Philosopher’s Stone

There is one fable above all others that has captivated the minds of alchemists and philosophers for centuries. This is none other than the legendary Philosopher’s Stone.

I walked the path of the philosopher a long time ago. It wasn’t long before I learned what I was taught in the carefully crafted halls of academia is a convincing sham, designed to echo the voices of confused dead men for eternity, until we’re all dead too. When I picked up a pen and began to write, I saw it was not in the dry discourse of “reality” enlightenment was to be found, but the floral labyrinth of fantasy, and all its promises of a future unwritten in any text.

It is quite interesting the word Philosopher’s Stone does not originate from philosophy, per se, but specifically alchemy. Originally classified as a branch of natural philosophy that studied chemistry and the table of elements, alchemy was one of the first precursors of modern science. Early in its inception, alchemists the world over became enthralled by the mythical quest to discover a method to transmute base metals into gold.

This method, they coined a Philosopher’s Stone. Why it is called this, and where the term truly originates, remains a matter of some debate. It wasn’t until the past few decades an experimental alchemist of controversial reputation proposed, in an obscure chapter of one of his books, the true Philosopher’s Stone is not a literal stone that transmutes metal into gold.

Rather, he wrote, perhaps the Stone is a symbol for a power of the mind, and the mind’s ability, itself, to transmute matter. This, I invite the reader to entertain as the probable solution to the quest to discover the Philosopher’s Stone.

If you’ve followed my logic in this work, you’ll recognize I often frame the most fantastical phenomena and methodologies as marvelously simple to master. You might also notice, in this vein, you feel some surprise there is a real mind writing this text at all. There is a reason for this.

Nature has a charming simplicity. For all its absurdly mind-boggling paradoxes, it dreams up whole planets and stars and entire species of beings as thoughtlessly as a small child napping in a hammock on a lazy afternoon. This, too, is no coincidence, and is key to the Stone’s creation.

The secret of the universe is that all of existence is a cosmic dream. There is no being who hand-crafted it all, or even imagined it. It is itself a vast dream state, and as a dream state, conjures illusory dreamscapes out of the Void, as sleepers conjure dreamscapes out of their minds. As our dreams spawn subconsciously from us, appearing out of the blue, so the dreams of time manifest spontaneously. It is in this way the dream logic of sleep both stems from biological evolution and shapes destiny in the dream logic of the cosmic chaos called nature, itself a dreamlike dimension. To illumine the true universe requires an oneiric cosmology, not one that foolishly discards the ethereal because it doesn’t fit into a convenient ideological box. Over the course of many eons, the physical and paraphysical sides of the cosmic coin begin to bleed into each other, until at last, the lines between them blur, and melt.

Imagine a caterpillar who’s spent its life quietly chewing on plants in an obscure corner of some obscure planet. One day, it suddenly feels an urge to wrap itself into a chrysalis. It begins to twist and writhe, undergoing an ancient transformation it itself has no knowledge of. For the caterpillar does not know exactly how it is it transforms, or how it came into being. It simply feels the magic of the chrysalis transport it into a deep dream state. Entomologists call the cells that carry the genetic butterfly blueprint imaginal discs. In a very literal sense, the caterpillar imagines itself into a butterfly, and so when it awakens from its sleep, learns to fly.

In the knowledge of this cosmic wisdom, I impart to you the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone. At least, according to Merlin…

Simply play a game of Royal Fortune. Place bets of true gold in the Pot. Only wager gold.

Each of you must agree to seek the Philosopher’s Stone together. Each Lord shall bring a small stone. Any stone will do, or a glass orb. This serves as the Stone’s material vessel.

Play the game. When you win, and so grasp gold you once did not have in your hand, your stone has so transmuted gold into being, and so becomes one of the fabled Philosopher’s Stones.

Bring your Stone to future games with the same Lords. You’ll be able to channel it once a month to do some very intriguing things. Specifically, now that your Stone has transmuted gold, it can transmute diamonds as well.

Play the Philosopher’s Stone. This is your move. It will only work if there’re at least seven cards in the Twilight. Once played, it grants you the sight to see all seven of the Twilight’s cards.

If you find among the cards the Ace of Diamonds, you may show it to the other Lords, and so transmute it into your Castle. This is how a Philosopher’s Stone transmutes diamonds.

Like anything else, if it sounds too good to be true, you should test it yourself and see.

Šeg Niri-a, Reaper of Souls

There is one other small fable to share with those drawn to the Quests and Artifacts of Discordia. This crimson scythe originates from another wartorn kingdom, one now lost to the sight of commonfolk. Inevitably all that is unique and wondrous falls into obscurity, deemed useless and cheeky for its insistence on the original and beautiful above all else. So it was for that kingdom, its name unrecognizable.

One of the arch nemeses and gravest threats of the Cult of Mithras was an evil specter who haunted the castle halls like a faceless phantom without identity or clear purpose. Visiting denizens of the estate in secret, it reaped their souls like so many crops for the harvest. What was left was, in the most literal sense, a lifeless shell of their former self, speechless, mindless. This shell lasted but one day before it collapsed.

The wraith’s penchant for souls earned it a frank and fitting name: the Reaper. It was not, per se, the Grim Reaper himself. Rather, it was a being like a lesser form of Death. Moreover, there was not one Reaper, but many Reapers who assumed many aliases for countless reasons.

I was myself a Reaper then, at times. When I so found myself lucky and the stars aligned, I too walked the halls of the castle, taking names and playing political games. I found myself pretending to be others I was not – a local physician, perhaps, or a maid. I might claim to be an alchemist or mercenary, a fool, even. Whatever class I presented myself as, there was one axiom I learned about the Reapers and their dread frost.

