recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
RMS Lusitania

## Did You Know?

On Saturday 1st May 1915, during the first world war, the RMS Lusitania set sail from New York to Liverpool in England. Though many other passenger ships had been called on for military duty, the Lusitania was allowed to continue its transatlantic passenger route.

Six days later, as it rounded the south of Ireland on its way to Liverpool, it was struck by a torpedo from a German SM U-20 Submarine and sunk. The Germans had recieved intelligence that it was carrying ammunition, and considered it a legitimate military target; the Imperial German Embassy even issued warnings in newspapers that ships carrying the Union Jack could be targeted.

The United States government, already scornful of German submarine warfare, cited the sinking of the Lusitania as one of the reasons they entered the war two years later.
Phillis Wheatley

## Ability

### Ability

**First Published****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, your The Write Stuff cards, wherever they are, gain +26 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

She was the first African American woman to have her work published and one of the first published female poets in the United States. But legendary poet **Phillis Wheatley** didn’t have an easy road to success.

At seven years old, she was captured and sold into slavery. She was sold to John Wheatley, a wealthy Boston merchant and tailor, who bought her as a servant for his wife Susanna. By the age of thirteen, Phillis had already started writing brilliant poetry – something that many white people didn’t believe was possible for an African slave.

Despite her growing reputation as a poet, Phillis Wheatley was forced to defend herself in court as the author of her own poetry. Thankfully, she won.
QFRONT

## Ability

### Ability

**Working Retail****(Draw)** This card **Lock**s for 2 turns. **(Play)** Your Stage and Screen cards, wherever they are, gain +26 Power for 4 turns. **(Return)** Lose -1:energy/turn: permanently.

## Did You Know?

Towering over the chaotic Shibuya Scramble Crossing is the multipurpose **QFRONT** building, an iconic landmark in the beating heart of Tokyo. With a huge LED video advertising screen right on front, the building is hard to miss.

Completed in 1999, the retail property is the home of TSUTAYA, a multi-storey store where you can shop for CDs, DVDs, books and manga. On the second floor is Starbucks, where you can grab a coffee and enjoy one of the best city views in the world. But be prepared to wait a while - after all, this branch is the busiest Starbucks in the world in terms of visitor numbers and ranks second on the company’s success list worldwide.
Simulation Theory

## Ability

### Ability

**Is This the Real Life?****(Draw)** Your cards cost -3 Energy and if you are winning the round, each of your cards cost another -1 Energy less this turn.

## Did You Know?

**Simulation Theory** is the notion that we're living in a computer simulation of reality. It has its roots in early philosophy - obviously, computers didn't exist back then, but philosophers like Zhuangzi still thought about the nature of reality. Zhuangzi wrote many philosophical texts, but his most prominent was The Butterfly Dream; he wonders if he is a man dreaming about being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming about being a man.

The theory as we consider it today was proposed by Nick Bostrum, a philosopher at Oxford University, in 2003. At its basic level, it posits that if we can imagine a simulation so real that we would be completely convinced it was reality, our descendants would invent that simulation.

Those simulations would need powerful computers to run them, and they would run multiple instances of them. With potentially infinite simulations that are convincing enough, what's more likely - that we're the biological organisms that created the simulation, or that we are in one of the infinite simulations?

There's no right answer there - of course, this is all theory. But it'll really bake your noodle - look, just go and watch The Matrix. It's all you need to know about **Simulation Theory**, AND it's got wicked kung fu fights. Swerve the sequels though.
Scoppio del Carro

## Ability

### Ability

**Holy Fire****(Play)** If your deck contains Florence Cathedral, your History cards, wherever they are, gain +12 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

You know what’s missing from traditional Easter celebrations? Explosives. We aren’t suggesting hiding blocks of C4 behind each treat in the Easter Egg hunt, but setting off fireworks in a cart like they do on Easter Sunday in Florence, Italy, sure looks like fun. Known as **Scoppio del Carro**, the practice involves a 30-foot-tall antique cart that’s been used for over 500 years.

Once it’s been adorned with spring herbs and flowers, the cart gets hauled to the Piazza del Duomo and loaded with fireworks. During the Easter Mass, the cardinal of Florence lights a fuse from inside the church which connects back to the cart to spark the firework show. A great display means a great harvest and good business all-round.
Longnose Hawkfish

## Did You Know?

Remember how in Jurassic Park all the dinosaurs start off female so they can't breed, but one of them spontaneously changes gender to Male because of the frog DNA they spliced into them (thanks, The Patriarchy)? The Longnose Hawkfish has that going on naturally - they're all born female, but the largest in a colony will usually switch to male.
Sif

## Ability

### Ability

**Earthly Affinities****(Draw)** For every Life on Land card you have played this game, up to a maximum of 10, your Norse Mythology cards, wherever they are, gain +3 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

A golden-haired fertility goddess, **Sif** is best known for being Thor’s wife and… for having great hair. But honestly, Sif’s luscious locks were more curse than blessing. The Prose Edda recounts that Loki cut her hair off while she was sleeping, which is just cruel.

