A BANDIT'S SEIZE
Play at a table In your browser, against the house or a friend — your deck is kept between games.
The Deck
Craft a deck of 42 cards: six suits, each holding the seven cards with the corresponding numeric values — Youth 2 · Beauty 7 · Strife 8 · Love 9 · Wisdom 11 · Kingdom 12 · Death 14.
The six suits:
╲ The Demon · † The Celestial · ∪ The Giver
๑ The Unbound · λ The Wild · θ The Arcane
The Wheel
In the wheel, consonance, dissonance, and complacency exist.
Dissonant pairs:
The Celestial ↔ The Demon · The Giver ↔ The Wild · The Arcane ↔ The Unbound
Consonant kin:
[ The Celestial · The Giver · The Arcane ]
[ The Demon · The Unbound · The Wild ]
Complacency: all other relations.
The Seize
Only the card played in response may seize. The card that leads never turns.
When your card is the weaker card — the smaller number, whatever the suits — you may seize it: turn your card 90 degrees. The Trump turns with it, from its current suit to the suit of your card, and you lead the next round.
Equal numbers cannot seize. A card of the current Trump suit cannot seize.
The turn is priced by the wheel, from the suit the Trump leaves to the suit it arrives at:
To a dissonant pair — the opponent's card drains.
To consonant kin — nothing drains.
Any other turn — your own card drains.
Colorless
A drained card is marked and considered colorless. A colorless card may be played to a trick. It cannot Seize and cannot win a trick.
When an opponent Seizes, you may discard a colorless card from your hand into the trick and negate the Seize. The seizing card turns back and loses the trick as it would have. The Trump does not move. Nothing drains.
The seizer may answer a negation by draining a Youth from hand, or by discarding a Death from hand and retiring the colorless card with it. Either way the Seize is recognized and resolves.
A trick that no card can win is not taken. Toss it into the flames.
The Poles & The Wise
Death cannot Seize.
Discard a Death from your hand to retire the colorless card played to negate your Seize. The Seize is then recognized.
Retire a Youth from the game to restore color to a drained card. The card takes the suit of the retired Youth.
Love and Kingdom, played and retired together, are the only way to restore color to a Youth. Shuffle it back into your deck.
Drain and mark a Wisdom to view the next two cards from any deck. It remains in your hand.
Play
- Decide the stakes: ante 3 to 7 cards from each deck. The antes are the pot, and the winner takes it.
- Each player draws one card at random from the other's deck. The higher card's owner leads; on a tie, flip a coin. Return both cards.
- Shuffle both decks together into one deck for the table. Each player draws five cards to their hand.
- The first card played sets the Trump Tonic.
- Play one card from your hand into the trick, in turn. The highest card wins the trick; Trump cards beat all other suits regardless of numeric value. Ties go to the first card played.
- The winner of the trick takes it into their well and leads the next round.
- When you have no more cards in your hand, draw five more.
- When the game ends, every card returns to the player who owns it.
Winning & The Buyback
Winning is achieved when a Seize turns the Trump back to the Tonic and is recognized. A negated Seize does not win.
If the game has no winner and you run out of cards, you may buy back: add another ante to the pot, shuffle the well of your taken tricks, draw from it, and lead the next round. Retire one card from your hand; on the second buyback retire two, and so on. If you will not buy back, you concede the pot. A player who runs out of cards loses the game.
When you retire a card in any fashion, toss it into the flames.
At any time, either player may concede defeat and cut their losses.
The Marks
To mark a card as drained, take an edge and deface it. To mark a card as restored, score a ring around the defacement and set the rune of the suit it left inside the ring.
The Origin
A deck begins as an origin: 42 cards, crafted or bought. A deck holds no more than seven cards of any one value.
Cards are won and lost at the ante. Retired cards are gone.
When you can no longer hold a hand at the table's ante, your run is over. The cards still standing join your next origin, marks and all.