recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
The CIA

## Ability

### Ability

**Recruit****(Draw)** Your John Steinbeck card, wherever it is, costs -20 Energy for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

The Central Intelligence Agency, more commonly known as **The CIA**, was formed in 1947 with the purpose of gathering, processing and analysing national security information from around the world. The agency’s top priority is counterterrorism, and following the attacks on September 11th, 2001, the CIA saw a huge boost to its size and budget.

Over the years, the CIA has been the subject of many controversies including human rights violations, domestic wiretapping, propaganda and more – in the 1950s, for example, being unknowingly dosed by LSD was “something of an occupational hazard”, as there was an ongoing effort to find drugs that could wipe a subject’s mind clean”.

As you might imagine, the Starbucks at CIA HQ in Langley Falls, Virginia, isn’t allowed to take names for orders.
The Houses of Parliament

## Ability

### Ability

**... and Plot.****(Play)** Your Gunpowder card in hand gains +25 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The heart of the British government, otherwise known as the Palace of Westminster, isn't as old as its pseudo-gothic architecture would suggest as it was only completed in 1876.

The original 11th century Palace of Westminster (the Gunpowder plot one) was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1834 leaving only a few medieval structures in place. It's called the Palace of Westminster because it was first used as the residence of Edward the Confessor, the penultimate Anglo-Saxon monarch of England.

It contains two houses - The Commons, elected by the public and The Lords, who aren't elected and are there to check and challenge the government of the day.

Amazingly the building includes a hair salon a gym and until recently a shooting range. Perhaps indicative of many of the decisions made in the building, it also includes 9 subsidized bars.
The Hand of God Nebula

## Ability

### Ability

**Backhanded Compliment****(Return)** Your opponent loses -50 Power/Turn next turn.

## Did You Know?

"Hand of God" is a bit of a mouthful, we find - so you may want to use its scientific name, ‘PSR B1509-58’. Don’t get too attached to it though, as it’s sadly already dead. PSR B1509-58 is the pulsar, which itself is just 19 kilometres long, but spins around nearly seven times every second. (I’m so dizzy, my head is spinning) Whilst spinning, it throws out particles upheaved during the star’s death and consequent explosion. It glows with X-rays as the particles interact with magnetic fields around the ejected material.

For NASA, one of the biggest remaining mysteries is how and why it is shaped like a hand. Are the pulsar particles interacting with the material in a specific way to make it look like a hand, or is the material in fact already shaped like a hand? They’re doing their research on this - you’ve gotta HAND it to them….
Strawberry Hermit Crab

## Ability

### Ability

**Water Supply****(Play)** For every Oceans & Seas card in your deck, your Crustaceans cards in hand gain +2 Power for 4 turns.

## Did You Know?

Excuse us while we make loud squeeeeeeing noises over the **Strawberry Hermit Crab** - the cutest crustacean in the sea. Commonly kept as pets in home aquariums, these bright red crabs are super small and only grow to about 3 inches long. However, don’t let their size fool you, they’re surprisingly strong and like to rearrange all the items in their habitat, like a rock star trashing a hotel room.

They’re also incredibly sassy. They like to show other crabs that they like them by pushing, shoving, kicking and “feeler fights”, where they sniff each other into submission. However, the cutest fact you’ll hear all day is how when one finds a new larger shell, other Strawberry Hermit Crabs will line up and switch shells from biggest to smallest which is just flipping adorable.
Tardis

## Did You Know?

You might know the **TARDIS** as the Time And Relative Dimension In Space, and the vessel of choice for Time Lords, but *did you know* that it's painted in the stars as well?

In 2018, NASA celebrated the 10th anniversary of their Fermi Gamma-Ray Space telescope by naming 21 Gamma-Ray constellations, and we were pretty excited to find out the TARDIS is up there for real, alongside the Starship Enterprise and Schrodinger’s Cat *(or is it?)*

Fittingly, scientists are using this telescope to look for mechanisms that, like the TARDIS, prove cracks in the current laws of physics, such as the principle called “Lorentz Invariance” - which states that the result of a measurement *doesn't* depend on how fast an object is moving or where it is in space.

According to NASA: “Some physical theories predict that light with the highest energy moves a bit more slowly than light at lower energies, which would violate Lorentz invariance. GRBs *(intense cosmic explosions called gamma-ray bursts)* are prime tools to test these theories because their initial pulse of gamma rays occurs at the same time, so all the photons reaching us have traveled the same distance. And because GRBs are so far away, they provide a sensitive probe of any differences in arrival times across different energies.”

Gamma rays are invisible to the human eye, so unfortunately you won’t be able to see the TARDIS in the night sky, but hardcore Whovians can just imagine it’s had its visual stabiliser circuit removed. After all,  *“the universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.”*
Sturgeon

## Ability

### Ability

**Rainy Summer Days****(Play)** Your Sturgeon Moon card, wherever it is, gains +29 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

A literal living dinosaur: the **Sturgeon** fish makes baby boomers feel young, because their oldest fossils date back to the early Jurassic period, some 200 million years ago. Today, there are about 29 species of Sturgeon fish worldwide, and they range from the size of a sea bass to monster sturgeon as big as a Volkswagen.

