Cards

A deck composed from the world, and a game played for keeps.

THE CARDS. A card is a record of a real creature, and its face comes from the thing itself: four side numbers (north, east, south, west, one to ten), a FACTION mark, and an element where the subject has one. A worldlord's card is strong because the worldlord is strong. One hundred and eighty-three of them, and the routes to them feel different on purpose. DROP: a named zone leader drops its own card about one time in five; a world boss or worldlord drops its own and nothing else does, so the only way to a Wyrm King card is to kill the Wyrm King, again. PLAY: card players on caravans, in camps and in the taverns of the great settlements play for stakes. TRADE: duplicates are goods. TOURNAMENT: the eight PANTHEON cards exist only as the top prize of a card tournament; they cannot drop, cannot be bought, cannot be farmed, and cannot be staked.

THE FIRST COPY BINDS. Your first of any card goes into your codex, weightless, untradeable, unlosable: that is your collection. Every DUPLICATE is a physical card that costs a slot (twenty-five at most) and is what you trade and stake. deck shows the codex, spares what you carry loose.

THE BOARD. Three by three. Place a card and any enemy card it touches compares the two facing sides; beat the number you are pressed against and it turns over to you; when the board is full, most cards held wins. A card beside a FRIENDLY card of its own faction is reinforced; a card pressed against its SWORN ENEMY hits harder. And the board is ground, not a grid: a match played in a temple, on the ice or in a volcanic zone lays that element on some cells, and a card whose element matches its cell is strengthened while its opposite is weakened. Where you play changes what wins.

THE STAKE. cardplay shows who here will play, cardplay <who> sits down for a card, cardplay <who> = friendly for none. You need five stakeable cards to sit. Win and you take the STRONGEST card they fielded; lose and you lose the WEAKEST tradeable card you fielded, a spare first and out of the codex only if you had no spare. Cards leave circulation every time somebody plays for stakes, and that is the economy.

THE MEET. Every regular month the card meet takes the week from the 8th, and its prize is a pantheon card, a different god each time in a fixed rotation, so a full pantheon takes exactly a year; the four solstice festivals hold the larger meets, dearer to enter, paying a worldlord card from the season's own pool. cardtourney enters one where it is running (festival grounds and the great settlements): three rounds against the field.

See also: help bestiary, help festivals, help calendar.

Syntax

deck
spares
cardplay
cardplay 
play
cardtourney

Examples

deck
cardplay stranger
cardtourney