Talisman

2D art rendition of a Monkey Paw Talisman

A talisman is a type of amulet. Talismans have their own implicit modifiers that are typically more powerful than those of ordinary amulets. Talismans are inherently corrupted, and therefore cannot be modified with crafting orbs.

Item acquisition

Unlike most other amulets, Talismans don't drop as a regular world drop. Currently, Talismans can only be acquired through specific means:

• divination card (tier 1 talisman only)
• certain method of obtaining league-specific item (for unique talisman only)

These methods of acquisition were specific to certain (former) league mechanics:

• The Jeweller's Workshop room (and its upgraded variant) in the Temple of Atzoatl (rarely)
• Ritual Grounds node in the Azurite Mine
• Chests in the Immortal Syndicate Transportation safehouse if Jorgin was stationed
• A crafting bench in the Syndicate Research station can transform a non-corrupted, non-influenced amulet into a random talisman if Jorgin was stationed there, keeping the explicit mods of the ingredient
• Chests, War Hoards, and Sergeants with the Talisman symbol through Legions
• Chests, with the Talisman symbol through Blights
• Delirium
• Rarely appears as loot from chests in Heists
• Purchasing from Rituals using Tribute
• Beastcrafting recipe (introduced in Bestiary league)

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• Distant memories containing Talismans in Synthesis league (no longer available)

In Talisman league

This section addresses how talismans were obtained in the Talisman league. This is not applicable to the current leagues.

A Bone Rhoa possessed by a Talisman

Talismans were encountered in the wild as a monster 'possessed' by a talisman, visually similar to possession by a Tormented Spirit. Talismans can possess any rarity of enemy and will always spawn possessing one. When the monster is killed, the talisman drops as an item – but if it is not picked up quickly by the player, it will attract another enemy and possess that enemy instead. Each type of talisman grants the monster it possesses extra combat abilities related to its implicit modifier. Monsters only pick up talismans if they're in the Talisman league or an area that normally drops talismans.

There are four tiers of talismans. A talisman's tier level can be determined by the colour of the string in the item graphic: tier 1 talismans have a white string, tier 2 talismans have a black string, tier 3 talismans have a red string and tier 4 talismans have a blue string. Only tier 1 talismans are found in the wild; upgrading to a next tier can be done with placing five of them them into a Stone Altar. Tier 2 talismans are obtained by sacrificing tier 1 talismans, tier 3 talismans are obtained by sacrificing tier 2 talismans, and tier 4 talismans are obtained by sacrificing tier 3 talismans and then fighting the boss, Rigwald, the Wolven King.

The and talismans can only spawn in the standard version of Talisman League. The and talismans can only spawn in the hardcore version of Talisman League.

Talismans obtained in the world follow the normal item drop rules. From normal monsters they are the same item level as the area, +1 level from magic monsters, and +2 from rares and uniques.

When sacrificing 5 talismans, each talisman adds a 20% chance of a Talisman of its rarity being the resultant one. So if you sacrifice one white, one magic, two rare and one unique, your odds are a 20% chance of a white talisman, 20% chance of a magic, 40% chance of a rare, and 20% chance of a unique.

Talismans obtained from stone altars are an average of the talismans used, where

• The highest-level talisman is counted three times, $\color[RGB]{163,141,109} H$.
• The middle three talismans are counted twice, $\color[RGB]{163,141,109} [M_1, M_2, M_3]$.
• The lowest-level talisman is counted once, $\color[RGB]{163,141,109} L$.

The obtained item level can be expressed as:

$\color[RGB]{163,141,109} R = {3H + 2(M_1 + M_2 + M_3) + L \over 10}$

(1)

Example: Talismans with multiple highest/lowest item levels ▾ [Expand] ▾

The talismans has the following item levels:

$\color[RGB]{163,141,109} ilvl = [78, 78, 45, 31, 31]$

Find the highest-level talisman:

$\color[RGB]{163,141,109} H = 78$

Find the lowest-level talisman:

$\color[RGB]{163,141,109} L = 31$

The talismans in the middle of these extremes are:

$\color[RGB]{163,141,109} \begin{align} M_1 = 78 \\ M_2 = 45 \\ M_3 = 31 \\ \end{align}$

The resulting ilvl from the possessed monster using equation (1) becomes:

$\color[RGB]{163,141,109} \begin{align} R & = {3 \times 78 + 2 \times (78 + 45 + 31) + 31 \over 10} \\ & = 57.3 \\ \end{align}$

The value will be rounded up or down to nearest integer. In this case it is rounded down to 57.

