Jeng-zai

**Jeng-zai** is a card game played with **jeng-zai cards**. It has been played for centuries across the heptarchate and later on in the hexarchate. The game is referred to throughout the Machineries of Empire continuity.

Jeng-zai decks may be used for solitaire games, gambling, fortune-telling, or card tricks. One card, the Deuce of Gears, became infamous as the personal emblem of General Shuos Jedao.

## Cards

### Suites

Suits in a jeng-zai deck are Eyes, Roses, Doors, and Gears. Cards in each suit are numbered one to ten, followed by Page, Knight, Master, and Book.

The Gears suit was originally associated with the Nirai; Eyes with the Shuos; and Doors with the Kel.

### Major Arcana

There are 22 major arcana cards in jeng-zai: The Novice; The Poet; The Inquisitor; The Hexarch; The Pyre; The Mathematician; The Courtesan; The Drowned General; The Soldier; The Scholar; The Spinning Coin; The Magistrate; The Dragon-Horse; Death; The Heretic; The Empty Hand; The Feast; The Star; The Moon; The Fortress; Judgment; and The Wheel of Worlds. A possible variant has a card called the Burning Banner.

## Rules

The game involves bluffing and raising of wagers, and ends when a player draws a winning hand. Ability to hide one's thoughts during play is an advantage. It can only be played with a complete deck.

### Hands

One winning hand, which Jedao can turn up at will, is an inner Splendor of Flowers, which includes a Four of Roses. Another desirable hand is a Crowned Door, which also has an inner version.

A hand consisting of the Burning Banner, the Drowned General, and all four aces is considered unlucky.

## Variants

Soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Kel Hren played a jeng-zai variant called "Fuck the Calendar" during resupply on the Fortress of Scattered Needles.

## History

Jeng-zai has been played since the hexarchate was a heptarchate. A jeng-zai spread including a card combination known as the Web of Worlds was preserved in the Rahal records of the final Liozh heptarch's entrance exam.

Shuos Jedao learned card tricks with a jeng-zai deck from Lirov Yeren, and later taught some tricks to High General Kel Anien. On his vacation in An Evening's Offering, Jedao brought four jeng-zai decks with him as an easily-transported diversion, intending to play solitaire. He had a deck based on farm animals, given to him by his sister, with him when he met Hexarch Nirai Kujen.

High General Anien left Kujen her deck of jeng-zai cards when she died.

After Jedao's death, card designers tied themselves in knots trying to design versions of the Deuce of Gears that did not evoke Jedao.

Hexarch Shuos Mikodez could hold his own at jeng-zai but got sick of it during his cadet years and never recovered. Shuos Zehun's poker face usually allowed them to win at the game.

Kujen created towers of jeng-zai cards in the black cradle facility. When he turned up the Drowned General, Cheris, newly anchored to Jedao, saw it as a reference to her current situation.

After the takeover of the Swanknot swarm, Jedao used a jeng-zai deck, card tricks, and a cheating demonstration to distract onlookers from the true intent of the takeover.

## Links

* Machineries of Tarot (card meanings by the author, spreads and coding by Stephanie G. Folse)
* Complete list of cards and their meanings

## Trivia

* In the tinyfic Servitor Tarot, a servitor draws an incongruous π of Gears.
* A deck used by General Shuos Jedao had a card called the Chained Tower.
* The author describes the deck as a "doomy, dystopia deck," with the happiness, goodness, and pleasure of most of the Roses suit offset by the Kel-related Doors and the Shuos-related Eyes.

## References

1. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 5
2. ↑ List of jeng-zai cards
3. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 18
4. ↑ Cooking the Books Podcast #032 interview: The Importance of Tangerines
5. ↑ List of jeng-zai cards: Major Arcana
6. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 2
7. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
8. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
9. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 37
10. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
11. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 21
12. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 2
13. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 15
14. ↑ Seven Views of the Liozh Entrance Exam
15. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
16. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
17. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 21
18. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
19. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 18
20. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
21. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 5
22. ↑ Raven Stratagem
23. ↑ Author's Reddit AMA
24. ↑ Servitor Tarot
25. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 13
26. ↑ Cooking the Books Podcast #032 interview: The Importance of Tangerines