recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Mangle

## Ability

### Ability

**Through the Wringer****(Play)** If you are losing the round, gain +17 Power/Turn this round.

## Did You Know?

"Once again, CUE, you come to me with a seemingly mundane subject that I bet you can't tell me anything interesting about," I hear you lament. Indeed, finding out interesting information about the **Mangle** (a mechanical device with two large rollers designed to squeeze water out of clothes) is confounded by the prevalence of Mangle, a character in the popular Five Nights at Freddy's series of games, hogging all the SEO for the term.

Well, how about this. What you see on the front of this card is a very typical Victorian mangle. Today we dry our clothes in tumble dryers, but there are still industrial-sized mangles used in the fabric industry. In 2016, one very unfortunate textile worker in the UK got his hand caught between two mangle rollers, crushing it instantly.

To save his fingers, surgeons made an incision in his abdomen and sewed his hand into it for three weeks. The procedure is called a Pedicled Abdominal Flap and was used as a way to quickly transplant new tissue to his hand, as well as protect it while it healed.
Okinawan Kobudō

## Ability

### Ability

**Old Martial Way****(Play)** 6 of your random Weapons of Choice cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

From 1609, the island of Okinawa was run by the Satsuma samurai clan from Japan. Under their rule, weapons (and martial arts in general) were banned. As you might have guessed from your experience on Earth so far, banning things doesn’t really work, so Okinawan martial artists developed their own weapons from everyday farming and fishing tools. These weapons became incorporated into the Okinawan martial arts system, and came to be known as **Okinawan Kobudō**, (literally "old martial way of Okinawa”).

Many of the movements and techniques of Kobudō are similar to those used in Karate, and both emphasise discipline, focus and respect - the key difference is that Karate is an empty-hand art, while Kobudo is weapons-based.
Ordo Templi Orientis

## Ability

### Ability

**O.T.O O.T.T****(Return)** If you won the turn, this card gains +60 Power until played but if you lost the turn, this card loses -30 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

If you’re ever invited to join **Ordo Templi Orientis**, be warned: you’re joining a secret occult organisation based on ritual magic.

Founded in Germany around 1904 by Carl Kellner, the O.T.O evolved over time to focus on something called Thelema – a religion created by the occultist and former head of the O.T.O, Aleister Crowley, that is based on the central principle, “Do what thou wilt.”

According to Crowley, members of the O.T.O should rarely be in contact with one another unless absolutely necessary. As you might imagine, initiation into this secret society involved elaborate ceremonies, the ultimate goal being to “instruct the individual by allegory and symbol in the profound mysteries of Nature, and thereby to assist each to discover his or her own true identity”.

'Ordo Templi Orientis' by DwarffN (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Oilsands

## Ability

### Ability

**Fossil Fuel****(Draw)** Your Paleontology cards in hand cost -1 Energy permanently.

## Did You Know?

They say you can't get blood from a stone, but it seems you can get oil from them.

Oilsands are sands that contain bitumen, which is a very viscous form of petroleum, which can be extracted and turned into fuel. There are huge deposits of it in Canada, Venezuela, Russia and Kazakhstan.

As a fossil fuel, it's not very sustainable anyway, but it also happens to be the most expensive form of oil to produce and it only tends to be a profitable enterprise during times of conflict in areas with natural oil wells.
Nagoro Village

## Ability

### Ability

**The Doll's Village****(Draw)** If your deck has 3 or more Playtime cards, your Horrible Halloween cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Worried about being forgotten when you die? Move to **Nagoro Village**, where residents live forever! Well, kind of. After returning home to find many residents of Nagoro Village had died or left in search of employment, Tsukimi Ayano had an idea. To combat her loneliness, she replicated former residents in doll form - a completely normal thing to do.

Today, about 350 creepy, life-size dolls can be found “going about” their daily lives. In the local school, a few dozen dolls wait for lessons to begin. On the riverbanks, you’ll find a few fisher dolls competing for catch of the day. Once you get over the feeling of being watched, it’s not a bad place to live - plus, you’ll never have to worry about getting caught in conversation with the neighbours.
Kunekune

## Ability

### Ability

**Made of Bricks****(Play)** If played between two cards, this card gains +33 Power.

## Did You Know?

Some people visit New Zealand for the breath-taking scenery, delicious food, friendly culture and relaxed atmosphere. Me? I’d board a plane to New Zealand just to make the acquaintance of the **Kunekune**, the smallest breed of domestic pig in the world.

Honestly, dogs and cats had better watch out: this creature’s #PetGame is strong, and not just because it’s incredibly adorable. In fact, kunekune are known for their docile nature and love of human company.

These hairy pigs are born in a variety of colours: black, brown, ginger, gold, cream and spotted and their hair can be long, short, curly or straight. The native Māori people of New Zealand adopted Kunekune, naming them after the Māori word for “fat and round”.
Octopus Stinkhorn

## Ability

### Ability

**Devil's Fingers****(Draw)** Your Horrible Halloween cards, wherever they are, gain +6 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

**Octopus Stinkhorn** looks like the first sign of the end times. Especially to those familiar with The Last of Us. This horrifying fungus “hatches” from an egg like <link="https:>those awful gooey alien toys from the 90’s.</link> From here, it erupts into four to seven elongated slender “arms”, which unfold to reveal a pinkish red interior with a dark spore-containing gleba. When they reach maturity, Octopus Stinkhorns (aptly nicknamed Devil’s Fingers) smell like rotting flesh.