This obviously didn’t go down well with Thor, who forced Loki to go get a golden headpiece made for Sif. The sons of the dwarf Ivaldi forged a new golden head of hair for Sif, along with two other marvels: Skidbladnir, the best of all ships which can be folded up and put into your pocket, and Gungnir - the deadliest of all spears. Sif was also the mother to Thrúd, her daughter with Thor, and Ull, the god of archery, skiing and single combat.
Rainbow Boa

## Ability

### Ability

**Iridescence****(Play)** If your deck has 7 or more Colors cards, your Colors and Gorgeous Graphic Design cards, wherever they are, gain +25 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

As if the standard **Rainbow Boa** wasn’t striking enough, years of selective breeding has elaborated the appearance of the species to create a range of different colour morphs including pinstripe, bullseye, pastel, ghost and candy stripe.

```
This colourful serpent is semi-arboreal, spending time both on the ground and in trees. On top of that, the Rainbow Boa is a strong swimmer - the only thing it can’t do, naturally, is fly. Highly committed creatures, this species takes mating season seriously, going without food for long periods of time during breeding.

```

With good care, a captive Brazilian rainbow boa can be expected to live for up to 30 years, so it will stick around for your quarter life crisis and then some.
Solar Eclipse

## Did You Know?

A Solar Eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly between Earth and the Sun - an event which typically happens 2-5 times each year.

A TOTAL Solar Eclipse (when the Sun is completely blocked except for the Solar Corona) happens every 1-2 years - but can only be witnessed from a small area on Earth each time. When this happens, the sky darkens (erm... obviously) and the air temperature suddenly drops. It's been observed that animals can behave strangely during this time of 'totality' - either acting confusedly or preparing for sleep.
Richard Owen

## Ability

### Ability

**Fossil Finder****(Play)** Your Paleontology cards in hand gain +12 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

We use the word "dinosaur" very frequently at CUE Towers (and in this writer's household too, with a paleontology-obsessed child!), but who originated the term?

It was **Richard Owen**, a British biologist who lived between 1804 and 1892, who coined the phrase. Before he came along, paleontology was a scattered discipline. People were discovering bones, but it took **Owen** to start connecting them together - he realised that these specimens shared distinctive features and that they needed to be recognised as their own taxonomic group.

He was the first to describe them as "terrible lizards" and from that, he came to name that group "Dinosauria". He's also known for founding the Natural History Museum in London (which plays a part in the history of CUE itself - meetings were held there, as an alternative to being in a stuffy office meeting room, that shaped the idea of the very game you're playing right now!)

It does need to be noted that, while he was a brilliant biologist, **Owen** was also a controversial figure. Many who worked with him complained of his cantankerous personality which often got him into altercations, including a long-running feud with Charles Darwin himself. They disagreed over the nature of evolution, and **Owen's** crotchety disposition certainly didn't help matters.
Proton-M

## Ability

### Ability

**Failure to Launch****(Return)** If you lost the turn, your cards, wherever they are, gain +8 Power next turn.

## Did You Know?

When the Russian heavy-lift launch rocket known as **Proton-M** repeatedly failed to launch successfully, it triggered a major reorganisation of the Russian space industry. The most notable of these failures happened in 2013 when an emergency shutdown of the booster's engines 17 seconds into the flight caused the unmanned Proton M to crash, releasing 600 tons of highly toxic heptyl, amyl and kerosene fuel.

It was the fifth major launch failure since 2010; the prior attempt resulted in a telecommunications satellite being launched into the wrong orbit. The United Rocket and Space Corporation was formed in 2013 by the government as a way of supervising what they called “the failure-prone space sector”.

'"Proton-M rocket prepared for launch" AND "First stage of Proton-M rocket launcher."' by alexpgp (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)

"Proton LV Being Readied for Rollout, January 2005," by alexpgp (Source: Flickr) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Sitar

## Ability

### Ability

**Norwegian Wood****(Draw)** Your Tremendous Trees cards in hand gain +30 Power this turn. **(Play)** Your REM Sleep card, wherever it is, gains +41 Power until played. **(Return)** All remaining Tremendous Trees cards in both player's hands **Burn** (30) until played.

## Did You Know?

Dubbed one of the most popular Indian musical instruments, the **Sitar** is a staple of Middle Eastern music and hippy communes of the ‘60s. But where did this psychedelic string instrument come from? That’s a question that has plagued music historians for centuries.

Many sources cite Amir Khusrau, an Indian Sufi singer, musician, poet and scholar who lived around 1300 AD as the inventor of the sitar. He is said to have evolved it from a Persian instrument called ‘sehtar’. As common as this story is, it has no basis in historical fact. The sitar was nonexistent until the time of the collapse of the Moghul Empire.

To confuse matters further, other documents suggest that the sitar was invented in the 18th century by a fakir named \*drumroll\* Amir Khusru.
Sojourner Truth

## Ability

### Ability

**Ain't I A Woman?****(Return)** Your History cards, wherever they are, cost -2 Energy for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

Born Isabella Baumfree in 1797, Sojourner Truth experienced a horrific childhood.
Born into Dutch-speaking enslavers, in Swartekill, New York, she was separated from her parents by the age of 9, when her enslaver Charles Hardenbergh died. She was auctioned in a lot which included 100 sheep to John Neel. In an act of indisputable barbery, he beat her because she couldn’t understand English commands (she spoke only Dutch at this time). She would be sold on twice more before escaping with her infant child (Sophia, her fifth child) to an abolitionist family who paid for her freedom.
After gaining her freedom she set about getting her son Peter back. Peter had been illegally sold to a slaver in Alabama and after much legal wrangling that lasted months, she managed to get him back. This is widely acknowledged to be one of the first successful cases of its kind.

