recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Dinopithecus

## Ability

### Ability

**Going Ape****(Draw)** Your Primates cards in hand gain +27 Power this turn. **(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, your Primates cards in hand gain +14 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

With a name that literally translates to “terrible ape”, it’s easy to prejudge this ancient genus of giant baboon. But don’t write **Dinopithecus** off just yet: despite the large size and ferocity as an occasional predator of mammals, Dinopithecus would have also been the prey of much larger predators during the Pliocene era of South Africa.

In fact, the greatest threat to this beastly baboon were the early hominids, and the discovery of the fossils of some ninety members of the species have been interpreted as being killed by early humans sometime between four hundred thousand and seven hundred thousand years ago. This is why we can’t have nice things (or terrible apes).

Image by Roman Uchytel, https://prehistoric-fauna.com
Cerberus

## Ability

### Ability

**Guard the Gates****(Play)** If your deck has 3 or more Dogs cards, your Ancient Greece cards in hand gain +18 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Is your dog behaving badly? Just be thankful it isn’t **Cerberus**, the monstrous hound of Hades and watchdog of the underworld in Greek Mythology. Even the best dog whisperer couldn’t tame this beast: with three heads and a set of snakes growing from its back, Cerberus wasn’t your average pup.

If you thought the sniffer dogs at the airport were efficient, Cerberus took the Dogs With Jobs game up a whole other level, preventing the dead from leaving the underworld (a pretty important job if you ask us.) Only on three occasions was Cerberus tricked by visitors of Hades: Heracles overpowered him with strength, Orpheus distracted him with music and the Sybil of Cumae used a honey-cake.
Cone Snail

## Ability

### Ability

**Venom Harpoon****(Play)** Your opponent's cards in hand lose -15 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

It would be pretty rubbish to be killed by a snail, especially by a killer snail who happens to live in a gorgeous looking shell that you may happen to pick up whilst beachcombing. What a trickster.

Like all other snails, the Cone Snail is slow but its attack is SWIFT and DEADLY - to make up for it not being able to chase after you, it has a kind of natural harpoon that it fires at prey which not only delivers venom but allows them to drag their prey toward them. So, and I never thought I'd write this - run away from this snail!
Compsognathus

## Ability

### Ability

**Compy-tition****(Play)** Your opponent's cards in hand lose -5 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

**Compsognathus** lived about 150 million years ago, during the Tithonian age of the late Jurassic period, in what is now Europe, and it is teeny weeny and cute (as dinosaurs go, of course).

One of the smallest dinosaurs known, Compsognathus grew only about as large as a chicken. It was a bit heftier though, with a length of about 60–90 cm (2–3 feet), including the long tail, and a weight of about 5.5 kg (12 pounds). A swift runner - it's estimated it could run 40 miles an hour! - it was lightly built and had a long neck and tail, strong hind limbs, and very small forelimbs.

It's also one of the dinosaurs that helped scientists conclude that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Thomas Henry Huxley noted the similarities between its bone structure and that of the Archaeopteryx, which could fly. Huxley's nickname was "Darwin's Bulldog", incidentally.
Clouded Leopard

## Ability

### Ability

**Cloud At Last****(Return)** Gain +4 Power/Turn and gain +1:energy/turn: permanently.

## Did You Know?

If you thought your cat jumping onto the table to eat your leftovers was impressive, you haven’t seen a **Clouded Leopard.**  These expert jumpers can leap 15 feet from branch to branch.

Despite their name, Clouded Leopards are not a species of leopard at all. They are so unique that they are placed in their own genus, Neofelis – meaning “new cat”. On that note, if you’re thinking of getting a new cat, we recommend something a little smaller.
Common Carp

## Ability

### Ability

**Nothing Happened.. Or Did It?****(Draw)** This card loses -10 Power permanently and your Oceans and Seas cards in hand gain +16 Power until this is returned to your deck.

## Did You Know?

Ah, Christmas Dinner: where families gather around the table and tuck into a big, juicy… **Carp**? Yes, you read right: although turkey takes the crown (eyyy) as the most popular Christmas main course in America, many families across Central and Eastern Europe enjoy this freshwater fish instead.

As well as being a long-standing symbol of Christianity, legend has it that the carp itself brings luck. And they’re pretty easy to come by, too: with their strong survival rate, lack of predators (save for humans) and high reproduction rate, the global carp population is booming. Unless you catch one and cook it for Christmas, there’s a chance it could live to a grand old age of 40 - although the common lifespan is between 5- 20 years.
Dire Wolf

## Ability

### Ability

**Stark Contrast****(Draw)** Your cards in hand gain +16 Power until played. **(Return)** Your opponent's remaining cards in hand lose -4 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

**Dire Wolves** (Canis dirus) weren't cooked up by George R.R. Martin (as everyone at CUE Towers thought until they did the research); they actually roamed Asia and the Americas during the last Ice Age and into the Holocene epoch around 9,500 years ago.

Around 25% bigger than their cousin the grey wolf and with a more powerful bite, they chomped their way through a diet of horses, ground sloths, bison, and mastodons (prehistoric relatives of today's elephants). As you have probably worked out, if you're going to bring down something as large as an elephant, you don't do it alone. These canids (dog family) hunted in packs like modern wolves.

