recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Long-Wattled Umbrellabird

## Ability

### Ability

**Keep Your 'Do Dry****(Play)** If played next to Rain, this card gains +40 Power and if played next to Pompadour Fish, this card gains +40 Power.

## Did You Know?

Part Elvis-impersonator, part Xenomorph, part used-car salesman with a dodgy tie: it’s hard not to judge the **Long-Wattled Umbrellabird** on appearances alone. But if you were to hear the loud <link="https:>foghorn call of the bird</link> which is amplified by its inflatable neck “wattle”, you might think again.

You see, Umbrellabirds - native to the rainforests in western Ecuador and western Colombia - produce one of the deepest songs (less than 300 Hz) among passerines. It performs this booming call early in the morning and through the afternoon, earning it the name ‘ueramimbé’ in Indian, meaning “Piper-Bird”.

We all know that size isn’t everything, but if we’re counting, this spectacular crow-like bird can extend its throat to an astonishing length of up to 35 centimetres.
Loggerhead Turtle

## Ability

### Ability

**At Loggerheads****(Return)** Whoever wins the turn gains +2:energy/turn: permanently.

## Did You Know?

So named because they have massive heads, the **Loggerhead Turtle** is a magnificent creature and a *keystone species* - meaning that without it, other species would soon die out.

Such species include those that feed on Loggerhead hatchlings, those that eat ground shells from their excrement, and over a hundred species that simply live on the Loggerhead’s shell. Fans of Terry Pratchett will not be surprised by this.

The fact you’re most likely familiar with - but it bears repeating - is that the female Loggerhead Turtle can travel thousands of miles back to the *exact* beach where it hatched, in order to lay her own eggs. It is understood that the Turtles use ‘magnetic signatures’ of different coastlines in order to navigate these distances.
Massospondylus

## Did You Know?

The Massospondylus was one of the most common dinosaurs in the area of Pangaea that is now South Africa - more than 42 fossil specimens have been found, which puts it among the most discovered species.

Unlike many other dinosaurs, it's been proposed that Massospondylus had cheeks (and not the kind of cheeks displayed by the image on the front of this card).
Li Tieguai

## Ability

### Ability

**Life Eternal****(Draw)** Your Eight Immortals cards, wherever they are, gain +14 Power until played. **(Play)** If your deck has 6 or more Eight Immortals cards, your Marvellous Medicine cards in hand gain +30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

One of the Eight Immortals of Chinese mythology, **Li Tieguai** studied under Lao-Tzu, the founder of Taoism. For over 40 years, he led a life of religious devotion, often going without food or sleep. Nevertheless, Li Tieguai gets a bad reputation for being irritable and short-tempered.

Being depicted as an old man with unkempt hair doesn’t help. But he didn’t choose to look like that. While Li Tieguai was transmigrating outside his body (as you do), his seemingly lifeless form was found and cremated. When he returned to find his body gone, he was forced to inhabit the body of a beggar.

Appearance aside, he was a compassionate man who dedicated his life to easing the suffering of the sick, hence why he is shown with a gourd of medicine.
Mayfly

## Did You Know?

For most of its life, the **Mayfly** lives underwater as larvae. However, at about a year, the Mayfly matures and becomes a fully-fledged adult insect with wings, leaving the comfort of the stream to take to the skies.

Of course, once in this state, the mayfly can’t return to its previous form, so in reality, no mayfly larvae ever really know what happens when they grow up! And it’s not like they haven’t had time to figure it out: this bug has been around for more than 300 million years!

However, given their busy schedule, it’s understandable that they might have missed out on some life lessons. You see, once they’ve emerged from the water, they immediately start a family of at least 400. And they do it all in less than two days.
Mastodon

## Ability

### Ability

**Tuskmaster****(Return)** Your Woolly Mammoth card, wherever it is, costs -2 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

We see you looking at this card thinking, "oh look a Woolly Mammoth." WRONG. Stop right there. This is not a Woolly Mammoth, so do not tar the species with that woolly ol' brush; this, dear CUE players is a **Mastodon**!

"But they look the same!" we hear you cry. We know, we know, but they were actually shorter and stockier than mammoths with much straighter tusks.

Another big difference between these two ancient elephant ancestors is the period in which they appeared on Earth. Mammoths appeared about 5.1 million years ago in Africa, according to Ross MacPhee, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Mastodons, on the other hand, appeared about 27 million to 30 million years ago, primarily in North and Central America. Don't argue with Ross, he knows his stuff.

Mastodons were wood browsers, which could be our favourite term of the day, don't you just love browsing wood? It just means that they ate things they found in the trees, but it conjures up images of them being very picky in DIY superstores.

Their teeth had pointed cones specially adapted for eating woody stuff, and their molars had flat surfaces for when they were done with wood and fancied munching on some grass.
Mary Shelley

## Ability

### Ability

**Beware; for I am Fearless****(Play)** Your Bride of Frankenstein card in hand gains +30 Power this turn and if played next to Frankenstein's Monster, this card gains +30 Power.

## Did You Know?

While many of us may know more about her most famous creations - Dr Frankenstein and his monster - you might not know that the life of **Mary Shelley** was almost as exciting, sad and surprising as her fiction.

