recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Giant's Causeway

## Ability

### Ability

**Basalt in the Wound****(Return)** Your opponent's cards, wherever they are, lose -20 Power next turn and if you won the turn, they lose -10 Power next turn.

## Did You Know?

One of the UK’s greatest natural wonders, the **Giant’s Causeway** in Northern Ireland has about 40,000 interlocking columns made from basalt. The giant reference comes from a mythical tale that claims the Minecraft-style blocks were originally created by the giant Finn McCool as a pathway to Scotland. Geology provides a more rational explanation – apparently, it’s the result of flowing lava inching towards the coast and cooling when it found the sea.
Halloween Crab

## Ability

### Ability

**Scare Tactics****(Return)** If you won the turn, gain +30 Power/Turn next turn and if you won the turn, this card costs -2 Energy permanently.

## Did You Know?

*Gecarcinus quadratus de Saussure*, otherwise known as **Halloween Crabs** look incredible with their deep purple claws, yellow spots above their eyes, pumpkin-coloured legs and black carapace (shell).

These colourful crustaceans are generally found in Central and South America in mangrove swamps, brackish dune systems, and rainforests within reach of the ocean as they need to return there to spawn.

The **Halloween Crabs** spend their days in underground burrows coming out at night to scavenge for food and water. They are mostly herbivorous feeding on leaf litter, seeds, seedling and fallen fruits, but this is occasionally supplemented with insects and carrion.
Gladius

## Ability

### Ability

**Die By The Sword****(Return)** If you lost the turn, lose -1:energy/turn: this round.

## Did You Know?

The Gladius was a short sword used by Roman foot soldiers. It was generally made out of steel and was between 50 and 60 cm in length. They made up just part of the foot soldiers' weaponry and were considered superior to the cumbersome longswords used by the Gauls (A historic region that includes modern-day France, Belgium and Germany among others).
Gjermundbu

## Ability

### Ability

**Headstrong****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, your cards in hand gain +12 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Looking to take your Viking cosplay to the next level? Break into Norway’s Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. There, you’ll find the **Gjermundbu** helmet AKA the best preserved Viking helmet in the world.

This piece of Nordic history was discovered during an excavation of a Viking Age grave in 1943. It dates back to the latter half of the 10th century CE, and it’s the only one of its kind to be found in Scandinavia. That might strike you as odd, but some Norwegian archaeologists believe that helmets were only reserved for the upper classes of society, hence the intricate design of the Gjermundbu helmet. Others say helmets were simply too heavy for Vikings, as they needed to be as agile as possible on sea and land.
Harvest Moon

## Ability

### Ability

**Moon Of September****(Play)** Your Chinese Folklore cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn and next.

## Did You Know?

Any farmer worth their salt knows about the **Harvest Moon**. Or at least, they did, back in the days when moon phases dictated all crop-growing activities. Unlike the other full moon names in the old Farmers Almanac, the Harvest Moon isn’t associated with a specific month, but rather the autumnal equinox.

During this time, the angle of the moon’s orbit relative to the Earth’s horizon is at its minimum. That means that for several evenings in autumn, the moonrise happens just after sunset. The result is an abundance of bright moonlight in the evening, which comes in pretty handy when you’re trying to harvest your summer-grown crops in the evening. Although the Harvest Moon does typically occur in September, it occasionally lands in October, replacing the full Hunter’s Moon.
Giant Acorn Barnacle

## Ability

### Ability

**Stuck Up****(Draw)** This card loses -30 Power until played and an opponent's random card in hand loses -30 Power until played. **(Play)** Your Barnacles card in hand gains +50 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

I think we can all agree the **Giant Acorn Barnacle** looks nothing like an acorn. They live on the rocky shores of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Fascinatingly, barnacles are not molluscs but crustaceans. (So in a break with tradition, this card is in the right collection. Huzzah!)

During their juvenile stage, they bob around in the water as planktonic larvae until, eventually, the lucky ones bump into rocks where they glue themselves and build shells (those things that hurt your feet) with a proteinaceous cement secreted from a cement gland.

As they build their enclosure they become inverted, with their heads against the rock and their feathery legs collecting food through the opening of the encasement (the ventral).

You may think these tough little critters wouldn't have that many predators, but both starfish and sea snails can get to them. Starfish can rip the cement casing apart, while the snails gain access via the ventral.

'Balanus nubilus' by Magnus Manske (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Gymnastics

## Ability

### Ability

**Flip!****(Return)** This card gains +90 Power and costs -9 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Now among the Olympics’ most watched events, **Gymnastics** has its origins in ancient Greece - in fact, the term ‘gymnastics’ itself derives from the Greek word “gymnazein” meaning “to exercise naked. Why? Because, back then, the sport was practised by young men training for war - in the buff.