In an anti-climatic demise worthy of Benioff and Weiss, Dire Wolves died out when the megaherbivores they preyed upon succumbed to environmental changes and hunting by humans.

Who would think, this Easter's Easter bunny would be a wolf?
Christmas Wafer

## Ability

### Ability

**Breaking Bread****(Play)** Both players gain +20 Power/Turn for 3 turns but your opponent loses -10 Power/Turn for each Round that has been completed.

## Did You Know?

Since the 10th century, families in Poland have been breaking a **Christmas Wafer** and sharing it around the table during the Christmas Eve meal. This festive tradition symbolises the unity of family, and the wafer also represents forgiveness and reconciliation.

In Polish, the wafers are called Opłatek: they’re baked from pure wheat and flour, are usually rectangular in shape and are embossed with a picture from the Christmas story – usually the nativity scene or the Star of Bethlehem. An empty chair is left at the table in memory of ancestors, lost loved ones and the “Unseen Guest”, Jesus Christ.

During WWII, families would send pieces of Oplatek to relatives dispersed around the world wherever they were.
Ceromancy

## Ability

### Ability

**Written in Wax****(Draw)** If you are winning the round, your Science and Arts & Culture cards in hand gain +15 Power until this is returned to your deck.

## Did You Know?

What fate awaits you? If Tarot cards didn’t give you the answer you were looking for and your crystal ball is all fogged up, try **Ceromancy**. This form of divination involves the use of hot wax - what could possibly go wrong?!

With roots in ancient Celtic tradition, it’s thought that Ceromancy was practised during a druid’s vigil. A candle would be burned, then poured into a clear pool of cold water. The shapes created by the wax as it cools would allegedly reveal auguries of the future. According to avid fortune tellers, different coloured candles are better for specific categories of divination. Red candles are best for love-related questions, while purple candles are best if you have health questions that Google can’t answer.
Closed-Circuit Television

## Ability

### Ability

**Always Watching****(Start)** An opponent's random card in hand loses -20 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

It was originally developed by German engineer Walter Bruch to capture live video footage of the V-2 rockets in WWII. But when the war ended, **Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV)** started serving a different purpose.

In 1949, the first commercial CCTV system was installed in the United States at the Metropolitan Life Insurance building in New York City. With the introduction of videotape recording in the 1970s allowing for storage and playback, CCTV became a widespread security measure used in banks, stores, and other public places.
Today, London is one of the most surveilled cities on the planet, with 51,000 CCTV cameras. On average, a Londoner is captured on camera 300 times a day. The other cities with the most cameras are Beijing, Chicago, New York and Chongqing, China.
Devil's Tower

## Ability

### Ability

**Close Encounters****(Play)** If your deck has 2 or more Exploring the Stars cards, gain +6 Power/Turn this round. Repeat for Planetside and The Solar System

## Did You Know?

Situated in northeastern Wyoming is a 264-metre-high rock formation that scientists think is at least 50 million years old. Known as the **Devil’s Tower**, this dramatic landmark was the very first official U.S. National Monument and played a starring role in Spielberg’s seminal sci-fi classic *‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’* as the landing site for an alien spacecraft.

For centuries, Devil’s Tower has been a sacred monument to Northern Plains Indian Tribes. In the Lakota Sioux legend, six girls were picking flowers when they were attacked by bears. The Great Spirit felt bad for the girls, so raised the ground beneath their feet. The bears couldn’t climb the newly formed tower, so the girls were saved.
Cougar

## Did You Know?

Cougars the world-over are outraged that their name has been tarnished by a particular breed of, err, slightly older women.. but their lawyers are on to it so they refuse to comment.

The Cougar is the second largest cat in North America and they may be mighty but you won’t hear them roar any time soon. Why? Because Cougars purr, in the same way as your feline friend at home.

No chance of a lap cat here though, as cougars are five to nine feet in length. Time to get a bigger sofa.
Darwin's Finches

## Ability

### Ability

**Beak Performance****(Play)** If you have played Charles Darwin this game, your Galapagos Tortoises card in hand gains +80 Power this turn. **(Draw)** If you have played Charles Darwin this game, your Charles Darwin card, wherever it is, costs -2 Energy permanently.

## Did You Know?

During his time in the Galápagos, Charles Darwin started collecting a diverse range of finches. Since they were all so different, Darwin was like “there’s no way these birds are related, so I’m gonna just focus on mockingbirds instead.”

When he returned to England, Darwin gave his finch collection to a famous ornithologist, John Gould. Upon inspecting **Darwin’s Finches**, Gould was like “DUDE! These birds are way more alike than you think!” It turned out that the birds belonged to 12 closely related but distinct species.

With this revelation, Darwin had early evidence for his theory of natural selection - that organisms evolve depending on their environments. Sadly, since Darwin was so disinterested in the birds at the time, he didn’t record exactly where each finch was from.
Crab Spider

## Did You Know?

It isn’t glamourous, but the **Crab Spider** has a clever disguise that helps protect it from potential predators. Thanks to its ability to camouflage, the spider can pass for bird droppings on a leaf and await its prey (honeybees and butterflies) while going undetected.