The largest sturgeon on record was a female captured in the Volga Delta in 1827, and she measured 7.2 metres in length and weighed a whopping 1,571kg. It takes twenty years for females to start reproducing, but they can only have kids every four years. Still, the return is worth the investment as this species can go on to live up to 150 years.
The Great Panjandrum

## Ability

### Ability

**Wheeled Out****(Play)** Your Machines of War cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power until played. **(Return)** If you won the turn, your Machines of War cards, wherever they are, gain +8 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

If the thought of a giant wheel with rockets attached to it sends you into a panic - good, it probably should. That’s what **The Great Panjandrum** was but thankfully, it never actually saw use in battle.

Developed by the British during WWII, The Great Panjandrum was part of a series of incredibly experimental devices. Or, as we like to consider it, the point during the war where they just threw ideas at the wall to see which ones stuck. It was designed to take down the Atlantic Wall (the Nazis’ coastal defences) and what better way to do that than strapping explosives to a drum?

Every test run was a dramatic failure and the machine would fall apart or fly in the wrong direction. To make this scene even more amusing, in spite of the fact that this device was supposed to be developed in secret, tests were held on a beach which was also a popular tourist destination meaning it wasn’t very secret at all. It has been suggested that it was a hoax to freak the Nazis out but we think the mere concept of it existing has freaked literally everyone out.
Sturgeon Moon

## Ability

### Ability

**Moon of August****(Play)** Your Fabulous Fish cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn and next.

## Did You Know?

Back in the day (like, way back), people tracked the seasons not by the solar year but by the lunar month. Instead of names that celebrate Roman gods and emperors, the months were named after features they associated with the Northern Hemisphere seasons.

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, August’s full Moon was called the **Sturgeon Moon** after North America's largest fish, the lake sturgeon. That’s because August used to be the prime time for Native American tribes to catch sturgeon fish in the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.

If fishing ain’t your thing, you can always call this full moon by its other names: the green corn moon, the grain moon or the red moon for the hue it often takes on in the summer haze.
Sumatran Tiger

## Did You Know?

The Sumatran Tiger is the smallest tiger subspecies. Recognisable for the thick tufts of hair on their necks, this Tiger is only found on the Island of Sumatra, Indonesia. They have the narrowest black stripes of any tiger subspecies and the reason behind this is because they are ambush predators in the Indonesian jungle and need to blend in amongst the thick vegetation.... sinister.

It prefers to hunt in dense vegetation, but deforestation is destroying the hunting grounds and putting the Sumatran Tiger at risk - it is unfortunately one of the most at-risk animals on the planet.
Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos

## Ability

### Ability

**Flamen Heck!****(Play)** If you are losing the round, your cards in hand lose -10 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

In captivity, the **Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo** will live a life that spans a whopping 70 years. However, one resilient blighter defied this by decades. His name? Cocky Bennett.

This sulphur-crested cockatoo lived through the eighteenth, nineteenth and part of the twentieth century, reaching a grand old age of 120. A natural chatterbox, Cocky’s favourite phrases included "one feather more and I'll fly" and "one at a time, gentlemen, please”.

But Cocky Bennett isn’t the only sulphur-crested cockatoo to make bird history. In 2007, Snowball the cockatoo went viral when his owner filmed him <link="https:>dancing to the Backstreet Boys.</link> Due to his distinct range of self-taught dance moves, Snowball went from internet sensation to scientific marvel and forced researchers to rethink the very nature of dance.
Ten of Swords

## Ability

### Ability

**Betrayal****(Return)** If you won the turn, your remaining cards in hand lose -20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

You know how most people think the Death Tarot card is bad, but it’s actually not that bad? Well, no big deal, but the **10 of Swords** is… pretty bad. The card symbolises painful endings, a concept depicted quite literally by a man face down on the ground with ten swords in his back (that never ends well.)

Don’t panic, but if you did just get this card in a reading, a major disaster is headed your way. Be prepared: your boss might run away, or your cat might fire you in a fit of rage. Maybe even the other way around. In any case, something in your life is about to come to a cataclysmic close. Or… it’s just a meaningless drawing on a playing card.
Supermassive Black Hole

## Ability

### Ability

**Revelations****(Return)** For every non- Space card in your deck, give your Space cards, wherever they are, +3 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Watch someone fall into a **Supermassive Black Hole** and you’ll notice that Time isn’t Running Out, it’s just slowing down. This is explained by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, which states that time is affected by how fast you are going when you’re at extreme speeds close to light.

Supermassive black holes are the biggest black holes in the universe, some of which have masses billions of times that of our sun. Scientists say they appeared shortly after the Big Bang and believe they exist at the centre of every galaxy.

