Wednesday, 12 September 2018

Cow sighted

Been quiet here and on the podcast for various reasons; the main one is I’ve been pouring my creative energies into getting ready for Concrete Cow 18.5 on the 15th September. I’m offering 2 games: in the morning I’ll be running StormHack (that’s Stormbringer meets Whitehack) with the classic Chaosium scenario “Stolen Moments” from the 4th edition Perils of the Young Kingdoms.

Getting ready for that has been relatively straightforward to the afternoon offering, where I’m hoping to run Grand Tableau (aka hipster Everway). I made a fortune deck using Lenormand cards (Pixie’s Astounding Lenormand, to be precise). I’m quite pleased at how it turned out…

First, slip the card into a standard MtG style card sleeve (I do this to protect the original Lenormand cards in case I want them back in the future). Then get some backing card, approximately tarot-sized. We mount the sleeved card onto the larger card with the card meaning below it, like this:

Then slip that whole thing inside a second card sleeve that’s sized for larger cards (I think the sleeves are made by FFG and designed for games like Dixit).

There we go… and the final touch, put the 36 cards inside a nice wooden box.

Quite pleased with this effort, and not a bad way to spend an evening while watching Iron Fist season 2 with one eye. Hopefully I’ll get takers on Saturday.

(the scenario is The Death Hand Of Saint No-One, which is actually a Continuum scenario — we’ll see how it turns out exchanging time travellers for urban magicians)

Thursday, 26 July 2018

Grand Tableau: Gates, Courts, Primes

And now for something completely different, because I can never work on just one project (in fact this is what was bugging me as I was trying to finish the last post).

This is my character sheet for Grand Tableau (a remix of Jonathan Tweet’s Everway using the 36 card Petit Lenormand deck, with elements in common with Amber).

The picture is low res but the vector pdf is here. Haven’t tried printing it yet.

Now, about the deck.

Cosmology and the Fortune Deck

The 36-card Lenormand deck has four Aces, twelve Court cards and twenty numbered cards. These represent three tiers of reality:

  • The Aces are the Primes, which are universal cosmic principles.
  • The Court cards are the four Courts of magic. These are the twelve schools of magic available to PCs (at the start). Kings are static, Queens are dynamic and Jacks are mutable. When I run this game I plan to make extra cards and give them to the players as table artefacts.
  • The numbered cards represent Gates between each tier of occult society. These correlate with the ratings in each element.

The Gates have a kind of informal hierarchy. No one card is necessarily stronger than another, but they represent a transformation of magical awareness.

  • The sixes represent the first step; gifts, opportunities, guidance and crossing thresholds.
  • The sevens are all about connections and networks in occult society.
  • The eights are about gathering, consolidation, thoughts and ideals, symbols and membership.
  • The nines concern themselves with legacies, remnants, plans, deep impressions, future vision, truth and falsehood.
  • Finally the tens are about evaluation, power, transformation and territory.

As magicians gain strength in each of the suits they will transform according to the level they’ve achieved. At a rating of six they become an attractor, becoming visible to occult agencies. At seven they will start to notice their peers. At eight they will acquire a mark that identifies them to their peers, and may choose to enroll in a College. Nine and ten are very uncommon and usually involve specialisation in the chosen College.

That will do for now. Time for bed.

Monday, 30 January 2017

Grand Tableau: Guide to the Fortune Deck

Everway’s original Guide to the Fortune Deck gives upright and reversed meanings as well as correspondences for the 36 cards in the Fortune Deck. The PDF document linked below is inspired by the original guide, using the Petit Lenormand in place of the original deck.

Guide to the Fortune Deck (PDF)

The document is 17 pages long (thus too long for one blog post), and includes photographs of all 36 cards from two Lenormand decks: Pixie’s Astounding Lenormand, and the Under the Roses Lenormand.

Sample readings:

1. The Rider

Other names: the Knight, the Agent, the Visitor, the Harbinger

Meaning: Rebirth

The Rider is an agent of change, bringing news, new perspective, clues or resources. There arrival on the scene signifies the beginning of a new cycle, a rearrangement of social order, a change in roles in the Tableau, and new purpose for the individual.

Reversed reading: Destruction

The Rider is the harbinger of destruction, the spearhead of an invader, the agent of evil intent. The cycle they initiate is one of suffering, evil and darkness.

Correspondence: the Nine of Hearts, Water, Intuition, Personality. Mercury/Hermes. Everway card(s): the Phoenix

19. The Tower

Other names: The Lighthouse, The Bell-Tower, The Clock Tower

Meaning: Authority

The Tower oversees the nation, and represents the principle of law. It brings order and authority, unites the nation through government.

Reversed reading: Tyranny

The baleful eye surveys its domain, ruling absolutely and without mercy.

Correspondence: Six of Spades, Air, Intelligence, Principle, Rules. Everway card(s): The King