Obviously we can’t do her life justice on the back of a card, but she went on to dedicate her time to bring greater equality for African Americans and women and if you want to know more, we’d recommend you read The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a first hand account of her life dictated by Sojourner to her friend Olive Gilbert.
Sandhill Crane

## Ability

### Ability

**Prehistoric Relative****(Return)** Your Fearsome Flyers cards, wherever they are, gain +12 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Perhaps the suavest bird around, the **Sandhill Crane** is a species of large crane hailing from North America and north-eastern Siberia. Although this bird lays its nest on the ground from plant materials, Sandhill cranes can dominate in the sky, flying from 15 to 50 miles per hour depending on wind speed and direction. They circle skyward on columns of warm air called thermals, allowing them to reach heights of 12,000 feet!

These birds don’t fish as herons do – instead, they swoop down and seize on prey like insects, earthworms, mice, snakes, lizards and frogs. However, as omnivores, they’ll happily feast on a diet of seeds, grain and berries, too. A flock of sandhill cranes can be called a “dance”, a “construction”, a “siege” or a “swoop”.
Single-Event Upset

## Ability

### Ability

**Bit Flipper****(Draw)** If your deck has 6 or more Mega Math cards, your Mega Math cards, wherever they are, lose -16 Power until played and your non- Mega Math cards, wherever they are, gain +16 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Back in 2013, during a speedrun through the 'Tick Tock Clock' level of Super Mario 64, user DOTA\_Teabag's character shot suddenly upward through the floor and onto a higher platform. To this day, no bugs have been discovered that would have caused this effect.

The leading hypothesis is that it was caused by a **Single-Event Upset**: a change of a binary state in a bit - either from 0 to a 1 or vice versa - triggered by a stray cosmic ray which hit the streamer’s N64 in the exact part that was storing Mario’s Y coordinate.

If that’s true, it’s the first ever case of a single-event upset having a positive effect. Of course, generally speaking, these occurrences are more the concern of astronauts than gamers.
Ruby Octopus

## Ability

### Ability

**Ocean Jewel****(Play)** If played next to any Oceans card, your Hidden Gems cards, wherever they are, gain +23 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Ranging from Alaska to Mexico, the **Ruby Octopus** is the most commonly-occurring shallow-water octopus on the North American West Coast. Don't be fooled by its squishy appearance - this octopus is a keen predator with a diverse palate. In labs, it’s been caught red-handed feasting on gastropods, bivalves, crabs, barnacles and fish. Once the Ruby Octopus has satisfied its appetite, it becomes a diligent food collector, stashing away its prey and meticulously stacking the shells to create a protective wall around its home.

Food aside, the Ruby octopus is a master problem-solver. Just give them different clams to crack open, and they'll show you their repertoire of opening techniques, adapting their methods based on the clam's level of stubbornness.
Pteranodon

## Did You Know?

Pteranodon was a flying pelican-like reptile dating back around 90 million years during the late Cretaceous period. This flying fancy had a wingspan of 7 metres and was a peculiar looking toothless beast.

With a wider wingspan than any known bird, this aggressive creature had three clawed fingers on each hand and four clawed toes on each foot. If we are going to be pedantic, which we enjoy being, the Pteranodon is not actually a dinosaur, but a pterosaur.

Fear not though dinosaur fans, this academic distinction hasn’t hurt its reputation and the Pteranodon is very much grouped with some of the big league dinosaurs of the past… if you can't beat 'em- join 'em.
Short-faced Bear

## Ability

### Ability

**Role Rev-Ursa****(Return)** If you are losing the round, steal -15 Power/Turn from your opponent this round.

## Did You Know?

Back in the day (we’re talking 11,000 years ago), there existed a bear so big it blew the minds of those who discovered it. Standing around 3.3m tall and weighing 1,600kg, the **Short-faced bear** takes the title for the biggest and badest bear of all time. There are two recognised species of the short-faced bear: the lesser short-faced bear and the giant short-faced bear. No prizes for guessing which drew the short-faced straw.
Runaway Star

## Ability

### Ability

**Cosmic Break-Up****(Play)** All Space cards in both player's hands lose -20 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

For the most part stars orbit the black hole in the middle of the galaxy in an orderly fashion but sometimes you get rogues like the one on the front of this card. This particular star broke away from its orbit and shot through the Orion Nebula in the 1400s.

Scientists postulate two potential reasons why a star might break orbit. The first is when two binary systems come close enough to each other that their gravitational field disrupt each other and one of them gets shot off in a new direction. The second is that a nearby supernova expels enough energy to push stars off orbit.