Time is of the essence.

If you find yourself feeling a passing delight at the frosty touch of the weapon’s handle, read on and I’ll elaborate on the path to acquire it.

Šeg Niri-a, Reaper of Souls is a blade deemed immaterial and illusory by the highest sages of the Kingdoms. They’ve made every effort to examine and classify it, and like every other such venture of academics, their stubborn determination ever fell comically short, due in no small part to their assumption it is an object.

From one of the Black Skulls that gaze at the eye within the mind, the Reaper of Souls is bound like a ghostly treasure. You cannot pluck it from its prison by mere force of will, as convenient and satisfactory it would be. To unlock the Skull, you will need to harness the forces of five Artifacts.

A Philosopher’s Stone grants you the wisdom to know the Skull exists. Before you can ever unlock it, you must be aware of it itself. It is in the misty mystique of the Stone the enlightenment to behold the Skull lies.

A Crescent Talisman grants you the sight to see the Skull and so approach it. This you must do in the lunar light of the crescent moon. Then, and only then, will the Skull become transparent.

A Magic Coin grants you the key to unlock the Skull. In the duality of light and shadow, order and chaos, so finally touching it combines all elements of every side, coalescing consciousness around the psychic singularity of transcendence.

A Fire Rune grants you the element necessary to extinguish the field of shadow encircling the Skull, keeping it suspended in a secret flux and so immovable.

A Scepter of Fates grants you the will to ultimately and irrevocably consign it to the red spirals of destiny. Mingling with the dark, the Scepter’s very presence reshapes one’s fate.

When you hold in your possession all five Artifacts from all five Quests, your next step is to recite a poem. This is the final act committed to dissolve reality, and so release Šeg Niri-a.

In a game of Royal Fortune, during the crescent moon, when the power of all five Artifacts is active, bring the King of Shadow into your grasp. You must play the lone King face-up and utter the name of the scythe. If the King survives the incantation, all time is suspended in a dread stasis. Now take the King off the table and spirit him away. You and the Chronicler shall venture into the night shortly before midnight. Discordia remains frozen in time for up to three nights, until you recite the poem in the Chronicler’s presence.

At the stroke of midnight, under the glow of the crescent moon, with the Chronicler as witness, immerse your mind in the dark ambience of the scythe above, set the King of Shadow aflame before you, and recite, word for word:

We gather beneath the smiling night,
in fearless witness of a frightful sight.
So it shall be recorded for all eternity,
the King of Shadow burns in agony.
No answer we expect to our questions.
Death is one of our finest lessons.
In the dark I seek the end of dreams,
where all the lost souls spiral and scream.
All five forces of legend I consign,
to dissolve in the gray sands of time.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
It is for the Reaper of Souls I lust.
Show yourself, Shadow King.
Be reborn now in flames.
Tell me the secrets,
of the faces who’ve no names.

So the King of Shadow dies his thousandth death, one he cannot ever reshuffle. For the remainder of the war, the Twilight is absent of him. Upon the poem’s recitation, your Philosopher’s Stone, Crescent Talisman, Magic Coin, Fire Rune, and Scepter of Fates turn to dust like the King. If you wish to count them among your belongings, begin a new Quest.

Play on, and seek some semblance of peace.

At the game’s conclusion, you will feel your palm chill with the icy will of the scythe. You will know, then, you grasp the Reaper of Souls.

Six times a year, every two months at most, the scythe has collected the souls necessary to harvest one greater. With a new Twilight and new King of Shadow, enter Royal Fortune. Search for the Six of Blood. It is the Blood Rune the Shadow King uses to see the scythe. You yourself can only see it, so ephemeral and ethereal it is. Every waking moment, the crimson blade fades from existence slowly, losing reality.

Play the King and Six. Utter the scythe’s name, and set your sight upon a Lord’s soul. In that instant, three hidden souls the King reaps, ushering them veiled into death. None can escape, save those eclipsed by the highest magics. For ninety Eves, or three months in Discordia time, the King remains visible with his Six, harrowing the Castle of the Lord. The King and the Rune cannot be interceded or otherwise interfered with in this state. In thirty Eves, he reaps another three cards. In another thirty Eves, he reaps another three. Finally, at the end of three months, the haunted Lord’s visage withers and decays into a spectral spiral of uncanny demise. It groans miserably, its vision and mouth falling void black. Its countenance pales faintly blue, and the Reaper of Souls takes another name.

Once the Lord is dead, the Reaper storms their Castle, seeing all souls within. It chooses any to capture and return to its own Castle.

Now you must tread wisely. For in three months time as it is measured in Discordia, you yourself will meet a similar fate. Šeg Niri-a drains the life force of any who wield it, slowly rotting them to the bone and frosting their very soul. Your soul will turn to frost like the soul you reaped, lest you claim victory before your end. Make haste then, to win the war and so banish the malevolent illusion back into your skull.

Quests

Upon mastery of Royal Fortune, an adept of the game enters a prime position to read and contemplate the handful of Quests Lords choose to undertake, their lore, and their Artifacts.

Each Quest is unique. Each connects to a singular aspect of Discordia. To begin them, all you need do is read the Quest, enter a game, and begin your adventure. It may take you some time to complete them, should you wish to. Do not be shocked if you spend months or longer on a single Quest, so stubborn cards and chance can be.

To some, this is part of the amusement.

