1.4. Card Mechanics
The "Location Deck" consists of a regular deck of playing cards. Treat 'Ace' cards as a 1, Jacks as an 11, Queens as a 12, and Kings as a 13.
Each suit correlates with one or two of the Damage Types (for more on Damage Types, see 1.6. Damage):
- Clubs - Blunt Damage.
- Diamonds - Ice Damage and Shock Damage.
- Hearts - Fire Damage and Caustic Damage.
- Spades - Sharp Damage.
All face cards correlate with Planar Damage.
The two Jokers in the deck are wilds. When a Player uses a Joker, they can choose how to resolve it as any other card.
Location Card Setup
When you arrive at a brand new area and Location, the GM will draw and place, for all to see, two Location Cards. These two cards abstractly represent strategic features and elements of the area.
Whenever you move to a new, adjacent Location, the GM will draw a single new Location Card instead of two. This new card can replace either Location Card in-play.
Using Location Cards
Depending on which Class you choose, you may be able to use the Location Cards in-play to empower your Abilities. That said, both PCs and NPCs alike will share the same set of active Location Cards, so they can be difficult to rely on and can cause a situation to quickly swing in or out of your favor.
Whenever an Ability lets you "use" a Location Card, you can choose either of the two Location Cards. The GM will place the chosen Location Card into the discard pile then draw a new card, placing it for all to see. The discarded card and the new card will often both affect the Ability that used it, for better or for worse.
Fixed Location Cards
For most Locations, the GM will randomize the new Location Card(s). In rare cases, a Location may be prominently tied to a particular feature in the area. This often comes when features correlate with the Damage Type of a Location Card or a danger level on a Location Card. When encountering such a Location, the GM may set one of the Location Cards to be a hand-picked "Fixed Location Card".
Fixed Location Cards are more common in boss fights and climactic moments.
A Fixed Location Card is an abstraction of the environment in which you are fighting. Below are some examples of Locations that may have a Fixed Location Card, though even the ones listed below could be different, depending on its exact setup:
- Clubs. An area with crushing gravity. The depths of a lake or the ocean. The heart of a fort run by Orcs or Goblins. A cave rich in pure minerals or ore.
- Diamonds. A frigid mountaintop. Outside during an intense storm. The plunges of a large pond or river.
- Hearts. A house or forest on fire. The lip of a volcano. An area with toxic vats or fauna.
- Spades. The heart of a sandstorm. Inside an armory or an arena. The jagged ruins of a building. A thorny ticket or dense forest.
- Faces. Near a planar anomaly. The halls of an insane asylum. Deep in a cloud of thick fog.
All that said, there is no right or wrong choice. You should try to tie a chosen Location Card to the world in some way so players can use creativity to alter the playing field. For example, players may open a portal, dumping ocean water into the active volcano. That alone may be enough to shake loose a Fixed Location Card.
Whenever you use a Fixed Location Card to empower an Ability, the GM will still draw a new card, which you will use for your Ability, as normal, but once you have finished resolving the Ability, the GM will discard the newly drawn card instead of the Fixed Location Card.
When you encounter powerful foes, they will often make use of the Fixed Location Card to unleash powerful attacks. If, somehow, you can interrupt or destroy the feature behind a Fixed Location Card, the GM may discard the Fixed Location Card, cutting off the enemy's strength.
In the rare event that a Player creates a prominent feature, like catching a forest on fire or flooding a cavern, the GM may introduce a Fixed Location Card to represent the feature.
For a Player's Fixed Location Card, the GM will generally draw random cards until they find a card that somewhat matches in Damage Type. This effectively randomizes the number on the card rather than making the GM choose one.
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