'Hubble Discovery of Runaway Star Yields Clues to Breakup of Multiple-Star System' by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Source: Flickr) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Roc

## Ability

### Ability

**Fly, You Fools****(Play)** Your Bobbit Worm, Elf on a Shelf, Brown Dwarf and Egyptian Mythology cards in hand gain +24 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

An enormous mythical bird of prey, the **Roc** (not to be confused with Dwayne Johnson) is a mythical creature you wouldn’t want as an enemy. According to Persian legends, the Roc was so big it would cast shade on the land below it, and its flapping winds could create gusts of wind comparable to a cyclone. Some stories even say the Roc was capable of carrying off and eating elephants!

As is the case with most mythical, larger-than-life birds, modern researchers believe that the legend of the Roc evolved from exaggerated accounts of actual birds. Marco Polo, for example, described the Roc as living in Madagascar – which, at the time, may have been home to a now-extinct 9-foot-tall bird called ‘the elephant bird’.
Sifaka Lemur

## Ability

### Ability

**Jump Around****(Draw)** Your Mammals cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn. **(Play)** Your Primates cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn. **(Return)** Your Marsupials cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power next turn.

## Did You Know?

A striking appearance and a distinctive call separate the **Sifaka Lemur** from others of its kind. Found in the dry north-western forests of Madagascar, this species has long, powerful legs that can propel them distances of over six metres from tree to tree. The sifaka is also different in the way they leap, maintaining a vertical posture while clinging and jumping between trees. On the ground, sifaka lemurs traverse the forests by hopping sideways on their hind legs.

Why the name? Malagasy people named these lemurs for the unique call they send echoing through the forests, which sounds like “shif-auk”.

As numbers of the Sifaka lemur have dwindled, the species are now sadly classed as between vulnerable and critically endangered.
Sea Wasp

## Did You Know?

The Sea Wasp is a box jellyfish with extremely potent and painful venom. In extreme cases, Sea Wasps can kill people in less than THREE minutes.

The Sea Wasp may have a small body but their tentacles are mighty and can reach up to 3 metres long. These creatures are pretty fierce considering their bodies are made up of 95% water and they have NO brain. Quite possibly the dumbest supervillain in the sea...
Smell-O-Vision

## Ability

### Ability

**Old Whiff****(Draw)** For every round completed this game, your opponent loses -5 Power/Turn permanently.

## Did You Know?

As if the transition from silent films to the “talkies” wasn’t a big enough change, Hans Laube sought to add another sensory dimension to the mix: smell.

Known as ‘**Smell-O-Vision**’, Laube’s new technique was launched at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Sadly for Laube, the hype around Smell-O-Vision quickly dissipated. But 20 years later, Laube got a call from the producers of the film ‘The Scent of Mystery’ asking him to perfect the technique ahead of the film’s release. “First they moved! Then they talked! Now they smell!” read the ads for the movie.

But it wasn’t to be. Not only was the technology buggy and delayed, but people complained about the loud sniffing from fellow audience members trying to pick out each scent.

Years later, on April Fools’ Day in 1965, the BBC proved that they didn’t need any fancy schmancy smell-o-tech to bring scents into the viewers’ homes, when they “interviewed” a man with claims of producing his own “Smellovision”, who chopped onions and brewed coffee on television to “prove” that the “technology” was “working”. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on your outlook on life), viewers actually called in to let them know that they could actually smell the interview through the TV!
Pyrotechnics

## Ability

### Ability

**Spectacular Display****(Play)** If it's Round 1 or Round 3, your Dizzying Discoveries cards, wherever they are, gain +22 Power until played. If it's the last turn of a round and if played next to Fireworks, your opponent's cards in hand **Burn** (40) until played.

## Did You Know?

Gerb, Flash Pot, Bullet Hit and Squib: they sound like the names of crappy superheroes, but they are, in fact, different types of **Pyrotechnics**. It’s thanks to this craft that Michael Bay stays winning - although, it’s James Bond’s ‘No Time to Die’ that set the Guinness World Record for the largest amount of explosives detonated for a movie.

From fireworks and safety matches to oxygen candles and explosive bolts, pyrotechnics relies on self-contained exothermic chemical reactions to make heat, light, gas, smoke and sound. As you probably guessed, it can be really dangerous. During the set of the Twilight Zone movie, the use of pyrotechnics damaged a helicopter, killing actor Vic Morrows. In the words of Steven Spielberg, "No movie is worth dying for.”
Snowdrop

## Did You Know?

Ah, the first sign of spring pokes up from the earth in the shape of the humble **Snowdrop**. As those little green shoots and white bell-shaped flowers start to pop up through the cold earth, you know that spring has finally sprung.

Snowdrops have been around for a long, long time but they first got their name - Galanthus - in 1753, which is Greek for “milk flower” (named by the grandfather of botany - Carl Linnaeus). Most people would assume that they got their English name from the image of snow melting as they bloom, but they’re actually named after 17th Century earrings, which were originally called “eardrops” and looked very like the flower.

In an old Moldovan folktale, it’s said that the Lady Spring and the Witch of Winter fought and a drop of Lady Spring’s blood thawed the snow, and a snowdrop blossomed - marking her victory over the Witch of Winter. Why that hasn’t been turned into a Disney movie, we’ll never know.
S'more

## Did You Know?

There isn’t a finer campfire snack than a **S’more**. Gooey, crunchy, chocolatey. What more could you ask for? Short for “some mores” (I see what you did there), these debuted in “Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts” in 1927 and people have been snacking on them ever since.