Apparently, nothing says “strong military” like a naked gymnast on a pommel horse. Thankfully, the sport has come a long way since then. The gymnastics we know today was invented in the early 1800s by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who founded a series of gyms to prepare German soldiers for combat against Napoleon’s French military (fully clothed). Now known as ‘the father of gymnastics’ Jahn also invented the early versions of the bar exercises that exist today.
Friday the 13th

## Ability

### Ability

**That's Unlucky****(Return)** If you lost the turn, your opponent loses -36 Power/Turn next turn.

## Did You Know?

If you suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia, it might comfort you to know that although **Friday 13th** has built a reputation in Western culture as a *Very Bad Day Indeed*, the superstition only arose in the 19th Century, likely because of triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13).

In fact, according to the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics, the world (or, the Netherlands at least) is a slightly safer place on the date (with less car accidents, thefts and fires) thanks to the extra care that people take to avoid unluckiness.

That fear of the number 13 is likely born from a Norse myth where Loki appeared as the 13th uninvited guest to dinner in Valhalla, where Balder was shot by the mistletoe arrow and marked a terrible day of mourning.

Friday 13th occurs up to three times a year (obviously on any month that starts with a Sunday), but happened only once in both 2021 and 2022 - very lucky years indeed.
Hector

## Ability

### Ability

**Never Turn Down a Fight****(Play)** If you have lost 1 round this game, your Greek Mythology cards in hand gain +25 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

A good son, a loving husband and father, a trusty friend and a brave warrior: clearly, **Hector** was the Chad of Greek mythology. Hector's story is primarily known from Homer's Iliad, one of the two complete works from the Epic Cycle. He married Andromache, a Cilician princess, and they had a son named Astyanax.

Despite his wife’s pleas, Hector prioritised his duty to defend Troy over his personal safety. Heroes of the Trojan War are often remembered for the opposing heroes they killed, and Hector certainly racked up a few notable kills during battles with the Achaean army, including Menesthes, Eioneus, and Trechus. But what goes around comes around, and Hector's ultimate demise comes at the hands of Achilles, leading to the fall of Troy.
Gustav Klimt

## Ability

### Ability

**Golden Phase****(Play)** Your cards in hand with "Golden" in the name gain +26 Power this turn. **(Return)** This card gains +20 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Considered the main figure of Austria's Art Nouveau movement, **Gustav Klimt** didn’t waste any time getting started. At just 14 years old, he earned a scholarship to the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts.

One of his famous works, the 1907 Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, made history when it was returned to the Bauer family from the Austrian State Gallery following a court battle and sold for $135 million - the most ever paid for a work of art at auction.

Painting aside, Gustav Klimt had two passions in life: cats and women. His love for the former meant that cats just roamed wild in his studios, causing chaos. As for the latter, Klimt is rumoured to have slept with every woman whose portrait he painted, fathering at least 14 illegitimate children.
Fur Bearing Trout

## Ability

### Ability

**Bad News****(Draw)** A random Oceans and Seas and a random Life on Land card in your hand gains +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

In the freezing waters of Iceland and North America, fish warm their bones with fabulous fur coats. Don’t believe us? Just visit the Royal Museum of Scotland and you’ll see a trout with white fur attached.

Real talk: no **Fur Bearing Trout** have ever been found. But that hasn’t stopped fantastical stories of fur-bearing trout from permeating folklore. One tale talks of a hair tonic spill in the Arkansas River. Seizing the opportunity, fishermen transformed into barbers and tempted the trout with promises of free trims.

In Maine, legend has it that furry trout were under a catch and release policy: if one were caught, the warden would measure it against the fisher’s foot. If the fish’s length matched the fisher’s foot, it could be eaten and its pelt used for slippers.
Galileo Galilei

## Ability

### Ability

**Magnifico!****(Play)** Your Constellations cards in hand gain +15 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

**Galileo Galilei** (1564-1642), the Italian astronomer you first heard about via Bohemian Rhapsody (be honest now), initially trained to be a doctor at the University of Pisa. Thankfully he left university without a degree, but continued studying mathematics until he eventually discovered a love of astronomy.

Galileo did not invent the telescope, but he was the first to use one for stargazing. He significantly improved them too, making his own lenses with greater magnification than others of the time.

Using these telescopes, he was the first to see craters on the Moon, the rings of Saturn and, perhaps most famously, the four large moons of Jupiter. His work built upon Copernicus's heliocentric theory (i.e that planets revolve around suns, not that everything revolves around Earth).

This didn't go down well with the Vatican, who saw it as heretical. They allowed him to continue his work on the proviso that he didn't defend any of the ideas he was researching. Of course, evidence is a great persuader and Galileo continued to believe in the proof in front of him.

The Roman Inquisition sentenced him to life imprisonment and he spent the last few years of his life under house arrest. In that time, as a last middle finger to the Vatican, he smuggled out a manuscript, "Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences" about physics and mechanics that was published in 1638.

That middle finger, incidentally, can be seen to this day - it's currently an exhibit at the Museum of History and Science in Florence, Italy.

CRAFTING CLUE BELOW!

- The Bard's Animal Stars.
Harriet Tubman

## Ability

### Ability

**"I Never Lost a Passenger"****(Play)** Your cards adjacent to this gain +27 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

It takes gargantuan courage to escape slavery, but **Harriet Tubman** did more than free herself. Risking her life in the process, Tubman led around 3,000 slaves in total escape from a plantation system in Maryland along the route of the Underground Railroad to an elaborate network of safe houses.