A fierce ambush predator, the crab spider uses its front legs to grab prey and its slender fangs to deliver a fatal dose of venom. Although they can produce silk, they don’t use it for spinning webs like other spiders. Instead, they catch onto the breeze and go soaring through the sky, releasing strands of silk that they spin up to six feet long. As the air carries the silk threads, the spider rides beneath.
Cygnus

## Ability

### Ability

**Swan Dive****(Return)** Your Swans card and your Birds and [[:Category:Sea Birds |Sea Birds ]] cards, wherever they are, gain +12 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

The **Cygnus** constellation gets its name from the Latin word for ‘swan’, which is why this collection of stars is often referred to as the swan constellation. First catalogued by Ptolemy, it is the 16th largest constellation in the night sky and occupies an area of 804 square degrees.

Cygnus is associated with several stories in Greek mythology and the story of the Magpie Bridge in Chinese mythology. In the Chinese myth, two lovers are separated by the Goddess of Heaven who creates a river between the two to keep them apart. Once a year, all of the magpies in the world assemble to form a bridge, connecting the lovers for one night only. The constellation ‘Cygnus’ represents the magpie bridge.
Denise's Pygmy Seahorse

## Ability

### Ability

**Santa's Seahorse****(Draw)** If your deck has 3 or more Mythical Creatures cards, your Festive Traditions cards, wherever they are, gain +23 Power for 3 turns (and vice versa).

## Did You Know?

If you’re a fan of miniatures, you’ll love the **Denise’s Pygmy Seahorse**. This underwater critter is the tiniest type of seahorse, typically measuring less than 2 centimetres in total!

When you’re that small, you aren’t exactly easy to spot – and, as it happens, the Pygmy Seahorse was discovered by chance when scientist Georges Bargibant was collecting specimens of Muricella corals for the Nouméa museum. While dissecting the coral, he happened to notice a pair of tiny seahorses.

Unlike other seahorses, this species has a single gill opening on the back of the head instead of on the sides. Within this family, it’s the male who takes charge of protecting the young, carrying the minuscule babies in a pouch on their trunk.
Chevrotain

## Ability

### Ability

**Mouse, dear? That's a Gerbil****(Play)** Your Mongolian Gerbil card in hand gains +60 Power this turn. **(Return)** Your Mongolian Gerbil card, wherever it is, costs -2 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Apologies to your pets, but the **Chevrotain** might take the crown for the cutest animal ever.

Also known as the mousedeer, these creatures are the smallest hoofed mammals in the world. Remarkably, the Tragulidae family it belongs to has been widespread from the Oligocene epoch (34 million years ago) through the Miocene epoch (5 million years ago) and has remained practically unchanged in all this time.

The chevrotain is a solitary creature, although it has been known to live in pairs. Although most species of chevrotain are vegetarian, the water chevrotain occasionally feeds on insects, crabs and even small fish. Oddly enough, this particular species’ affinity with water has lent support to the theory that whales evolved from water-loving creatures that looked like small deer.
Crape Myrtle

## Ability

### Ability

**Myrtle Crown****(Play)** All Female Greek Mythology cards, in either player's decks, gain +8 Power until played and all non-Female Greek Mythology cards, in either player's deck, lose -8 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

She’s beautiful to look at, highly adaptable and very low maintenance. She’s the girl you’ve been waiting for. There’s just one problem: she’s a tree. Still, if you’re into that kinda thing, you’ll love her. A vibrant and festive shrub with flowers that bloom in shades of pink, red, purple or white, **Crape Myrtle** will liven up any garden.

In many ways, this tree is the perfect party guest. When the blossoms fade, Crape Myrtles form seed heads - clusters of pods that make for cute party hats for your garden gnomes. Even the bark naturally exfoliates to reveal different shades of grey, brown and red, like nature’s own Pass the Parcel. Plus, Crape Myrtle is drought-tolerant, easy to care for and has a long lifespan - you could even say she’s the life and soil.
Corsac Fox

## Ability

### Ability

**Bark and a Bite****(Draw)** An opponent's random card in hand loses -30 Power this turn. **(Play)** An opponent's random card in hand loses -30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Thinking of up-sizing to a bigger burrow but don’t have the skills to dig one? Get someone else to do it! That’s the way of the **Corsac**.

We foxes don’t have time for moral philosophy: we just care about survival. So, when we see a perfectly good burrow and no one in it, we see opportunity. It’s just the law of the jungle - or, in this case, the desert. In other words, su casa mi casa.

Talking of survival, we’re able to go ages without food. Being a desert-dwelling fox, we’ve evolved to extract moisture from the food we eat and make it last a long time. Still, there’s nothing better than chilling in an abandoned badger den snacking on a juicy vole. Don’t @ me.
Compass

## Ability

### Ability

**Find your Way****(Play)** If played in the middle slot, your cards adjacent to this gain +10 Power and the card opposite this gains +10 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The magnetic **Compass** was invented in China during the Han Dynasty (20 BC - 20 AD). Early compasses were made using lodestone (naturally magnetized magnetite). Interestingly, lodestone means 'leading stone', or 'coarse stone' In Middle English (used 1150 AD to around 1450 AD, 'lode' meaning journey in Old English).