To make one (or several because who can have just one), it’s super simple. All you need is:
2 biscuits like Graham Crackers or digestive biscuits
Some squares of chocolate (we prefer dark chocolate)
Super squishy marshmallows (any kind is fine)

And the method is fairly straightforward:
Make a biscuit sandwich which goes biscuit, chocolate, marshmallow, chocolate, biscuit.
Toast the edges of a marshmallow until gooey.
Enjoy!

Alternatively, get your marshmallow gooey first and assemble your smore around it, which is always a fun option if you’d rather get mega messy. I promise I’m not covered in melted marshmallow right now and I promise there are no digestive crumbs on my keyboard either. Nope. Definitely not.
Saint Basil's Cathedral

## Ability

### Ability

**Blessed by the Wonderworker****(Play)** This card gains +20 Power for every completed round.

## Did You Know?

Have you ever created something so majestic that you were deliberately blinded afterwards to prevent you from recreating it anywhere else? No, us neither. But legend has it that after **Saint Basil’s Cathedral** was built in 1561, the person who designed and built it was blinded so that a structure of its beauty could never be built again. Considering the construction was ordered by the first Tsar of Russia, Ivan Vasilyevich (also known as Ivan the Terrible), this isn’t all too surprising.

Today, the colorful cathedral is one of the most popular cultural symbols of Russia, but those brilliant colours weren’t added for 200 years after it was built. In the 17th century, the domes were painted to resemble the Biblical description of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Sodium

## Ability

### Ability

**Salt in the Wound****(Return)** If you won the turn, Steal 1 Energy from your opponent.

## Did You Know?

Sir Humphry Davy discovered Sodium (Na) in 1807, and he was on something of a roll as only days earlier he had discovered Potassium (K). This writer can't say he's EVER had that good of a week, and one time he went to Chessington World of Adventures AND Thorpe Park in four days of each other.

Sodium is a soft silvery-white metal that tarnishes as soon as it is exposed to air. Used commercially in nuclear reactors as a medium for heat exchange, Sodium is more commonly known in the compounds it is part of. One of these, Sodium Chloride, is the salt we use in food preparation and as a preservative.

You may have noticed that a lot of elements have a chemical symbol that's vaguely close to how they're spelt, so how does Sodium end up with the symbol Na? It comes from the Latin word for Sodium Carbonate, which is "Natrium".
Saturnalia

## Ability

### Ability

**The Best of Days****(Play)** If played between any History and any Space card, your History and Space cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power until played. **(Return)** Your History and Space cards, wherever they are, cost +1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

If Christmas is too wholesome for you, ditch the tree-decorating and embrace the party of **Saturnalia**. But be warned: this is absolutely a “go hard or go home” situation. As the name suggests, this ancient Roman festival was held in honour of the god Saturn, starting from the 17th of December and lasting until the 23rd.

To kick off the festivities, a “King of the Saturnalia” would be elected. This leader would preside over the merrymaking, making outrageous demands like “sing naked” or “throw that guy into cold water” so as to create a chaotic and absurd world.

To that end, slaves were treated to a banquet of the kind usually enjoyed by their masters and gambling was permitted (and encouraged). Think of it like The Purge but for partying.
Skrýmir

## Ability

### Ability

**Giant Appetite****(Play)** For every Curious Cuisine card you have played this game, up to a maximum of 8, your Norse Mythology cards in hand gain +5 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Imagine booking a cosy Airbnb and waking up to find yourself in the glove of a giant instead. That’s what happened to Thor and his friends during their journey to Utgard. **Skrymir**, a mighty jotunn (giant) certainly knows how to surprise his guests.

As if the glove-turned-hall wasn't enough, Skrymir's snoring could rival a thunderstorm, leaving Thor and his companions contemplating earplugs. Meanwhile, Thor's attempts to open a simple provision bag turn into an epic struggle, and it’s soon revealed that Skrymir was playing mind games all along, testing Thor's mettle with tricks and challenges. And when Thor finally lets loose with his mighty hammer, Skrymir simply shrugs it off, mistaking it for a mere acorn or a friendly bird dropping.
Prairie Dog

## Ability

### Ability

**Toast of the Town****(Play)** If your deck has 3 or more Going Underground cards and if you are behind, your cards in hand gain +16 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Building a complex burrow and tunnel network underground is thirsty work. However, even after a hard day’s work, the **Prairie Dog** doesn’t need to drink, since it gets all the moisture it needs from the grass, leaves and roots they eat as part of their herbivorous diet.

A North American type of ground squirrel, the Prairie Dog has a complex language system. Rather than one singular catch-all cry for danger, they have different calls to signify whether the danger is human, hawk, domesticated dog or coyote – and their calls even specify size and colour.

When they aren’t under threat, prairie dogs are highly social. These burrowing rodents greet each other with a special kiss or nuzzle, but only with members of their group and not with outsiders.
Singing Sand

## Ability

### Ability

**Whistling Winds****(Return)** If your deck contains Silicon, your remaining Exciting Exploration cards in hand cost -1 Energy next turn.

