recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Lepidodendron

## Ability

### Ability

**Serpent Tree****(Draw)** Your Common and Rare Tremendous Trees and Reptiles cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Around 350 million years ago, the first large land plants made their debut on planet Earth. Standing over 50m tall, **Lepidodendron** was around the same size as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris - that’s big, even by tree standards.

The plant rarely branched - but when it did, it was crowned with a cluster of long narrow leaves. The Lepidodendron lived in some of the wettest swamps of the prehistoric world, so it was mostly composed of soft tissues and didn’t produce much wood.

Even still, modern day humans would probably still be chopping them down regardless. Since we weren’t around at the time to do that, it’s thought that the forest floors of the Carboniferous period were littered with these giant trees, as they only lived between 10-15 years.
Man a Machine

## Ability

### Ability

**Causal Determinism****(Draw)** If you have lost 1 round this game, your Philosophy cards, wherever they are, gain +24 Power until played. **(Play)** If you have played 3 or more Philosophy cards this game, your Futurology cards, wherever they are, gain +24 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

In the 1600s, René Descartes popularised the idea that animals were separate from humanity and were merely mechanical automatons without an immortal soul. Oddly, people really vibed with this view, as it suggested humans were special in some way.

Then, French physician and philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie took it further. In his work, **Man a Machine** (L’Homme Machine), La Mettrie reformulated Descartes' idea to apply to humans as well. In his words, “Man is not moulded from a more precious clay; nature has only used one and the same dough, merely changing the yeast.’

This unleashed controversy, as it challenged the notion of humans as being above beastkind. He also denied the existence of the soul as a substance separate from matter, which didn’t go down so well either.
Leonardo Da Vinci

## Ability

### Ability

**Renaissance Man****(Play)** Your Science cards in hand gain +26 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Leonardo da Vinci, a true genius in science, engineering and the arts. An emblematic polymath, the original 'Renaissance Man' and arguably the most multi-talented man ever to have lived. It's poor judgment on our part that we're even attempting to squeeze even an ounce of this man's brilliance onto a measly CUE Card, but as usual, we'll give it a go!

He was born in 1452 out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci, Tuscany which is where he gets his name da Vinci (of Vinci). Vinci.

With no formal academic training, the young Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (to use his full name) became studio boy to Andrea del Verrocchio, a leading artist at the time, later gaining an apprenticeship at 17. At the age of 26, he received his first independent commission to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of St. Bernard.

His unquenchable curiosity and gifted imagination meant he worked across art, science, engineering, cartography, hydrodynamics, astronomy, geometry and hydraulics. From painting masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper to designing military fortifications to inventing the odometer and parachute.

Nowadays we tend to consider art and science to be separate disciplines, but during the Renaissance, it was not particularly unusual; one was seen as informing upon the other. What set him apart from his contemporaries was the sheer number of disciplines and his ability to excel in each of them.
Looking Glass Rock

## Ability

### Ability

**Free Climbing****(Play)** Gain +70 Power/Turn this turn. **(Return)** If you lost the turn, lose -10 Power/Turn permanently.

## Did You Know?

If you’re a seasoned hiker, **Looking Glass Rock** in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina is a dream. If you choose to take the 3 mile trail, you’ll enjoy beautiful sights on this upwards hike such as a small creek, a flat rock which acts as a helicopter pad and the Looking Glass Cliffs (mind your step!). But once you reach the top, you’ll be in awe of the amazing views of the Appalachian Mountains and a sea of trees below you.

Looking Glass Rock is named for the way its granite faces reflect sunlight, like a shining mirror. It’s a plutonic monolith, meaning that it consists of just one giant rock but thankfully, the trail means that you don’t need to pack your rock climbing equipment, a hike will do. However, some more ambitious rock climbers have been known to climb the steep face of the rock, but we’ll happily stick to the clearly marked trail, thank you very much!
Lion-tailed Macaque

## Ability

### Ability

**Lion and Cheatin'****(Draw)** Your Rare Primates cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Whilst the Lion-tailed Macaque shares a similar tail to a Lion, that is where the similarities end. The Lion-tailed Macaque has a reclusive disposition, preferring to stay in close proximity to its home.
Le Morte d'Arthur

## Ability

### Ability

**Principal Source****(Draw)** If you have played no Arthurian Legends cards this game, your Arthurian Legends cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy permanently. **(Play)** For every Arthurian Legends card you have played this game, up to a maximum of 18, this card gains +6 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Not all stories have a happy ending. In **Le Morte d’Arthur**, the clue really is in the name. But quite a lot happens before that point, and this story captures everything - from Arthur’s birth to… well, you know. For this definitive re-telling, we have Thomas Malory to thank, who adapted it from a late 14th-century poem while imprisoned for a series of violent crimes. Hey, at least he used his time wisely!

