#playing card decks

[somanycards]

[mapsontheweb]

Prefered cards in Europe

by dalmatian.mapper

[empirearchives]

Y’all look at this set of Napoleonic playing cards I found by Philipp Otto Runge, early 19th century.

They depict figures from the Napoleonic era including famous military figures and women wearing really pretty empire style.

The first one is supposed to be Murat.

Source: Hamburger Kunsthalle

[its-where-the-wild-things-are]

[lycomorpha]

~

From my 1st poker deck, Cryptic Cards, moth designs painted in acryl gouache. The deck is sold out now, but you can get uncut sheet to use as wall art here.

I still love these bugs. I need to make another deck. 💖🦋

~

[tj-crochets]

Hey y'all! This question came up when I had family visiting, and I am genuinely unsure of how common this is

[see-arcane]

Cards with the Count

Thinking about how Jonathan is trying to pass the time during Vampire Hell Staycation with all the books in the library (a guaranteed Dracula Zone), no stationery (bastard), and a finite amount of secret pen ink and secret diary pages left at his disposal (shit). Reading and writing and art are all out. What’s left?

I like to think, in this order:

1)    He remembers that he has a pack of playing cards in the general luggage Dracula didn’t snatch. A gift Lucy had bestowed on him and Mina, a pack apiece, as she insisted that it was the best way to pass an hour in dreary company that wasn’t to do with gossip or politics.

2)    He doesn’t normally play, if only because he doesn’t have the coin to meet any real gambling stranger at a table. Just a ‘for fun’ thing.

3)    Fuck it. Solitaire. Card towers. It’s something to keep his mind off the…everything.

4)    He gets exactly one (1) day/evening of peace with this. Then:

5)    “Whatever are you up to, my friend?” 

(He didn’t even use the door to give Jonathan time to hide the pack. Misted in. No shadow to give him away. Fantastic.) Jonathan staples his smile back in place and rattles off something apologetic, so sorry, was he keeping the Count waiting? Let him just put this away, he wouldn’t be interested—

6)    Smash cut to the library. The cards are now unofficially confiscated/a staple of the Dracula Zone, alongside the fancy crystal chessboard the Count loves to crush him with on a semi-regular basis. Jonathan is walking him through the rules of sundry card games. Unsurprisingly, he latches onto the concept of American poker readily. The game is a soup of similar European predecessors that light up his eyes with recognition—primero, poque, brelan—sewn together with England’s game of brag into a medley of the initial rules, both written and unwritten.

7)    “A game of skill, then?”

“Skill, acting, and luck.”

Dracula grins as he produces a ransom of gold coins to use as chips. Jonathan deals. 

(What are the extra rules here? Does he throw every hand? Does he play in earnest and inevitably lose anyway? Does it even matter? It isn’t chess, after all. Not a proper strategy game. Cards happen. Guesswork happens. A winner and loser every turn. What does it matter?)

8)    Jonathan realizes two dozen hands later that what matters is, apparently, his face. One that, likewise apparently, cannot be read by the Count in this game. Out of those two dozen hands, Jonathan has won eighteen. Of those eighteen, his hand was the clear dud for nine. Through it all, Dracula’s eyes keep jumping from his own hand to Jonathan’s tired gaze. When Jonathan wins the twenty-fifth hand and the mountain of gold on his side of the table risks toppling off the edge, Dracula bites out a word Jonathan is sure is too caustic to have a spot in the lost polyglot dictionary.

9)    “You have a gift for schooling your face, my friend.” Every word is an icicle; each as sharp as the canines jutting out of the rictus grin.

“I don’t,” Jonathan says. 

And it’s true. Now he’s schooling his face—first lesson of anyone destined for the realm of serving others—but in the game, he’s barely thinking of anything else beyond the ticking of the clock. To punctuate this, he slides the heap of gold back to Dracula’s side of the table. 

“This is only a game for the fun of it. In a game with stakes, there would be something worth playing and worrying for. When you get to England,” his face is very, very schooled as he says this, “you’ll find a much more varied competition at gambling tables. The players who really train their expressions can do so with fortunes at stake, while novices reveal every victory or loss plainly on their face.”

10) Dracula considers this. And smiles.

11) “Ah, then there must be stakes before we can play the game properly. Still, you have won the bulk of these rounds, my friend—” his hand seems like it wants to be strangling something when it drums atop the gold heap, “���and done me the charity of not taking your rightful winnings.” He throws down his cards. Ace and deuce of spades. “I shall have to speak with the kitchen about producing a stand-in prize.” 

He leaves. Jonathan doesn’t blink when he hears the door lock behind him. A card pyramid is erected.