## Did You Know?

If you’re ever stranded in the desert and you hear a barking sound, don’t worry – you (probably) aren’t losing your mind, and there is (probably) not a dog in the vicinity. What you might be hearing is a strange phenomenon called **Singing Sand**, an eerie sound that is thought to be caused by wind passing over dunes or feet walking on the sand. However, the conditions have to be perfect to create singing sand: the sand grains have to be round and measure between 0.1 and 0.5mm in diameter.

As you might have guessed, this makes singing sand dunes very rare – it’s estimated that there are only approximately 30 dunes around the world that have the right grain size and dry conditions to create this unique barking sound.
Smilodon

## Did You Know?

Cat fans unite! Smilodon was a sabre-toothed cat which lived from around 2.5 million years ago before becoming extinct around 10,000 years ago.

Although often referred to as a Sabre-toothed tiger, Smilodon was actually more closely related to lions and cheetahs. Judging by the look of these guys, Disney won't be making a feel-good family film about them anytime soon.
Roald Dahl

## Ability

### Ability

**George and Charlie****(Play)** If your deck has 4 or more Marvellous Medicine cards, your Curious Cuisine cards in hand gain +22 Power until played, and vice versa.

## Did You Know?

He gave us some of the greatest stories of all time, but the legendary children’s author **Roald Dahl** wasn’t always regarded as a creative genius. At school, a teacher noted that they had “never met anyone who so persistently writes words meaning the exact opposite of what is intended.”

That teacher most likely ate their words when Dahl went on to write the BFG, a book which uses 238 nonsensical words that the author invented and dubbed ‘Gobblefunk’. Every writer needs a sanctuary, and Roald Dahl’s was a shed at the end of the garden where he wrote his stories using a HB pencil on yellow notepads.

However, as Abraham Foxman put it in a 1990 letter, “Talent is no guarantee of wisdom. Praise for Mr. Dahl as a writer must not obscure the fact that he was also a bigot.” It was his own unrepentant anti-Semitism that cause the Royal Mint to reject a Roald Dahl coin for what would have been his 100th birthday, as an author “not regarded of the highest reputation.”
Sea Angel

## Ability

### Ability

**Stuck On You****(Draw)** Your Molluscs, Worms and Water Bugs cards in hand **Lock** this turn and gain +30 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

It may have fairy-like wings and a white dress, but you really can’t put the **Sea Angel** at the top of your Christmas tree. This gelatinous, transparent species of sea snail is equally as weird as it is beautiful.

Take their reproductive behaviour, for a start: when sea angels mate, they turn their reproductive organs inside out before binding to each other with a specialised sucker that leaves a nasty scar. For four whole hours, the two sea angels will float together as the process takes place, spinning around and flapping their wings.

But that’s not all. Master multitaskers, the sea angels also hunt for food while mating. Because nothing says “you turn me on” like capturing a sea butterfly to snack on mid-intercourse.
Río Cahabón

## Ability

### Ability

**Rapids Iteration****(Draw)** This card gains +10 Power this round and if you are tied in the round, this card gains +10 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

A favourite of white-water rafters, the **Río Cahabón** flows through the jungles of Guatemala. Nothing remarkable about that. However, at Semuc Champey it has formed an exceptional geological feature.

The turquoise pools of Semuc Champey - formed by karst springs - were once a tributary of the Cahabón. However, as limestone deposits from the water accumulated, the pools actually grew *over* the river (which itself was cutting deeper into a gorge). As a result, at this point, there are two levels of water - the warm still pools on the limestone bridge, and the rushing cool water of the Cahabón below.
Salar de Uyuni

## Ability

### Ability

**Recharge****(Return)** Gain +4 Energy and your Electric Battery card, wherever it is, costs -2 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Covering an area larger than over 150 countries in the world, the vast expanse of **Salar de Uyuni** is the largest salt flat in the world and one of the most jaw-dropping attractions in South America.

Want to snap a pic but low on battery? This area houses the largest reserves of Lithium (used to make mobile phone batteries) in the world.
Satoshi Nakamoto

## Ability

### Ability

**On the Blockchain****(Draw)** For every Money, Money, Money card in your hand, this card gains +15 Power until played. **(Return)** For every Money, Money, Money card in your deck, up to a maximum of 7, this card gains +10 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

If not for this guy, crypto bros wouldn’t get to post everyday about bear markets or diamond hands. But one day in 2008, **Satoshi Nakamoto** published the original Bitcoin white paper, describing the blockchain system that would become the backbone of the entire cryptocurrency market.

While most inventors proudly put their name to their creations, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains a mystery. Some say Satoshi is actually a group of companies, the name being an acronym for SAmsung, TOSHIba, NAKAmichi, and MOTOrola. And then there’s that theory that Satoshi is an alien from an advanced civilization who came to Earth to help us level up.

Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, he/she/they are thought to have a net worth of around 6.5 billion dollars.
Shastasaurus

## Ability

### Ability

**Reptile Wrangler****(Play)** Your Ocean Reptiles cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Coming to you direct from the late Triassic era, it's the magnificent **Shastasaurus**! At 60-plus feet in length, this is the largest known Marine Reptile - but perhaps not the most intimidating, as **Shastasaurus** had no teeth.