It may not be from outer-space, but in the UK, Octopus Stinkhorn is considered an alien species, originating from the Southern Hemisphere, and it’s thought to have been introduced to Europe with war supplies in 1914. Before you rush to bulk buy toilet paper / a flamethrower, you’ll be pleased to know that this fungus is non-toxic.
Orihime and Hikoboshi

## Ability

### Ability

**Tanabata****(Play)** Your Space cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power this round and if played between two Japanese Folklore cards, your Space cards, wherever they are, gain an additional +12 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Dear Diary, I’ve fallen in love with the cutest guy! His name is Hikoboshi, and he lives just across the Milky Way. But here’s the thing. Even though my dad, God of the Heavens, actually introduced us, he’s now annoyed because our deep connection is distracting from my weaving. Okay, so I am, like, a pretty great weaver. But still!

**Orihime and Hikoboshi** has such a nice ring to it, it’s meant to be. Now Dad is saying we can only meet up once a year if I return to weaving, which will be the 7th day of the 7th month. Oh, and since we can’t cross the Milky Way, we’re going to have to rely on some magpies to build us a bridge so we can be reunited. Typical.
Nematode

## Ability

### Ability

**They're Everywhere!****(Draw)** If your deck contains all 7 albums, all cards in both player's hands gain +10 Power and cost -1 Energy this turn.

## Did You Know?

Everyday, the **Nematode** wakes up and choses violence. You see, these microscopic parasitic worms thrive at the expense of others, releasing bacteria into the host’s body to kill them.

Their victims can range from plants to animals, or they can occur as free-living forms in soil, fresh water as well as unusual environments like vinegar and beer malts. When a nematode injects saliva into a plant cell from its mouth and then sucks out the cell contents, it’s bad news for the plant.

Now, we know how it sounds, but #NotALLNematodes are bad. Although the few species responsible for plant diseases get the most attention, the majority of the nematode community don’t harm plants and are actually helpful in controlling plant-damaging insect pests.
Nellie Bly

## Ability

### Ability

**72 Days by Land and Sea****(Play)** Your Oceans and Seas and Life on Land cards in hand gain +12 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

On January 25, 1890, established journalist **Nellie Bly** completed her around-the-world trip in just 72 days, beating the fictional record set by Jules Verne's character Phileas Fogg. Upon hearing of her trip, competing paper Cosmopolitan sent their own reporter to race against Bly. While they had the means, they didn't have a fearless investigative journalist who had recently faked madness to do an insider report in an insane asylum. Need we say who won?

'Nellie Bly (Pseudonym of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman)' by H. J. Myers (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under Public Domain (original image resized, cropped and altered)

CRAFTING CLUE BELOW!

... or should that be "CLUES"!

- Maradona's oldest ancestor? Certainly one of the largest.
- Make peace with Ajax...
OMG Particle

## Ability

### Ability

**OMG-WOW!****(Play)** Your WOW! Signal card in hand gains +32 Power this turn and, if your deck has 6 or more Life on Land cards, it gains an additional +10 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Since its discovery in 1991, the **OMG Particle** (literally meaning oh-my-god particle) has baffled scientists.

It had been a normal day on Earth; Mariah Carey’s ‘Emotions’ was still holding the top spot in the Billboard charts and Clarence Thomas had just been confirmed as Supreme Court Justice. But that night, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray travelling at 99.999,999,999,999,999,999,9951% of the speed of light crashed through Earth’s atmosphere and streaked across the Utah sky.

At that time, it was the highest-energy cosmic ray that had ever been observed, possessing 10 million times more energy than what our most powerful particle collider, the LHC, can produce. At this speed, it could travel to our nearest neighbour star, Proxima Centauri, in 0.43 milliseconds of the particles own time. OMG indeed.
New Orleans

## Ability

### Ability

**Steamboat Willie****(Draw)** If your deck has 4 or more Riding the Waves! cards, your Stage and Screen cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

While it wasn’t captained by a whistling mouse called Willie, the **New Orleans** was the first steamboat to be built on the western waters of the United States, which makes it a pretty big deal.

The ship was created by Robert Fulton and Robert R. Livingston, who had already patented a steamboat design, which was operating on the Hudson river. They then brought in Nicholas Roosevelt, who was a whizz when it came to steam engines. The team created an iconic vessel, which embarked on a maiden voyage to…well…New Orleans on 20 October 1811. It was captained by Roosevelt who was joined by his pregnant wife and daughter.

The voyage was a success and Roosevelt invited many prominent figures aboard for a gala and everyone was in awe. And Roosevelt’s wife even gave birth to their second child ON THE SHIP. Feel like you could have docked somewhere for her there, Roosevelt. Come on.
NGC 2392

## Ability

### Ability

**Under the Hood****(Play)** Your cards, wherever they are, gain +7 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

**NGC 2392** is situated in the constellation of Gemini, around 5000 light-years from Earth. There's a star in the centre that is surrounded by phenomenally powerful winds, which push particles around that create that filament effect.