Daughter of feminist rebel Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary grew up with her half-sister Claire. The pair fell for two of the most famous romantic poets of all time – Mary with Percy Bysshe Shelley (whom she eloped with at age 16) and Claire with Lord Byron (yup, bad news).

It was while travelling with Percy, Claire and Byron that Mary came to write one of the greatest works of gothic fiction – *Frankenstein.* The group were stuck inside on a dark and stormy night (seriously, we’re not making this up) and challenged one another to write a scary story. Mary rightfully won with her tale of man playing God. Take that, Byron.

As if Mary wasn’t enough of a legend, after Percy died in a shipwreck, Mary supposedly kept part of her husband’s remains wrapped in pages of his own poetry. There are claims that it was his heart she kept but, no matter what, that’s probably still the most goth thing you’ve heard today.
Martin Luther King Jr.

## Ability

### Ability

**Stride Toward Freedom****(Play)** Your cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn. **(Return)** If you won the turn, gain +1:energy/turn: permanently.

## Did You Know?

**Martin Luther King** was a Baptist minister, civil rights activist and a leading voice in the fight for racial equality in the United States.

For his tireless work in the campaign against discrimination including leading the Montgomery Improvement Association and the famous Montgomery bus boycott, he became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He is the only other American besides George Washington to have his birthday observed as a national holiday.
Meganeura

## Ability

### Ability

**Impressive Wingspan****(Play)** Your Fearsome Flyers and Bugs cards, wherever they are, with 7 or more Base Energy gain +24 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

If you’re not a fan of insects, count yourself lucky to have been born into this time period and not 300 million years ago, when **Meganeura** roamed the skies. An ancient ancestor of modern day dragonflies and damselflies, Meganeura were giant predatory insects who survived on a steady diet of smaller, more vulnerable bugs.

With a wingspan almost the size of a man’s footstep, you’d have trouble squishing the Meganeura with a rolled-up newspaper. Also, newspapers didn’t exist back then. According to extinct insect experts, Meganeura were able to grow to this size due to a lack of aerial predators. Another theory suggests that critters of this kind developed in water becoming terrestrial, growing bigger as a means of protection against the higher level of oxygen.
Lac Alaotra Bamboo Lemur

## Ability

### Ability

**Critically Endangered****(Draw)** If you have played Lac Alaotra Bamboo Lemur this game, this card loses -30 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Trying to spot a **Lac Alaotra Bamboo Lemur** in the wild is more luck than skill. They aren’t fully diurnal, and they aren’t night owls either - nor are they regularly active during twilight, like crepuscular species. This irregular pattern is known as “cathemerality” - a sleep cycle comparable only to the likes of students. And, just like hungover students, their vocalisations include grunts, clicks, trebles and screeches.

Found exclusively in the reed beds of Lac Alaotra, in northeast Madagascar, this lemur is the only primate in the world whose habitat is confined to wetlands. Sadly, approximately 2,000 hectares of marshland are burnt each year, threatening the very survival of the species. In 1994, there were an estimated 7,500 individuals alive. By 2001, that number had dropped to 3,000.
Megalosaurus

## Ability

### Ability

**Megalomania****(Draw)** A random Paleontology card in your hand gains +40 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

When the first bone of the **Megalosaurus** was found in 1676 in Oxfordshire, people had no idea what it was. Since the bible made reference to giants, they assumed the bone belonged to a Really Big Human. Following further discoveries of Megalosaurus fossils, it was deemed to be a gigantic lizard of 20 metres in length. After much speculation, palaeontologists eventually realised that the creature was a bipedal therapod of around 6 metres long, weighing about 700 kilograms.

Like the T-Rex, its arms were shorter but still fairly strong. Since no one has ever found a complete skeleton of the Megalosaurus, its build is still somewhat unclear. But hey, at least we can sleep easy knowing it isn’t a dinosaur-sized human.
Loch Ness Monster

## Ability

### Ability

**Loch In****(Return)** Your opponent's remaining cards in hand **Lock** next turn.

## Did You Know?

The first recorded sighting of the famous **Loch Ness Monster** (or Nessie as the Scots like to call her) was in 565 AD in the depths of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. Nessie was said to have emerged from the deep dark Loch Ness waters, snatched up and eaten a servant, before being forced back into the waters by their master, St Columba.

Over the years, more mysterious rumors spread far and wide of other such ‘strange unexplainable events’ at Loch Ness. Many believed in the water Kelpies and the Each-Uisge, (meaning ‘water horse’) a water spirit in Scottish folklore.

Nessie is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or more humps protruding from the water. If you see her, you'll know about it.

In 1933, construction began on the A82 – the beautiful picturesque road that runs along the north shore of the Loch. The work was noisy and involved drilling and blasting and it is believed that the disruption angered Nessie and forced the monster from the depths and into the open.

The next year, London surgeon R. K. Wilson managed to take a photograph that appeared to show a slender head and neck rising above the surface of the water. Nessie hit the headlines and has remained the topic of fierce debate and countless blurry photographs and claimed sightings ever since.

In the 1960s, the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau conducted a ten-year observational survey – recording an average of 20 sightings per year. And, by the end of the decade, mini-submarines were being used for the first time to explore the depths of the Loch using sophisticated sonar equipment.