She may have been illiterate, but Harriet Tubman used the stars and mosses in the woods to guide her in aiding escapees. During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman became the first woman to lead a combat assault. She led Union boats through Confederate traps, freed hundreds more slaves in the process and led troops to burn the estates of Southern secessionists who supplied Confederate forces. When she passed away at age 91, she was buried with full military honours.
Gastornis

## Did You Know?

It's a fiercely debated question amongst paleontologists...was the giant 'terror bird', which lived in Europe between 55 to 40 million years ago a vile and terrifying predator or just a gentle herbivore? Because there's quite a difference there guys...

Gastornis was a flightless bird, standing at around 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds. They had very large beaks and recent findings seem to point to them being a fan of cracking seeds and nuts rather than human bones. The investigation continues...
Greater Bird-of-paradise

## Ability

### Ability

**Bird of Paradise Regained****(Play)** If you have played Bird of Paradise this game, your Birds cards in hand gain +22 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

When you’re as strikingly beautiful as the **Greater Bird of Paradise**, you’re going to get a lot of attention from potential mates. Staying faithful to just one mate when your plumage brings all the birds to the yard isn’t easy. So, the Greater Bird of Paradise chooses a life of polygamy, mating with many partners throughout the course of its life.

The largest bird in the genus Paradisaea, this beauty can be up to 43 centimetres long and boasts magnificent feathers of maroon brown with a yellow crown. Sadly, it’s not just potential mates that their plumage attracts. In their habitat in the forests of New Guinea, these birds are hunted for their colourful feathers by local tribes, which has led to a drop to their population.
Geb

## Ability

### Ability

**From the Earth****(Draw)** Your Climate Change cards, wherever they are, gain +28 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

As the God of the Earth, **Geb** was central to the ancient Egyptian creation myth – in fact, the Egyptians even referred to Earth as the House of Geb. According to Egyptian texts, Geb was the grandson of Ra, the god of the sun, and the son of Shu and Tefnut, the deities of air and moisture, respectively. It was also believed that Geb’s laughter created earthquakes, so if you’re into Egyptian mythology, maybe avoid those one-liners when praying to him.

Geb was believed to have united the kingdoms of Egypt under one throne, which the pharaohs called the “Seat of Geb”. He is also heavily associated with snakes: some texts even say he is the “father of snakes”, and he is often depicted as part-man, part-snake to emphasise this.
Great Eggfly

## Ability

### Ability

**Adventurous Tastes****(Return)** If your deck has 3 or more Curious Cuisine cards, your Beautiful Butterflies cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy and gain +12 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Rotting fruit, manure, decaying flesh and animal tears. It sounds like a recipe for an evil spell to be cooked up in a cauldron, but these are just a few of the **Great Eggfly’s** favourite foods. They’ve even been known to drink urine when the opportunity arises.

Whether they enjoy these flavours is unknown, but these food sources certainly give the Great Eggfly its dose of minerals, protein and sodium. In its quest for salt, this species of butterfly will happily perch on humans and sip the sweat from our brows. Males will even use humans to get a vantage point for scoping out potential mates. As soon as another butterfly flies past, they’ll dart off to determine whether or not that butterfly could be “the one”.
Gomez's Hamburger

## Ability

### Ability

**Would You Like Fries With That?****(Draw)** Your Hamburger card, wherever it is, costs -2 Energy until played. **(Return)** If you won the turn, this card costs -3 Energy permanently.

## Did You Know?

Sadly not served with fries, **Gomez’s Hamburger** is believed to be a sun-like star surrounded by a protoplanetary disk. Located roughly 6,500 light-years away from Earth, the celestial hamburger was captured by the Hubble Telescope in 2002 and nicknamed due to the two “buns” of light surrounding a dark band of dust in the middle – the “patty”, if you will.

Just like the McRib, Gomez’s Hamburger is available for a limited time only – and astronomers think it’s already nearing the end of its life, as it has expelled large amounts of gas and dust and looks right on track to becoming a bright, colourful planetary nebula. The official (and much less appetising) name for this strange object is IRAS 18059-3211.
Geri and Freki

## Ability

### Ability

**The Greedy Ones****(Play)** Your cards adjacent and your opponent's card opposite to this one lose -30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

If you’ve ever wondered how humans evolved to be intelligent as we are (ahem), look to **Geri and Freki** – Odin’s pet wolves. Never satisfied with just the one animal, Odin kept these two by his side and fed them while he drank wine.

According to legend, Geri and Freki nurtured the very first humans. When Odin created humans, he told them to take inspiration from Geri and Freki’s values: courage, love, wisdom and looking after one’s family.

When Geri and Freki weren’t busy teaching humans, they joined their master in battles, using their sharp teeth and claws to kill enemies and feast on on the corpses on the battlefield. If these wolves really did nurture humans, it explains a lot.
Gibbon

## Ability

### Ability

**Leaps and Bounds****(Play)** Your Primates cards in hand gain +12 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

If the jungle was a stage, then the Gibbons would be the stars of the show. Gibbons love to sing, either alone or in duets and they start each day by singing at sunrise. Their new album, "Gibbon it Both Barrels", will be released in time for Christmas.