For a Quest to be undertaken, four Lords must convene and formally decide on one or more Quests to begin together. This is key. A Quest must be undertaken by four Lords, no more, no less. You can try to complete them with two or three, and you could consider the adventure real regardless, but Merlin said if you do this, the Quest Artifacts would be imaginary at best.

You must convene with four Lords. Once you do so, each Lord concurs to allow each other to pursue a given Quest. This concordance is recorded in the Chronicler’s Logbook, and becomes an official dated event. Be warned.

Once all four Lords agree to formalize a Quest, and so allow it to be written, the decree is final. It cannot be revoked even if all four Lords later wish to revoke it, or three Lords wish to stop one from pursuing their Quest. This means, if any Lord completes the Quest, the Artifact they attain is logged by the Chronicler, and so exists.

For documentation purposes, sign each of your names adjacent the declaration in the Logbook. Take a photograph, each of you. This serves as proof of the concordance and Quest.

Take time to understand each Quest. As each has its own origins and ends, you’d be wise to make a mental note of the magic of the cards.

Odyssey of the Royal Grandmaster

Brooding clouds quaked with cloaked lightning when the first Lords set about dealing the cards across the table, seeing in their shifting movements a fae witchcraft without name or peer. What fun was to be had in the mere touch of cards, and their cryptic suspended flux. Like paper sigils whose very faces hold a universal power, each and every player of their games feels in each and every deck the same silent invitation, to take one’s seat, glance into the shadow of one’s palms, and behold.

Your first Quest, as an aspiring adept of Royal Fortune, is the most fitting to test your aptitude for foresight, perception, honor, discipline, and above all, patience. If you find yourself struggling to sit still, stillness itself is your greatest life lesson to learn. It is in this awareness I tell you of the Royal Grandmaster.

A Royal Grandmaster is a Lord who’s undertaken the Odyssey with three others, and has accomplished the feat of winning a game of Royal Fortune with all four Royal Houses.

Do this, and you can call yourself a Grandmaster of the game. While it may sound simple enough to win with all four Houses eventually, one key principle in the matter of Quests is that, the sooner you secure Quest Artifacts, the sooner you can use them in your Quest for other Artifacts, if they’re so pursued. If you wait around to draw a lucky card forever, you’ll soon find your foes possess powers they once did not, and seek even greater ones still.

Begin your Quest, then, in the knowledge those who complete it first attain a distinct advantage and compelling aura, recognized as they are among their peers as a Royal Grandmaster who’s mastered the secrets of all the Kingdoms.

Once a Lord ends their Odyssey, and so becomes a Grandmaster, they’ll be noticed by the Dragon Ancients for their excellent performance. The Ancients, I promise you, will send a draconic emissary the next lunar cycle. Come the first crescent moon, upon seeing it, you’ll be gifted a Crescent Talisman that night in your sleep.

Crescent Talisman

Crafted, I am told, by the most esteemed dreamshapers of the Ancients, the Talisman is reserved solely for those Lords who prove themselves worthy in the wars of Discordia. If you find the game a silly joke, then laugh it off and carry on. If you want a Talisman, you’ll have to earn it. That means taking the game a tad seriously, despite its proclivity for mischief.

Upon being gifted a Crescent Talisman, you’ll be able to tap it first come the next lunar cycle’s crescent moon. From then on, it can be used only once each cycle’s crescent moon. Be sure to invoke the Talisman, then, when you need it most, and only then.

It permits the wielder to view a single enemy’s entire Court. This uses your move for the Eve. Now, a few pieces of advice. Much of the time, in Royal Fortune, you will actually know some of the other Lords’ hands. You may even know or deduce every card in a Lord’s Castle.

There is one sort of situation in particular a Talisman presents a highly valuable weapon. This is when a Lord has quietly drawn for several Eves, you do not know any of their cards, and you don’t find a better move to make. This is one of the sole scenarios wherein using a Talisman and so using your move is worthwhile. It is then you’ll decide whether you wish to keep the knowledge you gained a secret, or share it with others.

Jester’s Magic Coin

It became documented by state scribes the Jester has one or two other tricks up his sleeve, ones he saves for a rainy day, when he finds himself in a tricky spot, or feels like having fun.

One of these tricks is his Magic Coin.

Given the supreme political power of the Royal Kingdoms, all the armies they command and sorceries they harness, you would think it would be an easy enough task to send their soldiers to arrest the Jester, and confiscate his Magic Coin. You wouldn’t be the first to try, as it were.

That’s the thing about Jesters… Just when you’ve thought you’ve caught one, it slips out of your fingers like so much sand in the wind.

One of the first to learn how to get close to the Jester was none other than the Queen of Shadow. She is, as you know, the very same Queen who adroitly eludes the Jester’s infamous Bemuse.

If the Queen gets her hands on a Skeleton Book, and the Lord has begun the Jester’s Magic Coin Quest, the Lord who controls the Queen can choose to summon two Skeletons to stagger at a single card, rather than two. In her furious driven pryings of the Jester and his secretive doings, the Queen discovered he is afraid of Skeletons.

Why is that, you ask? I haven’t the faintest idea. And I’ve never been able to find the Jester to talk to him and inquire why. All I know is, the Queen’s Skeletons can give him a nasty fright.

Suppose the Queen sends her Skeletons at a single card. If that card happens to be the Jester, the Skeletons will corner him briefly, so distraught with deathly dread he’ll be. He’ll still manage to escape, but not before the Skeletons get their fingers on his Magic Coin. Whether he drops the Coin in fear by accident, or the Skeletons grab at him and snatch it, I don’t know. In any event, the Queen will take the Coin.