New public interest was generated in the mid-1970s when underwater photographs of what appeared to be a ‘flipper’ were made public, and in June 2020, Steve Challice, of Southampton, UK, posted a picture on Facebook showing a very large, scaly fish-like monster in the Loch.

The plot thickens, and the mystery is yet to be un-*loched*...
Kraken

## Ability

### Ability

**Terror from the Deep****(Play)** Your Oceans and Seas cards in hand gain +40 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

There’s something lurking in the water and nothing down there is more feared than the Kraken.

Known in Lore as “sea-mischief” this legendary tentacled giant is so powerful and terrifying that it could pull down ships and obliterate anyone unlucky enough to cross its watery path.

It first appeared in the Greek legend of the Scylla, a monster with SIX heads that Odysseus had to sail past on his travels. Olas Magnus wrote in 1555 of a sea creature with, ‘sharp and long horns.

The most in-depth and detailed description of the kraken comes from the Danish historian Erik Pontoppidan in his ‘Natural history of Norway’ from 1755, describing the beast as “round, flat, and full of arms, or branches". His warning was pretty clear, that if you row out several miles into the Norwegian Sea in the summer, you’re screwed, basically.

The Kraken also appears in the film Clash of the Titans, and its 2010 remake of the same name (which we all kind of wish would sink to the bottom of the ocean and suffer the same fate as the Kraken’s victims.)
Marigold

## Ability

### Ability

**Sunshine Blooms****(Play)** Your Beautiful Butterflies cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power permanently. **(Return)** Your Carl Linnaeus card, wherever it is, gains +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Whether you’re honouring the deceased, have an ongoing pest problem or just want to add colour to your garden, **Marigolds** are the one. Belonging to the Asteraceae family, Marigolds come in a kaleidoscope of colours and varieties, from vibrant yellows and oranges to rich reds and deep maroons.

In Mexican culture, marigolds hold significance during Dia de los Muertos, honouring the departed. Indian culture considers them sacred in ceremonies and decorations.

But there’s more to the Marigold than pretty petals, because these colourful flowers release a scent that deters the gardener’s arch nemesis: aphids. Better still, they’ll also double up as a natural anti-inflammatory, antifungal, and antibacterial substance that you can use to treat skin irritations and promote wound healing.
Lutzelfrau

## Ability

### Ability

**Fruity Festivities****(Return)** Your Curious Cuisine cards, wherever they are, gain +13 Power for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

Why do so many characters from Christmas folklore want to brutally torture naughty children? **Lutzelfrau** is a great example. Originating in German folklore, this witch rides the wind and must be bribed with gifts. Should you fail to satisfy her, there’s a small chance she will disembowel you. Because apparently, a lump of coal doesn’t go far enough in punishing the badly-behaved.

If you’ve done good deeds all year, you can expect this witch to reward you with apples, nuts and fried plums on Saint Lucy’s Day (December 13th). The concept of Lutzelfrau is also common in Slovenia and Croatia, where a “dark Luz” was contrasted to the Christian saint. If we get to choose from German Christmas villains, we’ll take our chances with Krampus.
Kongki Noli

## Ability

### Ability

**Throwing Stones****(Draw)** A random card in your hand gains +5 Power until played. **(Return)** A random card in your hand gains +5 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

If you happen to have 5 small stones lying around and two or more willing players, why not have a game of **Kongki Noli**?

Originating from Korea, this childhood game is similar to the American game "jacks.” It starts with one player scattering the rocks on the ground, picking one up, throwing it in the air and catching it. After several rounds of throwing a rock in the air and quickly picking up another, the player tosses all of the rocks in the air and then tries to catch them on the back of their hand. Next, they throw all the rocks up once more and catch them in their palm. The number of rocks you can catch at the end is your score!
Lowland Streaked Tenrec

## Ability

### Ability

**Punk Rock Duo****(Play)** Your Aye-Aye card in hand gains +60 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Now I know what you’re thinking: what the heck is this spiky bumblebee shrew? As it happens, this unique looking animal is neither shrew, nor hedgehog (nor bee, but you knew that.) It’s a **Lowland Streaked Tenrec**, found only on the rainforest-covered eastern side of Madagascar.

It’s a mammal, it eats worms and measures about 5.5 inches in length. Its appearance, although striking, is not even the most interesting thing about this creature. When it comes to communication, the lowland streaked tenrec has a variety of common signals such as visual, olfactory (smell), auditory and touch. But they also use something called stridulation, whereby they rub parts of their body together to create sound. This is the same method used by crickets to create their famous night-time music.
Lake Toplitz Gold

## Ability

### Ability

**Dangerous Diving****(Return)** If you lost the turn, your Lost Treasures cards, wherever they are, gain +30 Power for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

When it comes to get-rich-quick schemes, finding **Lake Toplitz Gold** is high risk / high reward. During the 1940s, the German Navy used the isolated lake, located in the Austrian Alps, as a testing station. After the war, locals began exchanging British banknotes, and it came to light that they had found these washed up on the shores of Lake Toplitz.