As you'd expect with something which has its origins so long ago, its exact history is the subject of speculation, but it is thought that ancient scientists discovered they could temporarily magnetise an iron needle by rubbing it against a lodestone, so when floated on relatively frictionless water it would point towards magnetic north and south. From there, you have a universal reference point from which all navigation across the world can be meaured.

Incidentally, "boxing the compass" is to be able to name all 32 points on a Mariner's Compass starting from north in a clockwise direction. So for all you budding mariners, here's some homework:

North(N),
North by east(NbE),
North-northeast(NNE),
Northeast by north(NEbN),
Northeast(NE),
Northeast by east(NEbE),
East-northeast(ENE),
East by north(EbN),
East(E),
East by south(EbS),
East-southeast(ESE),
Southeast by east(SEbE),
Southeast(SE),
Southeast by south(SEbS),
South-southeast(SSE),
South by east(SbE)
South(S),
South by west(SbW),
South-southwest(SSW),
Southwest by south(SWbS),
Southwest(SW),
Southwest by west(SWbW),
West-southwest(WSW),
West by south(WbS),
West(W),
West by north(WbN),
West-northwest(WNW),
Northwest by west(NWbW),
Northwest(NW),
Northwest by north(NWbN),
North-northwest(NNW) and
North by west(NbW).

(wow, way to hit the wordcount - Ed)"
Christmas Pudding

## Did You Know?

There's always room for Christmas pud! A favourite dessert for Christmas dinner in the United Kingdom and Ireland (and in many of the countries that were in the British Empire), two traditions surround the making of this festive treat.

A custom established in the 1920s says that every member of the household should stir the Christmas Pudding mixture and make a wish, which is something you miss out on if you get it from the shop.

While it's being mixed, it's also customary to add small coins to the mixture - those who find them in their slice are said to be guaranteed wealth if they don't choke on the coin or catch some disease from it.
Combine Harvester

## Ability

### Ability

**Harvest Moon****(Play)** If your deck contains The Moon, gain +13 Power/Turn this round.

## Did You Know?

In 1834, Hiriam Moore and John Hascall of Kalamazoo County, Michigan, tested their brand-new grain-harvesting machine: a 17-foot long **Combine Harvester** pulled by teams of horses. Although revolutionary at the time, it did take 20 or more horses to pull the thing forward. Improvements were made (and horse jobs were lost) with the introduction of tractor-pulled combines.

Then, in 1939, a company called Massey Harris pondered why combines needed to be pulled at all. Enter the first self-propelled combine harvester with a combustion engine – an invention that is considered the most important point in the history of the combine harvester. Today, the largest “class 11” combines have nearly 600 kW engine power and are fitted with headers of up to 60 feet wide.
Corpse Flower

## Ability

### Ability

**Scratch & Sniff****(Play)** Your Hydnora card in hand gains +30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

With a nickname like a Tim Burton film, the Amorphophallus titanium – also known as the **Corpse Flower** – isn’t the most pleasant of plants. While in bloom, the flower emits a pungent smell that is oddly similar to rotting meat or… a decaying corpse. On a lighter note, the Corpse Flower is one of the world's largest and rarest flowering structures.

Despite its putrid smell, the Corpse Flower draws big crowds to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for example, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of these flowers bloom, and nearly 300,000 tuned in online to watch the event. At least from behind a screen, you can admire its beauty without the stench of rotting flesh.

CRAFTING CLUE BELOW!

- Raise the roof!
Cygnus Falconeri

## Ability

### Ability

**Swan About****(Play)** A random card in your hand gains +20 Power until played and a random opponent's card, wherever it is, loses -20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

If you thought modern-day swans were <link="https:>hard to catch</link>, try chasing after a **Cygnus Falconeri.** Not only did they boast a 3 metre wingspan, but these giant swans were at least a third larger than the biggest living swans, at least 1.50m tall. For context, Danny Devito is 1.47m tall (not very tall for a man - but for a bird, it’s enormous.)

Cygnus Falconeri was <link="https:>even taller than the dwarf elephants</link> that it lived alongside in Malta and Sicily. Sadly for the swan, it went extinct as a result of climate fluctuations and the arrival of predators to the region. But, if you want to see what a swan on steroids looks like, its skeleton is on display at the Għar Dalam museum in Birżebbuġa, Malta.
Coati

## Did You Know?

Coatis can rotate their ankles beyond 180 degrees because they are double-jointed, and can descend from trees head first!

The collective term for a family of Coatis is a "band", because they're incredibly noisy when they move about in a group (which also describes most of the songs on the Billboard Chart any given week).
Centaurus

## Did You Know?

Centaurus, the ninth-largest constellation in the night sky, resembles the mythical creature known as the centaur; half man, half horse, all awesome.

It contains the famous star Alpha Centauri, which is orbited by a couple of planets that scientists reckon have the best chance of supporting life (though if it is there, is probably bacteria and not awesome half-horse half-man creatures. Pity).
Century Egg

## Did You Know?

You wouldn’t believe us if we told you that aged horse-pee egg goes well with rice porridge and pork. And that’s fair enough: we are stretching the truth a little. Known as the **Century Egg**, this Chinese dish is made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime and rice hulls for several weeks to several months.