12) Paprika hendl for supper. As excellent as he remembers. Huzzah.

13) The next time he’s herded into the library, he sees what looks suspiciously like his travel paraphernalia flimsily hidden behind a bit of drapery. Dracula is shuffling the deck.

14) “A true prize on the table this time, my friend. I know you are one to appreciate the splendor of our beautiful country, just as I know it is, for your own safety, quite impossible to go exploring alone in the wild. Too many wolves about. But if you win the majority tonight, I shall see to it that my driver takes a leave from his own many errands to escort you beyond the castle for a time, if you so wish.”

“…And if I lose the majority?” He can’t help it: “I’m sure there’s little from me you’d be interested in.”

Dracula grins.

“We shall think of something, I’m certain. Here. Deal.”

15) As expected, Jonathan’s face isn’t effortlessly unreadable in its misery anymore. He has something to play for, even if his trust in Dracula’s dangling carrot on the stick is nigh nonexistent. He loses more. He struggles more. He worries more…

16) …But the wins and losses remain surprisingly even. On into the dawn they play, matching victory for victory. Even the Count seems puzzled. Jonathan is just tired. He was never going to win. The ‘driver’ will fall to some mysterious ailment, his possessions will disappear the moment he’s sent out of the room ahead of the Count. To Hell with it.

17) “I forfeit. We remain tied, so neither has to lose.” A sour smile curls. “Besides, I have kept you up too late again.”

“One more.”

“We can say you won—,”

Dracula gives him a Look.

Jonathan sits again. Plays again.

Wins again.

Dracula hisses several words the polyglot dictionary would be scandalized to translate. Jonathan feels the first genuine smile he’s wanted to make in a month and a half try to creep up on his lips, and stifles it.

18) Dracula turns over his cards and thumbs though the deck as if looking for a conspirator. He even scowls at Jonathan’s forearms, both bare through the whole game as he’d rolled up his sleeves. Still grumbling, his thumbnail finally hooks a card that makes a cloud pass over his face.

19) “What. Is this?”

Jonathan looks.

“Oh, that’s just a Joker.”

“Joker?”

“Yes, I thought I’d taken him out. He’s not a usable card in this game, but he’s sometimes used as a trump or wild card in others. That is, he’s there to turn the tide for whoever gets to play him.”

Jonathan reaches for the card to tuck it back in the box. Dracula pulls it out of reach, walks to the fireplace, and flicks it into the flames.

“Say what you will, but I recognize a symbol of sabotage when I see it. It should not be in the deck at all!” Still watching the little harlequin turn to cinders, he flaps his other hand at Jonathan. “Go rest, my friend. Take that infernal game with you. It is not a respectable pastime for men of our like.”

20) Jonathan gathers up the deck, gives his travel kit a last mournful look, and leaves for his bedroom, knowing not to ask after the walk in the forest as he goes. In his bed, he empties the deck into his hand again and thinks on four things.

Skill.

Acting.

Luck.

And…

21) He turns the deck’s neglected second Joker over in his fingers, the impish face seeming to hold a secret in its grin.

22) When he wakes next, he isn’t surprised to find the deck has been stolen. It doesn’t trouble him. Somehow, it even produces a tired grin on his face. It nearly matches the painted thing hidden, wild and powerful, in the pages of his journal.

[kirby-the-gorb]

[chongoblog]

I remember I tried the Pokemon TCG by opening the game and replaying the tutorial to make sure I remember all the rules and stuff and they gave me a starter deck, with your standard Charmaders, Zigzagoons, and all that. So I play against some bots and get some wins. Then I decide to play a match online and turn one my opponent drops, like Genesect EX or some shit.

[vykodlak]

support group for people who hate board games and card games but are surrounded by friends & acquaintances who keep trying to make them play board games and card games

[somanycards]

Aqua 100% Pure White Plastic Playing Cards by Make Playing Cards - MPC — Kickstarter

[humanoidhistory]

Another loiterer from the draft folder.

[randomrabbys]

The most criminal thing in Like Minds (2006) is the fact that there are at least 4 decks of cards missing a jack of spades.

[zimbits-my-love]

For possible ideas, perhaps more character playing cards?

This was exactly what I needed! Thank you!

I have more ideas so there might be more in the future

Jack and Kent

[holmesoldfellow]

Sherlock Holmes playing cards illustrated by Doug John Miller (Laurence King, 2022)

[sleazyjanet]

aurane waters, the bastard of driftmark, lord of the waters (allegedly) commission for @rhaemartell 🫶🥰

if you want a commission like this of a character of your choice, it comes with the complimentary deck of cards i've drawn 🫣🥰