In the space of 21 books and countless chapters, Malory tells the tumultuous love story of Arthur and Queen Guinevere, the Knights of the Round Table and their quest for the mystical Holy Grail and Arthur’s adventures with Merlin. In the end, our hero is dealt a fatal blow by his son, Mordred. <link="https:>When Arthur falls, his kingdom goes with him.</link>
Matches

## Ability

### Ability

**Strike Anywhere****(Draw)** Your Common Ingenious Inventions cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power permanently. **(Play)** If played next to any card, your cards in hand **Burn** (30) until played and your opponent's cards in hand **Burn** (15) until played.

## Did You Know?

In 1826, British pharmacist John Walker was experimenting with a sticky concoction that he hoped would revolutionise the way guns were loaded. Walker’s invention would be a game-changer - just not in the way he expected.

One day, while stirring the mixture with a wooden stick, something peculiar happened - it caught on fire! The paste, made with antimony sulphide, potassium chlorate and gum arabic, proved to be highly flammable. So, he decided to dip some cardboard strips coated with sulphur into the mixture and voila! The first friction lights were born.

The term 'match' originally referred to the flammable cord used in dynamite or cannons, deriving from the Old French 'mèche' meaning candle wick. However, with the widespread use of friction lights, the term **‘Matches’** was eventually adopted for them as well.
Laika

## Ability

### Ability

**Spaceman's Best Friend****(Play)** Your Amazing Astronauts cards in hand gain +70 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

The writer of this card types this with a heavy heart - looking wistfully at her two dogs, shuddering at the thought of them being flung into space and wiping a tear from her eye... But on to the legend of **Laika.**

The Soviet Union stunned the world on Nov. 3, 1957, with the launch of Sputnik 2. Onboard the small satellite was a gorgeous little dog, Laika, a stray husky mix from the streets of Moscow, who probably traipsed said streets, eating scraps and not realising that she would soon be the first animal to orbit Earth, sent on a suicide mission...

Unfortunately, Laika's ticket into space was one-way only, as a re-entry strategy could not be worked out in time for the launch.

No one knows exactly how long Laika lived in orbit, perhaps only a few hours or a few days, until the power to her life-support system gave out. Sputnik 2 burned up in the upper atmosphere in April 1958.

You will always be a hero Laika. We salute you, and hope you're chasing comets and catching stars, wherever you are.
Lyra

## Ability

### Ability

**Lyre of Orpheus****(Play)** Your Orpheus card in hand gains +40 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

**Lyra** is one of the smallest constellations - and by "small", we mean "still very massive", taking up as it does 286 sq/deg of the night sky between latitudes +90 and -40. It was discovered by Ptolemy, the ancient Greek astronomer who named it after the lyre (harp) of Orpheus (who you'll know all about if you've read our Orpheus card).

Despite its size, it's still home to one of the brightest stars in the night sky - Vega, which is the fifth brightest by luminosity that we can see from Earth. It also contains the Ring Nebula, another big space object we've made a card about.

CRAFTING CLUE BELOW!

- What key is a Polynoidae in?
Lightspeed Travel

## Ability

### Ability

**Relatively Impossible****(Draw)** If your deck has 9 or more Science cards, your Science cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

FTL (Faster-than-light), or **Lightspeed Travel**, would be extremely cool. It’s also not desperately likely, based on current information.

Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity infers that the faster we move, the more our length (or ‘spatial dimension in the forward direction’, if you prefer things that sound clever) approaches zero. Because science.

It also infers that, the faster we move, the more our mass grows. Also because science. (And in direct contravention of what your ‘Couch to 5K’ app tells you.)

And lastly, it infers that the faster we move, the more time slows down until, eventually, it stops. Because Einstein was high as a kite… and science.

So what is the point where our length hits zero, our mass becomes immovable, and time stops? 299,792.458 km/s. a.k.a. the speed of light.

A supermassive, non-existent object that freezes time is not possible. Ergo **Lightspeed Travel** is impossible.

Of course, Einstein’s Theory might be just another step along the journey from Flat Earth to Cosmic Omniscience. But until someone travels back in time to tell us otherwise, this concept belongs in the ‘Mythic’ pile.
Megatherium

## Ability

### Ability

**Ancestoral Aid****(Play)** Your Amazon Sloth card in hand gains +20 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Megatherium by name, MEGA by nature. These elephant-sized creatures lived in South America between 5 million and 11,000 years ago, and they were also known as the Giant Ground Sloth.

We can't lie, we would give anything for David Attenborough to go back in time and do a documentary on these huge dudes.
Luna 1

## Ability

### Ability

**Leaving Gravity****(Play)** Your Science cards in hand gain +10 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

It might not sound like a huge challenge, hitting a target that's 3,500km wide... but when the target is the Moon and no-one has hit it before, it's a different matter.

**Luna 1** took aim at the Moon in 1959... and missed. However, this was no failure - Luna 1 was the first manmade object to reach 'Escape Velocity' and leave Earth's gravity. Luna 2 followed shortly after, and became the first to reach another celestial body.
Lyman-Alpha Blob 1

## Ability

### Ability

**Space Blobs****(Draw)** 5 of your random Nebulae cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Discovered unexpectedly by Charles Steidel and his stargazing crew in the year 2000, **Lyman-Alpha Blob 1** is a giant cosmic cloud of gas located in the constellation of Aquarius. Being the OG, it earned the number 1 title and set the standard for all future blobs of its kind.