It's naming has been the subject of controversy. In the past, it's gone by "The Eskimo Nebula" and "The Clown-faced Nebula", both of which are potentially offensive - it's recommended that its NGC (New General Catalogue) designation is used until someone finds a less problematic name. I suggest "The Kenny Nebula", although it's probably best that these things are named by people who didn't waste the nineties watching trash on TV.

## Trivia

* This card was formerly named "Eskimo Nebula" but was changed into "NGC 2392" due to controversy.
Naro-1

## Ability

### Ability

**Naro Margins****(Return)** If you won the turn, your cards, wherever they are, gain +8 Power next turn.

## Did You Know?

Behold **Naro-1**, South Korea’s first carrier rocket. It consisted of a Russian-built first stage and a South Korean-made second stage - a small solid fuel kick motor with 3-axis control. This combination of technologies was only capable of launching very small microsatellites and was soon replaced by the completely South Korean built Nuri launch vehicle.

Still, the Naro-1 had a good go. Also known as KSLV-1, this baby took its first flight back in 2009. Sadly, when the payload fairing separation system malfunctioned, the satellite protective cover stayed bolted to the second stage. The added weight made the rocket tumble upwards before being thrown off course and hurtled 20km above the planned altitude. We give it an A for effort.

'Rocket Image' by Korea Aerospace Research Institute (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under KOGL Type 1 (original image resized, cropped and altered)

Rocket in Flight Image By Korea Aerospace Research Institute (Source: kari.re.kr) is licensed under KOGL Type 1 (original image resized, cropped and altered
Nothosaurus

## Did You Know?

Not a-nothosaurus… is what you would be thinking if you were a fish swimming around during the Triassic period and this beast had you locked in its sights. The animal was around 4-5 metres long on average and had long powerful jaws with needle-like teeth. In Ancient Greek, the name **Nothosaurus** means “illegitimate lizard” – right enough, this aquatic creature wasn’t too legit to quit and was wiped out by the Triassic extinction event.
Pack Release Schedule

Different types of packs are on different schedules that overlap. Almost all packs (card packs and gem bundles) are on a 2-day rotation or a weekly release. This means that the full cycle takes two weeks.

The pack name includes the duration (D) that it is in the shop. Prices are in coins (C) or gems (G). The bought bundles are not priced as it differs by currency.

## Monthly Special

 Moon in Motion Pack
 Zodiac Sign Pack
Laestrygonians

## Ability

### Ability

**Dead Calm****(Play)** If played alone, your The Original Odyssey cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

As if Odysseus didn’t have enough on his plate, he had to face the **Laestrygonians** on his way home to Ithaca. When he and his soldiers arrived in Telepylus with a dozen ships, the Laestrygonians - a tribe of man-eating giants, couldn’t believe their luck. They saw Odysseus and his crew like a JustEat driver pulling up with a pile of pizzas. Before long, the giants had taken out eleven out of twelve ships by throwing giant rocks from the cliffside. Fortunately, our hero escaped with his ship and the men on board because he had kept it moored to a rock in a hidden cove.

According to historian Angelo Paratico, the legend of the Laestrygonians may have originated from Greek sailors sighting the <link="https:> Giants of Mont'e Prama</link> in Sardinia.
Grýla

## Ability

### Ability

**Festive Family****(Play)** If played between Icelandic Yule Cat and Yule Lads, your Icelandic Yule Cat and Yule Lads cards in hand gain +35 Power this turn. **(Return)** If you have played Icelandic Yule Cat and Yule Lads this game, your cards, wherever they are, gain +25 Power next turn.

## Did You Know?

🎵“Down comes **Grýla** from the outer fields / With forty tails / A bag on her back, a sword/knife in her hand, / Coming to carve out the stomachs of the children / Who cry for meat during Lent.” 🎵

With so many characters from Christmas folklore out for the blood of bad children, it’s hard to know who to fear more. In any case, Grýla is undoubtedly high on the list. This Icelandic Christmas ogress lives in a cave with a family of strange creatures who launch attacks on nearby towns.

Stories of Grýla date back at least 700 years, originally mentioned in the Prose Edda as a giantess. Since then, poems about Grýla have linked her with Yule, describing her appetite for child-based meat stews that she prepares in a large pot.
Mawsonia

## Ability

### Ability

**Maw Power!****(Play)** Your Monsters of the Deep cards in hand gain +24 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

**Mawsonia** was a large prehistoric fish that lived around 100 million years ago. Fossil evidence suggests it could grow up to 6.3 meters (20 feet) in length. To put that in context, that's around one and a half saloon cars or half the size of the current largest fish in the world, the Whale Shark.

The long-extinct **Mawsonia** was a coelacanth, a rare order of fish closely related to lungfish and tetrapods. Other coelacanths still exist today, and like its living relatives including the West Indian Ocean coelacanth, it is thought to have been predatory eating up smaller fish, invertebrates and cephalopods.
Night Vision

## Ability

### Ability

**Clear as Day****(Play)** Your Innovations of War cards, wherever they are, gain +14 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

The first **Night Vision** devices were used in World War II by the Nazis. Slight snag with these first generation devices: they had to be transported around by flat bed trucks. They might have helped the Nazis see at night but Allies found them an easy target during the day.

