Card That Didn’t Make the Cut.

Here’s a little nibble of the Shadowdark compatible project I’m working on.

The basic premise is the deck is an artifact that the group finds. It’s based on a standard deck of 52 playing cards (Jokers removed.) After one card is drawn, the deck disappears to reappear in another part of the Universe. It is uncertain how many of these decks exist.

Failure to draw a card causes the deck to begin hinting that it needs to be used. See this entry. The little magical nudges grow more noticeable over time.

The deck can’t be dispelled, buried, burned, left behind, forgotten, tossed into a volcano, dropped in the ocean, or otherwise destroyed. All attempts simply lead to the Deck finding its way back to the person who discovered it within 24 hours. It can be sold or given away. However, sometimes the seller will be randomly affected by one of the cards, seemingly out of nowhere.

Here we have the Kind of Diamonds. I’ve wrestled quite a bit with this card because I didn’t want to overpower it, and I feel the face cards should all have some sort of creature attached to them.

Version 1:

(King) A huge portal opens into the bottom floor of a pyramid buried deep in an icy cavern on a world far different from the characters’ home. It remains open 1d6 days or until the characters reach the top of the pyramid and discover the ancient sarcophagi of the archons who built the structure. (The GM may wish to make an extended adventure out of this one.)

Version 1 felt broken because it gives the group a giant pyramid complex to explore. I don’t want to pile too much work onto the GM who would have been handed the stats for the archons and nothing else. The pyramid is an entire dungeon adventure which I have decided to create on my own.

Version 2:

(King) A huge portal deep in an icy cavern on a world far different from the characters’ home. It remains open 1d6 days. Once out of the cavern, the characters will discover an unexplored frozen alien landscape. If they walk far enough the characters will discover a castle made mostly of ice.

Version 2 was just a variant of Version 1 but left a lot open to GM interpretation. Originally I thought about suggesting the GM put some sort of frozen lich or vampire in the castle, but it felt like too much work. I want to try to avoid anything overly hackneyed or clichéd.

I felt like maybe the ice castle seemed a bit too, um… what was that one movie called? It had a princess and a snowman in it… Right on the tip of my tongue. I’m sure we’ll think of it later.

Version 3 (Kept):

(King) A slim elvish man wearing business attire steps from a narrow portal. He has black hair and a slender mustache as well as a well-kept goatee. The only thing a little different about him are his eyes that appear completely black save the rings of fire in them. His name is Mr. Scratch. He offers the card holder 1 Wish or single treasure item of their choosing, BUT the character must sign a contract in blood that simply says they will owe Scratch a favor of his choosing whenever he so chooses. The favor must be granted no matter what the cost. (GM Note: if an item is granted, it will be cursed.)

After a lot of thought I finally landed on this. I’ve been trying to work more devils into my dungeons and adventures. They make such excellent bad guys. I figured a Faustian bargain might be fun for someone.

If it turns into combat, I’m prepared for that, too. I’m hoping players won’t just see it as a cheap combat encounter as the devil in question will simply return to his home plane if killed. His portal only opens and closes for him, and the deck will have teleported away after use. This is intended to be a strictly social encounter, but I know players that might run the other way with it.

Deck of Many Portals is an independent product published under the Shadowdark RPG Third-Party License and is not affiliated with The Arcane Library, LLC. Shadowdark RPG © 2023 The Arcane Library, LLC.