Arcana of Many Things

The **Arcana of Many Things** is a magical tarot deck containing the 24 cards of the Major Arcana skinned onto a Deck of Many Things.

## Description

Iga Lisowski runs a psychic business in the Upper West Side of Manhattan where she often gives tarot readings to her clients. These readings, like most of her business, are mostly fake, as the business is just a cover for the money laundering that she does for local crime families. However, Iga herself is savvy to the magic of the Unsleeping City and comes from a long line of magical ancestry, and so also possesses a "real" tarot deck that gives immediate magical effects to each card that's drawn.

Only three cards have been drawn during the campaign, but Siobhan Thompson was generous enough to share the rest of them, listed below, through the Dropout Discord. You can also download and view the list in a PDF here.

**I. The Magician**: You gain the Magic Initiate Feat, with spells and cantrips of your choosing.

**II. High Priestess**: At any time you choose within one year of drawing this card, you can ask a question in meditation and mentally receive a truthful answer to that question. Besides information, the answer helps you solve a puzzling problem or other dilemma. In other words, the knowledge comes with Wisdom on how to apply it.

**III. The Empress**: A feast granting the benefits of a Long Rest appears before you and up to 10 companions.

**IV. The Emperor**: You are granted a permanent +2 to your Armor Class, that vanishes the moment you disobey the rules of any lawful institution.

**V. The Hierophant**: A nonplayer character of the DM's choice becomes Hostile toward you. The identity of your new enemy isn't known until the NPC or someone else reveals it. Nothing less than a wish spell or Divine Intervention can end the NPC's hostility toward you.

**VI. The Lovers**: You may cast the Warding Bond spell on a target of your choice without expending a Spell Slot once during the course of the following year.

**VII. The Chariot**: You gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill, and you double your Proficiency Bonus on checks made with that skill.

**VIII. Strength**: You gain the service of a 4th-level Fighter who appears in a space you choose within 30 feet of you. The Fighter serves you loyally until death, believing the fates have drawn them to you.

**IX. The Hermit**: Permanently reduce your Charisma by 1d4 + 1 (to a minimum score of 1). You can draw one additional card beyond your declared draws.

**X. Wheel of Fortune**: Reality's fabric unravels and spins anew, allowing you to avoid or erase one event as if it never happened. You can use the card's magic as soon as you draw the card or at any other time before you die.

**XI. Justice**: If you single-handedly defeat the next Hostile monster or group of Monsters you encounter, you and your companions gain Experience Points enough to gain one level. Otherwise, this card has no effect.

**XII. The Hanged Man**: You disappear and become entombed in a state of suspended animation in an extra-dimensional plane. Everything you were wearing and carrying stays behind in the space you occupied when you disappeared. You remain imprisoned until you are found and removed from the Sphere. You can't be located by any Divination magic, but a wish spell can reveal the location of your prison. You draw no more cards.

**XIII. Death**: You summon an avatar of death-a ghostly Humanoid Skeleton clad in a tattered black robe and carrying a spectral scythe. It appears in a space of the DM's choice within 10 feet of you and attacks you, warning all others that you must win the battle alone. The avatar fights until you die or it drops to 0 Hit Points, whereupon it disappears. If anyone tries to help you, the helper summons its own Avatar of Death. A creature slain by an Avatar of Death can't be restored to life.

**XIV. Temperance**: Every magic item you wear or carry disintegrates. Artifacts in your possession aren't destroyed but do Vanish.

**XV. The Devil**: A powerful devil becomes your enemy. The devil seeks your ruin and plagues your life, savoring your suffering before attempting to slay you. This enmity lasts until either you or the devil dies.

**XVI. The Tower**: All forms of Wealth that you carry or own, other than Magic Items, are lost to you. Portable property vanishes. Businesses, buildings, and land you own are lost in a way that alters reality the least. Any documentation that proves you should own something lost to this card also disappears.

**XVII. The Star**: Increase one of your Ability Scores by 2. The score can exceed 20 but can't exceed 24.

**XVIII. The Moon**: You are granted the ability to cast the wish spell 1d3 times.

**XIX. The Sun**: You gain 50,000 XP, and a wondrous item (which the DM determines randomly) appears in your hands.

**XX. Judgment**: The card's medusa-like visage curses you. You take a -2 penalty on Saving Throws while Cursed in this way. Only a god or the magic of The Fates card can end this curse.

**XXI. The World**: A secret of the campaign that would meaningfully move the plot forward is revealed to you in a way that is the most upsetting/disruptive to Brennan specifically.

**XXII. The Well**: This black card Spells Disaster. Your soul is drawn from your body and contained in an object in a place of the DM's choice. One or more powerful beings guard the place. While your soul is trapped in this way, your body is Incapacitated. A wish spell can't restore your soul, but the spell reveals the location of the object that holds it. You draw no more cards.

**XXIII. The Artist**: You gain 10,000 XP, or you can draw two additional cards beyond your declared draws.

**XXIV. The Fool**: You lose 10,000 XP, discard this card, and draw from the deck again, counting both draws as one of your declared draws. If losing that much XP would cause you to lose a level, you instead lose an amount that leaves you with just enough XP to keep your level.

## History

Iga first reveals the Arcana of Many Things as the Dream Team visits Nod in the Sixth Borough and discusses potentially turning back time to undo some of the damage Null has caused to both the waking and dreaming worlds. She is referring to the Wheel of Fortune card, and pulls the deck out, warning that although there is a chance to draw this card, many of the rest of them are curses, and there's no way to guarantee which one will be drawn. She asks the party if anyone is interested in drawing, and Cody Walsh is the only one who expresses interest. He chooses to draw three cards.

The first is the Lovers, which has no immediate effect. The second is the Sun, which grants Cody bonus experience points, as well as a third magical sword, which sprouts from the middle of his Questing Blade/dream Excalibur hybrid, creating Thirsting Blade Dark Excalibur Mega-Genesis. Lastly, for the second time in the campaign, the Tower is drawn. Cody immediately loses all his wealth and material possessions, and they are sucked into the Lisowski Chest. In Astoria, to Cody's roommates who are not awakened to the Unsleeping City, it appears as if movers came to take Cody's things away, but have caused severe property damage to the rest of the house in the process.