When it’s ready, the egg yolk will be black in colour and have a strong flavour due to the hydrogen sulphide and ammonia. As a result, the common word for century egg in Thai and Lao translates to “horse urine egg.” If you can get over the name and the look, it’s certainly worth a try!
Changyuraptor

## Ability

### Ability

**Long Feather****(Play)** Your Birds cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

If you ever needed proof that nature is metal, the **Changyuraptor** is it. Like a levelled-up turkey with a thirst for blood, this flying dinosaur had not two, but FOUR wings that it likely used to glide and swoop down to prey upon small animals like mammals, lizards, and amphibians.

The single fossil specimen that it is known from was discovered from Early Cretaceous deposits in Liaoning Province, China. As such, the generic name of the dinosaur combines the Chinese words for "long feather", (cháng yǔ), with Latin raptor ("robber", “seizer").

Thought to be one of the largest flying dinosaurs of the Mesozoic Era, fossil analysis at the University of Cape Town revealed that the adult Changyuraptor measured approximately 1.2 metres long and weighed 4 kilograms.

'Changyuraptor yangi Reconstruction' by Emily Willoughby (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered) Background added, color correction.
Desert Pocket Gopher

## Ability

### Ability

**Pocket Pals****(Play)** Your Botta's Pocket Gopher card in hand gains +50 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Don’t let its stout little body fool you: the **Desert Pocket Gopher** is an industrial little rodent, designed to dig for victory with its large claws and flexible fingers. With its small eyes and ears, the DPG relies on its super-sensitive whiskers to navigate its tunnel kingdom in the dark.

The name "pocket gopher" comes from this animal's fur-lined cheek pouches or "pockets", that act like tiny backpacks on each side of its mouth stretching back to its shoulders, perfect for storing its favourite little treats. Since it mostly lives in the narrow strip of land following the Upper Rio Grande Valley from Chihuahua, Mexico, the Desert Pocket Gopher has probably never encountered any other type of gopher. Also, the gopher internet simply hasn’t been invented yet.
Citrine Wagtail

## Ability

### Ability

**Chasing Our Tails****(Play)** Your Dogs cards in hand gain +33 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

So-named for its lemon-yellow feathers and constantly wagging tail, the **Citrine Wagtail** is a small songbird that belongs to the family Motacillidae and to the genus Moticilla. Found near wet meadows and marshlands, the Citrine Wagtail has a song composed of two to four simple notes which can be heard when the bird is in flight.

During the breeding season, these birds spend their time in the tundra of Russia as well as some parts of Europe, and the males will grow a grey stripe on their heads. Not only are Citrine Wagtails monogamous, but the parents can be territorial about the nest which is usually made by the female.

While in migration, they flock to India and Southeast Asia, although some populations have been found in Western Europe.
Christmas Trees

## Did You Know?

Christmas Trees have been an enduring symbol of the holiday season for centuries, but the tradition of decorating evergreen trees goes all the way back to Ancient Rome. The Romans celebrated Solstice with a feast called Saturnalia and marked the occasion by decorating boughs in their homes and temples.

The Christmas Tree as we know it today has its origins in 16th Century Germany. Martin Luther - who you may remember from kickstarting the Reformation - is said to have been so awed by the stars twinkling above the trees at night that he brought a fir tree into his house and adorned it with candles so he could share the sight with his family.

It's unclear how the tradition spread from there - the Luthers probably attracted a lot of attention, what with them undermining the Catholic faith and all, so maybe people looked into their house and thought "well I don't like how they're challenging the tenets of my religion, but they know how to make a tree look lovely."

## Trivia

* This card is available on Christmas specials.
Christmas Tree Worm

## Ability

### Ability

**Spiral Slide****(Return)** This card loses -15 Power and costs -2 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Your Christmas Tree - the one in your living room RIGHT NOW - is likely riddled with thousands of these highly toxic creatures, who like to burrow into your carpet overnight and...

Nah, not really. The **Christmas Tree Worm** won't get anywhere near your tree unless you live in a coral reef. And they're not poisonous. Instead - as you'll have deduced from the picture - they vaguely resemble the kind of designer Christmas Trees you find in upmarket department stores.

The dual colourful spirals that the worm sports are in fact structures designed for feeding and breathing (the latin name *Spirobranchus* essentially means 'spiral gills'). As well as enabling respiration, the tentacles - or 'radioles' - along each spiral trap prey and carry them to the worm's mouth.

They sure are purdy though.
Cloud Gate

## Ability

### Ability

**Pause and Reflect****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, this card loses -75 Power.

## Did You Know?

**Cloud Gate** is a giant bean-shaped mirror sculpture in Chicago, USA. But don't you go saying that to its creator, Anish Kapoor - of its nickname, "The Bean", Kapoor once said it was "completely stupid". It does look a lot like a bean though, buddy...

What Kapoor was trying to evoke through the shape and shininess of the piece was a unique reflection of the city around it - the skyscrapers bend inwards towards the middle, and the people around it are reflected on the underside.

And with thousands of visitors every day (when we're not in the middle of a global pandemic, of course!), the whole thing can get a *little bit grimy*. It's cleaned fully once a day, and the lower levels where people can get their grubby mitts all over it are cleaned every few hours. It also gets bathed in 40 gallons of Tide detergent twice a year.
Cheese Rolling

## Ability

### Ability

**All Downhill From Here****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, this card gains +200 Power this turn. **(Return)** Lose -80 Power/Turn this round.

