Talislanta

It's been called "the Rasputin of RPGs."

It has literally hundreds of unique character concepts...and that's just going by base templates.

It's inspired by the fiction of Jack Vance.

Its tagline is "No Elves."


 * Alternative Calendar: Justified, as Archaeus has seven moons.
 * Amazing Technicolor Population: Cymrilians are green, Thiasians are purple, Farad are gray...and that's only some of the basically human cultures.
 * Amazon Brigade: Danuvians.
 * Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Batreans, most notably. The males are hulking, slow-witted ogres; the females are green-haired space babes with seductive pheromones, and quite intelligent.
 * Butt Monkey: Maruk, a whole city that functions as the setting's Butt Monkey.
 * Five Races: Averted hard, for the most part. However, some of the races may fit into one or more categories or those of the trope's evil twin. (For example, Vajra and Yassan are Stouts, Cymrilians are High Men, Sawila and Manra are Fairies. And Rajans are Humanoid with Eldritch tendencies.)
 * Heroic RROD: Vajra "Dark Fire."
 * Humans by Any Other Name: Although some of the races are arguably very human, the term "human" is never actually used.
 * Hot Amazon: Danuvian women.
 * Intelligent Gerbil: Jaka (cat-people), Ferrans (rat-people), Aeriad, Gryphs, and Stryx (bird-people), and Saurans (lizard-people), among others.
 * Knight Templar: Aaman, as a nation.
 * Loads and Loads of Races
 * Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Right off the bat? Ahazu and Night Demons.
 * Non-Action Guy: Danuvian men.
 * Our Elves Are Better: What elves? However, our Ariane are more enlightened and mystical than your elves could ever hope to be.
 * Our Orcs Are Different: Although there are no races actually called "orcs," Kang are basically the Blizzard sort, only red. And they ride dinosaurs. And then there are the Ur, who act more like the Tolkien variety, but look more like the Blizzard variety (aside from averaging about seven and a half feet tall).
 * Planet of Hats: And how.
 * Proud Warrior Race: Lots of 'em.
 * Racial Remnant: The Xambrian wizard-hunters are a Racial Remnant of a culture that was wiped out by evil sorcerers. The few survivors' descendents spend their entire lived tracking down and executing the ever-reincarnating culprits, over and over again.
 * Sand Is Water: Carantheum.
 * Shout-Out: Among others, to Marvel Comics with the "Crimson Bands of Cyttorak" (and associated reference to the "sorcerer supreme" who created the spell), and to Star Wars with the "Tszarlak."
 * Unstoppable Rage: Several races have it as an option, but there's almost always a major catch.
 * Upper Class Twit: This is the hat of the Hadjin.