Stretching across a staggering 300,000 light years, LAB-1 dwarfs our own Milky Way. But despite its grandeur, the question remains: why is this cosmic blob so obsessed with emitting Lyman-alpha radiation? Maybe it's the glow of active galaxies within the central region of the blog, or supermassive black holes actively absorbing matter. Or perhaps it's just cool gas falling into young galaxies. Either way, LAB-1 continues to baffle and mesmerise astronomers with its enigmatic charm.
Lotte World Tower

## Ability

### Ability

**No Expense Spared****(Return)** Your Super Structures cards, wherever they are, with 7 or more Base Energy cost -2 Energy for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

Towering 555 metres above the city of Seoul is the **Lotte World Tower**, the highest building in South Korea and the fifth tallest in the world. Completed in 2017, this architectural feat is the country’s first building to exceed 100 floors, and yet getting to the top is a breeze: just jump in one of their futuristic double-deck elevators and you’ll hurtle to the top in 60 seconds, travelling at a speed of 10 metres per second.

As well as being used to shoot off fireworks during New Year celebrations, the tower is equipped with thousands of LED lights, allowing the building to produce an exceptional light show. But that’s not all: inside, you’ll find a shopping mall, a concert hall, a kid’s park, cultural centre, jazz bar and an aquarium.
Meerkat

## Ability

### Ability

**On The Lookout****(Play)** Your Going Underground cards in hand gain +13 Power this turn. **(Return)** If you won the turn, your remaining Going Underground cards in hand gain +13 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

These intelligent creatures live at the southern tip of Africa and are a close relation of the mongoose. They live in gangs of up to 50 and depend on one another for survival, babysitting and feeding each other's pups, attacking together and holding sentry over the group.

This distinct behaviour is where a **Meerkat** will stand on its hind legs acting as a lookout while others go about their business. They have incredibly good eyesight and can spot predators from miles away, alerting the gang to danger so they can escape to their burrows.

Meerkats show a high degree of resistance to neurotoxic venoms that could kill far bigger animals which is useful for creatures that live on a diet of venomous scorpions and snakes as well as insects, eggs, lizards and rodents.

(For our British userbase; there was support internally for the ability name on this card to be "Simples!", but it was vetoed because insurance comparison website advertising isn't as culturally resonant on a global scale as you think it might be. Blame Sergei.)
Lusca

## Ability

### Ability

**Sea Monster****(Return)** If your deck has 5 or more Oceans cards, your remaining Mythical Creatures cards in hand gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

I’m sure **Lusca** is nice when you get to know it, but from an objective point of view, this mythical sea beast is probably the most terrifying creature you could dream up. Clocking in at 73 ft (that’s half the size of the Arc de Triomphe), this giant predatory animal is a frightful combination of a kraken and a great white shark.

In Caribbean folklore, Lusca dwells in the blue holes of Andros island in the Bahamas, and some people say the tidal currents in these inland holes are from the creature breathing in and out. Since there’s no real origin story behind this bloodthirsty octo-shark, it’s likely that the monster was created as a superstition to warn people away from the blue holes or explain deaths and disappearances around them.
Lavinia Fontana

## Ability

### Ability

**Roman Period****(Draw)** Your The Roman Empire cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Considered the first professional woman artist, **Lavinia Fontana** smashed the patriarchy at the tender age of 13, when she was already supporting her family financially through her talent. A producer of over 135 sophisticated oil paintings, some art historians believe Fontana was the first woman to paint female nudes, and possibly the first woman to use live nude female models, who felt more comfortable posing for her than male painters of the time.

In any case, by the end of the 1500s, Lavinia Fontana had surpassed her male competition to become the region’s most sought after and well-paid painter. Her largest and most famous work was an altarpiece, The Martyrdom of St. Stephen, which she painted in 1604 upon Pope Clement VIIII’s request.
M4 Sherman

## Ability

### Ability

**Medal of Distinction****(Draw)** Your Machines of War cards, wherever they are, gain +30 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Named after the controversial Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, the 30-ton **M4 Sherman** tank was the most commonly used American tank in World War II. Despite being inferior to the heavier German tanks, this legendary wartime workhorse was reliable, capable and would play a part in helping the Allied forces win the war.

The M4 Sherman wasn’t an entirely new design – it took inspiration from the Grant and Lee medium tanks, but with several key adjustments. For a start, the M4 was the first tank to have a gun on a fully traversing turret and was also equipped with a stabiliser. These design features meant the M4s main gun could be fired accurately while the tank was moving.
Olentzero

## Ability

### Ability

**Mountain Giant****(Play)** If played next to any Majestic Mountains card, this card gains +36 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

According to Basque traditions, **Olentzero** comes to town late at night on the 24th of December, bearing gifts for good children. But make no mistake: Olentzero is not Santa Claus, but the last member of the “jentillak,” - a mythological race of Basque giants that inhabited the Pyrenees before the coming of Christ.