Fast forward to the 1990s and yet another war is underway: The Gulf War. By now, the advanced state of Night Vision was one of the biggest advantages the US army had, which prided itself on “owning the night”.

Contrary to my personal belief, Night Vision is not powered by magic. Instead, it works by intensifying ambient light from the moon/stars etc by using chemical and electrical processes. This produces the bright green image that you see on TV, in movies, or in Tom Clancy video game adaptations.

CRAFTING CLUE BELOW!

- Don't let the theatre burn - or go out of business.
One Red Paperclip

## Ability

### Ability

**Trade Up****(Draw)** Steal 2 Energy from your opponent. **(Return)** Your opponent gains +30 Power/Turn next turn.

## Did You Know?

Want to get a foot on the property ladder? Get a paperclip. It sounds nonsensical, but in 2005, Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald traded his way from **One Red Paperclip** to a house in a series of fourteen online trades. During that time, MacDonald became the temporary owner of a hand-sculpted door knob, the chance to spend one afternoon with Alice Cooper, a neon Budweiser sign and a KISS-themed motorised snow-globe.

Clearly, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, because American actor and film director Corbin Bernsen was ready to exchange a role in the film ‘Donna on Demand’ for this KISS relic. And he did, allowing Kyle MacDonald to trade the role for a two-story farmhouse in Kipling, Saskatchewan.
Orange Baboon Tarantula

## Did You Know?

When a spider’s entire reputation is based on how aggressive and eager to attack it is, that’s a good sign to keep your distance if you spot one in the wild. The **Orange Baboon Tarantula** absolutely fits in this category.

Also known as ‘Orange Bitey Thing’, this species was first described by British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock in 1897. Although their venom isn’t lethal to humans, their bite is painful, and they have been known to lash out unprovoked.

Given that this spider is an Old World tarantula, that’s not totally out of character: Old World tarantulas (those from the ​​Eastern hemisphere, a.k.a. the “old world”) are faster and more aggressive than their new world counterparts. In other words, the OBT is not a candidate for your next pet.
Mystic Mountain

## Ability

### Ability

**Lord of the Ring (System)****(Play)** Your Carina Nebula, Eta Carinae and Carina Nebula Landscape cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

Sometimes, the wonders of space outdo the vast imaginations of sci-fi artists. Case in point: **Mystic Mountain**. Around 7,500 light-years away from Earth in the Carina Nebula is a region that looks like a dreamworld thought up by J.R.R Tolkien.

The image of this dazzling part of space was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2010 and shows a three-light-year tall cosmic peak. Near the centre of Mystic Mountain are a pair of jets known by the catchy names HH 901 and HH 902. These jets are launched by swirling gas and dust and are signposts of intense star-forming activity. The vibrant colours in the image correspond to the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green) and sulphur (red.)

'Mystic Mountain' by NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI) (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under Public Domain (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Nitrogen

## Ability

### Ability

**Abundantly Pure****(Draw)** If your deck has only Science cards, this card gains +30 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

While a pretty big hit in the universe at large (coming in at number 7 on the list of most abundant elements), **Nitrogen** really made it big on Earth - where it makes up 78% of the atmosphere.

Daniel Rutherford discovered Nitrogen in much the same way Columbus discovered the West Indies - which is to say, he certainly discovered something, but he had little idea what it was. He certainly didn’t realise he was dealing with an element.

Some of Rutherford’s peers referred it as ‘phlogisticated air’ (guaranteed to make you sound drunk even when sober) - as they believed it was full of the *completely made-up* substance Phlogiston. The course of progress never did run smooth.

Nitrogen is largely inert unless ‘fixed’ in a compound such as ammonia. You might think of ammonia as the gas produced by ‘smelling salts’ (used to bring round people who are unconscious) - but it has a far more important use. Over half the world’s food production depends on ammonia for fertiliser.
Orion Nebula

## Did You Know?

The Orion Nebula is essentially an enormous cloud of gas and dust where thousands of new stars are being formed.

It's is one of the most observed and photographed celestial bodies in the night sky. Most nebulae are extremely difficult if not impossible to see without the aid of a telescope, but this diffuse nebulae (meaning it has no well-defined boundaries) is visible to the naked eye on dark nights.

If you fancy taking a look, find Orion’s Belt (part of the constellation) visible as three medium-bright stars (Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka) in a short straight row. It is easiest to spot in January, which was two months ago on the day this card was originally released. Put it in the diary for next year.

Incidentally, Orion was a hunter in Greek mythology. God of the sky Zeus generously agreed and turned Orion into a constellation, as well as the Scorpion that killed him, which is where we get Scorpius, another constellation.
Oriental Bay Owl

## Ability

### Ability

**Haunted Scream****(Draw)** If you are losing the round, your Life on Land cards in hand gain +15 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Large dark eyes that bore into your soul, a distinct eerie hoot that can be heard in the evening and facial features that look like the wood elves from The Elder Scrolls: the **Oriental Bay Owl** may not fit the usual definition of cute - that is, until you see them dancing like <link="https:>awkward teenagers at a school disco.</link>

Like teenagers, oriental bay owls stay awake all night and rest in the day. Sadly, a population of this species became extinct on Samar Island in the Phillipines due to a bombing raid in 1945. Fortunately, there are plenty more oriental bay owls across Asia, their distribution ranging from Nepal, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Burma and Thailand, east to south China, south through the Malay Peninsula to the Greater Sundas.
Marie Antoinette

## Ability

### Ability

**Extravagance****(Return)** Your Ultra Fusion and Mythic cards, wherever they are, cost -2 Energy this round.

## Did You Know?

History paints Marie Antoinette as a snobby queen with an extravagant hairstyle and a disdain for the poor. In her defence, she didn’t actually say “let them eat cake,” and evidence shows that she regularly visited and gave food to poor families.

