last updated August 3, 2001
The dreaded Mdrà of Telostic
The latest (August 3, 2001) update to this Website includes our 
Shakhàn FAQ and Supplemental
Information Page. This contains much useful information not included
in the Shakhàn rule set (for example, background on the sinister
Shadowed Empire) and will be continuously updated, so surf over there today
and find out!
Shakhàn is a complete pen and paper fantasy game system. The Shakhàn 2000 archive files, now in .PDF format (!) that you can download from this Webpage contains everything you need to play. (You do not need other game rules of any sort, although you will of course need the miscellaneous items such as polyhedral dice, paper, pen, etc. that are commonly used in conventional FRP games.)
Shakhàn is "semi-freeware": that is, as long as you don't try to pass it off as your own creation or profit commercially from it (if you want to do the latter, give us a call!), you can download it, play it, send a copy to your friends, whatever... all we ask is that you retain the references to our copyrights and trademarks so that it's clear that we still own Shakhàn. But given the game's size and complexity, repeatedly copying it is bound to be quite a chore. That's why you can now click here to access our on-line order forms via Kagi and order printed copies of Shakhàn materials on-line!
Shakhàn is played in the conventional FRP manner with a "live" referee, written notes and rules and "live" players in the former's direct proximity. The players use their imaginations, and the supplementary material and decisions provided by the referee, to act out the roles of characters on the imaginary world of Telostic, starting with a weak alter ego and slowly building him, her or it up to a position of power, fame and fortune. Relative to other conventional FRP games, the Shakhàn system is complex, richly detailed and meant for an adult or late teenage audience of players.
The planet Telostic, showing its eastern hemisphere
The game is set on the planet of Telostic, a world in which a once-mighty civilization has degenerated over thousands of years to a level roughly equivalent to that of Earth's early Middle Ages. It is an environment much different from those with which most FRP devotees are familiar... to find out why, you'll have to play it, or one of the other variants described below!
Note that while we know of groups of players who have successfully integrated Shakhàn with the famous TSR Dungeons and Dragons® system, it has little in common with the assumptions and historical baggage of D&D®. (For example, there are no "elves", "dwarves" or "hobbits" on the imaginary world of Telostic, so there are no rules covering them in Shakhàn.) So if you're looking for an add-on to D&D®, you'd probably have better luck elsewhere.
you can now click here to access
our on-line order forms via Kagi!
However, if you want to view or print it yourself, it is available for FREE by downloading the following files:
Shakhàn 2000 Downloadable Files
for
the 2000 edition! Shakhàn September 2000 Edition, Book "G"
(The Watchers) (368 KB)This is purely a stylistic issue and will be corrected with the next .PDF release of the game-- even if you don't install the two abovenoted fonts, Shakhàn will still paginate properly and can be perfectly well used for FRP play-- but to see the game in all its glory, we advise you to install these two fonts first.
We have had a few reports of these fonts not installing properly on some instances of MS-Windows; we are investigating this and will fix it as soon as we are able to isolate the cause of it.
What's New For Shakhàn 2000
Content-wise, by far the most important addition to Shakhàn 2000 is Book "G" (The Watchers). This supplement-- which is almost all background information as opposed to playing rules-- fills in many gaps in Shakhàn's history. The Watchers (a.k.a. the "Khùl-Algrenàthi'ì") have been an integral part of the history of Telostic from as far back as Shakhàn's early versions in the late 1970s, but have been poorly documented until now. Download the 2000 version of the game and find out the details about these mysterious, powerful creatures!
Other than for Book "G", changes to the 2000 edition of Shakhàn have been restricted to a few minor spell updates and rule corrections.
Shakhàn 2000 .PDF File Format
The September 2000 edition of Shakhàn also marks a milestone in that it is the first version of the game available in Adobe's .PDF (Portable Document Format), or Acrobat, file format. The Acrobat format has been selected for Shakhàn for a number of very good reasons, foremost among which is, an Acrobat file retains its look, feel and print pagination consistently across a wide variety of computer platforms (IBM, Macintosh, Unix, you name it). However, in order to access a .PDF format file, your computer must have the appropriate version of Adobe's Acrobat Reader program installed on it. You can download Acrobat Reader from www.adobe.com for free, or you can get its installation files on many public domain or game CDs.
Special Note for Microsoft Windows Acrobat Users: One thing to remember about Acrobat 4.x, which is the latest and greatest as of the time when this was written, is that you must un-install any previous versions of Acrobat Reader, prior to installing version 4. If you don't do this, you may find yourself unable to run Acrobat at all. For more information on this consult Adobe's Website.
Special Note for Apple Macintosh Acrobat Users: One special comment pertains to users of Acrobat Reader on the Mac platform. Recently, Adobe discontinued development of new versions of Acrobat Reader for the "older", that is Motorola 68K-powered, versions of the Macintosh (among these are the Mac Classic, the LCIIs and IIIs and so on); they are only updating Acrobat Reader for the PowerPC versions of the Macintosh. This means, in effect, that the last version of Acrobat that users of 68K-powered Macs will be able to run, is Acrobat Reader3.x..