Unlike Santa, Olentzero doesn’t have an army of toy-making elves or a fleet of flying reindeer at his disposal. Instead, he uses his own skills to craft wooden toys for children before hiking down the mountains on Christmas Eve to deliver them by hand. Oh, and, unlike Santa, he tours the Basque villages beheading those who eat too much on Christmas Eve. A mixed bag, really.
Krypton

## Ability

### Ability

**Hidden One****(Start)** A random card in your hand costs -1 Energy this round.

## Did You Know?

It can be used as a filling gas for energy-saving fluorescent lights, as well as in some flash lamps for high-speed photography. And, no - it can’t kill Superman. However, like the fictional poison that weakens Kryptonians, **Krypton** does discharge a greenish yellow glow - but only when it’s mixed with other gases.

Along with neon, xenon and argon, krypton was discovered by British physical chemist William Ramsay - by accident. In 1898, Ramsay and his colleague Morris Travers found it as the residue of evaporation of almost all of the other components of liquid air. Inspired by this happy little accident, the element was named after a Greek word ‘Krypto’, meaning “hidden”. The two chemists would later show that these gases formed an entire family of new elements: the noble gases.
Lagoon Nebula

## Did You Know?

Located within the Sagittarius constellation, the Lagoon Nebula contains a young star that's 200,000 times brighter than our Sun. This giant interstellar cloud is located above the “spout” of the “teapot”, (no, we definitely aren't making this up - it's what Sagittarius is sometimes called!)

The Lagoon Nebula is the densest part of the Milky Way because you’re looking towards the actual CENTRE of the galaxy, which is something we still struggle to get our tiny minds around.

This area of the sky is hugely blue and hugely bright and full of nebulae, star clusters, and other deep space objects! The nebula is classified as an emission nebula and as an H II region. It was discovered by Giovanni Hodierna before 1654 and is one of only two star-forming nebulae visible to the eye from mid-northern latitudes.
Krill

## Ability

### Ability

**Key to the Food Chain****(Play)** Your Oceans and Seas cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Voiced by Matt Damon and Brad Pitt in Happy Feet 2, **Krill** are thought to have the largest population of any species on Earth. Since they sit near the bottom of the food chain, they are a key source of food for many ocean-bound species. In fact, whales can eat up to 4 tons of krill per day (which sounds like a lot, but in the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic krill makes up an estimated biomass of around 379,000,000 tonnes. Baleen whales barely make a dent in their numbers!).

Krill themselves feed on phytoplankton and often gather in swarms by the millions or even billions. The name ‘Krill’ comes from the Norwegian word ‘krill’ which means ‘small fry of fish’.
Matamata Turtle

## Did You Know?

Matamata is the area of New Zealand that became Hobbiton in The Lord of the Rings movies.

However, that's completely irrelevant to the Matamata Turtle, which lives in South America's Amazon and Orinoco basins. That distinctive neck is actually longer than its vertebra, which means that it's one of the few turtles that can't retract its head into its shell.
Large Hadron Collider

## Ability

### Ability

**Collision Course****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, this card gains +128 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

So you want to collide particles? See what happens when those little guys smash up real good? You need a particle collider, and there's only one in the world that'll guarantee you the very best in atom crashing - the **Large Hadron Collider**.

The **LHC** is a huge circular tunnel underneath the border of France and Switzerland, very near to the Swiss city of Geneva. It's seriously massive - 27 kilometres in circumference, all 175 metres below ground level - but that's the kind of run-up particles need to collide properly.

The whole ring is made up of superconducting magnets that bend two proton beams that whizz around it faster than the speed of light. Using very precise instruments, the physicists at CERN watch for what happens when those beams collide.

The whole endeavour is an attempt to recreate the circumstances of the Big Bang - because if you can remake the event that created all matter, you can understand the very fundamentals of how our universe works at the atomic level.

In 2012, those physicists discovered evidence of the Higgs Boson particle. Those are the particles that make up the theoretical Higgs field, which is the invisible force that appeared at the trillionth of a millisecond before the Big Bang and slowed down particles enough that they started creating matter.

So if a 27-kilometre ring can discover that, imagine what the proposed 100-kilometre Future Circular Collider could find? SMASHY SMASHY!
Kutia

## Ability

### Ability

**Cereal Clairvoyance****(Play)** If played next to no Curious Cuisine cards, your Mammals cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power until played. If played next to 1 Curious Cuisine card, your Bugs cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played. If played between 2 Curious Cuisine cards, your Birds cards, wherever they are, gain +25 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

If you’re celebrating Christmas in Ukraine, Belarus and many other Slavic countries, it’s very likely that **Kutia** will make an appearance on your table on Christmas Eve (which actually falls on 6 January in Ukraine). This traditional dish is sticky and sweet and contains wheat berries and poppy seeds along with raisins, walnuts and honey.