Our resident black hole is known as Sagittarius A\*. It’s about 27,000 light-years away from Earth and appears to us to have about the same size in the sky as a donut on the Moon.
Striped Pyjama Squid

## Ability

### Ability

**Racing Stripes****(Play)** Your Zebra Longwing, Zebra Shark and Plains Zebra cards in hand gain +30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Don’t let its name fool you: the **Striped Pyjama Squid** is not even a squid at all, but a species of cuttlefish. One of the few poisonous cephalopods, you can be thankful that this tiny creature only reaches a maximum of 7cm in length. While the timeless pinstripes keep this species on trend for Pacific Fashion Week, its feeding tentacles help it to grab crustaceans to go. Dinner and a show!
Thalattoarchon

## Ability

### Ability

**Sovereign of the Sea****(Draw)** Your Oceans and Seas cards in hand cost -2 Energy this round.

## Did You Know?

244 million years ago, the oceans were dominated by an array of sharp-toothed, terrifying sea monsters. One such beast is the **Thalattoarchon** – a name which translates to “lizard-eating sovereign of the sea.” That’s quite a title, and this ichthyosaur had the reputation to boot, crunching prey just as large – if not larger – than itself.

Measuring at least 8.6 metres in length (or about the size of a London bus), the finding of Thalattoarchon fossils revealed something pretty amazing about the resilience of marine ecosystems. Only 5 million years after the biggest extinction event in Earth’s history (the end-Permian extinction), this apex predator had made a return. Thankfully for divers, Thalattoarchon and fellow ichthyosaurs went extinct despite thriving for some 160 million years.
The Molly Maguires

## Ability

### Ability

**Workers of the World Unite****(Draw)** Your Common cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power this round and your Rare cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

In 1997, Tony Blair formally apologised to Ireland for the UK government’s handling of the Irish Potato Famine. Arguably ‘better late than never’, but given that over a million Irish people died in the famine - and another million were compelled to leave their homeland - that apology should not have taken 150 years.

**The Molly Maguires** arose shortly before the Great Hunger, primarily to defend agrarian tenants’ rights. However, during the famine, they not only grew in number but also emigrated.

By the 1860s in Pennsylvania, the Molly Maguires had become a secret society of coal miners. They were accused of acts of terrorism - but this may be a harsh term for what was an attempt to defend their workers’ rights in the face of atrocious conditions and diminishing pay.

Determined to break the power of the labour unions and the ‘Mollies’, Franklin Gowen (then one of the wealthiest coal mine owners in the world) hired the Pinkerton detective agency to investigate/infiltrate the society. This culminated in the arrest and eventual execution of six men - despite an extraordinarily biased process in which Gowen himself was the Special Prosecutor.

John Lavelle, writing in 1994, described it as follows:   *The Molly Maguire trials were a surrender of state sovereignty. A private corporation initiated the investigation through a private detective agency. A private police force arrested the alleged defenders, and private attorneys for the coal companies prosecuted them. The state provided only the courtroom and the gallows.*
Tarantula Hawk

## Ability

### Ability

**Spider Wasp****(Draw)** Your cards with Spider in the name, wherever they are, gain +20 Power and cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Its sting is described as "blinding, fierce and shockingly electric" and is rated near the top on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, second only to that of the bullet ant. Fortunately for the **Tarantula Hawk**, its extremely large stingers are off-putting to most predators.

To give you an idea of how metal these wasps are, they literally use a paralysed spider as a nursery for their newborns. After the female wasp has injected her venom into the tarantula, she drags it back into its own burrow and lays an egg on it. Her children are born atop an enormous, fresh food source. Before they’ve even had time to process being alive, they’re feasting on the still-functioning vital organs of a spider.
Sword of Goujian

## Ability

### Ability

**Goujian's Revenge****(Return)** If this is the only History card in your deck and if you lost the turn, gain +50 Power/Turn next turn.

## Did You Know?

Sword of Goujian Chinese Folklore
Like Liam Neeson in Taken or Keanu Reeves in John Wick, **King Goujian** was hell-bent on getting revenge. After being captured in a war with the Kingdom of Wu, Goujian was forced to serve as the personal servant to King Fuchai. Three years later, he was released.

But rather than indulging in his freedom, he slept on straw to remind himself of the humiliation he had suffered. After 10 years of plotting his revenge, he and his kingdom took on Wu once more and won.

When the Sword of Goujian was discovered in an ancient tomb in Hubei, it was sheathed in a wooden scabbard, and thanks to the air-tight fit of the scabbard, the blade was miraculously untarnished, despite having spent 2,000 years underwater.

'Bronze sword used by King Goujian of Yue' by Windmemories (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
The Coastline Paradox

## Ability

### Ability

**How Far?****(Return)** Your opponent's Oceans and Seas cards, wherever they are, cost +1 Energy this round.

## Did You Know?

If you had to hazard a guess, how long in centimetres would you say the coastline of the **United Kingdom** measures? Sorry to disappoint, but it’s actually impossible to know.

Why? Because of a phenomenon known as **The Coastline Paradox**, which states that the length of a coastline grows as you use smaller, more precise units to measure it. So, no matter how many attempts you made to accurately calculate its length, you would reach the same result: a big question mark, because a coastline by nature is full of tiny nooks and crannies.