Shakhàn has been engineered so as to be backward compatible with 3.x versions of Acrobat Reader, but if you encounter any anomalies in bringing it up in your .PDF reading application, please notify us and we'll see what we can do to accommodate you.
Downloading Functionality Note
The Shakhàn 2000 files, being no more than a couple megabytes in size (for the largest of the 7 files that together make up the game) should not be affected by the reported download limitation that our @!#$!@# "ISP" (sic.), GlobalServe/IPrimus seems to have instituted (completely without any mention of it to its customers, of course)... this prevents a single file of more than 5 megabytes in size from being sent from its domain to elsewhere.
We would also like anyone who has encountered problems in downloading to please send us an e-mail to let us know what has happened. This is the only way we can tell if a problem is developing, and we'd far rather find out about it via a message from a Shakhàn enthusiast than by having everybody simply give up on accessing the files.
We apologize to anyone who may have encountered this downloading problem... if we had a realistic choice, we'd dump GlobalServe in favour of an ISP that gives decent service, but unfortunately for the time being we have far too large an investment in our current e-mail and domain addresses to make this practical.
...And Night Must Fall: Originally planned for posting in Fall 1998, this is the second fully-developed Shakhàn scenario, as run at CanGames 1998. It is a hybrid adventure, starting where The Streets of Ròlon (Revisited) left off, involving a sinister plot and... well, you'll have to download it to see for yourself! The archive includes a WinWord 2.x instruction document, four CorelDraw 4.x map files (two for the players and two for the Referee), as well as an extensive list of pre-created characters in Microsoft Excel 4.x spreadsheet format.
The Tombs of the Elder Kings of Jèglur: This third Shakhàn scenario of the Ròlon triology was introduced at CanGames 1999. It is an Underworld adventure featuring an extensive map, higher-level characters and extensive game and map notes. The Tombs of the Elder Kings of Jèglur is an excellent scenario to use for your more experienced Shakhàn players and characters... but make sure they watch their backs, as one never knows what lurks behind the next bend in the tunnel... the archive includes a Word for Windows 2.x format master document plus a multi-level dungeon map in CorelDraw 4.x format.
Hex Maps: This is a CorelDraw 3.x format hex map, meant to be used as a playing aid with Shakhàn and other games produced by Telostic Corporation. The map is designed for printing on a standard 8.5" x 11" piece of paper (portrait mode); it is 40 hexes wide by 50 hexes long; certain hexes are numbered so that you never have to count more than 5 hexes from a numbered hex to figure out the number of any other hex. Most of the new Shakhàn terrain maps use this hexmap as a reference background. Permission is granted to freely reproduce, photocopy and use this map as needed.
Rulers of Roctien: This is a .ZIP format archive containing a WinWord 2.x format document which gives an overview of the names of the rulers of the Rocto-Ardae Imperium, which is the political/social entity in which new Shakhàn characters, by default, begin play. Brief histories of events and social trends during the reign of each Emperor/Empress, going back over 2000 Telostician years to the earliest days of the current Imperium, are also included. This document will be of particular interest to new Referees of a Shakhàn campaign, as it gives historical background that you can use for designing adventures, Underworld complexes and the like.
City of Ròlon: This is an overhead map of the city of Ròlon in the central Rocto-Ardae Imperium, in CorelDraw 3.x format. This .ZIP will eventually have much more extensive information on Ròlon and Fief Ròloni, but for now it just has the map. (Do not be deceived by the small size of the .ZIP; in fact the map is over 700K when you uncompress it... I guess there's quite a bit of "slack" in CorelDraw files, eh?) This map is also included in the basic set of Shakhàn rules (see above), so you needn't download rolon.zip if you are going to download the rules themselves..
Hex Maps of Ushù'l: This archive contains detailed maps of the lands of northern Ushù'l from, approximately, the eastern border between Roctien and the Shadowed Empire, to the lands just west of Ascorcan. These maps were originally created to enable the playing of Strategic Telostician Campaign, which was, essentially, a strategic- level wargame equivalent of Shakhàn. (The idea is, once your Shakhàn characters become so powerful that they can laugh at dinosaurs, they "graduate" to STC and then must face the challenge of other kings, dukes, etc..) Because Strategic Telostician Campaign was created in 1990-93, computer technology having been what it was in those days, the maps in this archive are in Lotus Freelance for DOS 3.01 format. From my experiences, these haven't translated terribly well to other formats-- the text labels, in particular, seem to go haywire-- but you're welcome to download them and have a look yourself, regardless.
on-line
Telostic Corporation order forms via Kagi!
You may also want to check out HyperWallet (www.hyperwallet.com) as an alternative method of payment; we are in the process of implementing this and should have it up and running soon..
For delivery other than to continental North America, please send us an e-mail to confirm availability.
Please keep in mind that as some of the items are "print on demand", there may be a delay of several weeks between the time that you order one and when it is actually shipped.
Send your order to:
Telostic Corporation
7 Homer Square
Brampton, Ontario
CANADA
L6S 1X9.
This gets you a 300+ page, seven-volume set of rulebooks and maps- and you'll have a fantasy role-playing game nobody on your block is likely to have already!
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