Checking wiki because im crazy about monsters. i wanted to see what 4th ed has. And i noticed that they have not put any zombies or orcs as monsters in any of the adventure decks.

Why? :/

I like to see zombies and orcs too in Talisman, but i don't know why FFG is not making them.

Skeletons are also not included in this edition. i miss them too.

There is even a Black Orc character in third edition. 

Maybe there are waiting for some future expansion with entrance at graveyard! :-)

Tavicz said:

The Blood Moon was the perfect chance to include zombies and skeletons to the game.

Nah, the graveyard will not get his own board i think, because it's in the corner where the forest board is…

For whatever reason alot of games seem to be afraid to use orcs as either playable characters or npcs which is surprising

"Afraid"?

Maybe they just don't care about orcs as much as you do. =P

Steve-O said:

Thanks to Warcraft/WOW and Lord of the rings Orcs are as iconic and wellknown as a dwarf, elf etc.  It would make sense to pander to that, I am not just talking talisman but it always surprised me you couldn't be an orc in the mmo everquest and that they were soo minor as NPC's.

TieDefender said:

Why would it make sense to pander to that? They were minor enemies in Everquest because they are just a faceless horde. They weren't playable races in D&D (and still aren't even though half-breeds were as of 3.0). Nor are they in a lot of other fantasy games. In Warhammer, which I believe Talisman has a link to, they aren't anything you'd want to play, just run from or kill…

I can see not having orcs: too Tolkien.

I can see not having zombies: too many contemporary associations.

But no skeletons? Those things are as ubiquitious as rats.

Gimme some skellys! 

actually you could play half orc from 1st ed ad&d

I guess there are no zombies, because the Ghoul character makes them from his slain enemies - if he chooses to.

I don't know if it is true but I heard that the reason we don't have orcs, or half-lings, I believe they were called in the 2nd edition is that the copyright to these belonging to Tolkien was invoked. I am not enough of a gamer or reader even to know if orcs show up regularly in these. But that is what I heard, I think it was a discussion here actually.

Now zombies are a different matter and I am surprised too that we haven't had them.

Isn't there zombies? Lol I've never noticed.

im pretty sure there is a zombie dragon.

0beron said:

I don't believe that.  Orcs are everywhere in modern fantasy franchises, there's no way the Tolkein estate could pull rank on the use of orcs as entities in a fantasy setting, even if they wanted to.  World of Warcraft, Warhammer (and 40K), D&D, Magic: the Gathering, just to name a few off the top of my head, they all use orcs in some capacity.  I haven't heard about Tolkien chasing after any of them.

FFG also has a number of other, non-Tolkien related games that feature orcs; the Runebound franchise even features them as playable characters, and they have a new orc hero in the upcoming expansion for Descent 2E.  I don't think FFG is deliberately avoiding the use of orcs (or zombies, for that matter) in Talisman.  I think they just don't care about including them.  Maybe that will change in time… =)