Kutia is one of the twelve dishes of Sviata Vecheria and while some of these dishes may vary from region to region, Kutia is one of the most important. It’s a dish that offers a way to remember lost loved ones and, when served, the head of the household can throw some into the air to invite family ancestors to join dinner before everyone else tucks in, and to divine meaning from the food that sticks to the ceiling. Afterwards, it is sometimes left out overnight with spoons, so that departed family members can have some too.
Laura Ingalls Wilder

## Ability

### Ability

**A New Beginning****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, your Legends of the Old West cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Although the first edition in the now world-famous Little House on the Prairie book series was only published when she was 65, American writer **Laura Ingalls Wilder** went on to become one of the most influential children’s authors in US history.

Officially, these stories are works of fiction, but there’s no doubt that Wilder was inspired by events that took place in her life. Having grown up on farms and working as a columnist for the Missouri Ruralist, she was no stranger to the spirit of rural America in the early twentieth century.

Her collection of books was read by millions around the world, but has received criticism in recent years for its troubling depiction of both Native and Black Americans.
Mangrove Forests

## Ability

### Ability

**Walking on Water****(Play)** Your Oceans and Seas cards in hand gain +15 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

They’re home to a wild array of diverse life, but **Mangroves** are as important to man as they are manatees. Although they appear to rest on the water’s surface, they have hidden root systems capable of storing huge amounts of carbon, making them one of the Earth’s greatest weapons against global warming. However, if you destroy a mangrove forest, you kick up the peat soil and unleash the carbon stocks unto the world. Best to avoid doing that.
Lord of Misrule

## Ability

### Ability

**Abbot Unreasonable****(Draw)** Two random cards in either player's hand lose -15 Power this turn and a random card in your hand gains +30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The perfect job doesn’t exist. At least not anymore – but once upon a time, in the early Tudor period in England, an official was hired to basically oversee all Christmas festivities held at court, in the houses of noblemen, in the law schools and in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.

Officially known as the **Lord of Misrule** (or, in Scotland, the Abbot of Unreason), the person appointed to the role would take the temp job that lasted anywhere between 12 days to 3 months and use this time to direct all Christmas entertainment – the feasts, the processions, the plays, the parties.

Sadly, the Lord of Misrule became redundant as a job when it was deemed “disruptive” by the Church of England in the 17th century.
Lotus-Eaters

## Did You Know?

After being stranded at sea by a storm sent by Zeus, Odysseus and his men find themselves in the land of the **Lotus-Eaters**, where the natives share the intoxicating fruit of the lotus with them.

Having seemingly not noticed that the inhabitants of the island were asleep in peaceful apathy (tsk, hippies...), Odysseus’ men took the fruits and discovered them to be a narcotic, which cause them to forget their homes and loved ones. So intoxicating was the effect of the lotus fruit, Odysseus’ men could only be dragged away from the island in tears.

Hence, a ‘lotus-eater’ denotes "a person who spends their time indulging in pleasure and luxury rather than dealing with practical concerns".

We don’t suggest you go searching for the nearest water lily to try this - the botanical identity of this plant is uncertain - if based on a real plant at all.
Mononykus

## Did You Know?

The **Mononykus** lived in what is now Mongolia during the late Cretaceous period. It's hard to know whether it was carnivorous or herbivorous (which, let's face it, hasn't stopped us putting a card in the Omnivores collection before).

Instead of multiple digits like other creatures had, **Mononykus** had a single 7-centimetre claw on each of its stubby arms. It's still unknown what these appendages were for - they're clearly specialised for something, and paleontologists speculate it was for burrowing into termite mounds which suggests a largely insect-based diet.
Medusa Nebula

## Ability

### Ability

**Serpentine****(Play)** Your Nebulae cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power until played. **(Return)** An opponent's random card in hand loses -36 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

Originally discovered in 1955 by astronomer George O. Abell at the University of California, the **Medusa Nebula** is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Gemini. Long strings of snake-like filaments that extend above and right of the bright crescent region inspired its name after the dreadful snake-headed creature in Greek mythology.

Like its mythological namesake, the Medusa Nebula is associated with transformation. The colourful cloud we call a planetary nebula is the final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun as they shed off their outer layers and transform from red giants to white dwarf stars. The red and pink colours come from an abundance of hydrogen, while the blueish hues result from high oxygen emissions.

'Medusa Nebula' by Jschulman555 (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY 3.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Marco Polo

## Ability

### Ability

**Culture Connector****(Return)** If you won the turn, your History cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power until played and if you lost the turn, your Arts & Culture cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Although he wasn’t the first European to travel to China, legendary explorer **Marco Polo** was the first to write about it – or, more accurately, to find himself sharing a prison cell with a romance author who could ghost-write his famous book: *The Travels of Marco Polo*. Through this book, Marco Polo brought back the idea of paper money, eyeglasses and a postal service. Without these, we’d all be squinting over messages sent by carrier pigeons. Thanks, Marco!