So, why the bad rep? Well, when the country is experiencing rampant poverty, living a lavish existence in a regal palace doesn’t bode well. Plus, her replica of a peasant farmyard which she and her friends used to “play pretend” was beyond the pale.

Nine months after King After Louis XVI was executed, Marie Antoinette followed him to the guillotine. On her way, she accidentally trod on the executioner’s foot and said: “Pardon me, sir. I did not mean to do it.”
Mock Turtle Soup

## Ability

### Ability

**Mock the Turtle****(Play)** If your opponent's deck contains exactly 4 Arts & Culture cards, your Arts & Culture cards, wherever they are, gain +12 Power until played. Repeat for each album.

## Did You Know?

We wish we could tell you that **Mock Turtle Soup** exists because people went “oh maybe we shouldn’t be killing and eating all these turtles”, but that’s not the reason. It’s mostly because fresh turtles were too expensive. We know, it makes us sad too. I mean, they were driving turtles to extinction too but that wasn’t the priority.

In the 1700s, when everyone was on Extreme Exploring mode (and you know, colonizing), sailors caught turtles in the West Indies and would bring them back to Europe and turtle soup became incredibly popular. And a good chunk of that popularity came from the fact that royalty loved it and kickstarted a trend amongst the upper classes. They could afford turtles and if they said it was delicious, so would everyone else!

However, not everyone could just send a fleet off to bring back some turtles so an alternative was created. Mock Turtle Soup was usually made with a boiled calf’s head, mutton or veal broth, spices, oysters, vegetables and…chopped brains. If that hasn’t turned your stomach, Heinz even made a tinned version as the dish became a British classic. “Classic” feels like a strong word to use here.
Mexican Tetra

## Ability

### Ability

**Blind Spot****(Draw)** Two random opponent's cards in hand lose -12 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

A word of warning: if you spend too long sitting in darkness, your children may evolve to have no eyes. Okay, so that’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s essentially what happened to the **Mexican Tetra** fish.

Today, there are two forms of the fish: a surface-dwelling form, which has eyes, and a cave-dwelling form, which is blind. With food so scarce in caves, the animals have to conserve their energy - and apparently, vision is costly due to the demanding nature of photoreceptor cells and neurons.

Without their eyes, the cave-dwelling Mexican Tetra has more energy to breathe and search for food. Instead of eyes, the blind variation of the species navigates by ‘sucking’ water to create a 'force field' that reveals nearby objects.
Naked Mole-rat

## Ability

### Ability

**Adapt to Survive****(Draw)** If you are winning the round, this card gains +6 Power permanently and if you are losing the round, this card gains +12 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

The **Naked Mole-rat** is, in this writer's opinion, the cutest critter to have yet adorned a CUE card (of course, I kiddeth thee).

Fans know it as a *sand puppy*, without any good reason as far as I can tell; it doesn't fetch sticks and is pretty indifferent to the company of humans.

But now for something really interesting: they are a eusocial mammal - meaning that, like bees, they live in hierarchical colonies in which only one female (the queen) breeds and the rest of the colony perform different functions such as soldiers or workers. Unlike insect colonies who have a queen created for them, the female naked mole-rats have to assert their dominance over one another in order to be selected. This can be done with little disruption or sometimes there's a mole-rat war.
Mother Orangutan

## Ability

### Ability

**Mother Knows Best****(Return)** If you lost the turn, gain +45 Power/Turn next turn.

## Did You Know?

Orangutans get their name from the Malay language where “orang” means person and “utan” means forest, thereby making an Orangutan a person of the forest. Orangutan arms can measure 8 feet from fingertip to fingertip, which is longer than they are tall.
Nostradamus

## Ability

### Ability

**Les Prophéties****(Draw)** This card **Lock**s for 6 turns. **(Play)** This card gains +200 Power.

## Did You Know?

Michel de Nostredame, usually Latinised as **Nostradamus**, was a French astrologer, physician and probably the most famous fortune-teller of all time. His book “Les Prophéties” was first published in 1555 and contained a collection of 942 poetic verses predicting future events. From the rise of Hitler to the development of the atomic bomb and the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, Nostradamus is credited with predicting some of the biggest moments in our history.

So, what’s the deal? Did Nostradamus have superpowers? Probably not, according to most scholars. Since his book didn’t actually give away specifics, many people argue that the vagueness of his predictions makes it easy to quote him after any such event and retrospectively claim them as true.
Oliver Cromwell

## Ability

### Ability

**Warts and All****(Play)** Your opponent's Arts & Culture cards in hand lose -20 Power this turn and your opponent's Prominent Painters cards in hand lose a further -10 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

George Washington blew people’s minds when, at the end of his second term as president, he stood down from the presidency.