These guys are also the fastest and most acrobatic ape. They can travel at a speed of up to 34 miles per hour, which is around the same speed as a galloping horse!
Guadalupe Fur Seal

## Did You Know?

The rarest of its kind, the **Guadalupe Fur Seal** was once thought to be extinct in the early 1900s after two centuries of heavy hunting. But then, one fateful day in 1954, 14 Guadalupe Fur Seals were spotted in a cave in Mexico. Thankfully, this species of seal is now legally protected by the US and Mexico, and their numbers have been going up ever since.

As a pelagic species, they spend most of their lives in the open ocean, so little is really known about the Guadalupe Fur Seal. Here’s what we do know: these seals are the only species of Arctocephalus townsendi (their Latin name, which means ‘bear-faced’) found north of the equator.
Futaleufú River

## Did You Know?

The name **Futaleufu** derives from a Mapudungun word meaning "Big River" – not the most creative name, but it’s apt. This Chilean river is known for its huge rapids and glacier-fed water, not to mention the incredible backdrop of the Andes mountain range that it's set to.

Considered one of the top destinations in the world for kayaking, you’re well within your rights to brag if you’ve ‘done the Fu’.
Gryphon

## Ability

### Ability

**Best of Both Worlds****(Play)** Your Birds and Mammals cards in hand gain +55 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

The **Gryphon** (which can also be spelt "Griffin", "Griffen" or "Griffon", but where possible we try to go with the coolest-looking version of a name) is a composite mythical creature, made up of a lion’s body and a bird’s head (normally, but not always, an eagle). Some of them even have wings.

This mythical beast likely has its origins in Levant (modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine) spreading across western Asia and into Greece.

Historically, **Gryphons** are usually heroic symbols with an eagle's eyes and talons and a body with the grace and power of a lion. Later, in medieval times, Christians adopted it and it became a symbol of divine power. Since then the **Gryphon** has adorned everything from cars (Saab and Vauxhall) to sports teams (Grand Rapids Griffins). From a mythical beast to a marketing beast!
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

## Ability

### Ability

**Truth Through Perception****(Draw)** For every 3 Arts & Culture cards in your deck, your Common and Rare Prominent Painters cards, wherever they are, gain +3 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1770, **Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel** was one of Western Europe’s most important philosophers. He was an absolute idealist and a big fan of Kant, but he had his own amazing ideas too.

While some people at the time thought that looking to the past was pointless because \*waving arms around\* look at all the cool stuff we have now, Hegel thought that what had come before us made up an important part of who we are today. He was also a big believer in listening to people you don’t agree with and trying to work out where their ideas might be coming from. Which actually sounds super useful today. Although we think after 5 minutes on Twitter, he might have changed his mind on that.

But most importantly, he furthered the idea of dialectic thinking. He thought that in order for progress to happen, we had to try out lots of different things and learn how they could be made better or what went wrong in the first place. He acknowledged that progress is messy but that we could only move forward by learning from the mess.So while Hegel argued that progress will be slow and sometimes you’ve got to listen to people you don’t like, he was ultimately aiming for ways to build a better future. You’ve just got to occasionally look back in order to get there!
Declaration of Independence

## Ability

### Ability

**The Pursuit of Happiness****(Play)** Your other cards in hand lose -50 Power this turn. **(Return)** If you won the turn, your remaining cards in hand gain +20 Power next turn.

## Did You Know?

Marking the birth of the United States of America, the **Declaration of Independence** had three goals: to rally the troops, to win foreign allies and to announce the creation of a new country.

Sadly, rumours about a hidden treasure map or secret code on the back of the Declaration of Independence aren’t true – however, there is actually something written on the reverse side. It reads: “Original Declaration of Independence dates 4th July 1776.” Pretty anticlimactic, right? However, contrary to this label, the declaration wasn’t signed on July 4th, 1776. Although this is the date it was adopted and finalised, the majority of the signers got round to signing the Declaration of Independence on August 2nd.
Green Man

## Ability

### Ability

**Cycle of Growth****(Draw)** Your Plant Life cards, wherever they are, gain +12 Power permanently. **(Play)** Your Life on Land cards adjacent to this gain +15 Power this turn. **(Return)** Your Tremendous Trees cards, wherever they are, gain +8 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

No, we don’t mean the one that signals you can cross the road (but a big shout out to that guy for not getting us killed every day). We’re talking about that carving of a man’s face surrounded by leaves that you’ll usually find etched into medieval churches.

So who is this foliage-faced gent? It’s a bit of a mystery. For starters, green man figures from Lebanon and Iraq have been found dating back to the 2nd century. Around the 13th century, unrelated carvings of green men began appearing on Christian churches exists across Europe.

From the Renaissance onwards, the **Green Man** began rearing his leafy head on metalwork, stained glass and manuscripts. As the debate of his origin rages on, one thing’s for certain: it’s not easy being green.
Ghost Nebula

## Ability

### Ability

**Dust When You Thought It Was Safe...****(Return)** If your deck has 4 or more Nebulae cards, gain +5 Power/Turn permanently.