This was originally spotted by a man called Lewis Richardson in the 1950s when he tried to check his theory that the likelihood of war between countries depended on the length of their shared borders.
Stratford Lyon

## Ability

### Ability

**Red Lion****(Play)** If played between any Cool Cats card and any Mammals card, your Mythical Creatures cards in hand gain +25 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

One day, a young aristocrat named John de Stratford saw some large antlers poking up from the ground in the New Forest of Hampshire, England. Curious, he tugged on the antlers. Suddenly, a giant blood-red lion with yellow eyes and stag antlers emerged from the Earth and charged in his direction. Thinking fast, de Stratford dodged the antlers and jumped on the creature’s back. Enraged, the lion ran three times around the Forest boundary trying to unsaddle its rider. But de Stratford held on and wrestled the beast into submission, at which point it pledged its service to de Stratford and his ancestors until Doomsday.

While this story is pure legend, sightings of the so-called **Stratford Lion** have been reported in the 60s, the 90s and even in 2021.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

## Ability

### Ability

**Stellar Evolution****(Draw)** Your Common and Rare Watching the Skies cards, wherever they are, gain +19 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

At age 19, most of us are learning to cook pasta and discovering how washing machines work. But when **Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar** was 19, he discovered that stars were destined to collapse into nothingness under their own weight and become black holes.

Born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1910, Chandrasekhar went on to spend 50 years at the University of Chicago where he worked on a wide variety of problems in physics such as stellar structure, white dwarfs, stellar dynamics and radiative transfer. He even helped with the war effort in WWII, working at the Ballistic Research Laboratory in Maryland. In 1983, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his studies on the evolution of stars. Don’t worry, cooking pasta is still pretty important, too.

'1939War' by GArticle (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
The Green Knight

## Ability

### Ability

**A Christmas Game****(Draw)** Your Festive Traditions cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power and cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

If you love 14th-century Middle English poetry, you probably know who the **Green Knight** is. But for everyone else’s sake, this elusive character makes his appearance in the Arthurian poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where he appears before Arthur’s court at a Christmas feast, holding a battle-axe.

He then proposes a challenge: any man can strike him once, with the condition that he return the blow the next year. Spoiler alert: Arthur accepts, but Gawain takes his place and cuts the knight’s head off. The knight re-attaches his head and gives Gawain a rendezvous for the future. When the day comes, the Green Knight barely touches him and reveals he is really Bertilak de Hautdesert sent by Morgan le Fay to test Gawain and Arthur.
Texas Blind Salamander

## Ability

### Ability

**Squirm****(Return)** If you are losing the round, this card costs -1 Energy permanently.

## Did You Know?

I miss the good old days. Like, around 1689, when a fellow of the Royal Society could happen upon a Cave Salamander, and confidently identify it as ‘dragon larva’.\*

Sadly, the modern era is a little less poetic. The **Texas Blind Salamander**, for example, is a Salamander that is blind (it has eyes, but they are unhelpfully covered in skin), and - you guessed it - it’s native to Texas. Like many animals that live in the dark, its skin has barely any pigment (I mean, what’s the point?) - but its superpower is its ability to detect prey through changes in water pressure, like a rubbish X-Man.

* The fellow in question was Johann Weikhard Freiherr von Valvasor, if you were wondering.
Tech-Noir

## Ability

### Ability

**Blade Runner****(Play)** If you are winning the round by 50 Power or less, your Stage and Screen cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played and if you are losing the round by 50 Power or less, your Futurology cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

If you enjoyed The Terminator, Blade Runner and Minority Report, you’ve got a penchant for **Tech-Noir** - a hybrid genre-mash that combines the futuristic side of sci-fi with the characteristically dark yet glamorous side of film noir.

The term Tech-Noir comes from the aforementioned James Cameron movie, where it features as the name of a nightclub. This was a deliberate choice by Cameron to invoke associations with both genres.

As Y2K loomed in the 1990s, tech noir rose to prominence as filmmakers sought to explore the perils of a technology-driven society. Fortunately, <link="https:>treacherous tech corporations</link>, <link="https:>rapidly advancing AI</link> and <link="https:>RoboCops</link> are purely fictional threats, and we can assure our future will be nothing like the worlds of tech noir films. Probably.
Thanos Simonattoi

## Ability

### Ability

**Snap!****(Play)** If played between two Hidden Gems cards, 9 of your random cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power for 3 turns and 9 of your random opponent's cards, wherever they are, lose -10 Power for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

It shares its name with a popular Marvel villain - and yet, **Thanos Simonattoi’s** hands look far too small to fit the infinity gauntlet. Plus, the animal is thought to have only measured 1.5 metres tall, which is a whole 50 cm shorter than the Mad Titan. Some argue that this species shouldn’t have been named at all, because it is based only on a single neck vertebra found near São José do Rio Preto.
Maybe it just needed a different name - after all, Thanos the Dinosaur wouldn’t even have been the top predator in its environment because a larger, undescribed theropod was also found at the site. Then again, perhaps in one of the <link="https:>14,000,605 timelines</link>, this carnivorous brachyrostran abelisaurid dinosaur looked just like its namesake.