This is where it gets particularly tricky. See, once the Shadow Queen takes the Coin, she has it whether she stays in the Lord’s Court or ends up somewhere else. Wherever she goes, she’ll have the Magic Coin. All any Lord has to do to get it is show down a Shadow House in their winning Royal Fortune, with the Skeleton Book. She has to have the Skeleton Book on hand because, since the Jester is now in her Court, she’ll want to remind him not to come looking for the Coin, lest she loose a pair of Skeletons upon him again.

Whoever pulls this off, gets a Magic Coin.

Magic Coin

Oh, isn’t it splendid?! What unspeakable entertainment there is in a single flip of a coin! What is the Magic Coin after all, you wonder?

Well…

Once a week, if you have the Jester and he’s able to Bemuse, you can show the Jester at any time and say, for all to hear, “Magic Coin!”

Produce a simple coin, any coin, and ask the Dealer to flip it. It must be the Dealer who flips it. If it lands heads, the Jester can pay a visit to any Royal anywhere, face-up or face-down, and Bemuse that Royal at once. This means, if any Royal is visible on the table, or invisible in a Castle, the Jester can Bemuse them nonetheless!

Fantastic!

If it lands tails, the Jester will turn tail in shame and pout. You’ll flip him face-down somewhere near your Castle. He’ll stay face-down there, visible to the other Lords, for seven Eves. After he’s sobbed for long enough, he’ll show his face briefly, say HA HA, and hide.

You really must be careful about flipping Magic Coins. If anyone is capable of killing or capturing the Jester, they’ll be none too pleased with your antics and put a stop to him at once.

Fortune Queen’s Vengeance

Above all other magics, the magic of dragons alone became the deepest jealousy of the other Queens. Each of them capable of highly skilled spellcraft in their own rights, they nevertheless could not but wish to speak to dragons too, and shape them in their mind’s eye. This lust for power fell ever flat, vain as any other and riddled with impossibilities and paradoxes at every turn.

They plotted against the Queen of dragons, the three witches did. Every slip of slander, every broken mirror and river of blood they whispered into being with a black venom churning with all the raw kinetic force of a primeval galaxy. They would possess the power of dragons too, they would, the Fortune Queen and all her kin be damned.

What they visited upon her is not a misfortune mortals of flesh and blood could possibly understand. Though they themselves act like playing cards, allowing unseen Lords to shuffle and cast them where they’re needed for this game, their breath falls and their heart beats with a natural distortion of consciousness, an existential bias preoccupied with passing illusions of form. Very rarely do they ever fall quiet enough to hear the cards whisper, and when they do, they laugh it off as their own minds playing tricks on them.

So the Fortune Queen plotted her vengeance. Disgraced and irreparably dishonored, she’ll see the three Queens pay if it’s the last act she takes.

She dreamt up a grand dramatic scene to send the other Houses a message they’ll never forget. It dawned on her one sleepy night when she saw a vision of the Band, and its dark draconic enigma. Perfect, she thought… And so…

When a Lord desires to play party to the Fortune Queen’s Vengeance, and the Queen sees the other three in her ranks, she’ll take the opportunity to exact her revenge. She must wear the Band of Dark Dominion. Rolling the Die, she wishes to get lucky and roll 7. If she does, she’ll go mad, and twist her gaze toward her own Court. It is then she can murder the three Queens, making an example of them before all.

Her Quest isn’t over yet. Once she’s dealt with her hated rivals, she must assemble her House of Fortune, find the Jester, and keep the Band. Were she to do this, and show the Band within the hand of her Royal Fortune, her vengeance will be complete, and her Quest won.

In three nights, the red dragons of the Fortune House will bestow upon the victorious Lord one of their precious Fire Runes.

Fire Rune

It would be of little scholarly value to venture to explain how the Queen of Fortune beckons dragons in her rule. At a glance, you could swear all you see is a Queen card beside an Ace card.

This is, and has always been, the secret of dragons. It was never a matter of trekking into the countryside and up far-off mountains in search of gloomy lairs and frozen peaks. Dragons have existed in our minds since time immemorial, and forever will. This is, perhaps, what none of the other monarchs understand about the Queen.

It is for this very reason, if you possess a Fire Rune, you yourself beckon dragons with but one flash of the Ace of Fortune. This, the Fire Rune is capable of every seven nights. For it to work, the Ace itself must have its Crimson Dragon attack. If it does, you will alone summon the Dragon. It cannot be paired with the Seven, and you will only kill three cards. As you will not need the Queen’s aid, the Rune proves very useful in positions for which it is demanded.

Merlin’s Magic Mushroom

Now is when I anticipate we should settle this issue of Merlin and his theories. I imagine you doubt I’ve ever met Merlin. Perhaps you think I made it all up. Fair enough. Why wouldn’t you?

Is there anything unfabricated in society?

Merlin himself beseeched me to acknowledge how quickly folk will conclude he doesn’t exist anymore, and never existed at all. This, he raved about between vindictive mutterings about Gandalf and how he’s a greater wizard than him. I couldn’t follow some of what he said, no doubt due in part to the phantasmagorical state in which it is necessary to be to make contact with Merlin.

It is this very psychedelic plane Merlin said was behind the story of his Magic Mushroom.

According to Merlin, he has a very special, very rare kind of Magic Mushroom. This specimen, he explains, is “one in a trillion” and dearly prized by some of his rival wizards and closest apprentices. It is exceptionally abnormal in its characteristics. These include not only exceptionally elaborate dream states, but the spontaneous and inexplicable rematerialization of the Mushroom itself some time after being eaten.