It’s thought that that the Nazis dumped billions of dollars worth of stolen gold—in the area of $5.6 billion—into the lake. But be warned: the lake is 300 feet deep and can only be accessed via a mile-long dirt track. Nevertheless, divers have tried to recover the gold over the years, and five have died in the process - leading to speculation that someone, or something, still guards it…
Mansa Musa

## Ability

### Ability

**Power and Prosperity****(Play)** If your deck has 3 or more Hidden Gems cards, your cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn and if played next to Gold, your cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

**Mansa Musa** was the ruler of the kingdom of Mali from 1312 C.E. to 1337 C.E. During his reign, the Mali Empire became the largest and richest empire in Africa. When he wasn’t enjoying his riches and the company of his four wives, Mansa Musa was busy using the vast deposits of natural gold on his land to turn the kingdom into a centre of learning for the Islamic world.

A figure of stupendous wealth, Mansa Musa’s net worth would equate to around $400 billion in today’s value. For context, that’s more than Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos’ net worth put together. When travelling, he had an entourage of 60,000 people carrying supplies, 500 slaves each carrying a gold staff and 80 – 100 camels each carrying 300 pounds of gold dust.
Mary Jane Bowser

## Did You Know?

Likely born around 1839, it is perhaps testament to **Mary Jane Bowser’s** trade-craft that we have been unable to find any authenticated photo of her and so we have chosen to use an anonymous image. She was so elusive we can’t even pin her down to a single name as she was also known as Mary Jane Richards, Mary Jane Richards Denman and Mary Jane Richards Garvin to name a few. We do know that she was christened simply as Mary Jane at St. John's Church, Richmond, Virginia and that she was born a slave.

Fortune smiled on Mary Jane (when compared to other slaves) at an early age when her enslaver John Van passed away leaving his estate to his wife and daughter, the active abolitionist and philanthropist Elizabeth Van Lew, who promptly freed the child, but continued to employ her as a paid servant.

In 1861 Mary Jane married Wilson Bowser, but there are no records of her actually using that name. It was around this time when Mary became part of Elizabeth Van Lew’s Union civil war spy ring. Legend has it that Van Lew talked Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s wife Varina into employing Mary Jane as a household servant (something Varina denied). This gave her full access to the White House of the Confederacy, listening out for intelligence and looking for documents to pass on to Lew, who in turn would pass them on to the Union.

Because Mary Jane had so many pseudonyms, it’s very hard to track her exact activities, but the overall success of Lew’s spy ring was impressive, earning high praise from both George H. Sharpe (Colonel Brevet Major General) and Ulysses S Grant.
Madagascan Sunset Moth

## Ability

### Ability

**A Kaleidoscope of Colors****(Draw)** Your Emerald Swallowtail Butterfly and [[Luzon Peacock Swallowtail]] cards, wherever they are, gain +25 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

When it was first described in the 1770s, the **Madagascan Sunset Moth** was thought to be a butterfly. It’s an easy mistake to make, considering the vibrant, patterned wings this species boasts. But in 1823, a German entomologist named Jacob Hübner set the record straight and placed it in a new genus: Chrysiridia.

Regardless, the Sunset Moth is considered one of the most impressive looking lepidopterans. Interestingly, the colour on its wings doesn’t come from pigments, but rather scattering and interference of light on the ribbon-like scales that cover its wings.

Unlike most moths, this colourful character is active during the day rather than the night. It’s like <link="https:>Blade</link> - if Blade had wings and wasn’t a vampire killer.
Mellotron

## Ability

### Ability

**Fields Forever****(Play)** If your deck contains Strawberry Moon, your Instrumental cards, wherever they are, gain +16 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

After recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at the London Abbey Road Studios in 1967 – The Beatles left behind a **Mellotron**. Based on a 1946 invention by American inventor Henry Chamberlain, this organ-like instrument was designed to recreate sounds of single notes played by orchestral instruments by triggering recordings on tape loops.

Convoluted? Absolutely. But there was a certain kind of magic that came from the Mellotron. Unlike conventional synthesisers and digital samplers that came after it, this early electronic keyboard device created sounds that were almost unearthly. During a time when spacing out to prog rock was a much-loved pass-time, the natural wobble and flutter of the tapes had its own allure.

So, what happened to The Beatles’ Mellotron? Well, British rock band, The Zombies found it and used it to record their album Odessey and Oracle.
Lewis Carroll

## Ability

### Ability

**Left of Field****(Play)** Your Thomas Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin cards in hand gain +48 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Better known by his pen name **Lewis Carroll**, author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is best known for his world-famous children’s book, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.’ Dodgson came up with the concept for the story while on a boating trip with the Liddells—the children of his boss, Henry Liddell. Alice herself is based on Alice Liddell, Henry’s 10-year-old daughter.

Like many writers of the time, Lewis Carroll was frustrated by good ideas that came to him in the dead of night. So, in 1891, he invented a device called the nyctograph – a card with 16 square holes that offer a guide for the writer to jot down their ideas in the dark, using a peculiar square alphabet he invented for the purpose.

Oh, and he was left-handed, in case you’re wondering what possible reason there is for us to make him combo with fellow southpaws Leonardo da Vinci and Neil Armstrong!
Maat Mons

## Ability

### Ability

**It Doesn't Maatter****(Draw)** Your Space and Science cards, wherever they are, gain +13 Power permanently. **(Return)** Your Space and Science cards, wherever they are, lose -13 Power permanently, an opponent's random card in hand **Burn**s (34) for 2 turns and your Ma'at card, wherever it is, gains +28 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Up on Venus’ scorching hot surface is a giant shield volcano similar in size and shape to the big island of Hawaii. Named **Maat Mons** after the ancient Egyptian goddess of truth and justice, the volcano is 8 kilometres high, making it the second-highest peak on the planet.