'Thanos Simonattoi Representation' by Ul1ss3z (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Protictitherium

## Ability

### Ability

**First Striking Beast****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, your Paleontology cards in hand gain +25 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Thought to be the very first hyena, the **Protictitherium** was prolific in Turkey about 17 million years ago. And considering the amount of carnivores around at the time and the competition for resources, it didn’t do too badly either, surviving until about 4-5 million years ago.

Being relatively small in size (around 50 cm tall at their shoulder), the agile Protictitherium could weave in between larger predators and snatch their lunch from the leftovers of their kills. But it didn’t depend entirely on smaller animals as a food source - in fact, for the most part, this early civet-like hyena hung out in the open woodlands, snacking on insects. All-purpose teeth suggest they would have even settled for veggies when meat wasn’t available.
The Christmas Light Hoax (2004)

## Ability

### Ability

**Static Images****(Draw)** A random card in your hand with "Light" in the name gains +20 Power until played and **Lock**s this turn.

## Did You Know?

If you were given the opportunity to flick a stranger’s Christmas lights on and off at will, you would take it, right? Of course you would. And that’s what Alek Komarnitsky, a computer specialist, promised as part of a <link="http:>Christmas campaign</link> to raise funds for celiac disease.

From his website, people across the world were given the opportunity to view and control his display of 20,000 lights. Exciting in theory. <link="https:>Complete hoax in practice</link>. While people believed his lights were blinking on command, all they saw were a rotation of still photos he’d prepared in advance with the lights either on or off, and with varying amounts of snowfall. Still, the **Christmas Light Hoax of 2004** did provide a chuckle when it hit the headlines of national news.
The Door to Hell

## Ability

### Ability

**Fiery Pit****(Draw)** Your cards in hand **Burn** (50) until played and gain +50 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

It’s easy to see why the Darvaza gas crater, a natural gas field collapsed into a cavern near Darvaza, Turkmenistan, is known as **The Door to Hell**. But how did it come to be this way?

Some believe that Soviet geologists deliberately set it on fire to prevent the spread of methane gas, and some people think that it’s been burning continuously since 1971. While this fact is disputed, there’s one thing we can confirm: in 2019, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan had himself filmed driving a rally car around the gas crater to disprove rumours of his death. Because, when a simple nod to the camera won’t suffice, driving around a flaming crater of doom is the only way to prove you’re alive.
Strasbourg Cathedral

## Ability

### Ability

**Once Stood Tallest****(Return)** This card loses -70 Power until played and your remaining cards in hand gain +10 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

It was described by Victor Hugo as a "gigantic and delicate marvel", and by Goethe as a "sublimely towering, wide-spreading tree of God": standing 142 metres tall, the **Strasbourg Cathedral** certainly lives up to the hype. In a time before skyscrapers, this cathedral was the tallest building in the world!

Situated in Alsace, France, **Strasbourg Cathedral** is over one thousand years old. Construction of the original cathedral, on the exact site of a Roman temple, began in 1015, but was destroyed by a fire. The next wave of construction restarted in the 12th century, spearheaded by architect Erwin von Steinbach and his son and grandson after him. By the year 1439, construction was complete.

Today, it can be seen from as far off as the Vosges Mountains or the Black Forest on the other side of the Rhine.
Tenome

## Ability

### Ability

**One Last Look****(Start)** This card gains +15 Power until played. **(Draw)** If you have played **Tenome** this game, this card costs +20 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Once upon a time, a man sought to test his bravery by venturing into a graveyard in Kyoto. But he should have known that when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back - and it did ,in the form of a monster known as **‘Tenome’** with eyes on the palms of its hands.

But Tenome wasn’t always this way. Legend has it that he was once a blind man who was robbed and killed by bandits. His dying wish? To have eyes on his palms so he could see his attackers. Take that as a lesson to be careful what you wish for, and don’t stroll into graveyards at night.

If Tenome sounds familiar, it’s because this Japanese Yokai inspired the character of The Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth.
The Monty Hall Problem

## Did You Know?

The Monty Hall Problem is a brain teaser, named after the host of television show Let’s Make A Deal.

Imagine you have a choice of three doors. Behind one door is a star prize and behind the other two doors are lesser prizes. If you choose Door 1, the host opens Door 3 to show a lesser prize and offers you the chance to switch to Door 2.

Should you change your selection?

[Have a think and then scroll down for the answer...]

Answer:
Common sense would say that there are two doors left, and the star prize is behind one of them, so there's a 50/50 chance that you've already chosen the winning door. Right?

Wrong. If you change your selection you actually double your chances of winning!

We won't go into the full detail, but the fundamental reason common sense doesn't work here is that while your choice of door was random, the host's choice is NOT. Take a minute to look it up online to have your mind blown :)
Spitfire

## Ability

### Ability

**Dogfighter****(Play)** Your Dogs and Awesome Aviation cards in hand gain +25 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The Spitfire was flown by the British Royal Air Force during the Second World War. The specification and design gave an aerodynamic advantage over opponents, leading to an average of 27 enemy planes shot down per Spitfire in the Battle of Britain.