## Did You Know?

The Ghost Nebula IC 63 is a vast swirling cloud of stellar gas and dust in the constellation Cassiopeia the Queen. Like all ghosts, the space cloud known as IC 63 or **Ghost Nebula** is slowly fading away. Unfortunately, keeping a picture of her on your mantlepiece won’t change much – Ghost Nebula is slowly dissipating due to radiation from the Gamma Cassiopeiae.

'The Ghost Nebula (vdb 141, sh2-136), a reflection nebula in Cepheus' by Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Garnet

## Ability

### Ability

**In the Red****(Play)** If you are losing the round, your cards adjacent to this gain +14 Power this turn. Repeat this if it is the last turn of a round.

## Did You Know?

A beautiful dark red stone (quite literally - that’s the Middle English translation for the word!) - the **Garnet** has been used since the Bronze Age as a gemstone and an abrasive.

Despite the name, they can be found in any color with blue being the rarest. Its family is one of the most complex ever to exist, as it is actually composed of many varieties.

It is thought by many that as well as embodying passion and creativity, the garnet can bring order to your life and settle any anxieties - the perfect pick-me-up for January!
Freya

## Did You Know?

Not to be confused with her brother Freyr (a mistake that is being made constantly in the CUE office), Freya is primarily the Norse Goddess of Love. She's also associated with lust, sex, beauty, sorcery, war and death. All's fair we suppose...

Her most prominent symbol is the Brisingamen, a remarkably beautiful necklace (which may or may not have actually been a torc, a kind of horseshoe-shaped choker).

It's said that she acquired it from the dwarves who forged it. At the time she was married to Odin, and she desired the necklace so much that she agreed to spend four nights with them.

Loki (who keeps showing up in these stories...) gets wind of this and tells Odin of her infidelity. Odin has him steal Brisingamen, and when Freya asks him where it is he says he'll return it if she curses two kings on Earth to fight each other forever. She chooses king Hogni and king Heoinn, and forces them to battle each other for 143 years.
Geese

## Did You Know?

Why do Geese fly in a 'V' formation? Well, flying in a Q formation would be far too difficult. Ho ho ho.

The truth is they're being lazy. Kind of. By flying in a 'V' shape, each goose behind the first benefits from a reduction in wind resistance. And with Geese being great team players, they each take it in turn to be the one in front, so they can travel further without resting.

The other reason for this formation is that the group can easily keep track of each other - which is also why fighter pilots use the same formation.

BONUS USELESS FACT: The collective name for Geese on the ground is a "gaggle", but in flight they are a "skein". So now you know.

## Trivia

* This card is available on Christmas specials.
Gray Whale

## Ability

### Ability

**Devil Fish****(Play)** Your Horrible Halloween and Fabulous Fish cards in hand gain +16 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Sick of your morning commute to work? Spare a thought for the **Gray Whale**, one of the animal kingdom’s great migrators. Travelling in groups called pods, some of these baleen whales swim 12,430 miles round trip from their summer home in the Alaskan waters to the seas off the Mexican coast. And they don’t even have audiobooks to keep them entertained.

If that wasn’t bad enough, these beautiful creatures have earned the nickname ‘devil fish’ because of their aggressive reaction to being harpooned. Let’s see how whale hunters react when they get harpooned and invent a nickname for them! The only living member of the baleen whale family Eschrichtiidae, the gray whale is a bottom feeder who forages for food on the ocean floor.
Hammerhead Flatworm

## Did You Know?

Oh hey, it's another totally gross entry into the CUE canon.

The **Hammerhead Flatworm** may be part of the worm family, but it behaves more like a slug in that it travels along on a bed of its own mucus. It's also a terrible member of that family because earthworms are its primary prey.

It ensnares its targets by pushing them against a surface and immobilising them in its mucus. It then sucks its prey's tissue in through a pharynx (which it can extend, like the *Aliens* Xenomorphs).

Oh, and once it's digested all of that? Its mouth is also its anus. Lovely.
Gouldian Finch

## Ability

### Ability

**Lady Gould's Finch****(Return)** If you lost the turn, this card loses -25 Power and costs +1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

They start their lives as horrifying <link="https:>fleshy demons with freakish mouths,</link> but somehow, **Gouldian Finches** grow up to be beautiful birds prized for their gorgeous plumage. But back to those mouths for a moment, because as nightmare-inducing as they may be, they serve several functions.

```
One: the ornate patterns glow in the dark, helping their parents to locate their hungry babies and serve them a midnight snack. Two: they act as an evolutionary measure that helps parents distinguish their own young from imposter cuckoo chicks.

```

Unfortunately, cuckoo chicks have also started to evolve to have markings that mimic those of their target bird in what has been described as an “endless evolutionary arms race” - or, perhaps more accurately, a mouth race.
Harvey Milk

## Ability

### Ability

**Equality****(Play)** If it is turn 1 of a round or you are tied, your cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

It would have taken true courage to come out at all, let alone stand up for the gay community at a time where psychiatrists still considered homosexuality a mental illness. For human rights activist **Harvey Milk**, hope made life worth living. When he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, Milk became the most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the US. Tragically, he was killed the following year.

