encounter number and automatically insert Spell as a card type.

EXPANSION allows you to suggest which expansion the card might be suited to and places the expansion icon and placeholder onto the card front.

TYPE can be altered to suit your card and will always include all current options. You will notice that Spell is not listed as it is an automatic selection.

Unlike the Photoshop templates I made, ENCOUNTER NUMBER is NOT automatically selected based on card type. This is due to certain cards not following standard numbering, such as the Poltergeist and Hag. So make sure you select the number you intend for your card.

The text for the card can be formatted in a number of ways using a series of text tags. Commonly used tags are shown on the examples above with a few that are specific to these extensions.

These can be a quick way to input information, such as an Enemy's Strength attribute, a keyword for an Object or if you just fancy doing something a little different. You may notice that I have had to alter the standard font size used on the cards to incorporate some of the things needed, but I think the slight alteration was a reasonable trade-off.

Just in case you are unable to make out the options for spacings between lines; you can either use carriage return or <br> for a full line break, <hs> for a half spaced line and <hr> for the dividing line.

There are many more standard tags used in Strange Eons, along with some neat tricks, that you will see detailed on the tag table page.

As with standard Talisman cards, this extension will resize the text area based on the amount of text needed for that card. Again there has to be a trade-off as this is an automatic function, but I think it works well enough.

On a card with a large picture you can fit up to 7 lines of text, or a Strength-type attribute plus 5 lines of text, before the template changes.

If you need more space for text the smaller picture template can take up to 11 lines of text, or 9 with the Strength-type attribute without resizing the text used. Though as mentioned in the above example, if the card is too wordy it might be an idea to rethink the concept as it might be too complicated!

The introduction of the Druid Staff in the Reaper expansion meant that a character who had chosen to change their alignment to Neutral had to remember (along with everyone else) that they had done so, as there was no card or token to show this.

This is a problem no longer as JC Hendee has created a lovely card for such an instance! If you select Alignment as a deck, you can then choose which alignment card you wish to make.

Good and Evil cards have also been included should anyone wish to play with "secret" alignments in the game, as suggested by JC on the FFG Forums.

When you are happy with the card you have made, I would suggest saving your creation as it is much easier to amend a card than having to recreate it!

From the menu, select FILE and then SAVE AS, which will save your card as a .eon file. These files can be opened with Strange Eons and you can make adjustments as necessary.

You can EXPORT your file as a .png or .jpg file for distribution. You will be presented with options to alter resolution, file type and whether you require the front and back as a combined image or separately.

You can also PRINT your file directly from the menu, which is handy if you want to make a quick example for testing purposes.

Formatting your creations into single sheets for printing or distribution is nice and easy with Strange Eons too.

From the menu, select NEW and then DECK OF CARDS from the DECKS AND EXPANSIONS category.

There are intructions on the window that comes up, but basically you choose cards by selecting them using the ADD CARDS button which allows you open .eon files. You drag them onto the sheet and position them for printing.

If you hover over a card edge before dropping it, it will turn BLUE which means that it will snap into position next to the highlighted card. It's all clever stuff!

That should be enough to get you started with using Strange Eons to make cards for Talisman, but you can always contact me if you have any particular problems. I may add a couple more images if I think that the other extensions might have some new things to consider.

Future plans include the making of expansion boards for Talisman, cardbacks for the other editions (maybe) and a couple of further tweaks. If you have any suggestions then please give me a shout and we will see what can be done.

I'd also be interested in hearing if you make anything with the extensions, and would be pleased to host files for download if necessary, so that others might share your work.

Take the time to look over the rest of Strange Eons as there has been so much work put into it by Chris. I always seem to find little things that I've been doing the long way before that have simpler alternatives.

Have fun with it and don't be afraid to have a try with things. After all, look what I've managed to do with the DIY function and I haven't got a clue!