For the DnD fans of my last article on Sara Thompson’s homebrew tactical wheelchair, I come with an update!
Thompson’s wheelchair now has a playable character in Idle Champions! His name is Talin Uran.
*insert excited screaming here*
A cartoon image of a Tiefling with red skin, black hair, and curling horns sits in a wheelchair outfitted for fantasy combat. He wears leather armor and a green lantern hangs from the back of the chair. On the right side of the image, the name Talin Uran stands in bold above a character description (read below). At the top is the logo for Idle Champions.
Idle Champions is a free-to-play Dungeons and Dragons-based strategy game released by Codename Entertainment. Announced just this weekend, Talin’s character (co-created by Thompson and the Codename Entertainment team) uses Thompson’s tactical wheelchair, which was released to the public in late 2020. Talin is a Chaotic Good Tiefling Rogue who utilizes traditional Rogue movements and mischief as well as specific abilities and equipment that pair with his tactical wheelchair. For example, he sports “Ornate Gloves of Speed” (modeled off of those a manual wheelchair user might use) and “Slicer and Dicer,” which is a pair of razor-edged wheel covers.
Talin is described on Codename Entertainment’s website as:
“a charismatic rogue who specializes in analyzing and exploiting enemy weaknesses, increasing the damage of allies, and slowing enemies with his Scatter Tacks.”
Further, Talin is even given a realistic and energizing backstory:
“Talin Uran is a rogue of great renown within Waterdeep. While on an assignment with the Grambar’s Blades a few years ago, he was caught in a building collapse that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Now equipped with his combat wheelchair, Talin is back to doing what he does best: Saving the day and looking awesome doing it.”
We here at Cr*pple Magazine are incredibly excited to see the tactical wheelchair put to more mainstream use, especially as it pairs with such a charismatic and unique player character. It is wonderful that the Idle Champions creators were able to reach out to and work with a disabled creator to bring realism and experience to Talin’s character. Hopefully, this will inspire other fantasy games to include playable disabled characters with as much ease as it takes to change a character’s hair color or clothing.
To check out more of Talin Uran’s stats and descriptions, head over to Codename Entertainment’s blog on his release here!
Check out Sara Thompson’s Combat Wheelchair here (dyslexic-friendly document available too!), and support Thompson’s work on their Patreon. You can follow Thompson on Twitter at @mustangsart.
