Playing Cards
Playing Cards of the Known World
Playing cards are very popular throughout the Known World and are used for all the activities you might suspect: games, fortune-telling and divination, throwing at people, and so forth. Among the less common uses: some people use a personal deck of cards as an elaborate mnemonic device. In this usage, each card might stand for a certain category of things to remember: dates, names, passwords, formulae, etc. Some practitioners of this method scribble notes on the cards themselves as reminders; others have shuffled and shuffled the same deck so many times they need no prompting. The solitary game “Elenath’s Castle” combines the gaming and memory-aid functions of the cards: the act of playing the game is also a meditative technique for reciting the memory cues assigned to each card.
Playing cards in the Known World have six suits and three colors, as follows. The “notes” column indicates what each of the types of cards is typically used to remember when used as a mnemonic device.
| Suit | Color | Notes |
| Moons | Blue |
Quantities - e.g., in recipes, inventories, cargo manifests, shopping lists |
| Stars | Blue |
Formulas, plans |
| Wands | Gold |
Dates - birthdates, appointments, etc |
| Towers | Gold |
Places - waypoints, destinations, favorite haunts |
| Trees | Green |
People - names, faces, etc. |
| Founts | Green |
Specific events - conversations, meals, fights |
Each suit contains the following cards, in order from greatest to least value:
Dragon
King
Queen
Knight
7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
For a total of 60 cards in each deck. Some decks also contain a “doom card”, which is sometimes a comet, sometimes a ship, and sometimes a shadowy figure; this card usually trumps all other cards in the deck or can be a “wild card”.
There are of course endless variations in the design of each suit and each card, but the fundamental suits and “faces” never varies. Some variations among the card designs:
| People | Variant |
| Bellgard |
The Dragon is often depicted as quaint and old, while the King and Queen are majestic. |
| Parashkanan |
The Dragon looks more like a vast black and grey bird, breathing fire, and the Knights wield bows. |
| Callent |
There are an even number of gold and silver dragons in each deck, vibrant and strong. |
| Voors |
The Kings all appear holding great swords of white and black. The Knights all kneel. |