Initially, it was thought to be a suction feeder. However, recent studies show it couldn't create the necessary suction force, and so it is now considered a 'ram feeder'. In other words, it swam along with its mouth open and ate whatever was in the way. HARD RELATE.
Pungi

## Ability

### Ability

**Charming****(Play)** Your Reptiles cards, wherever they are, gain +19 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Think you’re a good enough **Pungi** player to charm a snake? We’re sorry to break it to you, but no matter how well you can play the Pungi, the snake won’t rear its head to listen. Because, having no external ears, snakes aren’t interested in the sound at all, but rather the waving motion of the instrument that occurs when it’s being played.

Used by snake charmers in India and Pakistan, the pungi is a mystical reed instrument carved out of a small gourd with a blowing hole at the top and two attached pipes at the bottom. Think bagpipes but less abrasive and Scottish.

As well as snake charming, the Pungi is considered to be one of the many ways to communicate with the Gods (assuming the Gods have external ears).
Skeleton Shrimp

## Ability

### Ability

**Disappearing Act****(Return)** This card loses -50 Power permanently and your other Oceans and Seas cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Although they’re known as the praying mantis of the sea, the **Skeleton Shrimp** is neither a praying mantis or a shrimp, but a gangly amphipod - an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace. They also have adaptations for camouflage, changing colours to blend in with their surroundings.

If they were massive, Skeleton Shrimps could be quite scary: not only do they have ghostly, stick-like bodies, but their claws are large and the males’ are armed with a poison producing gland. Thankfully, they’re very small, ranging in size from ½ inch to 2 inches in length.

Still, the females can be pretty deadly - especially to her mates. Instead of sticking around for a second date, the females of some skeleton shrimp species kill the male after mating.
Safety Coffins

## Ability

### Ability

**Premature Burial****(Draw)** Lose -25 Power/Turn until this is returned to your deck. **(Return)** Gain +12 Power/Turn for 6 turns.

## Did You Know?

If you have an immense fear of being buried alive then we have the perfect contraption for you. It’s the **Safety Coffin!** First devised in the 1800s (after a few alarming incidents which we won’t ruin your day with) the device was designed so that if you woke up in a coffin, you would have a way to let the people above know that you’re still alive and kicking.

One method involved a little bell that you could pull that would not only alert passersby to your dilemma but would also start airflow into the coffin to make sure you could breathe. Another had a tube that you could use for breathing and shouting out for help! Another one was for Morse code, which is only useful if you know Morse code and you aren’t in the midst of a panic attack after discovering you’ve been buried alive. And a final one, our favorite, had a little “in case of emergency, smash glass” panel…you just had to smash it with your face. Which seems a little distressing for anyone, nevermind someone who has just woken up in a coffin.

Think we’ll get cremated, just in case.
Soccer Ball

## Ability

### Ability

**Back of the Net!****(Draw)** If you have played Soccer this game, your Nebulae cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

He shoots, he scores! And the Cygnus stadium goes wild! This cosmic goal comes courtesy of Kronberger 61, AKA the **Soccer Ball** nebula. When in space for months at a time, astronauts keep busy with a kickabout of Kronberger 61 and battle for the top spot in the Galactic Striker’s League. Just kidding - this ball isn’t solid enough to score goals with, and it’s about 13,000 light-years away.

The light from the nebula is primarily due to emissions from doubly ionised oxygen. Despite all the hours poured into space research by the pros, this football-shaped planetary nebula was first discovered by an amateur astronomer in January, 2011. It’s located in a small area in the Cygnus constellation which is currently being monitored by NASA’s Kepler planet finding mission.

'k61 Planetary Nebula ' by International Gemini Observatory/AURA (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Sinocalliopteryx

## Did You Know?

With a name that means ‘Chinese beautiful feather’, it’s hard to believe that the **Sinocalliopteryx** was once a fierce and fast-moving predator who preyed on smaller dinosaurs around 125 million years ago. But make no mistake - these ancient carnivores were expert hunters. It just so happens that they were covered in wispy plumage - hence the name.

Still, fluffiness doesn’t negate deadliness. At 2.37 metres in length, the Sinocalliopteryx is the largest known member of the compsognathids, a family of small carnivorous dinosaurs. First discovered in the Jianshangou Beds of the Yixian Formation, the well-preserved skeleton of the Sinocalliopteryx revealed that the dinosaur had an elongated head with a pointed snout and possessed peculiarly long hands in relation to its arms.

'Sinocalliopteryx feeding on Sinornithosaurus' by Xing L et al (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY 2.5 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Roanoke Colony

## Ability

### Ability

**Fate Unknown****(Return)** If you lost the turn, your opponent's cards, wherever they are, lose -10 Power until played and if you won the turn, your cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

“New World, New Me!” said Sir Walter Raleigh when he stepped off the boat to Roanoke Island in 1587 with 120 English settlers. His aim? To start the first permanent English settlement in North America. But things didn’t exactly go according to plan.

Since the **Roanoke Colony** was poorly supplied, their governor, John White, had to travel back to England to restock. But the onset of the Anglo-Spanish war caused serious delays. When White returned three years later, the settlement was abandoned and the colonists were gone.