'Harvey Milk filling in for Mayor Moscone for a day in 1978' by Daniel Nicoletta (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Ham the Astrochimp

## Ability

### Ability

**One Small Step for Chimp****(Play)** Your Alan B. Shepard Jr. card in hand gains +32 Power this turn. **(Return)** If your deck has 4 or fewer Amazing Astronauts cards, your remaining Radical Rockets cards in hand cost -2 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Four months before Yuri Gargarin became the first human to venture into outer space, a primate pipped him to the post.

On January 31, 1961, the chimpanzee now known as **Ham the Astrochimp** flew a suborbital flight on the Mercury-Redstone 2 mission and became the first great ape in space. Until his successful return to Earth, Ham was simply known as ‘No. 65’, because officials didn’t want the bad press that would come from the death of a “named” animal. (Apparently, a numbered animal dying in space is fine.)

Although he was then named after the laboratory that prepared him for his historic mission—the Holloman Aerospace Medical center, it turned out his handlers had been calling him Chop Chop Chang the whole time.
Giant Water Bug

## Ability

### Ability

**Say What You See****(Play)** If you are losing the round, this card gains +16 Power.

## Did You Know?

Looking at its diet, researchers concluded that the **Giant Water Bug** is absolutely fearless. These “lie and wait” predators spend their time lurking in freshwater, waiting to ambush their prey with their dagger-like mouths. They’ve been known to take down everything from ducklings, snakes and turtles, but these tiny vampires don’t always emerge victorious. Call it karma or the circle of life, these bugs often fall prey to turtles themselves.
HMS Beagle

## Ability

### Ability

**The Beagle Has Landed****(Draw)** Gain +1:energy/turn: permanently. **(Play)** If you are winning the round, your Life on Land cards, wherever they are, gain +12 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

When Charles Darwin sailed around the world between December 1831 – February 1832, he did so in the **HMS Beagle**, a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. Launched at a total cost of £7,803 (around £628,000 in today’s money), the HMS Beagle made its first voyage in 1820 from the Royal Dockland of Woolwich at the River Thames. Sadly, it didn’t go so well for the captain, who succumbed to depression and took his own life.

The second voyage would be a great success: with Charles Darwin aboard, the crew set sail for South America before sailing around the world. It was during this trip that Darwin encountered a huge variety of plant and animal life, inspiring his theory of evolution by natural selection.
Graveyard Orbit

## Ability

### Ability

**Spacejunk Cemetery****(Play)** If you have lost 1 or more rounds this game, your Common and Rare Space Technology cards, wherever they are, gain +26 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

What happens when a man-made satellite’s life has come to an end? Once it has completed its mission or stopped working, an out-of-action satelite becomes space debris, and can be a potential hazard to other satellites or spacecraft. That leaves us with two options, depending on how high it is.

Option one: engineers use its last bit of fuel to slow it down and let it burn up in the atmosphere like a shooting star. This works well for satellites closer to Earth. Option two: they send it to the **"Graveyard Orbit,"** almost 200 miles farther away from Earth than the farthest active satellites.

Think of the Graveyard Orbit as a space tech retirement home in an orbit so high up, it's closer to the moon than to Earth.
Fylgja

## Ability

### Ability

**Phantom Double****(Return)** A random card in your hand gains +25 Power and a random card in your hand costs +3 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Have you ever dreamt of an animal appearing in front of you to tell you of future events? If you’re nodding your head yes, then you may have seen your **Fylgia**. In Norse mythology, a Fylgia is a kind of supernatural spirit that can take the shape of a human or animal.

Their job is to act as a guardian spirit for the clan, and especially for the chief of the clan. The word and the concept of “fylgja” is what later Europeans termed a witch’s “familiar”.

Back to that dream: whatever fate the fylgia warned you of, it’s already set in stone. You can’t do anything to change it. However, if your fylgia takes the shape of a dog, you can give it boops and pats.
Giant Oarfish

## Ability

### Ability

**Sea Serpent?****(Draw)** A random Mythical Creatures card in your hand gains +45 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

It has saucer-like eyes, lurks in the deepest depths of the ocean and has been known to grow to lengths exceeding the Hollywood sign. The **Giant Oarfish **has all the makings of a mythical creature, but this longboi is very much alive.****

****Known in Japan as the “Messenger from the Sea God’s Palace,” the Giant Oarfish is commonly believed to be a harbinger of earthquakes and tsunamis. It didn’t help that over a dozen oarfish washed ashore on Japan’s beaches just one year before the Fukushima disaster. Talk about wrong place, wrong time****

****Doom-mongering aside, the Giant Oarfish is actually harmless to humans and quite docile in nature, swimming casually at depths of 3,280 feet, scooping up tiny plankton in its open mouth.****
Gray's Anatomy

## Ability

### Ability

**Anatomy of the Human Body****(Play)** If your deck has 5 or more Brilliant Human Body cards, your Marvellous Medicine cards, wherever they are, gain +24 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

No, we don’t mean the medical drama that somehow has a whopping *eighteen* seasons - we’re talking about the reference book of human anatomy written by Henry Gray and Henry Vandyke Carter in the 1800s.