'XVI century portrait of Marco Polo' by Fordham Sourcebooks (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under Public Domain (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Lupercalia

## Ability

### Ability

**Violen-tines****(Play)** Your History cards in hand gain +15 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

Now we live in an age of chaos and unpredictability, maybe it’s time we ditch the romantic Valentines traditions in favour of **Lupercalia** – a violent and sexually charged Roman celebration awash with animal sacrifice and random matchmaking with the aim of warding off evil spirits.

The origins of the festival are obscure, but what we do know is this: at the start of the festival, two male goats and a dog were sacrificed. Two young priests (“Luperci”) were then anointed with the blood of the animals, and the hides of the creatures were cut into some very revealing briefs. As food and drink flowed, the priests ran around the city wearing nothing but thongs made from the animal skins. Maybe we will stick to Valentines after all.
N1

## Ability

### Ability

**Shoot for the Moon****(Play)** Your The Moon card, wherever it is, gains +25 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Why did the Soviets never make it to the moon?

There’s no punchline here, just the truth behind the **N1** - a rocket designed to compete with the US’ Saturn V and put a man on the Moon. Fully loaded and fuelled, the N1 weighed 2,750 tonnes, or about 13 blue whales.

Sadly, all 4 attempts to launch the N1 failed, and the second resulted in one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in human history. Hey, that’s still an accolade!

'Н-1 1M1 mockup on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in late 1967.' by National Reconnaissance Office (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under Public Domain (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Kowari

## Ability

### Ability

**Brush it Off****(Play)** If you are losing the round, this card gains +29 Power until played. **(Return)** If you are losing the round, this card gains +29 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Also known as the brush-tailed marsupial rat, the **Kowari** weighs about as much as your average cupcake. However, you won’t catch this marsupial snacking on anything sweet. Its favourite meals include insects, spiders, small lizards and even birds and rodents.

Life in the deserts of Central Australia is tough, but the Kowari is well adapted for life in dry conditions. In fact, it doesn’t even need to drink, since it gets all the moisture it needs from its food. When the temperature drops, the Kowari puts itself in a torpid state – a form of hibernation that allows it to preserve energy.

By day, the brush-tailed marsupial rat sleeps in a burrow. By night, the creature stalks its prey and uses a fatal neck bite to kill larger animals.
Medea

## Ability

### Ability

**Helper-Maiden****(Play)** If your deck contains only Arts & Culture cards, three of your random Greek Mythology cards, wherever they are, gain +14 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

One minute, you’re getting married to a beautiful woman of divine descent, and she’s promised to help you obtain the Golden Fleece. The next, she’s murdered the children you have together and is fleeing the scene in a dragon-pulled chariot belonging to her grandfather, the Sun God. Honestly, the dramas of Greek mythology make Keeping Up With The Kardashians look dull.

But **Medea** wasn’t always a murderous villain - she just had a bad break up. How would you feel if you used your powers to help your husband get this highly coveted fleece, only to have him ditch you for the king of Corinth’s daughter? Vengeful, no doubt. But Medea took it way too far, poisoning Jason’s new wife and committing infanticide. Girl, a passive aggressive instagram story would have sufficed.
Mauna Kea Observatories

## Ability

### Ability

**Observe and Report****(Play)** If this card matches the Arena, this card gains +45 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The Mauna Kea Observatories are a chain of twelve astronomical facilities atop the dormant Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii. There are 13 telescopes between them, all independently owned, within a specially-designated "Astronomy Precinct".

Aside from pretensions to living the super villain dream of having a lair built into a volcano, the reason Mauna Kea makes a great position for observatories is its height - it's above the light pollution, air pollution and water vapour that surface-level observatories have to contend with, and Hawaii's remoteness means that it can get some of the clearest views of the universe.

It's not been without its controversies - Native Hawaiians have protested the observatories existence on the grounds of, well, their grounds being sacred to their culture.
Lü Bu

## Ability

### Ability

**Betray Your Allies****(Play)** The card opposite this loses -80 Power this turn and your cards adjacent to this lose -40 Power this turn. **(Return)** This card gains +20 Power until played and your other Chinese Folklore cards, wherever they are, lose -20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Anyone who’s played Dynasty Warriors will agree that if you see **Lu Bu** on the battlefield, your best bet is to run away. You don’t get the nickname “invincible warrior” for nothing, and this guy was one of the most feared and renowned warlords in all of Ancient China. In fact, just the mention of his name would send chills down the spines of even the most skilled fighters. This is a man who chopped the head off his own adopted father to join forces with another powerful warlord Dong Zhou, before eventually just killing Dong Zhou to pursue his maid.

In the end, Lu Bu was betrayed by his men and handed over to rival general Cao Cao. His offer to join forces was rejected, and he was strangled to death.
Livyatan melvillei

## Ability

### Ability

**Whale of a Time****(Draw)** Your Orca card in hand costs -3 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

The pre-historic whale, **Livyatan melvillei**, has a mouthful of a name, so let's break it down. The Livyatan part comes from the Leviathan, a creature from the Bible that takes the form of a sea serpent. The melvillei part is named after Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick, an 1851 novel about a sea captain's quest to kill the sperm whale that took his leg (apparently there's more nuance than that, but hey, we've saved you a lot of time).