Sure, that sounds obvious *now*, but back then the accepted practice was to talk a good game about freedom and people’s rights, then follow it up by hanging onto office for life and passing it onto the kids, thereby establishing a hereditary dictatorship. The idea that someone would hand the reins over to a new president *while they were still alive* was quite special, and got America off to a stellar start, democracy-wise.

**Oliver Cromwell**… was no George Washington. And you can pretty much trace the survival of the British monarchy back to Cromwell’s botched attempt to provide an alternative (for which Netflix is presumably grateful.)

Cromwell ticked *some* of Washington’s boxes: he successfully mounted a revolution of sorts (though we generally call it the Civil War, maybe because we never stayed ‘revoluted’), he replaced the monarchy with an alternative government, and he was a pioneer when it came to Constitutions.

However, Cromwell was widely disliked, and he dismissed his own parliament in favour of a military government before installing himself as ‘Lord Protector’ (read: ‘dictator’).

By the time he died and handed power to his son (never a good sign) the people had had enough of Cromwell’s Puritanism and were more than happy to welcome back Charles II (the party-time King) to abuse power in the old-school royalist way.

While Cromwell’s legacy consists primarily of "lessons learned", he also gave us the phrase "warts and all". When having his portrait painted by Sir Peter Lely, Cromwell rejected the Insta filters and airbrushing typically favoured by royalty and (allegedly) asked instead that he be painted "warts and all". The painter, as you can see from this card, happily obliged.
Mimas

## Ability

### Ability

**That's No Moon...****(Play)** An opponent's random card in hand loses -30 Power this turn (reveal before scoring).

## Did You Know?

In Greek mythology, **Mimas** was a giant with serpents for legs. This moon doesn’t have snake legs, but it does have a giant impact crater that stretches a third of the way across its face, making it look just like the Death Star from Star Wars. But, in this case, that IS a moon.

Mimas was discovered by the English astronomer John Hershel, who spotted the moon with his 40-foot reflector telescope in 1789. The first of Saturn’s moons, Mimas has a surface area of around 500,000 km – just slightly less than the land area of Spain. Its orbit around Saturn takes about 23 hours, which is just under the 24 hours and 40 minutes it takes to watch every Star Wars film (or the 8 hours and 58 minutes it would take to watch the good Star Wars films, hehe).
Nutcracker

## Ability

### Ability

**Symbol of Luck****(Draw)** If you are losing the round, this card gains +60 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

Here at CUE, we are betting our money that we don’t run out of card ideas before we reach the standard **Nutcracker** and confidently here refer to the Nutcracker doll, also known as the Christmas Nutcracker (inventive), the decorative figurine hailing from late 17th Century Germany.

Not only were they a delightful and useful addition to a Christmas setup (before the 20th Century, since when they have lost the whole “cracking nuts” shtick), they are also considered in German tradition to bring good luck and frighten off naughty spirits.

Friedrich Wilhelm Füchtner (also aptly known as the “father of the nutcracker”) first began mass-producing these beauties in 1872, but it wasn’t until after the Second World War when these dolls found fame outside of Europe, finding their way to American homes via soldiers who’d served in Germany, who’d bought the dolls as souvenirs.

This doll which featured in the story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, from which the world-famous ballet was adapted. How suite is that?
Missing Link

## Ability

### Ability

**Hypothetical Intermediate****(Play)** If your deck has 3 or fewer Human Evolution cards, your Human Evolution cards, wherever they are, gain +30 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

*“COULD THIS FOSSIL BE EVIDENCE OF THE MISSING LINK?!?!?!!./.11.|!”* - says every news report when archeologists make an evolutionary discovery. It makes for great clickbait, but the term **“Missing Link”** isn’t well accepted in the scientific community. They prefer “transitional morphologies” to describe fossil discoveries that have anatomical features of both older and more recent physiology.

Now the million dollar question: have we actually found the hypothetical extinct creature that sits halfway between modern humans and our primate ancestors? Maybe. In 2019, scientists identified <link="https:>this guy</link> as the new “family tree member” between upright apes who lived 3 million years ago and Homo habilis who lived 1.5 to 2.1 million years ago. Remember, if you’re not a fan of modern life, <link="https:>we can always go back to that.</link>
Pacific Gull

## Did You Know?

I'm afraid that there's not a great deal about the Pacific Gull that separates it from other birds. Its beak does have a very cool feature though - aside from being a lovely shade of orange, it has salt glands which extract salt from its bloodstream and excrete it. This allows them to survive on salt water, which is awesome! Except quite a lot of other sea birds do that too.

Sorry, sometimes "Everything" includes barely remarkable things.

We feel bad featuring such a run-of-the-mill bird. Sorry about the gull... Click here for a full apology!

## Trivia

* The CUE Code "SORRYABOUTTHEGULL" gives you 10000 Coins (see others at: CUE Promotional Codes).
* As of 19/03/2023, the last line changed to "We feel bad featuring such a run-of-the-mill bird. Sorry about the gull... Click here for a full apology!" and if you tap it, you receive a pack containing 10000 Coins.
Neptune, God of Water

## Ability

### Ability

**Trident Tested****(Play)** Your Oceans and Seas cards in hand gain +15 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Although Neptune is well known as being the Roman god of freshwater and the sea, he was also the god of horses. He legitimately could take a horse to water and then make it drink.