Still, this iconic textbook often called the “Doctor's Bible” is now in its 42nd edition, which is more than double the number of Grey’s Anatomy seasons (so far). After the Anatomy Act of 1832 was passed, Gray and Carter dissected unclaimed bodies from workhouse and hospital mortuaries, working for 18 months to transcribe their findings and form the basis of the textbook.

After more than 150 years of continuous publication, **Gray's Anatomy** remains the definitive reference on the subject.
Hadrian's Wall

## Did You Know?

Hadrian’s Wall was built in 117AD to mark the North-west frontier of the Roman Empire. The Wall, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was 73 miles in length and up to 10 feet deep.

It's a common misconception that the Wall was only waist-height, but much of it was nearly 20 feet tall!

Along the line of the Wall were turrets, small fortlets known as milecastles, and forts for larger garrisons. There were even flushing toilets!
Giant Pangolin

## Ability

### Ability

**Tongue Tied****(Play)** All cards in both player's hands gain +10 Power this turn. **(Return)** If you won the turn, your remaining cards in hand gain +10 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

We are writing this in 2020, and the Pangolin has had a lot of bad press as a potential vector of Coronavirus. Time to redress the balance a bit.

For starters, the Pangolin is considered the most trafficked mammal in the world. As a result, all eight species of Pangolin (including the largest, the **Giant Pangolin**) are at risk of extinction.

While its scales (unique among mammals) form a great defence against most natural predators, the sad irony is that the scales are why humans target them. Despite no scientific evidence, it is believed by many that the scales have medicinal use. As a result, millions of Pangolins are trafficked each year.

On the positive side, in 2020 China removed Pangolins from its official list of approved medical ingredients. (And yes, that does raise further questions, like ‘how did it get on that list in the first place?’).

The name Pangolin comes from the Malay word Penggulung, meaning ‘rollers’ - which makes perfect sense as they roll themselves into a ball when under threat.
Charles II of England

## Ability

### Ability

**Merry Monarch****(Draw)** If you are winning the round, your Unruly Rulers cards in hand gain +30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The restoration of the monarchy in England following Oliver Cromwell’s death saw party animal **Charles II** regain the English crown on his 30th birthday. Of course, it wasn’t enough that Cromwell was dead. Before the party could begin, the so-called “Merry Monarch” had Cromwell’s corpse exhumed and beheaded.

Charles II of England’s return to power was celebrated far and wide, and he enjoyed about 8 years of popularity despite three wars with the Dutch, the Great Fire of London and a plague in 1665.

However, by the 1670s, Charles II’s extravagant life, string of mistresses and sympathy for Catholicism was becoming a liability. After a conflict occurred following his efforts to become an absolute ruler, Charles dissolved Parliament in 1679, ruling as a tyrant until his death in 1685.
Green Iguana

## Ability

### Ability

**Break the Fall****(Return)** If you lost the turn, your remaining cards in hand gain +10 Power next turn.

## Did You Know?

Despite its name, the Green Iguana can be found in varieties of blue, orange and purple. Fortunately for The-People-That-Name-Animals, it is actually an Iguana... so at least they got something right.

Agile climbers, Green Iguanas can fall up to 50 feet and land unhurt by using their hind leg claws to clasp leaves and branches and break their fall.
Blue Monday

## Ability

### Ability

**Feeling Blue?****(Play)** If it's the third turn of a round, 3 random cards in either player's hands lose -18 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Struggling to get out of bed? Weight of the world bringing you down? It might be best to hunker down until tomorrow and skip this **Blue Monday** altogether.

Blue Monday is the name given to (usually) the third Monday of January by a UK travel company in 2005, and it’s supposedly the most depressing day of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere at least). Mondays can be rough at the best of times, but with long, cold evenings, new year’s resolutions left in the dust and empty bank accounts following Christmas, this one might be the worst of them all.

However, the equations used to determine Blue Monday are… not the strongest mathematically. The equation uses figures to represent debt, weather and motivational levels among others, but with no defined units and inconsistencies in the equation, the concept has been thoroughly debunked as “farcical” with “nonsensical measurements”.

No excuses then - off to work it is.
Green Lynx Spider

## Ability

### Ability

**Pretty Green****(Play)** If this card matches the Arena, it gains +30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The Green Lynx is a species of large green spiders found in certain parts of both the Americas. This is a hunting spider that moves around places, foraging, and doesn’t construct a web to sit and wait for its prey.

Seasoned spider-watchers often confuse the Green Lynx with another lynx spider; "Peucetia longipalpis" (sometimes known as the 'Lesser Green Lynx Spider’).

Don’t mess with the Green Lynx spider mothers while they’re guarding eggs - these protective and frankly feisty mothers have a habit of squirting venom from their fang-like appendages from a distance of one foot to any approaching threat.