## Did You Know?

You’ve got to be fearless, or at least have consumed enough Dutch courage, to take part in the annual **Cheese Rolling** competition of Gloucester, England, where participants tumble like ragdolls 200 yards down Cooper’s Hill for the title of Cheese Rolling champion.

See, they're chasing a big wheel of Double Gloucester cheese to the bottom, and whoever gets there first gets to keep it. No one’s ever died during the competition, but the “Cheese Chase Chaos” of 1990 saw 22 casualties including an old woman who was knocked out by the cheese - wheel unlucky!

CRAFTING CLUE BELOW!

- A sour reminder.

## Fusion

 **Cheese Rolling** | **20** | Caber Toss | 3
Dimetrodon

## Did You Know?

Our editorial team had so many dinosaurs to choose from, and yet they still picked Dimetrodon.

To be clear... DIMETRODON IS NOT A DINOSAUR. It is, in fact, a Pelycosaur from the Permian period.

Given the blindingly obvious sail on its back - used to soak up the sun - you'd expect that to feature in its name somehow. However, Dimetrodon actually means 'two measures of teeth' - because it had teeth of different sizes along its jaws.
Charles Vane

## Ability

### Ability

**A King's Pardon****(Draw)** If your deck has 1 or more Unruly Rulers cards, this card costs -4 Energy permanently.

## Did You Know?

You’re a pirate with a pretty solid record for targeting French and English vessels, but King George I has just decided to offer a pardon to all pirates. Do you: a) take the pardon and work on reforming yourself, or b) lead a group of pirates against the English crown and get captured and sent to jail in the process? If you’re **Charles Vane**, you pick b, but then later accept the King’s pardon while in prison and get set free.

It didn’t take long for Charles Vane to start targeting English ships around the Caribbean again (pirates gonna pirate), and he quickly gained a reputation for cruelty, torturing sailors he captured in his exploits. In 1721, Vane was captured once more - this time, there was no pardon, just execution.
Common Vole

## Ability

### Ability

**Railway Systems****(Return)** If you have played two or more Going Underground cards this game, two of your remaining Going Underground cards in hand gain +25 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Let’s be honest: a **Common Vole** isn’t about to intimidate any ferocious predators with its looks. It’s also not the best climber. Fortunately, it doesn’t need to be.

Like many rodents, it relies on one of mother nature’s greatest resources for protection: dirt. To escape danger, voles move along the ground through a vast network of well-used runs that lead to their burrows. Some of these are shallow runnels, while others are up to 12 inches underground.

When feeling threatened, they either freeze to stay unnoticed like musical statues, or make a break for their burrow. And when it comes to their getaway car, voles aren’t fussy. Voles will happily make use of mole and chipmunk tunnels if they have to.
Cobalt

## Ability

### Ability

**Bolt From The Blue****(Draw)** A random card in your hand costs -3 Energy this turn.

## Did You Know?

**Cobalt** is an element that is incredibly abundant - it can be found in the soil, in mineral deposits, on the sea floor - but considered incredibly valuable at the same time. While it's easy to find it combined with other elements, pure **Cobalt** is extremely hard to find.

Even if it is found mixed with other elements, it's also rare to find it large enough quantities that it justifies a mine - the only place is the world where it's abundant enough is Morocco.

**Cobalt** is a curious metal that's able to produce a wild variety of colours. It's most often associated with blue, the result of it being compounded with aluminium, but it can also become green (with zinc) and violet (with phosphorus).

It's commonly used in magnets and rechargeable batteries, and at one point in the 1960s it was added to beer. Cobalt chloride helped maintain the foam that builds when beer is poured to give it that overflowing look. Sounds appealing, except that it contributed to heart failure in heavier drinkers. The FDA banned it quickly, and too right - no one likes too much head on a pint, right?
Cicada 3301

## Ability

### Ability

**Crack the Code**BAD80988414FBCA2E5DA388E5BFA0854AAC344934C6ADFD24630E9242E5FF478

## Did You Know?

It’s been called the most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet age, and no one can say for sure who created it or why. In January 2012, the first **Cicada 3301** puzzle contest appeared, casting a HEX on budding codebreakers to decipher it's meaning.

It was only after participants opened the image on WordPad that they found an embedded “Caesar cipher” at the bottom. This confusing message took participants on a whirlwind journey through the internet, works of literature, ciphers, Mayan numerals, a Texas phone number and various real-world locations.

Finally, they arrived at a URL which took them to a webpage that featured a picture of a Cicada and a clock counting down from three days. Yeah, we think we’ll stick to The Impossible Quiz, thanks.

Credit to buttermiilk for being first to crack the code!

You can still play along for fun by clicking here if you'd like to have a go! Everything you need is on this card back...

Or just claim the runner-up prize...
Dakotaraptor

## Ability

### Ability

**Maul****(Return)** Steal 1 Energy from your opponent who then loses -13 Power/Turn next turn.

## Did You Know?

Did you hear the one about the thief from Dakota? This is the meaning behind the name of the **Dakotaraptor**, a feathered dinosaur that has been described as “utterly lethal”. It could run impressively fast, jump higher than Michael Jordan and had grappling hooks on its front and rear limbs. In fact, the more you learn about the **Dakotaraptor**, the more you realise it was capable of more than petty thievery.