The name comes not from the emphasis on firepower, but from the chairman of the manufacturer's daughter. Vickers Aviation was headed up by Sir Robert McLean, whose pet name for his daughter was, "the little spitfire" (it's unclear if she got this moniker from a burgeoning rap talent, but this writer wants to believe that the girl had bars).

R. J. Mitchell, the Spitfire's designer, is quoted as saying that it sounded like, "the sort of bloody silly name they would give it". Try thinking of him saying that in anything other than Colin Firth's voice.
Sunflower

## Ability

### Ability

**Shine On****(Play)** If it matches the Arena, your Life on Land cards in hand gain +15 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Just the sight of a **Sunflower** makes us all cheerful and happy inside and if they don't make you feel this way then you're a cold and hard person, shame on you. They're also a real multipurpose plant, delivering healthy snacks, useful oil, and birdseed to boot!

We bet you didn't know this about the sunny brightly coloured plants - they were actually bought to Russia by royalty. Tsar Peter the Great was so fascinated by the gorgeous flowers that he saw in the Netherlands that he took some back to Russia. They became mega-popular when people discovered that Sunflower seed oil was not banned during Lent, unlike the other oils the Russian Orthodox Church forbade its patrons from consuming.

By the 19th century, the country was planting two million acres of Sunflowers every year. Ah, Sunflowers; Christianity's loophole flower!
Spring-Heeled Jack

## Ability

### Ability

**Extraordinary Leaps****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, your cards in hand gain +14 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

During the 1800s, a rooftop-jumping assailant was on the prowl. While many reports came from London, he’d also been spotted throughout the Midlands, as well as in Scotland, and his last known sighting was in Liverpool in 1905. But just who was **Spring-Heeled Jack**?

The first reported sighting of the “demon” was in 1837 and over time the description of him took on something of legend and just a year later, one of his victims claimed that not only did he have claws, but he had red eyes and could also breathe fire. The various reports across the country also described his clothes in a similar fashion - dark cloak and tight, fitted clothes, including a striped shirt. Sort of like a very aggressive member of My Chemical Romance.

By the latter half of the century, urban legend had taken hold and Spring-Heeled Jack became a popular figure in penny dreadfuls, plays and novels. Jack was never caught or debunked so it’s really up to you - was Spring-Heeled Jack a menace playing tricks on unsuspecting women or was he a supernatural bogeyman, out to torment the innocent?
Tammar Wallaby

## Ability

### Ability

**Mob Rule****(Draw)** Your Marsupials cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy and gain +7 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

A small marsupial mammal weighing up to 9kg and standing 59–68 cm tall, the **Tammar Wallaby** is, unofficially, the “OG Kangaroo”, since it was the first of its kind to be seen by Europeans, in 1629. Their discovery was made when their ship became stranded near the Wallabi Islands in the Houtman Abrolhos off Geraldton – hence the name.

Since the 1920s, South Australia’s mainland Tammar Wallaby was listed as “extinct in the wild” under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. However, thanks to breeding programs in recent years, these creatures have come back from the edge of extinction. Their numbers are still small, but despite foxes preying on the wallabies, many have thrived and developed strong survival skills for their new environment.
The 25 Point Programme

## Ability

### Ability

**Bad Ideology****(Draw)** Your opponent's History cards, wherever they are, lose -10 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

*"Only a national comrade can be a citizen. Only someone of German blood, regardless of faith, can be a citizen. Therefore, no Jew can be a citizen.”* - The 25 Point Programme, Hitler and Drexler.

A low-water mark in historical documents, the 25 Point Programme (aka the Nazi Party Platform) was set out in 1920 - only a year after Hitler joined the party. For years the Nazis remained on the fringes.

However, when the Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to funding for reparations being pulled, Germany was plunged into a depression. At this point, Hitler’s extreme nationalism and fear-mongering at the expense of the Jewish people found fertile ground - and by 1933 Hitler was Chancellor of Germany.
Swans

## Did You Know?

Swans mate for life - once they've chosen a partner, they never separate from them.

So it seems a bit cruel that True Love would give an odd number of swans in the 12 Days of Christmas song - one of them's going to be very disappointed.

## Trivia

* This card is available on Christmas and Valentine's Day specials.
Sydney Opera House

## Ability

### Ability

**Crescendo****(Play)** Your cards in hand gain +10 Power this turn and your opponent's cards in hand lose -10 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The first song performed at the **Sydney Opera House** wasn’t an aria but a show tune from the 1927 musical, Show Boat. In 1960, Paul Robeson (a man with an incredible - if upsetting - life story) climbed the scaffolding to sing *Ol’ Man River* to workers while they had lunch.

While construction projects often exceed their budget, the Opera House sets a high bar - it came in at nearly 14x the original estimate of $7 million! However, with 10M annual visits, UNESCO World Heritage status, and the fact that it is one of the world’s most recognisable structures - it’s easy to justify this sum.

The designer, Jorn Utzon of Denmark, eventually won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2003. On receiving the award it was said ‘There is no doubt the Sydney Opera House is his masterpiece.’ Indeed.