Some interpretations have him as the god of earthquakes too, owing to his temperamental nature (he's said to be unpredictable and violent, much like the oceans), but he could be reasonable too. One myth tells of the time he had a contest with Minerva over who could make the most useful item for humans - he made a horse, and Minerva made an Olive Tree. Go read our Olive Tree card, and you'll see why he conceded to her.

The symbol of Neptune is the Trident, his iconic three-pronged staff. There are many interpretations of its meaning. The scholar Maurus Servius Honoratus said it had three prongs because there are three kinds of water; seas, streams and rivers. Maybe he'd not heard of lakes.

Or ponds.

Or lagoons.

Or canals.

Or fjords.

Or glaciers.

Or bayous.

Or lochs.

Or channels.

Or (enough - Ed.)
Magnus Hirschfeld

## Ability

### Ability

**Educated Activist****(Play)** One of your random cards from each of World of Words, Marvellous Medicine, Shake Up The System and Philosophy, wherever they are, gain +30 Power for 4 turns.

## Did You Know?

**Magnus Hirschfeld** was a pioneering German physician and sexologist known for his groundbreaking work on human sexuality and LGBTQ+ rights activism. Throughout his career, Hirschfeld maintained that sexual orientation was an innate characteristic rather than a choice, challenging the prevailing societal attitudes of his time. In 1919, he opened The Institute of Sex Research, the first sexology research centre in the world, and it was here that the first sex reassignment surgery took place.

Sadly, much of Hirschfeld's work was destroyed or lost during the Nazi regime: the institute's publications were burned, and the building became a Nazi propaganda museum. Nevertheless, his legacy as a pioneer in the field of sexual science and gay rights activism continues to inspire and shape modern understanding and acceptance.

'German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935).' by Wellcome Images (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Mexican Mole Lizard

## Did You Know?

Love it or hate it, you can agree that the **Mexican Mole Lizard** is one of the strangest looking reptiles on Earth. Despite its name, this puzzling creature is not a lizard, nor is it a snake – it sits in a category all by itself: the amphisbaenians.

Unfortunately for the Mexican Mole Lizard, it doesn’t exactly have the best reputation. The people who share its stomping (or burrowing) ground have a long-standing myth that says the creature wriggles out of toilets to attack the nether regions of unassuming humans. No incidents of this have ever been reported, but if you happen to be in Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, there’s no harm in checking the bowl before you do your business.
Monkey Orchid

## Ability

### Ability

**Monkey Mimic****(Play)** Your Epic Primates cards in hand gain +30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

What do you get when you cross a flower with a monkey? No, it’s not a Chimp Pansy (oh come on, that’s a good gag…) – it’s the Orchis Simia, a.k.a. the **Monkey Orchid**, which does kind of resemble our primate cousins, if they all wore hoodies.

Mother Nature may have had some mad Photoshop skills, but she didn’t quite nail the scent: instead of bananas, the Monkey Orchid smells like ripe oranges.

NB Other flowers have also taken on the ‘Monkey Orchid’ title, such as the Dracula Simia, which looks like a chimpanzee’s face.
Niels Bohr

## Ability

### Ability

**Up and Atom****(Play)** Your Excellent Elements cards in hand gain +25 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Niels Bohr (7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who helped discover Quantum Physics and the structure of the atom. He is considered one of the most important physicists of the 20th century and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1922 for discovering the quantisation of atomic energy levels.

Expanding on Charles Darwin's earlier work, Bohr was one of the first to finalise a model that demonstrated electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom. He explained that each element on the periodic table had chemical properties that were determined by the number and behaviour of their electrons.

Bohr was also the first to theorise that an electron could move from a higher orbit to a lower one and that in the process energy was emitted.

Keeping it in the family, his son, Aage Bohr, was also an important physicist and in 1975 also won a Nobel Prize.
Neutron Star Collision

## Did You Know?

On August 17th 2017 two Neutron Stars crashed into each other and emitted both gravitational and electromagnetic waves. The stars had been gradually spiralling towards each other for millennia, like they were caught in a giant cosmic plug hole.

This was the first time astronomers had ever witnessed such an event, and it's significant because the waves emitted will help us establish the rate at which the universe is expanding.

'Neutron Stars Rip Each Other Apart to Form Black Hole' by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Source: Flickr) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Oceanic Whitetip

## Ability

### Ability

**Pro Tip****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, gain +3:energy/turn: next turn.

## Did You Know?

The **Oceanic Whitetip** has earned a reputation for being first to arrive on the scene when ocean ships run afoul (this is a strange and specific reputation to have but hear us out).

They got this name during WWII when the shark was blamed for many of the fatalities related to the tragic sinking of the steamship Nova Scotia off the coast of South Africa.

Just 192 of the 942 men on board survived. Eyewitness accounts from the survivors recounted a "feeding frenzy" as the sharks attacked men waiting in the water for rescue.