“Nonsense!” he proclaimed.

“Simply flabbergasting.”

This transtemporal super-persistence phenomenon, as he categorized it, has been recorded by the Arcanists in only a handful of cases across the entirety of the universe over billions of years. (Merlin is not himself an Arcanist or so they say, so you’ll have to take their word for it when they say it’s as rare as it is.) It is certain it is the same Mushroom, Merlin argued, because it looks and feels exactly the same, has the same psionic signature when scanned by a Psychotronic Particle Triangulator, and elicits the same effects and same dreams. By all appearances, the very Mushroom you eat pops into being exactly three days after ingesting it.

After speaking with the Royals, I was able to figure out a method to get your hands on the Magic Mushroom in Royal Fortune.

Here’s how.

First, find the Queen of Chaos. You will also need to bring all the other Queens into your ranks. The Queen of Chaos is who will guide you to the Mushroom. Once you have all four Queens and a Chaos Cube, show them and the Chaos Cube and say, “Merlin’s Magic Mushroom!” You’ll cast the other three Queens into your enemies’ Courts, one Queen into each Court, keeping the Chaos Queen for yourself. They must accept them.

Do whatever you can to prevent the Chaos Queen and Chaos Cube from falling into the hands of the others. In this time, the Queens you sent forth will follow the Chaos Queen’s instructions and learn what they’re able to in their Quest to discover the secret of the Mushroom.

After you cast the Queens into the other Courts, find a way to get them back. Upon returning, if you have the Chaos Queen and Chaos Cube, they’ll share their findings with the Queen. You’ll have to take a move to show them all again, to continue. Now set out assembling the House of Chaos, keeping the Cube as long as you can. Once you have a full Chaos House with the Jester and Cube, show it and win the game.

This is the only known method to find Merlin’s Magic Mushroom in Royal Fortune.

Magic Mushroom

Merlin couldn’t tell me much of sense about the Mushroom. His unhinged ramblings seemed incoherent or contradictory at points, as though alternatively speaking of multiple conflicting realities at once. In one version, he said the Mushroom must be the creation of Eris herself, whom he was adamant is the true creator of the cosmos. This further explains the dreamlike quality of existence, how it melds the physical and paraphysical, and how its spontaneous manifestations mirror those of a dream. All of this and other “key pieces of evidence” led Merlin to the conclusion she is the Mushroom’s originator.

In another version, he half thought he himself hallucinated the Mushroom, or else it was some kind of exotic manifestation of his subconscious. He wasn’t all that convinced of any one particular cohesive theory, and at one point waved it all away and said, “Basically, this shit is real weird.”

If you eat the Mushroom, you’ll be immune to any single-target spell that kills a Lord, once, for eight hours. Eating it uses a move, it can only grant protection from death spells before they’re cast, and its effects end at the conclusion of eight hours. That’s how long it lasts. After that, the Mushroom wears off and you’ll have to pluck another one from your mind in three days.

That’s all it does, I think. It may hold another possibility, or several. You’ll have to see.

Merchant of Madness

In my travels across Otherworld, I’ve encountered many strange characters with many strange names. Some of these I’ve called friends. Others I’ve killed, or used for suitable purposes. It really is not a dimension of reality I’d ever be able to codify in a few simple words. Archivists have written whole tomes on the other side, and continue to now. If you’re interested in what the universe is truly like, I suggest you pick up a book, open to a page, any page will do, and read.

On two occasions, I’ve been fortunate to cross paths with a trio of merchants. These aren’t any ordinary merchants. They each sell wares of a bizarre and surreal breed, as likely to fit snugly in your pocket as vanish into dust in your hands. I’ve quite enjoyed my conversations with them, taking my time and committing to memory what I can. Of course, you learn as you traverse Otherworld, it isn’t always easy to recall events and dialogues. Myself, believe it or not, I forget most of all I’ve ever written!

It’s on this note I would remind you, in passing, there do remain some writers who still write by hand, as popular as it’s become to task machines to press keys for you. While I am no visual artist, I am a visionary, and this is all I need to tell you the story you want to hear.

One of these merchants is named Tiamatu. Upon first learning his name, I consulted the etymology of the word. This habit is often useful in tracing the source of language. Interestingly, you’ll notice words and speech sometimes appear in dreams, even novel inventions. If you want to see the origins of society, follow its language to its root. This is how it all began, in the end.

Tiamatu I trace from the ancient era of the Akkadian Empire, a Sumerian-aligned country that became one of the earliest empires in existence on my home planet. It connects directly to the word Tiamat, a sea goddess of mythology. Tiamatu translates roughly to sea chaos, or simply chaos.

In the traditions of certain races of aberration, they use variations of such ancient words as birthnames. Alternately, entities who manifest without direct creators like parents may naturally refer to themselves as names like these. This phenomenon can be observed in the Dream World, where entities will, upon being asked their name, sometimes provide very outlandish monikers.

It remains unknown to me, to speak truthfully, whether the trio of merchants in question spawned from an actual race of beings or exist, in reality, as emergent nightmares. I am inclined to settle on the latter explanation.

Tiamatu is known as the Merchant of Madness. This title stems from the entity’s selection of wares of a mad nature. One might see him sell such trinkets as a top hat that drives its wearer insane, a crazed kaleidoscope that peers into the inner insanity of the viewer, or cursed masks with ominous backstories and evil powers.