It sits at approximately 0.9 degrees north latitude and 194.5 east longitude on the cloud-swaddled Venus. Thick, dark lava flows from Maat Mons for hundreds of kilometres, suggesting a relatively recent eruption, but no evidence for current activity can be identified. What we know for sure is that at least two large scale structural collapse events seem to have occurred in the past on Maat Mons.
Laff Box

## Did You Know?

If you’ve ever watched an episode of *Friends* without the laugh track, you’ll understand why sound engineer Charles Douglass felt the need to create the Audience Response Duplicator – also known as the ‘**Laff Box**’.

You see, before television, comedy was enjoyed by a live audience. When producers in the early days of TV went to replicate this atmosphere by introducing recorded crowd reactions to their soundtracks, they came up against a problem: audiences didn’t always pick up on jokes. To fill in the gaps, Douglass fashioned his one-of-a-kind device: it was two feet tall and it operated like an organ. Only immediate family members knew what it looked like, and at one time, the laff box was called “the most sought after but well-concealed box in the world.”
Louis Pasteur

## Ability

### Ability

**Spilled Milk****(Return)** If you won the turn, gain +2:energy/turn: this round.

## Did You Know?

Louis Pasteur was a French microbiologist otherwise known as ‘the father of germ theory.’ His discoveries led to an understanding of microbes and diseases that has helped to save millions and millions of lives across the world. The vaccines he developed revolutionised healthcare, and still help to keep people safe from disease today.

A young Pasteur had five children but sadly, three died young from typhoid fever. It was the devastating deaths of his children that drove Louis to investigate infectious diseases to find a cure.

Before Pasteur basically became the God of medicine and science, people believed that microbes such as bacteria appeared due to "spontaneous generation"; that, BOOM, bacteria could appear basically out of thin air. Enter Pasteur, who ran experiments and proved that bacteria and germs were living things that came from other living things. THIS was a major discovery in the study of biology.

He found that heating liquids would kill most of the microbes and allow drinks to last longer and be safer to drink. This process became known as pasteurization and is still applied to many foods to this day!

When the French silk market was threatened by a disease that affected silkworms, he discovered that it was caused by microbes. By eliminating the microbes from the silkworm farms, he was able to end the disease and save the French silk business.

Pasteur went on to find that making a weak form of a disease would cause people to become immune to the stronger form of the disease. This became known as a "vaccine" and was first discovered by working with cattle on the disease anthrax. The first vaccine he gave to a human was the rabies vaccine, which was administered to a nine-year-old boy named Joseph Meister in 1885.

Pasteur - we salute you.
Kōjin

## Ability

### Ability

**God of the Stove****(Play)** If you have played Fire this game, your Curious Cuisine cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Inviting a friend over for dinner and short on time? You have two options: hit up your local fast food joint and disguise their burgers as your own “steamed hams”, or pray to **Kojin**. Sometimes called Kamado-gami, Kojin is literally the god of the cooking stove - so he might be your best bet.

Don’t be put off by the three heads, flaming hair and spiky teeth: this deity embodies *controlled* fire, which helps to burn away impurities. That’s why people place his effigies in the kitchen while cooking. As well as blessing you with fire to cook your food, Kojin can double up as a neighbourhood watchman, watching over your household and reporting any misdeeds to the Shinto gods (kami) of the village.
Mars

## Did You Know?

Mars is red for the same reason that blood is red - it's the colour of oxygenated iron (iron oxide), which is prevalent on the planet's surface.

While the surface of Mars might look warm and desert-like in pictures, the actual temperature ranges from below freezing to really-quite-a-lot-below freezing (-87 C).

Oh and there's virtually no water there. So if humans are planning on moving to Mars, there are some major challenges to overcome.
Kronosaurus

## Ability

### Ability

**Lizard of Kronos****(Play)** Your Reptiles cards in hand gain +25 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The scourge of the early Cretaceous seas and one of the largest and deadliest marine reptiles in the history of life on Earth. What an intro!

The name Kronosaurus honours the Greek mythological figure Kronos, the father of Zeus. The Kronosaurus was a Pliosaurus- a fearsome family of marine reptiles characterized by their massive heads and huge flippers.

The gargantuan head of Kronosaurus accounted for approximately 25% of its total length. The jaws ran almost the length of the skull, giving this predator an enormously wide and hellish looking mouth. Tooth be told, the largest teeth in an adult Kronosaurus were over 7 inches long.
Luzon Peacock Swallowtail

## Ability

### Ability

**Luzon Streak****(Play)** If you are losing the round, this card gains +30 Power.

## Did You Know?

The **Luzon Peacock Swallowtail** (*Papilio chikae*) is a relatively recent discovery, found in 1965 on Mt St Thomas in the southern Cordillera Central of Luzon, northern Philippines. It is in the family of swallowtail butterflies and is listed as endangered by IUCN.

This butterfly has a unique skunk-like quality, which we realise sounds bizarre but bear with us.