Talisman base types

Tier 1

Talisman	Possession Effect
	Possessed monster summons raging spirits.
	Possessed monster consumes corpses and summons skeletons when a corpse is consumed.
	Possessed monster spawns patches of spiking ground that deals damage over time. It also inflicts Bone Roil: a stacking damage over time effect (similar to bleeding, but cant be removed by flasks).
	Possessed monster emits shockwaves (similar to a shockwave totem) which cause knockback and deals physical damage(?).
	Possessed monster casts either Icestorm, Firestorm or Storm Call.
	Possessed monster spawns leeches when being damaged, which explode after a short delay on death, dealing chaos damage. Monster itself also explodes on death, dealing chaos damage.
	Ice storm calls randomly strike around the possessed monster.
	Lightning strikes randomly around the possessed monster (similar to storm call)
	Possessed monster spawns moving curse zones that inflict temporal chains to players and moving zones that apply speed aura to monsters.
	Doesn't do anything special to possessed monsters.
	Possessed monster spawns desecrated ground and summons zombies
	Possessed monster spawns moving curse zones that inflict Vulnerability, and curse zones that has Added Fire, Cold, and Lightning damage for enemies

Tier 2

Talisman	Possession Effect
6 Variants	Possession effect differs depending on a variant of a talisman. Possessed monster summons two Fiery/Frozen/Thundering Locustcallers that cast small and slowly moving in random directions Fire/Cold/Lightning Swarms that deal stackable (from different swarms) damage corresponding to their element.
	Possessed monster summons Totems that cast Essence Drain in a nova, alike Sire of Shards
	Possessed monster summons Regenerative Golem and Protective Golem
	Possessed monster spawns areas of Blade Vortexes and Ethereal Knives nova traps
	Possessed monster spawn multiple Siege Ballistas
	Possessed monster summons multiple Meteor Golems that use a magma orb like skill and die after 5 seconds
	Possessed monster casts Storm Calls and summons Static Eyes that use lightning tendrils
	Possessed monster spawns moving curse zones that inflict enfeeble, chilled, and galvanic frost which deals cold damage over time

Tier 3

Talisman	Possession Effect
	Possessed monster casts Proximity Shield and shoots physical projectiles in random directions.
3 Variants	Possessed monster raises Relentless Rhoas that explode on death.
	Possessed monster spawns two unique Apes, Soul of Summer and Soul of Winter.
	Possessed monster creates a green cloud that continually shrinks player characters, resulting in less damage dealt (and increased taken?)
	Possessed monster spawns small invincible Voidbearers that don't move or rotate and constantly use Incinerate for 20 seconds. Also spawns for 2 seconds raging-spirit-like heads that don't move but attack in close range.
	Possessed monster creates exploding orbs similar to the Flame/Frost/Stormbearer Bloodline mod.
	Possessed monster summons a Plague Totem that spawns Poisonous Rats. Spawned rats poison on hit.

Tier 4

Talisman	Possession Effect
	None. (Monster doesn't pick it up/possess)

Trivia

• Talismans were a prominent part of the league mechanics in Talisman league. After the league ended, most talismans were not added to the core game. With later expansions, Talismans were added as rewards for new content such as delves or the Immortal Syndicate.

Version history

Version	Changes
3.14.0	No longer drop using the well-rolled modifier system.
3.13.0	You can now perform the 5-for-1 recipe on items with outputs that are always corrupted (such as Talismans and ).
3.12.3	Dropped Talismans in level 68+ areas now drop with higher-tier modifiers on average and with a random Anointed Notable. (Not in patch note) This changes is not limited to Heist, but other sources.
3.5.0	(Not in patch note) Can now turn a rare amulet into random Talisman and keeping explicit mods from Immortal Syndicate encounter in Safehouse, or as random drop
2.5.1	(Not in patch note) Can now acquire level 1 Talisman from
2.2.0	(Not in patch note) Talisman is not added to the core game. Despite there is various way to acquire unique Talisman
2.1.0	Introduced to the game.

External links

• Talisman Item Level Calculator (Online)
• Advanced Talisman Item Level Calculator (Spreadsheet)