It is one such mask I tell you of. This one is simply named the Mask of Tiamatu. It is not one I know Tiamatu himself to sell. At least, I’ve never seen him offer it to me. Rather, the Mask is one certain travellers find in their journeys, or else, if he does sell it, it is only to the most insane clients who’re able to trade him for it.

My observations lend credence to one specific technique at the disposal of a Lord who wishes to procure the Mask. This technique involves using the Band of Dark Dominion, similarly to how it is used in the Fortune Queen’s Vengeance.

Play a game with the Band and Cube. Collect a King, Queen, and Prince of a given House, as well as the Jester. Now tell the Queen to wear the ring, ensure she brings the untapped Cube with her, and roll the Die. If it rolls 7, she’ll go mad. She must go mad to continue the Quest. When she does, command her to kill her King and Prince, and the Jester. They’ll all die face-up.

This must transpire in a single Eve.

You now keep the Queen, Band, and Cube bound to your soul. They cannot be wrested from your grasp by any means. Place them face-down beside your Court. Here, the Queen remains entranced in a secret ritual during the war.

Once this occurs, you can only win the game with the House aligned to the mad Queen. Seek them out, collecting the King, Prince, Jester, and Ace of her House. In this time, no spell of any kind can break the Queen’s vortex trance. You’ll have unlimited time to assemble a Royal Fortune.

Once assembled, reveal your hand, including the Royal Fortune, Band, and Cube. It will take some two weeks for Tiamatu to travel to you. In exchange for the Chaos Cube, which the Queen has ensorceled in her madness, he’ll trade you the Mask, and depart. This is how to buy the Mask.

Mask of Tiamatu

I will warn you only once. The Mask of Tiamatu is extremely dangerous. It is one of the few magical masks in existence impossible to remove by any known means. Once donned, the wearer cannot ever take it off their face.

This is why the Mask is forbidden from being handled in the highest wizard academies. It is remarkable, the documented sensation of the temptation to wear the Mask, despite its perils. So strong is its pull, it is thought the Mask itself can compel minds of madder bends to wear it.

Once worn, the Lord who wears the Mask falls into an eternal insanity. On any of their moves, on any Eve, they can, in a murderous madness, kill 1-7 of their cards face-up, and draw 1-7 new cards. They only kill their cards face-up if they choose to draw two or more. This magic of the Mask does not come without a price. Every seven Eves, on the mad Lord’s move, they must roll the Die 1-7. This number of cards, they also kill face-up, drawing from the Twilight the same.

Beware. The temptation to wear the Mask is real. The longer some stare at it, the deeper will grow their impulse to obtain it. As attractive as its curse may seem, it is inevitable it will sooner or later lead to the demise of very prized cards.

Book of Mordecai

Some two months prior, I began a preliminary study of an elusive tome. This grimoire, I’m familiar with similar forms of. Such nightmare tomes are not common books. They spawn from and exist in the Nightmare, from which master magi are able to conjure them.

One of these, the Arcanists know only as the Book of Mordecai. Of course, you’ll wonder who Mordecai is, and it is here I, as always, tell you truthfully I don’t actually know.

I may be the chronicler of these archives, but it doesn’t mean I “invented” these beings. Mordecai is, or was, an evil wizard. He first appeared on Earth circa 2014. During this time, I remote viewed him and his villainous activities. He recruited a secret cult based on the east coast of the United States. There, he and his cultists were engaged in ritual sacrifice. He appeared to travel in a black subterranean sphere, the same sphere it is thought he arrived from the stars in. Sightings of him were reported in several countries around the planet, including Romania.

All descriptions of Mordecai were consistent: A ghastly, wretched man aged roughly 50-60, in a tattered hooded cloak, carrying a black wooden staff with a gnarled tip. His eyes he kept shrouded under his hood at all times, wearing ever on his face a malevolent smile ear to ear. His movements were spry, with youthful energy and tone of voice. It seems to me his eyes were bright orange.

On this point, this was one aspect of Mordecai the Arcanists agree was most troublesome. Any who gazed at his eyes were submerged into a black chaotic madness, trapped in unending hallucinatory psychosis for the rest of their life. It is thought Enn Corp retrieved some of them for examination. They were never seen again.

After his disappearance two years later, there were rumors he was active in the obscure reaches of Otherworld, on the other side of the Physiverse. All of it indicating, no doubt, an interdimensional explanation of Mordecai’s true identity. As rumors developed, the Arcanists and Merlin became aware of a black book said to exist either in Mordecai’s possession or found among his accursed belongings in one of his abandoned hideouts, a dusty, vertical, twisted library dripping with cobwebs and ransacked by goblins.

There is a key difference, I should note, between goblins and gremlins. Mordecai was known to travel with a band of black, red-eyed gremlins, referred to as vacuum gremlins, who would appear suddenly to vacuum the organs of his victims as part of his organization’s schemings. Inspection of his apparent library by two of the Arcanists found the creatures there were in fact common green goblins, who scattered into holes in the wall at the sight of the wizards.

The Book of Mordecai, based on what little I’ve seen recounted of it, is a highly hazardous black nightmare tome made wholly of nightmare. Such books aren’t comprised of common matter. They’re conjured and infused with the odious, noxious fabric of nightmare itself. At a glance, it is said the Book appears like an ordinary, slightly dusty large tome. Upon gazing at it for a period of time, or conversely looking away with one’s guard dropped, the Book’s cover malefically mutates, spawning horrible, wretched abominations that could as easily be raw physical horrors as illusory hallucinations. In particular, the Book, which purportedly lacks any eyes unlike a number of other nightmare tomes, hosts a massive monstrous maw squirming with endless tendrils, biting leeches, and lashing tongues. If you aren’t careful, it’s said the Book can eat you.