So, what happened? Did they die of disease, were they massacred by natives or did the Roanoke colonists split up into groups, each of which assimilated itself into a different Native American community? The latter is more likely, but the truth of the Lost Colony remains a mystery.
Scarlet Ibis

## Ability

### Ability

**Scarlet Fever****(Play)** Your Life on Land cards with "Red" in their name in hand gain +14 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The national bird of Trinidad and Tobago, the iconic red colouring of the **Scarlet Ibis** is unlike any other shorebird in the world. Their secret to achieving this bright hue can be uncovered by looking at their diets, which heavily focus on red crustaceans. In captivity, these birds are fed beetroots and carrots to maintain the vibrant red colour. Don’t go getting any ideas – humans need more than red crustaceans for a healthy diet.
Passerelle des Arts

## Ability

### Ability

**Love Lock****(Draw)** This card **Lock**s this round and gains +30 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Passerelle des Arts is a rather wonderful Parisian bridge that crosses the River Seine. Architecturally speaking, it's a nice example of Napoleonic functional design but it's unlikely to stop you in your tracks and cause you to drop your stuffed croissant and gasp sacré bleu!

However, what the bridge has become makes it interesting. For the last 13 years, lovers (and probably the odd stalker) have been attaching padlocks (lovelocks) to its railings as a gesture of undying love. So many padlocks have been added that in June 2014 part of the bridge's parapet collapsed under their weight.
SpaceX Falcon Heavy

## Ability

### Ability

**Heavy Duty****(Draw)** If your deck has 10 or more Space cards, this card costs -5 Energy this round.

## Did You Know?

```
The most powerful operational rocket today, the **SpaceX Falcon Heavy** is equivalent to 18 Boeing 747 aircraft at full throttle.

```

As part of its launch in 2018, Elon Musk sent out a Roadster on the rocket with a mannequin sitting in the driver’s seat. Henry Ford may have vowed to put a car in every garage but putting one in space is definitely cooler - even if it did look like a very lost Uber driver floating aimlessly by the Earth.

'Falcon Heavy Demo Mission' by SpaceX - Falcon Heavy Demo Mission (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under Public Domain (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Salvadori Monitor

## Ability

### Ability

**Go Long****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, gain +12 Power/Turn this round.

## Did You Know?

Also known as the ‘Tree Crocodile’ the **Salvadori Monitor** is one of the longest lizards in the world, verified at up to 2.4 metres. As well as inside your darkest nightmares, this reptile lives in New Guinea.

It chases its prey along tree branches, using its sharp claws and a long tail for balance. As well as snacking on eggs in birds’ nests, this big beast likes to ambush passing land mammals from above.
Sinomegaceros

## Ability

### Ability

**Giant Deer****(Play)** If played next to Megaloceros, your Paleontology cards in hand gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

The OG <link="https:>Mr Plow</link>, **Sinomegaceros** was equipped with a giant snow shovel on its head, perfect for clearing the path, sourcing food, fighting and asserting sexual dominance. These hefty antlers were over 5 feet in length, and while that’s nothing compared to the 12-foot antlers of the Megaloceros, it’s still pretty big by modern deer standards.

Also known as the giant Chinese elk, this ancient deer from east Asia lived during the Early to Late Pleistocene era. It weighed 400 kilograms, and reached an average of 7 feet in length - roughly the same size as Shaq lying down. Sadly, we don’t have a time machine to watch the former NBA player take on the extinct Sinomegaceros, but we suspect those antlers might have given the deer an advantage.
Scorpion Fish

## Did You Know?

... Well, that doesn't look anything like a scorpion.

But it sure does sting like one - though it may look like a piece of coral with eyes, it's covered in spines that are coated in venomous mucus. Fortunately, it's very rarely fatal; most Scorpion Fish deaths occur because allergies to the venom trigger an anaphylactic shock.
Shuten-doji

## Ability

### Ability

**Headless Demon Leader****(Play)** Your Demon card, wherever it is, gains +50 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Once upon a time, there was a boy who was born with supernatural strength and intelligence. Misunderstood by his peers, he was often called a demon child and treated like an outcast. Unsurprisingly, this was a recipe for disaster.

Instead of focusing on his studies, the boy got into fights and fell into drinking. Because of his love for alcohol, he became known as **Shuten dōji**, "the little drunkard." One night, he rocked up drunk to a festival in the temple wearing an oni (demon) mask, but by the end of the night, the mask was fused to his face.

Eventually, Shuten dōji fully transformed into a demon. Along with a group of bandits and thugs, he terrorised the people of Kyoto in a drunken rage.
Sextant

## Ability

### Ability

**Taking a Sight****(Play)** If your deck has 2 or more Riding the Waves cards, your Watching the Skies cards in hand gain +16 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

First developed in 1730 by John Hadley, the **Sextant** was used to measure the angle of elevation of celestial bodies (e.g. the sun or moon) to determine your location or direction. If you happen to be reading this while lost at sea and all you’ve got is a sextant but have no idea how to use it, we’ve got you covered.

First, pick up your sextant, reach into the box with your left hand and take hold of the frame. As you lift it out, use your right hand to grasp the handle. Once you’ve realised it’s a lost cause and you’re far too dependent on modern technology to understand an old navigation device, pick up your satellite phone and call the nearest nations Coast Guard.