Anyway - this is the great ancestor of the whales we know today, and it's believed to have lived at the same time as the Megalodon (great ancestor of our sharks). The two would compete as the apex predators of the oceans, fighting over the same food resources.

The big difference between Livyatan and the whales of today are the teeth - at just over 30 centimetres long, they are some of the longest of any creature to have ever lived!
Long-Toed Salamander

## Did You Know?

The Long-Toed Salamander is usually found in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It gets its name from the big toes on its rear feet (a toe which you can just about see on the front of this card; don't worry, we'll have a word with the people who pick the images). That toe is one more toe than most other salamanders have on their rear feet!

We've mentioned in other Salamander cards about how they store proteins in their tails and that they can detach them at the first sign of danger to make them more mobile for escape. The Long-Toed Salamander has an additional defense mechanism - they can convert their proteins into noxious secretions to ward off attackers.
Mahatma Gandhi

## Ability

### Ability

**Action Expresses Priorities****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, gain +2:energy/turn: this round and gain +5 Power/Turn permanently.

## Did You Know?

Born Mohandas Karamchand **Gandhi** on October 2 1869 in Kathiawar, India, which at the time was under the control of the British Empire otherwise known as the “Raj.”

In the late 1880s, Gandhi left India to study law at The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, London and was called to the bar at the young age of 22, ending up in South Africa where he experienced similar (not as bad) racial segregation and discrimination as the black population. In an early act of civil disobedience, while travelling to Pretoria, Gandhi was forcibly removed from a train after refusing to leave the first-class carriage despite having a ticket.

While practising as a successful lawyer, he would go on to organise a mass civil-disobedience at the poor treatment of South Africa's Indian population.

In 1914, Gandhi moved back to India after 21 years and a year later he founded an ashram (a spiritual monastery), devoting his life to fasting, meditation and prayer.

Now might be a good time to mention that while Gandhi changed the world with his peaceful approach to creating change, he was not a saint. Early in life, he held some questionable views on the black population of South Africa and he also liked to 'test his celibacy' by inviting young women to sleep naked next to him at night, including his grand-niece.

In 1919 the British Government enacted the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act (Rowlatt Act) which led to the internment of individuals the Government suspected of seditious (opposed to the Empire) activities without trial. Gandhi called for peaceful protests which he called Satyagraha (meaning truth and insistence). The protests were aggressively put down, resulting in the deaths of more than 400 protesters.

Renouncing his allegiance to the British Government, he went on to become a prominent figure in the Indian home-rule movement. Years of peaceful protests followed with arrests and even short imprisonments. When he set up the August Movement in 1942, demanding the British immediately withdraw from India, he was imprisoned once again. Failing health secured his early release; by this stage the Empire was weak and Churchill was no longer in power. Clement Attlee started the negotiations for Indian independence, with Gandhi taking a leading role. But sadly for Gandhi, negotiations for a unified India failed and the partition of India took place in 1947 leading to mass-displacement and deaths of anywhere between 200,000 and 2 million men, women and children.

Just under a year later, at the age of 78, Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu extremist, upset at Gandhi’s tolerance of Muslims. Mahatma's, (which means great soul) ashes were poured into urns which were sent across India for memorial services before being poured into the Triveni Sangam, the confluence (where bodies of water join) of the Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati rivers.
Pangaea

## Ability

### Ability

**One World****(Draw)** A random Paleontology and a random Life on Land card in your hand gains +36 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

You’re (probably) too young to remember, but the world wasn’t always separated into continents the way it is today. You see, 335 million years ago during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras, Earth’s continents were once part of an enormous, singular land mass – a supercontinent known as **Pangea**, which derives from the Greek word “Pangaia”, meaning “all the Earth”.

The supercontinent began to break apart around 200 million years ago, during the early Jurassic period, eventually separating to form the continents and oceans we know today. This didn’t happen all at once – in fact, seafloor spreading shows Pangea broke apart in distinct stages, and plate tectonics reveal that the continents joined with one another and broke apart several times during Earth’s history.
Manawaiopuna Falls

## Ability

### Ability

**Life...Uh...Finds a Way****(Draw)** Your Paleontology cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy this round.

## Did You Know?

Known more commonly by its unofficial name of Jurassic Falls, the **Manawaiopuna Falls** were made famous from the opening of the original 1993 *Jurassic Park* movie. Just like the film suggests, you have to hop on an island helicopter to get here as the iconic waterfall sits on private land. In fact, landing there - even by helicopter - was forbidden entirely until 2009.

Since the ban was lifted, thousands of tourists and lovers of modern cinema have flocked from across the world to visit the beautiful waterfall and soak in the stunning scenery. Located in Hanapepe Valley on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the Manawaiopuna Falls are 122 metres tall and totally inaccessible by road or foot.
Mountain Goat

## Did You Know?

You know **Mountain Goats**; they're the goats you always see that have, beyond explanation, managed to get up onto sheer cliff faces. That should be impossible, surely?