Darth Mickus, Hades, and the Evil Queen have undertaken a search for the Book, an old wizard who asks his name be omitted tells me. They’re convinced they can adapt the Book to suit their ends, despite its rumored propensity to afflict, dement, and devour any who read it.

So the saga of the Book continues, entwined as it is with others not so disconnected in the disparate scatterings of time and space. It is possible, I will inform the reader, for one and only one Royal to read the Book, that I know of.

This Royal is the mad Chaos King.

To do so, the King’s Lord must have eaten a Magic Mushroom within the past eight hours. This same Lord must also wear the Mask of Tiamatu. Then, and only then, can the Chaos King perform the ritual to read the Book.

Find the Band of Dark Dominion. The King himself will wear the ring, despite the inability of Kings to wear it normally. He will only be able to place it on his finger if you’re on the Quest.

Find the Ace of Chaos. With the King and Band, play them with the Ace.

Simply say, “Book of Mordecai.”

For three Eves, the mad King enters a Nightmare Trance. He is vulnerable to magics able to interrupt the ritual in this time. Once played, you won’t be able to act for those three Eves. These Eves are counted by the three Eves  that follow after the King enters the Trance.

If the King survives the ritual with the Band and Ace still in his grasp, at the end of the third Eve, no matter the position, he’ll read the Book. At this time, the Dealer says Psychedelic Vertigo, forces all the other Lords’ Courts face-down, arranges them in a triangle around the King, and mixes them in a circle of chaos for three minutes. The King reads the Book in the circle’s center.

The King closes the Book. The Dealer rearranges three seven-card hands, deals them to the other Lords, and the King’s Lord retracts and cloaks the King and Band, keeps the Ace, destroys its other four cards, and draws four.

The King’s knowledge can only be transmitted to the Lord by making a House of Chaos and revealing a Royal Fortune. For the rest of the game, the King and the Band remain face-down in seclusion before the Lord’s Castle. They remain immune to all magic in this time.

Once you convene a House of Chaos in possession of the Chaos Cube, show it alongside the King and Band and claim Royal Fortune.

It is then the knowledge of how to create a Key Sword is learned, and the game ends.

Key Sword

A Lord who completes the Quest so wields a Key Sword. The Sword can be held by one Royal alone, the King of Chaos. It can be used in either an offensive or defensive role. In either form, the Ace itself must be off cooldown to be harnessed.

If used offensively, the King appears with the Ace of Chaos, slashes his Key Sword at a single adversary, and slays three cards face-up.

If used defensively, the King appears with the Ace of Chaos to neutralize the Ace spell of a Queen who focuses his Court. The spell is thwarted.

In either use of the Sword, the Ace begins a customary cooldown of seven Eves.

Fate of the Four Kings

We descend into the depths of the final Quest of Royal Fortune, and one of its most difficult. This story begins with the inception of Discordia itself, on a date lost to historical records, when the very first soul to inscribe four Kings upon four cards of a deck began a centuries-old tradition.

What did the Kings learn in the eons of their phantasmal wars? What wisdom was imparted to the cards, and so imparted to their holders? A surreal syndrome befell all who entered the world of cards. Some never left, taking their secrets to their graves. Over all the topsy-turvy ages, as misfit marbles tumbled through the infinite dark headed nowhere for no one, the four Kings came to see death as a comical illusion. How easily a mighty crown falls in a single moon, vanishing into the Twilight, then reemerges from it carrying the same life force. Death, then, has since been seen by them as an amusing merry-go-round, circling back time and again to the same games.

To decide the Fate of the Four Kings, conjure the Coil of Fates and sit down to play. As all Quests, the Artifacts necessary to complete it must exist in play from the very first Eve.

Kill each of the four Kings with the Coil. Ordinarily, the Coil can only slay hidden Royals. If the Fate of the Four Kings Quest is undertaken by a group of four Lords, the Coil can slay either lone face-up Kings or Kings hidden within the walls of their Castles. It can be cast out of turn against lone visible Kings.

Once the Chronicler confirms you’ve killed all four Kings, convene all four Kings into your Court. Ensure you keep control of the Coil.

Simply reveal their faces and the Coil, claim victory, and the combined power of the Kings forms the legendary Scepter of Fates. Remark on the two other cards in your hand. They’re sure to be a message about your own fate.

Scepter of Fates

It is the King of Fortune himself who wields the Scepter of Fates. This, he does by the one and only Seven of Fortune. If used, the Seven must be able to be cast, and when cast, it will enter a recharge over seven Eves. Once every four weeks, the Lord who possesses the Scepter can choose to call upon the King. Just say Scepter of Fates, make a scepter motion if you like, and all seven souls in the Castle of a nemesis perish, face-up.

Royal Chaos

Thus concludes the game of Royal Fortune.

As an honorable mention, I’ll tell you about another seven-card game. We call it Royal Chaos.

When the Royals feel like playing a bit of old-fashioned poker and gambling, they get together to play some Royal Chaos. This seven-card poker game uses the basic rules of five-card draw, one of the original variants of poker.

In Royal Chaos, two Jokers join the game. Each Joker is a wildcard that can masquerade as any other card. With a 54-card deck, four Lords take their seats round the table and begin.

Set the blinds. Antes can also be used. The Dealer deals a seven-card hand face-down to each Lord. Action begins on the player under-the-gun.