Discovered in the Hell Creek Formation in Northern America, this terrifying beast could easily pass as devil spawn. These dinosaurs were around 5 metres long, making them some of the largest raptors in the world. They also had sickle claws of around 9.5 inches, allowing them to slice and dice their prey with ease.
Diplodocus

## Ability

### Ability

**Double Beam****(Play)** If you are losing the round, your **Diplodocus** card in hand gains +49 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Whilst not as heavy as its cousins the Alamosaurus or Brachiosaurus, the Diplodocus is one of the most well-known dinosaurs as well as being one of the longest.

From snout to tail, it was estimated that it could reach nearly 175 feet in length. For comparison, if it was somehow able to balance perfectly on the tip of its tail, it would nearly be able to touch the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (if the Leaning Tower of Pisa was perfectly upright; the lean gives the Diplodocus a slight advantage in this very-poorly-thought-through example).
Alexander von Humboldt

## Ability

### Ability

**Long-Term Geophysical Measurement****(Start)** For every Life on Land card you have played this game, up to a maximum of 5, your Science cards in hand gain +1 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Penguins, monkeys, an orchid, a glacier, rivers, towns, mountains and an ocean current: it’s said that more locations and living things are named after German naturalist and explorer **Alexander von Humbolt** than anyone else in history. He even has a small lunar sea named after him.

A pioneer in natural studies, Von Humboldt inspired generations of scientists through over 60 published scientific works including ‘Cosmos’ - a book on the evolution of the universe. He even warned of the damage caused by gas emissions, industrial centres, deforestation and human-induced climate change way back in the 1800s.

If being a powerhouse in the field of environmental science wasn’t enough, Von Humboldt was also the first European to climb Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, reaching a height recorded as 5,875 metres.
Colossal Squid

## Ability

### Ability

**Inkredible****(Draw)** Your Epic and Legendary Cephalopods cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

If you have even the slightest teuthiphobia (fear of squid), we recommend looking away now. Because this isn’t just a sweet and squishy lil’ cephalopod - it’s a gargantuan beast with a combined body and tentacle length of 14 metres that weighs at least 500kg in adulthood.

Thought to be the inspiration for the mythological Kraken, the **Colossal Squid** is the largest invertebrate on Earth. Even its eyes are an enormous 27cm long and glow in the dark.

Since they usually live deeper than 1,000 metres, we still don’t know that much about their behaviour. However, what we do know is that the Colossal Squid’s metabolism is so slow that it is able to survive just by eating a single fish for months.
Dark Hedges

## Ability

### Ability

**Haunted Forest****(Play)** If your deck has 6 or more Tremendous Trees cards, your Weird World cards, wherever they are, gain +38 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

If you choose to stroll through the **Dark Hedges** of Northern Ireland, don’t be surprised if creepy ghosts follow you.

Perhaps the most photographed location in Northern Ireland, this spellbinding row of ancient beech trees lines Bredagh Road, entangling above to create a spooky tunnel bathed in a blend of light and shadow.

According to legends, the Dark Hedges are home to the Grey Lady, the ghost of a maid from the nearby house who died in mysterious circumstances centuries ago. By night, the grey lady glides through the twisted beech trees alone.

On Halloween, the graves from a forgotten cemetery in the area are said to open. For this night only, the grey lady finally gets some company from the local ghosts on her walk.
Centimanes

## Ability

### Ability

**Strongarm****(Return)** Your Neil Armstrong card, wherever it is, costs -3 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Do you know what’s better than two hands? One hundred hands.

In Greek mythology, the Hecatoncheires, also called the **Centimanes**, were three monstrous giants who each had fifty heads and a grand total of one hundred arms, making them a total nightmare opponent in battle.

These giants were the children of Uranus and Gaia, and represented the immense natural forces of earthquakes, tornados and tidal waves. When the Titan Kronos ruled over the second generation of gods, he kept the one-eyed Cyclopes in Tartarus, along with the Centimanes. But the Centimanes were stronger than Kronos, which is probably why Zeus freed them – so that they could help him and the other Olympian Gods to win the ten-year war.
Diamonds

## Did You Know?

**Diamonds** are made up of a single element, carbon, and it's the arrangement of these atoms that make diamonds so hard. Which is fascinating when you consider another arrangement of these same atoms gives you graphite, the stuff in your pencil, which is so soft it's worn down by paper.

So how on earth did this lump of carbon become so desired? It is in part because of De Beers and its founder Cecil Rhodes. It's worth giving you a bit of background on this divisive figure; an imperialist politician who exploited minorities and had close links to the burgeoning eugenics movement. As prime minister of the Cape Colony, he removed the right to vote from many black Africans and annexed large parts of South Africa which paved the way to apartheid. In 1888 he founded De Beers which was once one of the world's most ruthless monopolies (through forcible relocations, price-fixing and other general business no-goodery) and it controlled 90% of the world's rough diamond market.