Utzon was inspired by natural forms - such as orange peels, birds’ wings, and of course shells - when making the iconic design. Do those ‘shells’ serve a specific purpose? Yes - they look cool.
Spice Finch

## Ability

### Ability

**Scaly Spice****(Draw)** For every 50 Power you are winning by, up to a maximum of 200 Power, this card gains +20 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

The **Spice Finch** – also known by its much less appealing name, the Scaly-breasted munia, is a sparrow-sized finch and the sixth unofficial member of the Spice Girls. Always sharply dressed, the peculiar markings on the Spice Finch’s chest give the impression of a dinner-suit shirt.

But this bird doesn’t need to be waited on to feed: highly competitive in nature, the Spice Finch is always ready to forage for its next meal, and it does so in flocks of 100 birds at once! So, if you wanna be its lover, you’ve got to get with its friends – all one hundred of them.

Once you <link="https:>listen to its call</link>, you’ll start to understand why the Spice Girls chose not to take this bird on tour with them.
Stonefish

## Did You Know?

Through their dorsal fin spines, the Stonefish can inject venom that can kill someone in less than an hour. This silent assassin of the sea bed sits perfectly still at the bottom of the ocean, blending in perfectly with its surroundings, waiting to deliver that killer blow. Beware, SCUBA divers, sinister Stonefish lie in wait…
Technological Singularity

## Ability

### Ability

**Robot Rock****(Play)** If your deck contains Artificial Intelligence, your Space Technology cards, wherever they are, gain +22 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

For generations, scientists and sci-fi writers have mused over the idea of a **Technological Singularity** – a time when artificial intelligence transcends human intelligence, and the abilities of computer programs become uncontrollable and irreversible. It sounds scary, and Stephen Hawking did warn that if we weren’t careful, it would be the worst thing to happen to us – and the last thing.

Nevertheless, we continue to develop AI, because in the words of Albert Einstein, YOLO. Anyway, futurist Ray Kurzweil says it won’t happen at least until 2045, so by that prediction, we’ve still got a couple of decades before the robots rise up and enslave us all. Plus, if we’re lucky, climate change might get us even sooner!
Steel

## Ability

### Ability

**Mettle****(Draw)** Gain +15 Power/Turn this round. **(Play)** Gain +15 Power/Turn this round.

## Did You Know?

**Steel** has been around for over 1,000 years and continues to be one of the most valuable commodities of the modern world. A low-carbon alloy, the low cost and high strength of steel are what makes it so popular. It may blow your mind to know that daily steel production is so high that we could build nearly 550 Eiffel Towers with the production of steel in one day. Another one might be nice, but 550 is just overkill.
Stede Bonnet

## Ability

### Ability

**Driven to Piracy****(Draw)** If your deck has 1 or more History of Heartbreak cards, your Plundering Pirates cards in hand gain +15 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Who says you’ve got to be born a crook to become a pirate? Often called the “Gentleman Pirate”, **Stede Bonnet** certainly didn’t fit into the stereotype of 18th century Barbadian pirates. Where others owned parrots, he owned land.

So what made this moderately wealthy gent turn to a life of crime? Apparently, he only did it to escape his “nagging wife”. Given his relatively short career led to Bonnet being captured by Blackbeard and eventually hanged for his crimes in South Carolina, one ponders whether choosing piracy to escape reminders about housework was really worth it.

If he had a do-over, maybe he would have taken up golf or bird-watching to counter his mid-life crisis. Instead, he tried to be a big bad pirate, and look where that got him.
The Fifth Force

## Did You Know?

Four forces are responsible for all known interactions in nature - electromagnetic, gravitational, strong nuclear and weak nuclear (which, okay, we'll allow but they're kinda the same thing (No they're not - weak nuclear is actually closer electromagnetic, you sacrificing-accuracy-for-a-cheap-gag charlatan - Ed))

In 2015, physicists at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences saw anomalies in some data they were studying - they knew what to expect if any of the four conventional forces were at play, but their results pointed to something else having an effect.

We're still not sure exactly what the force is, or how it works (like that's ever stopped us making a CUE card before). It's speculated that it's a form of electromagnetism that specifically acts upon electrons and neutrons.

However it works; if physicists were able to understand it, it could help them reach the Grand Unified Theory.
Sunda Clouded Leopard

## Ability

### Ability

**Secretive Nature****(Start)** A random Cool Cats card in your hand gains +12 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

If you’re a prey animal running from a **Sunda Clouded Leopard**, climbing a tree for safety is the animal kingdom equivalent of running up the stairs when a psycho killer is in your home. You see, these cats were made for tree climbing: their ring-marked, black-tipped tails can reach one metre in length, allowing for great balance, while their broad paws and long hind legs help the cat cut about the tree canopies like a pro.

Although the Sunda clouded leopard is barely different in name from the Mainland Clouded Leopard, the two creatures are as genetically distinct from each other as leopards are from lions. They both have cloud-like markings on their body, but the Sunda clouded leopard’s canines are much longer than the mainland variety.
The Bag of Wind

## Ability

### Ability

**Wind at Your Back****(Return)** If you are losing the round, your The Original Odyssey cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Let’s get this out of the way, the **Bag of Wind** from Greek legend was not - I repeat, was *not* - a bag of farts.