In the first round, Lords may call the big blind, raise, or fold in turn. If action goes to the draw, each discards 1-5 cards or stands pat. Jokers in the deck and seven-card hands mean some very whacky hands are possible, including six of a kind, five of a kind, seven-card flushes and straights, and more.

In the second and final round, Lords may check, bet, raise, or fold in turn. Best hand wins.

We’ve undertaken a probability analysis of hand rankings in Royal Chaos, based on rarity. It appears high card is technically rarer than one pair and two pair, but we’ve placed high card at the lowest rank regardless. We aren’t professional mathematicians. It’s possible this system is goofed, so take these rankings with a grain of salt and let us know if anything seems off.

Hand rankings in Royal Chaos:

– Super Ultra Mega Dragon Attack
– Six of a kind
– Seven-card straight flush
– Four of a kind with trips
– Seven-card flush
– Five of a kind
– Six-card straight flush
– Four of a kind with a pair
– Full house with a pair
– Full house with trips
– Straight flush
– Seven-card straight
– Six-card flush
– Four of a kind
– Full house
– Six-card straight
– Flush
– Three pair
– Straight
– Three of a kind
– Two pair
– One pair
– High card

You’ll expect an explanation of the highest ranking hand, I surmise. I will provide you one.

Long ago, centuries before the Four Kings were lost to time – once ruthless brothers, some say, when faceless peasant mothers lost count of the drops of blood shed by their forgotten sons, one fateful stormy night, as rolling gloom submerged the Kingdoms into darkness and all the land wept in tears, the Shadow Queen convened in secret with her fair friend of the time, Master of Diamonds and Fortune, to discuss a most taboo and mythical question: the magic of dragons.

What was said between them then, and why, remains a mystery. Their ritual, formalized after countless nights of experimental inquisition, we know to now be called the Ultimate Shadow Dragon Spirit Bomb. Back then, it went by another name…

Super Ultra Mega Dragon Attack.

This first version of the draconic spell required the presence of the true Four Kings. As no Jester can be a King in the flesh, it must be the Four Kings themselves. Joining them, the Queen of Fortune and Queen of Shadow summon the dragon with the Ace of Fortune, trumping all other hands.

How do they do this, you ask?

Ask yourself a better question:

How could any poker hand beat a dragon?

For those who love classic poker, Royal Chaos is a new spin on a very old game. Cards shift and cash rises and falls as the Royals and their Runes play a tricky game in a merry-go-round of chaos and chance, trying to find the Jesters as always and one-up the opposition, or pretend to…

Art of Magic

So you want to play the game of cards. You’ll have to sit back now and take a gander at all the rolling pink eclipses melting the clocks into eternity for no one’s delight. God save the Queen but be sure to pay the piper and you’ll feel the touch of the Royals in your hands too. What is there to stake but what we’ve chosen to play with this round? Behold in their black eyes the untold secrets of wealth and power, a delicate illusion of light and shadow that was always a game of cards, a bit of betting here, a bit of bluffing there, and from time to time we’ll throw the deck into the air! Then it’s back into the shuffle and everyone’s to take their places, tip your hats now and adjust your shades, a new game’s begun and if you’re tired of the last, you only need lower your eyes to the cards you hold and see there’s someone there gazing back up at you…

Slithering red mists, they took hold of my mind and I never saw in clarity again. I remember lightning, and thunder and fire. People are playing a grand game of marbles and I’m not the type to play along… Spinning themselves into a mad frenzy, hypnotized by nonsense they don’t understand. Where else is there left to go but beneath the flowers and thus into the stars? Like a thousand luminescent eyes watching us all waste a millennium trying to figure out how to give your neighbor an apple. Be sure it isn’t poisoned! That’s how you end up the laughing stock of all the other poisoned. It’s a ride along the wave of clouds away, one blink and it’s all a dream, inverted on its head like everything should be.

It is something about the

INTANGIBILITY

of the cards’ magic that draws me most. How the magic exists wholly in the rainbow ether of imagination, ever subject to interpretation and variation. How, despite being only cards in your hands, you perceive in them something invisible to the eye. How they transcend all your petty, boring dramas written with the same dry hand and script, like an hourglass upturned from time to time per protocol. Did you think I would buy your silly games forever? Rather than make my own? But of course I didn’t make this one at all. No… It is the intangible Royals who made them, crafted all the fancy Laws in their inhuman mystical genius, and waited all those long, long years for someone to pause and listen.

Behold with me now… All the wasted battlefields of wars long forgotten… See the smoke rising from the hills… Red coursing among the blades of grass sifting in the careless wind… I’ve a story to tell, not one easy to explain, and it’s about much more than cards and cash. When the moon rises next, the clock will strike midnight and melt, snapping flesh into shadow and back to flesh again, and wouldn’t you know there’s ever a clever new invented evil on the horizon, waiting to be fought? For the show must go on! So take your places and adjust your hats and shades, the Royals wish to play a stranger game, where the rules bend like clay and all reshape them to the heart’s desire. They tell me I’m ugly, a wretch among wretches. A nihilist! Well I would say I’m more of a transcendentalist, if you must know. I’ll stay down the rabbit hole, thank you, sipping my tea and waiting for the next hand… That’s where a little blonde told me, magic is an art and art is a magic, and it’s very easy to get them mixed up, like anything. So is the way of laws and the words that fabricate them. It’s second nature to forget it’s all make-believe, from the very first stroke of ink upon paper to the very first press of a key. You could swear, when you look at those tall elephants in the sky, they seem perfectly content to live in a painting all their lives. Like candy gumdrops, you could say. That’s why, whatever you choose, and wherever you go, it’s high time to place a bet.

DLX