In Latin, the species’ specific name "Peucetia viridans" translates to ‘becoming green’ which we probably all should be doing.
HMS Victory

## Did You Know?

HMS Victory was Lord Horatio Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. A 104-gun first-rate ship of the line, she could support a crew of 821 men. This writer has visited Victory several times - it's currently a museum ship in Portsmouth, England - and if they could fit 821 mean in there, those guys did not have a great deal of personal space; health and safety laws probably weren't as stringent back then.

Lord Nelson was wounded on the Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar, shot by a marksman from 50 feet away on the French vessel Redoutable. The point at which he was shot is marked with a plaque on the ship to this day, although it took him a good three to four hours to bleed to death.
Germ Theory

## Did You Know?

Germ Theory is the currently accepted explanation for why creatures get ill - tiny, tiny organisms called "pathogens" are transferred between bodies, and their growth within a body causes disease.

Before Germ Theory, it was thought that disease was caused by an imbalance of "humours" - four chemicals in your body that were meant to be in complete balance for you to be healthy. If you had too much of Blood, Phlegm, Black Bile and Yellow Bile in your system, it caused your temperament to change and for disease to occur. This has long since been disproved - humans have far more blood in their body than any of the others.

Robert Koch was a microbiologist in Germany in the late 19th century who proved that it was actually micro-organisms that caused disease. In 1876, he extracted anthrax-infected tissue from a sheep that had died of the disease, grew it and injected a mouse with it - that mouse then developed the disease.

It seems like such an obvious explanation these days, but the discovery of that transfer of micro-organisms between bodies feeds into every facet of medicine, from vaccination to disinfectant.
Dead Man's Fingers

## Ability

### Ability

**Wood Decay****(Start)** If your deck has 4 or more Tremendous Trees cards, a random Tremendous Trees card in your hand loses -15 Power for 3 turns and a random non- Tremendous Trees card in your hand gains +15 Power for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

When a rotting hand from Hell reaches up to Earth, you don’t rush to shake it. Fortunately, despite its horrifying appearance, you can rest assured that this phenomenon is fungi related and not the dawn of a zombie apocalypse.

Commonly found alongside tree roots in the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe and parts of North America, each “finger” of a Xylaria polymorpha fungus or **“Dead Man’s Fingers”** can grow up to eight centimetres tall. Given their macabre appearance, it’s not too surprising that this fungus is inedible.

That being said, if you’re lost in the woods and desperate enough to see Xylaria polymorpha as an option, we advise only eating the mushrooms when young and tender. Otherwise, the texture may literally resemble that of a corpse's hand.

'Dead man's fingers in the Wisentgehege Springe game park near Springe, Hanover, Germany.' by Michael Gäbler (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY 3.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Grim Reaper Paradox

## Ability

### Ability

**Wait for Death****(Draw)** If it's Round 1 or 2, your opponent's cards in hand lose -32 Power this turn. If it's Round 3 or 4, your opponent's cards in hand lose -16 Power this turn. If it's after Round 4, your cards in hand lose -16 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Fair warning, if attempting to wrap your head around the **Grim Reaper Paradox** makes you wish you were already dead, then fear not - this card back writer is the exact same. But don’t worry, we’ll get through it together.

In a world with an infinite number of Grim Reapers (because that’s too much work for just one wraith), each one has a scheduled time to pop up and kill you if you are still alive. You cannot attempt to persuade, charm or woohoo these Grim Reapers, like in The Sims. Sorry. If you were to live past midnight, Grim Reaper #1 (the OG) would smite you at 1am. All the other Grim Reapers have a time slot between midnight and 1am but they only appear if you’re still breathing. Keeping up so far?

The paradox is that you can’t live past 1am because the last Grim boi will get ya BUT none of the other Grim Reapers will have been able to kill you before that so you must have already died at midnight. Confusing right? Now I’m going to go lie down in a dark room and hope that I don’t have a meeting with a man in a long black cloak any time soon. Or make that an infinite number of men in black cloaks.
George III

## Ability

### Ability

**Mad in England****(Play)** Your Henry VIII card in hand gains +15 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

George III was born on 4 June 1738 in London. He was the third Hanoverian monarch and the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. He became heir to the throne in 1760 after the death of his father, succeeding his grandfather George II.

George III is widely remembered for losing the American colonies and going mad. His crazy behaviour included trying to shake hands with a tree because he thought it was the King of Prussia.
Giovanni Battista Belzoni

## Ability

### Ability

**Tomb Raider****(Play)** Your Egyptian Mythology cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power this round. **(Return)** If your deck has 2 or more Ancient Egypt cards, your Egyptian Mythology cards, wherever they are, gain +21 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

When the history books refer to you as ‘The Great’, you must have done something right. Case in point: **Giovanni Battista Belzoni**, who is sometimes known as The Great Belzoni, was a pioneer of Egyptology. It was Belzoni who discovered the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.

Born in Padua into a poor family, Belzoni had a colourful career. After leaving home to study engineering in Rome, he joined a circus in England, performing as a strongman. In 1812, Belzoni and his wife found themselves in Egypt for an engineering project.

But their plans changed once more when antiquities collector Henry Salt hired Belzoni to bring the colossal sculpture of the head of Ramses II back to the British Museum, where it still sits today.