Just after Odysseus and his crew had their run in with a cyclops named Polyphemus, they stayed with Aeolus who was the Keeper of the Winds (stop sniggering at the back there...) on his floating island Aeolia.

At the end of their month-long stay, Aeolus gifted them a West Wind to get their ship home and an ox-hide bag that contained all the other winds.

Unfortunately, just when they were in sight of Ithaca, and Odysseus finally felt he could relax and sleep, his men, thinking the bag contained treasure of the most valuable kind, opened it. All the other winds were immediately released and overpowered the West Wind such that the ship was blown all the way back to Aeolus’ island.

At this point Aeolus was quite fed up with them and refused to give further help as he considered this an omen of the gods’ displeasure.

One could say the moral of this story is to never keep your wind a secret.

CRAFTING CLUE BELOW!

- Whoa! Does she compete with the Rose?
The Fighting Temeraire

## Ability

### Ability

**To Be Broken Up****(Play)** If your deck has 5 or more Riding the Waves! cards, your Riding the Waves! cards, wherever they are, lose -10 Power permanently and your cards, wherever they are, gain +5 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

♫ Now the sunset's breezes shiver / And she's fading down the river / But in England's song forever / She's the Fighting Temeraire ♫ You know you’re a big deal in the boat world when people sing a song in your honour and a famous painter captures your final voyage.

Launched in 1798, **HMR Temeraire** served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on convoy escort duties or blockades. Her only fleet action was in the Battle of Trafalgar, but she became so well known for this battle that her name became legend.

By 1838, Temeraire was in a bad state. She fired her guns for the last time on 28 June in celebration of the Coronation of Queen Victoria before being dismantled and sold at auction for £5,530.
Takarabune

## Ability

### Ability

**Treasure Ship****(Return)** Your remaining Lost Treasures cards in hand gain +12 Power for 4 turns.

## Did You Know?

Every New Year, it is said that the Seven Lucky Gods pilot the **Takarabune** (or *Treasure Ship*) for the first three days. As the name *Treasure Ship* might indicate, aboard the ship they hold several mystical items (known as *takaramono*), such as a hat that could provide invisibility, a purse that never ran out of money, and a set of keys to the treasure shed of the gods. Our shed currently houses a disused pressure washer and several large spiders, which makes us invariably jealous of such an item.

Within the Muromachi period in Japan, it became custom to place a woodblock print of the Takarabune under your pillow on the night of the 2nd of January, in order to induce a so-called lucky dream, indicative of a prosperous and fortunate year ahead. Unfortunately, as we've mentioned previously, we will probably only dream of those frighteningly large spiders and the nightmarish prospect of cleaning them. Perhaps your luck will fare better.
The Questing Beast

## Ability

### Ability

**Hideous Hybrid****(Play)** Your Hybrid Animals cards in hand gain +18 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

**The Questing Beast** (also called the Bizarre Beast) is a cross-animal monster from Arthurian legend that you just wouldn’t mess with. With its snake head, leopard body and haunches of a lion, you’d be forgiven for turning back if you were tasked with hunting this beast.

Apparently, the Questing Beast was thought to be a medieval interpretation of a giraffe, which was described as being half-camel, half leopard. Good guess, but (thankfully) they were way, *way* off.
The Emperor (IV)

## Ability

### Ability

**Structure and Control****(Return)** If your deck has 14 or more Tarot cards, your Tarot cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power until played and cost -1 Energy for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

Don’t let the long white hair and wispy beard fool you: **The Emperor** is no frail old man. On the contrary, he is a symbol of power and authority.

As the father figure of the Tarot deck, the Emperor sits upon a large throne. In his right hand, he holds an ankh - the Egyptian symbol of life. In his left hand, he holds an orb, representing the world.

Getting this card in a reading isn’t necessarily a sign you’re about to become a father (but if you are, congrats.) It’s more about your ambition, strength and the wisdom you’ve gained from struggles you’ve overcome. Above all, this card represents rationality, rules and process. You’ve got this far by following the rules, so now’s not the time to stray from them.
Telephone

## Did You Know?

The device you're reading this very text on is a **Telephone**, albeit a highly advanced one - if you'd told Alexander Graham Bell that his invention would eventually be in the hands of practically everyone on the planet and have the capability to access all of human knowledge (but would largely be used to play digital card games and brag on social media), he'd probably... well, hang up on you, I suppose.

See, Bell was a modest man - when he patented the **Telephone** in March 1876, he filed it as an 'Improvement in Telegraphy', unaware of what an impact it would make. His idea was to have sounds converted into electrical signals by a device, which would be sent through cables and recieved by another device, which would turn those electrical signals back into sound.

The first **Telephone** call was made between Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, on March 10th 1876. He said simply "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." Watson presumably then entered the room Bell was in, asked what he wanted and why he couldn't tell him over the **Telephone**.

Bell suggested the use of the nautical "ahoy" as the standard **Telephone** greeting, which was eventually nixed by Thomas Edison, no less, who suggested and made stick "hello".