But apart from being more than a bit 'iffy,' De Beers is also the reason we desire **Diamonds**. Arguably creating the most successful marketing campaign of all time, they managed to successfully convince a gullible public that a Diamond engagement ring was an essential part of the marriage experience. Before the campaign, only 10% of engagement rings were adorned with a Diamond, by 1990 80% had that sparkly nugget of carbon.

As of 2019, De Beers market share has been significantly reduced to around 30%.
Demon

## Ability

### Ability

**Hell Bent****(Play)** If your deck contains Hel, your Norse Mythology cards in hand gain +30 Power until played. Repeat for Hades with Greek Mythology and Osiris with Egyptian Mythology.

## Did You Know?

Christianity states that **Demons** are fallen angels who are forces of evil, only striving for corruption. But back in ancient Greece, the word ‘daimon’ (from which demon derives) did not have negative connotations. In their culture, a “daimon” was a divine power or spirit. In fact, the Greek word ‘eudaimonia’ literally means good spiritedness.

So, when did demons become the Hell-dwelling, body-possessing spirits we hear about in modern religions, occultist traditions, fiction and folklore? It seems that, by the early Roman Empire, a shift in opinion had already taken place; pagan “diaomones” had become malevolent “demons” who worked for Satan.

Today, demons are still a staple of horror films that usually result in the classic trope of a Priest brandishing a crucifix and shouting in Latin.
Copper

## Did You Know?

**Copper** (Cu) was the first metal worked and shaped by humans. It's one of the few metals that could be found clustered in its native state near to the surface, which made it easy for early humans to find and work with.

An axe made with a nearly-pure **Copper** head was discovered with the remains of Otzi the Iceman, thought to have lived in 3300 BCE, which serves to illustrate just how far back humans use of **Copper** goes. It also serves to remind this writer of DJ Ötzi, who charted in 2001 with a cover of Hey Baby that drives me mad.

Aside from being early human's metal of choice, **Copper** is also vital for any human to survive - our bodies need it as it's essential for blood cell formation. Fortunately, it's abundant in most of the food we eat so you don't have to, like, lick pennies to get it.
Cryodrakon

## Ability

### Ability

**Cry Some More****(Play)** If this card matches the Arena, this card gains +55 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

*WARNING: this copy contains a spoiler for season 7 of* Game of Thrones. *Although if you haven't seen that far into it yet, it's probably not worth continuing the show, it's all downhill from there.*

A very recent entry into the list of known prehistoric creates, the **Cryodrakon** was only discovered in 2019. It was named by David William Elliott Hone, Michael Habib and François Therrien, who had considered *viserion* as part of its species name, in reference to the ice dragon from the A Song of Ice and Fire universe.

As such, not an awful lot is known about it - it's very similar in size to the Quetzalcoatlus, but its neck a features that distinguishes it from other birds of that ilk. Its pneumatophores (small openings that lead to additional air pockets inside the creature) are found much lower down the neck than usual.
Comb Sea Star

## Did You Know?

Whatever you do, don’t eat the **Comb Sea Star**. Also known as the sand-sifting starfish, this reef-dwelling creature contains the neurotoxin ‘tetrodotoxin’, also known as TXX which has no known antidote.

Aside from the poison, eating this starfish wouldn’t be particularly pleasant due to the many sharp spines that cover its entire upper surface and allow it to dig through sand. Plus, once you find out how it feeds, you’ll probably be put off anyway.

You see, the comb star’s mouth is situated on the underside of their body, but their prey is absorbed outside their mouths by forcing out their digestive organs from their stomach. Through this rather unpalatable process, comb sea stars consume molluscs, worms, detritus and even each other.
Cherenkov Radiation

## Ability

### Ability

**Emission****(Draw)** If your deck has 2 or more Oceans and Seas cards, your non- Oceans and Seas cards in hand gain +20 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

Whenever the color blue is invoked by poets and songwriters, they always seem to choose the sky or the sea as a metaphor. Poor **Cherenkov Radiation** never gets a look in. And yet, when observed, Cherenkov raditation is the most brilliant blue going. Sure, it’s a bit more of a mouthful than “the ocean” or “sky above”, but it’s definitely more exciting.

What is it? Well, picture a particle carrying an electric charge travelling through water, at a speed greater than light can move through that medium. Easy to imagine, of course. As the radiation passes through the water, it emits a light with a shorter wavelength than the usual wavelength. And, since there is more light with a short wavelength, the light appears blue.

'Advanced Test Reactor Core' by Argonne National Laboratory (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Chantilly-Tiffany

## Ability

### Ability

**Twice Extinct****(Return)** This card loses -50 Power until played and up to ten of your random Cute Cats cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

It isn’t just gigantic beavers and funny looking crustaceans that go extinct. It can happen to the most adorable animals, too. Case in point: the **Chantilly-Tiffany**. Okay, technically speaking, this long-haired kitty isn’t totally extinct - in fact, there are likely a small amount of Chantilly Tiffany cats around. But there is no breed pedigree anymore, since the last breeder gave up on the Chantilly breeding program after the death of her beloved cat Frosty.

When the breed was first introduced, it was called the Foreign Longhair, but later renamed Tiffany. However, this caused confusion with an existing breed called ‘Tiffanie’ - a cross between a Chinchilla Persian and a Burmese. So, the breed was renamed again as Chantilly - a fancy name for a fancy cat.