Swallowtails differ from all other butterflies in many anatomical traits, such as the unique organ that they posses behind their heads as caterpillars, called the "osmeterium." It is normally hidden and out of view, but be warned; when the caterpillar feels threatened by predators, it is used to emit a foul smell.

Ugh and it looks so pretty too.
Least Weasel

## Ability

### Ability

**Weasel Out****(Play)** If you are losing the round, this card gains +26 Power.

## Did You Know?

Measuring between 5-10 inches long, the **Least Weasel** is the world’s smallest carnivore, and – according to Blackfoot mythology – one of the bravest of all animals. Scientists agree with this view: every single feature of this mammal, from its slender body to its sharp claws and super-fast running speed, makes it the perfect little predator despite its size.

Most of a weasel’s time awake is spent hunting and eating. Since their bodies don’t store fat, they need a constant supply of food to provide enough energy. In fact, the least weasel eats around 40-60 per cent of its body weight every day, feasting on a diet of small rodents like mice, hamsters and gerbils, although they are partial to the occasional fish.
Llamrei

## Ability

### Ability

**Kingly Mount****(Play)** If played next to King Arthur, your King Arthur card in hand gains +45 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Like Shrek and his beloved Donkey, every hero needs a noble steed. Thankfully for Arthur, he had more than a kooky sidekick - one who wasn’t infatuated with a dragon. In fact, according to the Welsh tale “Culhwch and Olwen,” it seems King Arthur had two horses - a mare called **Llamrei** and a stallion called Hengroen.

The name ‘Llamrei’ comes from the Welsh word ‘llam’ meaning “jump” or bound”, and it’s said that the mare left a hoof-print in a rock close to Llyn Barfog in Wales. Now known as Carn March Arthur, or “Stone of Arthur’s Horse”, the area is marked by an upright rectangular slate sign to commemorate the moment Llamrei hauled the ‘Afanc’ monster from the lake.
Leviathan

## Ability

### Ability

**Serpent of Legend****(Play)** Your Oceans and Seas cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power this round. If your deck has 6 or more Arts & Culture cards, your Oceans and Seas cards, wherever they are, gain an additional +10 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Described as a fearsome primordial being that ruled over all other creatures of the sea, **Leviathan** makes the loch ness monster look like a cute lil’ sea snake. According to the Bible’s Book of Revelation, it is red in colour with seven heads and 10 horns. It also breathes fire and has scales so thick, a javelin can’t hurt it. So, if you’re planning on hunting this thing down, you had better come prepared.

With its roots in pre-biblical Middle Eastern mythology, it’s thought that Leviathan was adapted into Christian religion as a way of making it easier for people from other cultures to convert to Christianity. Because if anything says “join our religion”, it’s a terrifying sea dragon, right?
Mary Toft's Rabbit Birth

## Ability

### Ability

**The Naïve Doctor****(Return)** Your Marvellous Medicine cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

A word of warning: what you’re about to hear is not the Beatrix Potter story it sounds like. In 1726, a woman by the name of Mary Toft fooled London’s finest doctors, scientists and even the King into thinking that she was capable of giving birth to bunnies.

The gruesome details of her hoax don’t bear thinking about (Mary Toft was effectively storing parts of dead bunnies inside her body), and her explanation for why she was birthing rabbits was just as bizarre.

Toft claimed that she dreamt about rabbits after seeing one in a field, and awoke with a sickness that made her crave the taste of rabbit. How that leads to **Mary Toft’s Rabbit Birth** is unclear, but when it was revealed to be a hoax, she was imprisoned.
Lava Cricket

## Ability

### Ability

**Playing With Fire****(Draw)** Your Bugs cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power until played and this card **Burn**s (10) for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

The floor is lava, but this cricket doesn’t care: Caconemobius fori, or “**Lava Cricket**”, is the first multicellular life form to take up residence on new Hawaiian lava flows. And, apparently, they like it here. When green tufts of plants sprout from volcanic rocks, that’s their cue to leave in search of more barren lands.

Already, finding mates is made that extra bit more challenging by the fact that this cricket doesn’t have wings. But when they do find love, they engage in the most perilous mating ritual in which the female sucks fluid from the male’s leg. In doing so, she takes away a staggering 8 percent of his body mass. Having less fluid when you live on lava can’t be great, but clearly these crickets love a challenge.
Magnetar

## Did You Know?

Know what a Magnetar is? Me neither, before now.

It's a Neutron Star with some serious magnetic mojo, kicking out powerful X-Rays and Gamma Rays as a result. In the most extreme cases, they cause a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB), which some cheery scientists believe could cause a Mass-Extinction Event on Earth. OR - as we at CUE prefer to think - 7 billion Incredible Hulks.
Machine Learning

## Ability

### Ability

**Training Data****(Draw)** For every Science card in your deck, your non- Science cards in hand gain +2 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

In 1952, a brilliant mind at IBM named Arthur Samuel created a computer program to play checkers. He called it "**Machine Learning**" (because "AI that beats me at checkers" was too long). Samuel's program used a scoring system to predict the winning side, and it even had a memory to store previous moves and improve. Samuel continued writing software past his 88th birthday.

