Illusion Cards: Gloaming and Day of the Dead

Ah, it's you. How have you been? Marvellous.

Here are two more cards for my Deck of Illusions. I guess we're about halfway there now, and I'm loving the symbolism that Sandy's cooked into this pairing. A pool of spilt blood, a candle about to be snuffed, and an army of marching moon-heads. What can it all mean?

Maybe something, maybe nothing. A while back, I congratulated him for including exactly 13 spears on one of his cards - and it honestly came as a surprise that he had.

In a way, I do a similar thing in my D&D games: include random symbolism on the spur of the moment, and build in meaning later on. In our present campaign, Splug returned from the dead with a mysterious map scratched into his back, Swaard heard a strangely-worded prophecy when he died, and Dia discovered she was the legendary "Starfallen". In each case, I dropped these in with no idea where they'd lead, and thought up meanings later (in some cases, years later). Occasionally, hooks like these lead to wonderful things that make me look clever in retrospect. In other cases, they're simply forgotten.

A handful of things that have worked well in previous campaigns:

• The strange feeling you're being watched. Later on, this can be attributed to near enough anybody.
• A mysterious gift left on the doorstep. Who it's been left by - and why it's been left so mysteriously - can be slotted in later.
• Strange tattoos found on the bodies of slain enemies. These are ultimately uncovered as marks of a cult/secret lottery/whatever.
• A device with no obvious meaning. Later on, its purpose is revealed when it suddenly starts glowing/ticking/summoning devils.

Simple stuff really, but some of my best stories have grown from these. Even better, many of them have grown from my players talking about the possibilities around the table. I may be smiling and winking mysteriously, but really I'm thinking "bloody hell, that's a great idea!"

Illusion Cards: Thieves and the Archer

Behold! Two more cards for my Deck of Illusions.

Neither of these turned out quite as I expected, but I'm pleased with them both. I love how the thieves give the impression of being slightly clumsy - but who's betting those magic daggers still cut deep?

Actually, I'm surprised Sandy picked these cards to draw up next, as neither played a particularly prominent role in our game. The Archer wasn't even drawn: it was one of just two cards left after Devlin met the Master. Thieves appeared near the end of H3: Pyramid of Shadows, drawn as the Company battled through a tight maze of haunted passageways. It should have been perfect timing - allowing them to sneak past the banshees that roamed the maze - but sadly Sephirius was having one of those games, and just couldn't shake off the immobilising effects of their screams. So they couldn't leave him.

Splitting the party is famously bad tactics for most D&D players (not least, abandoning party members). Just the suggestion of it gets certain members of my group aghast - probably due to a famous incident back in 3rd Edition. Whilst exploring a besieged citadel tower, two 10th level characters decided to leave the others and quickly scout a stairway alone. "Should we be splitting up?", asked one. "Meh. We can take it", said the other (and that's an actual quote). Three rounds later both PCs were dead: one lying mangled with a broken neck, the other being absorbed by a Lovecraftian Moonbeast. That's eighteen seconds.

The Deck of Illusions

The Deck of Illusions is kind of the ugly, unloved twin to the Deck of Many Things. Whilst it shares the same design - pull a card from a deck to produce a random, magical effect - there's none of the risk that makes Deck of Many Things so thrilling to use. Essentially, all the cards are the same. You just summon an illusion.

I suppose the fun bit is coming up with how to usefully apply these illusions to your situation. This lich could be used to scare off your enemies, but it could also engage them in conversation, right? Perhaps even trick them into following it?

Sadly, no: the second edition rules seem to imply that the illusions aren't even under your control ("The illusions perform normal routines and respond to attacks - they should be played as if they were real creatures"). Back then, the vast majority of cards basically had a single use: scare the pants off your enemies from afar. Kind of sucks if you pull the Pixies card.

3rd Edition clarified the rules so that the illusions reproduced the effects of a Major Image spell, but locked into a predefined form. I guess we can actually control them now, but as they were relatively easily disbelieved with a save - at least, they were in my experience - I still view the deck as nothing much to write home about.

For my 4th Edition game, I thought this artifact deserved a reinvention. When creating the deck, I had a couple of design goals in mind:

• I wanted to give each card an effect that had a clear use in combat. A few of these could be bad for the user, just like the Deck of Many Things. One of them - the Master - could even be deadly.
• I wanted to preserve the ability for players to think up clever ways of controlling their illusions. In the end, this worked best as an at-will artifact power, separate from the card powers.

As you'll see, it turned out very differently to the old Deck of Illusions. I think you'll find it useful in your games: our group's wizard used it to great effect throughout H3: Pyramid of Shadows, so I've had a chance to rebalance the powers after seeing them in play. Oh, and check out the lore for the Prince card - after all his adventures, I couldn't write this up without mentioning our own, friendly wizard at least once.

It goes without saying that you're missing a trick if you don't print out the cards yourselves and provide them to your players as a proper handout. To that end, Sandy's working through the deck now, polishing up the card designs and presenting his own spins to each one. I'll be presenting his designs here on the blog over the next few months, after which I'll wrap them up into a single, made-for-print doc.

Lastly, if you do use it, make sure to drop me a line here and let us know how it went. It would really make our day to know our deck is being used at other tables!