Well, the **Mountain Goat** is specially adapted to climbing the rock faces of North America like that. Its hooves are hard on the outside, but smooth on the inside - this means they can quite easily gain purchase on craggy mountain rocks with their tough outsides, and the insides can mould around them for stability.

This remarkable ability to ascend inclines above 60 degrees is learned from a very young age, and it's an important one too - it's their main advantage over their predators. Bears, Cougars, Wolves and even, sadly, humans are known to hunt them.
Macrauchenia

## Ability

### Ability

**Llama Drama****(Play)** Your opponent's cards in hand lose -2 Power this turn and this card gains +10 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

A creature that looks like it stepped out of the Star Wars universe, the origins of the **Macrauchenia** were the subject of speculation ever since Darwin found its bones in 1834 and dubbed it "the strangest animal ever discovered." This awkward-looking llama may as well have been from Tatooine. Then, in 2017, a new study placed the mystery mammal in the Litoptern group that diverged from Perissodactyla (odd-toed mammals) 66 million years ago.
Mary Read

## Ability

### Ability

**Come up and Fight!****(Play)** If played next to Anne Bonny, your opponent's cards in hand lose -25 Power this turn. **(Return)** Your Anne Bonny and **Mary Read** cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

When **Mary Read’s** mother disguised her in boy’s clothes as a means of getting money for her dead son, she sparked a flame that lit the way for her daughter’s career. Like a real life Mulan, Mary used the disguise to join the military where she became known as a brave, albeit mad, soldier.

Later in life, Mary donned the male costume once more to launch her career as a privateer. Before long, she was a full-blown pirate - and a fearsome one at that. Always the first to fight off an attack, Mary had the entire crew convinced she was a man. In fact, when the ship was captured, it was only Mary and fellow crew-woman-in-disguise Anne Bonny, who defended the ship as the male crew hid in the hold.
Light Emitting Diode

## Ability

### Ability

**RGB****(Play)** If your deck has 5 or more Arts & Culture cards, gain +5 Power/Turn permanently. Repeat for Life on Land and Oceans cards.

## Did You Know?

Even if you haven’t heard of the **Light Emitting Diode**, it’s likely you know about LEDs. They light up the numbers on digital clocks, transmit signals from remote controls and tell you when your appliances are turned on.

The Light Emitting Diode is a semiconductor device that produces light from electricity. This technology was first invented by a man called Nick Holonyak while he was working at General Electric’s research lab. Upon his invention, he predicted that LEDs would replace Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb – and he was right. After all, LEDs use much less energy than regular bulbs because diode light is more efficient than filament light. Plus, the lifespan of an LED far surpasses the short life of an incandescent bulb by thousands of hours.
Kom Ombo Temple

## Did You Know?

Kom Ombo is unique among Egyptian temples in that it served two gods - Sobek, the crocodile god, and Horus, the falcon-headed god. Followers of Sobek were known to mummify crocodiles, and more than 300 have been unearthed in the area so far.

It was originally constructed in the Ptolemaic dynasty and each half was the mirror image of the other so that each god was worshipped equally. Sadly it's not all there any more due to natural wear, earthquakes, and builders taking the stones to use in other constructions.
La Befana

## Ability

### Ability

**Witching Hour****(Play)** Your opponent's cards in hand lose -3 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

La Befana is a witch from Italian folklore who visits children and fills their socks with sweets and gifts if they've been good, or coal if they've been bad. So far she's just Santa on a broomstick, but her legend begins in a dark place.

It's said that La Befana was an ordinary woman who lost her child and was driven mad with grief. Then, she heard of the birth of Jesus and travelled to find him under the delusion that she was his daughter, returned. She presented Jesus with gifts and delighted the baby so much that he made her the mother of every child in Italy.

There's also a bit in her legend that says that if she is seen while she's delivering gifts, she'll deliver a thump on the head with her broomstick. You have been warned.
Lobotomy

## Ability

### Ability

**Severed Connections****(Draw)** 9 of your random cards, wherever they are, lose -20 Power for 3 turns. **(Return)** 9 of your random cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Today, we look in horror at **Lobotomy**. But when treatments for mental illness were in short supply, this surgical intervention was seen as a breakthrough.

The procedure dates back to the 1880s, when a supervisor at an insane asylum named Gottlieb Burkhardt suggested it as a means of making patients “calmer” (easier to manage is more accurate.) Burkhardt performed a lobotomy on six patients suffering from symptoms of schizophrenia with the goal of calming them down. Tragically, one patient died, and another committed suicide.

Yet, lobotomies continued to be performed, and grew increasingly popular after neurologist Walter Freeman streamlined the process - a feat that earned Freeman the Nobel Prize. Unfortunately, not all lobotomy practition-ers were responsible, and the technique left some patients with seizures, lethargy, incontinence and <link="https:>changes in personality</link>.