Meanwhile, machine learning came along leaps and bounds. Today, some machine learning algorithms can even learn without being programmed, by finding patterns and making predictions based on data. Other models are designed to mimic the human brain, using artificial neural networks to process information. Beyond beating people at checkers, machine learning now supports us in a wide range of industries, including healthcare, finance and transportation.
Mandrill

## Ability

### Ability

**Drill Down****(Return)** If you won the turn, your opponent loses -1:energy/turn: this round.

## Did You Know?

The Mandrill is the largest of all the old world monkeys. They are shy and reclusive primates that live only in the rain forests of equatorial Africa.

Up to 200 Mandrills live in a troop, each of which is headed by a dominant male. They may be shy, but their rear ends are, err- definitely not shy in the slightest; in fact, their rumps are brightly coloured red and blue!

Why!? Simple - to impress the ladies of course! Cheeky.
Manga

## Ability

### Ability

**Nihon Narratives****(Draw)** Your Japanese Folklore cards, wherever they are, gain +21 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Forms of **Manga**, meaning “Whimsical Pictures” in Japanese, can be found in scrolls dating as far back as the 12th century. Thought to be the first ever manga, these scrolls feature drawings of frogs and rabbits titled Choju-giga (“Scrolls of Frolicking Animals”). The art style blew up in the centuries that followed - specifically the late 18th century, when the term ‘manga’ first came into common usage.

Today, it’s so popular that more paper is used in Japan to print manga than toilet paper. So, if you’re ever caught with your pants down with nothing to wipe with, be grateful for the reading material. All genres are represented across manga, although Sci-Fi is by far the most popular. That being said, there’s even a manga version of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Mary Queen of Scots

## Ability

### Ability

**Quite Contrary****(Return)** All remaining cards in both player's hands cost +2 Energy this round.

## Did You Know?

There’s a whole lot to unpack when it comes to **Mary Queen of Scots**. While the Royal family may be shrouded in drama now, Mary was the original ‘Drama Queen’ (literally) with her life providing more drama, tragedy and romance than any legend.

Her disastrous love life began when the Scots refused to ratify an agreement for Mary to marry King Henry VIII's son Prince Edward. Henry, who wasn’t known for his patience, sought to change their minds through a show of force - a war between Scotland and England which became known as ‘the rough wooing.’ - romantic.

While all of this drama was occurring, Mary married a young french prince to secure a Catholic alliance against Protestant England. In 1561, after the Dauphin died, still in his teens, Mary returned to Scotland a young widow.

She later fell passionately in love with Henry, Lord Darnley, who didn’t quite live up to expectation, becoming a drunkard who jealously murdered Mary's secretary David Riccio in front of her while she was 6 months pregnant. In 1567 his body was found in mysterious circumstances in the garden of a house he was lodging in after a fire and explosion, but he had already been strangled.

After going on to marry James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell and no doubt hoping for a peaceful life and a quiet marriage, Mary was imprisoned in Leven Castle after the Lords of Congregation disapproved of Mary's liaison. It was there that she gave birth to still-born twins.

In May 1568 Mary escaped from Leven Castle and gathered together a small army but was defeated at Langside by the Protestant faction. Mary then fled to England. Surely things would be easier there, right? WRONG.

Did she catch a break? Of course not - more trouble was awaiting her in England, where she became a political pawn in the hands of Queen Elizabeth I and imprisoned for 19 years in various castles after she was found plotting against Elizabeth; letters in code, from her to others, were found and she was deemed guilty of treason.

She was taken to Fotheringhay Castle and executed in 1587. When the executioner raised the head for the crowd to see, it fell and he was left holding only Mary’s wig. A hair-raising end to a hair-raising life.

'Mary Queen of Scots' by Unknown Author (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under Public Domain (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Lyle's Flying Fox

## Ability

### Ability

**Something In-Between****(Play)** Your Mammals and Birds cards, wherever they are, gain +8 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Deep in the monsoon forests and mangroves of Eastern Asia is the largest species of bat in the world. Known as **Lyle’s Flying Fox**, this creature can have a wingspan of up to two metres and weigh around 1.5 kilograms! For reference, the average bat has a wingspan of 10 inches. A baseball bat, on the other hand, is around one metre.

Unlike the majority of animals in the Chiroptera order that are nocturnal, Lyle’s flying foxes are crepuscular, meaning they’re at their most active at twilight. And, unlike other bats, flying foxes have a meat-free diet. Using their large, front-facing eyes, they source fruit, flowers and nectar to feed on.

Sociable animals, they form large colonies – the largest of which is some 3,000 strong!
Mandarin Duck

## Ability

### Ability

**Unlikely Pair****(Draw)** Your Common, Rare and Epic Chinese Folklore cards, wherever they are, gain +14 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Often regarded as the most beautiful species of duck, the drake **Mandarin Duck**’s ornate plumage has made the creature a staple of Chinese art. Mandarins prefer to make a home in small wooded ponds and can be found perching in trees. The females usually choose to lay their eggs in the holes of trees – which means after hatching, the ducklings must jump down to the ground. However, nesting competition from jackdaws and squirrels makes population growth a challenge for Mandarins.