It’s probably because of this: the shark is described as opportunistic, bold and unpredictable and should be "treated with extreme caution." You know, like you would most other sharks.
Monochrome

## Ability

### Ability

**Deal in Absolutes****(Draw)** Your Philosophy cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

The term ‘**Monochrome**’ comes from the Ancient Greek word ‘monochromos’, meaning ‘having one colour’. According to the experts, this technique is usually used by artists for two reasons: to reduce the artwork to its simpler form and draw attention towards form and texture, or to create a sense of tranquillity or “spiritual purity”.

The term ‘monochrome’ is most commonly used to mean the same as black and white, but can also be used for artwork using only tones of a single colour like green and white. When it comes to image printing, monochrome will use more ink than grayscale. That’s because monochrome images use colours to produce blacks and whites, while grayscale only uses black ink to print greys.
Monk Seal

## Ability

### Ability

**Overhunted****(Draw)** Your Ocean Mammals cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power until played and this card loses -10 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

The **Monk Seal** differs from the other 17 species of seal based on size, coloration, and ... um... *earlessness*.

Oh, and also the fact that Monk Seals are the only ones that are endangered.

The Mediterranean and Hawaiian Monk Seals managed to outlive their Caribbean brethren, but they’ve certainly grown wary of humans, and will often scatter from their beach habitat to the sea or secluded caves at the sight of humanity.

Contrary to popular belief, this reclusive nature is not why they’re called Monk Seals. That has more to do with the folds of fur around their necks, which resemble the hooded cowls of a monk’s robe.

In addition to overhunting cutting into their numbers, disease has prevented many seal pups from reaching adulthood in sufficient numbers to replenish the previous generation.

To raise awareness of the species’ plight, the Hawaiian Monk Seal was designated as Hawaii’s official state mammal in 2008.
Nuclear Pasta

## Did You Know?

**Nuclear Pasta** is currently thought to be the strongest material in the known universe. This galactic... something... if it exists... can be found beneath the crust of a neutron star and is made almost entirely of neutrons. The neutrons and remaining protons are extremely compressed which results in them organising themselves into unusual structures (hold tight for some pretty intense, official scientific terminology); Gnocchi, Spaghetti, Waffles, Lasagna, defects, antispaghetti, antignocchi. Nope, that's not an extract from my shopping list...

Unlike real pasta, if you tried to bite through it, it'd likely leave you with no teeth and take an estimate of about 10 billion times the force needed to shatter steel just to break through it. So definitely don't confuse this with the pasta on your plate, you will regret it.
Mitochondria

## Did You Know?

When we’re eating, we don’t tend to ponder what our cells are doing with the food we’re putting in our body. It’s thanks to **Mitochondria**, the parts of the cell that turn sugars, fats and proteins we eat into a form of chemical energy, that the body can carry on living. These powerhouses produce about 90% of the chemical energy that cells need to survive!

On their own, they are similar in shape to a jelly-bean – however, Mitochondria can quickly change shape and move around the cell depending on what they need to do. Oddly, they also have their own DNA, leading some scientists to believe that mitochondria were descended from organisms who lived on their own.
Necromancy

## Ability

### Ability

**Spirit Summoning****(Draw)** If your deck contains no Science cards, give 5 random The Occult cards, wherever they are, +28 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Who needs crystal balls or tea leaves when you can conjure the spirits of the dead and consult them about your future? A word of warning: this form of black magic is not for the faint hearted. In fact, faint hearted people should probably steer clear of black magic altogether.

Known as **Necromancy**, this practice was first considered by the ancient Greeks as a way to descend into the underworld of Hades. Now more commonly associated with witchcraft, necromantic rituals were almost always elaborate.

To prepare for the event, a necromancer might wear the clothes of the deceased and sit in a graveyard for days on end. Some even went as far as the mutilation and consumption of corpses - and that was just the warm-up for the summoning.
Oxygen

## Ability

### Ability

**Deep Breath****(Play)** Your Oceans and Seas cards in hand gain +7 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

INTERACTIVE EXERCISE:

1. Breathe in.
2. Breath out.

Congratulations, you have interacted with oxygen. GO YOU!

Oxygen (O) is a colourless and odourless gas which makes up 21% of the Earth's atmosphere by volume. The element and its compounds make up 49% of the Earth’s crust and 66% of the human body.

Living things take in Oxygen by way of respiration, which then returns to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. That's what you just did!
Korean Turtle Ships

## Ability

### Ability

**Turtle Tactics****(Draw)** This card **Lock**s for 2 turns. **(Return)** Your cards, wherever they are, with 3 or less Base Energy gain +30 Power and cost +2 Energy for 4 turns.

## Did You Know?

If your goal is to intimidate your enemies, having your troops rock up in **Korean Turtle Ships** is one way to go about it. Used by Admiral Yi-Sun-shin in the 16th century, these innovative warships were instrumental in defeating the Japanese invaders during the Seven Year War.

Most accounts credit Admiral Yi-Sun-shin himself with the design and build of the boats – but actually, Admiral Yi redesigned the Turtle Ship, which existed hundreds of years before. He did give them a pretty big upgrade, though, adding at least five different types of cannons to the ships with gunnery ranges of from 300 to 500 metres. He also added the dragon head at the bow of the vessel, which emitted foggy sulfur gas to hide the ship and confuse the enemy fleet.