In Chinese folklore, Mandarin ducks are a symbol of long-lasting love between couples and are frequently used to depict fidelity. They even have a proverb for faithful couples relating to the species: “Two Mandarin ducks playing in water.”
Lady Bertilak

## Ability

### Ability

**Test of Purity****(Play)** Your Arthurian Legends cards, wherever they are, gain +6 Power until played. If played next to Sir Gawain or The Green Knight, your Arthurian Legends cards, wherever they are, gain +8 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

A word of advice: if **Lady Bertilak** asks you for a glove, or offers you a ring or a magical silk belt, just say no. Because it’s a test, and it will determine your fate. This is what happened to Sir Gawain in the famous 14th century tale ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’.

While staying at their castle, Gawain was asked by the host, Lord Bertilak, to exchange any gifts he was given for the spoils of Bertilak’s hunting trips each day. But Gawain was naughty. Although he rejected the ring, he took the green girdle from Lady Bertilak and kept it a secret. Upon realising the error of his ways, Gawain kept the belt as a reminder of his sin. Or he just liked how it looked on him.
Long March 5

## Ability

### Ability

**Heavy Payload****(Return)** Your Radical Rockets cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power (and if you won the turn, an extra +10 Power) until played.

## Did You Know?

It’s China’s most powerful rocket and the world's third most powerful orbital launch vehicle: in November 2020, the **Long March 5** successfully launched China’s Chang’e-5 spacecraft from Wenchang launch site, which safely landed on the near side of the Moon. After a few setbacks in 2017 (Wenchang, we have a problem), the mission saw the Chang’e-5 spacecraft return to Earth with samples of rocks and soil from the moon – the first lunar samples collected in four decades.

"Long March 5 Y2 was transporting from assembly building to 101 launch site in Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Center" by 篁竹水声 (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Langstonia

## Ability

### Ability

**Teeth Bared****(Play)** Your Ancient Creatures cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power until played. **(Return)** Your Ancient Creatures cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

Oh he a big boi: the **Langstonia** is an extinct genus of notosuchian crocodylomorph named after the palaeontologist Wann Langston, Jr. We assume this is because Langston first described the creature in 1965, not because he looked like the ancient crocodile.

Hitting a maximum of 2.7 metres in length, the Langstonia is just a little bit longer than your average Christmas tree. But given the sharp, serrated teeth of this giant carnivore, it’s probably best not to hang baubles from its massive tail. Still, a bit of tinsel wouldn’t go amiss.

Sadly, the waterways of South America dried out as the Andes Mountains rose, causing a shift in the ecosystem that led to the extinction of Langstonia. God rest ye, merry gentle croc.
Leif Erikson

## Did You Know?

Leif Erikson, an Icelandic explorer was well acquainted with North America well before Christopher Columbus officially 'opened' the New World- 500 years before to be precise, totally trumping ol' Chris C.

Erikson was the second of three sons of Erik the Red, who established a settlement in Greenland after he was exiled from Iceland. We can't confirm whether Leif had middle child syndrome but we expect so.

Erikson visited Norway in around 1000 where he was converted to Christianity by Olaf I, who sent him back to Greenland to convert the settlers there.

Several versions of his adventures were passed down through storytelling. They were written down in the book, the Saga of Erik the Red, or “Eiriks saga”, which was published in 1300. As with all Chinese whispers, they can't be 100% verified, so if you hear or read anything about Erikson and an army of dwarves riding a sea unicorn, it's probably best to discount that particular tale.

As far as one story goes about his voyage - he sailed off-course and arrived in a place he called 'Vinland', because of the abundant grapes growing there, and the general fertility of the land. Wine land you say? One way ticket please.

The precise identity of Vinland remains uncertain, with various locations on the North American coast identified. In 1963, archaeologists found ruins of a Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, in northern Newfoundland, which correspond to Leif's description of Vinland.
Medaka

## Ability

### Ability

**The 248 Mile High Club****(Draw)** For every Space card in your deck, your Fabulous Fish cards, wherever they are, gain +2 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Fish don’t do so well in space. Case in point: **Medaka**. Also known as Japanese rice fish, these transparent freshwater fish were sent into space to test how microgravity would affect marine life.

Although the effects weren’t so different to that of humans, they did set in much faster, and the Medaka started losing bone density almost immediately upon arriving in orbit. And that’s understandable - after all, Medaka are used to swimming in the tranquil rice paddies throughout East Asia. Sure, they can survive in a wide range of water temperatures - but they didn’t evolve to deal with the zero gravity environments of an aquarium on the International Space Station.

Still, thanks to these fish, we’re much closer to solving bone loss in astronauts.
Marina Bay Sands Hotel

## Ability

### Ability

**Lap of Luxury****(Draw)** Lose -4 Power/Turn permanently. **(Return)** Gain +8 Power/Turn permanently.

## Did You Know?

One of the most beautiful examples of modern architecture, the **Marina Bay Sands Hotel**and resort in Singapore opened in 2011 after a four-year construction. It consists of three towers, connected along the top by a giant platform called the Skypark (so it looks a little bit like the Roman numeral for 3).

The design of the towers was inspired by playing cards, which is fitting seeing as it's owned by a Las Vegas casino chain and the resort itself contains the worlds largest atrium casino - a single large area containing 500 tables and 1,600 slot machines.

The Skypark is also the world's largest public cantilevered platform - it houses an infinity pool that stretches for 146 metres, which is the longest elevated pool in the world. It holds 1,425 cubic metres of water, 200 metres up in the sky!