recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Koi Carp

## Ability

### Ability

**Peace in the Pond****(Draw)** Your Fabulous Fish cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power and cost -1 Energy until played. Repeat if your deck has 4 or more Feudal Japan cards.

## Did You Know?

Some sell for under $10, some are worth over $2 million: no, we aren’t talking about NFTs (unless NFT stands for Nice-looking Fish Type… ). **Koi Carp** may be a common species of fish, but their lineage, age, colouring and length can put their value on par with expensive art.

Although the average lifespan of a Koi Carp is 25 years old, they can reportedly live much longer in the optimal conditions. Supposedly, some outlive their owners when they reach the grand old age of 100, and the oldest Koi on record lived to 226 years! Named Hanoko, this Koi fish was born five years before Mozart and died two weeks after the release of the Sex Pistols’ ‘Pretty Vacant’. A lot can change in a couple of centuries.
Little Ghost Nebula

## Ability

### Ability

**Little Ghost****(Play)** If you have played Ghost Nebula this game, your Nebulae cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Welcome to Most Haunted - Deep Space Edition. Today, we’re investigating a small spirit in the constellation Ophiuchus, between about 2000 and 5000 light-years from Earth. This isn’t the kind of ghost to mess with your picture frames or cause a strange noise in the night, so we’re going to have to use advanced space ghost radar (also known as the Hubble telescope) to detect it.

You’ll notice in these photos a ghostly orb surrounding a faint dying star known as NGC 6369. Does anyone here have any close connections with a dead or dying star? This **Little Ghost Nebula** might be trying to communicate with you and perhaps warn you of the fate of our sun, which could produce its own planetary nebula about 5 billion years from now.
Luigi Galvani

## Ability

### Ability

**Playing God****(Play)** If your deck contains Electricity, your Frankenstein's Monster card, wherever it is, gains +27 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

For the story of Frankenstein’s monster and the TV remote on your coffee table, we have **Luigi Galvani** and a mountain of dead frogs to thank. Because, if Italian scientist Luigi Galvani hadn’t been playing around with dead frogs in the 1700s, Mary Shelley may never have come up with the concept of a reanimated corpse, and Alessandro Volta may never have developed the electric battery.

Thankfully, Galvani enjoyed dissecting frogs on the regular. One day, he witnessed something odd. While his assistant used a scalpel on a nerve in a frog’s leg, a nearby electrical generator created a spark, causing the frog’s leg to twitch. After a series of experiments, the frog-fixated Galvani concluded that there was a third form of electricity that he called Animal Electricity.
Lady Saigō

## Ability

### Ability

**Power Behind the Throne****(Draw)** If you have played any Feudal Japan card this game, your Feudal Japan cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

They say behind every great man is a great woman. For Tokugawa Ieyasu, the samurai lord who unified Japan at the end of the 16th century, it was **Lady Saigo**. Also known as Oai, Lady Saigo had a major influence on everything from Ieyasu’s philosophies and policies to his choice of allies as he rose to power. Later, she became the power behind the throne, indirectly affecting the composition of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Being near-sighted herself, Lady Saigo set up a charity dedicated to helping visually-impaired women with no other means of support. If you’re into unsolved mysteries, look into the death of Lady Saigo. The circumstances are suspicious, and although murder was suspected, a culprit was never identified. Sarah Koenig, if you’re listening, get on this.
Missing Person

## Ability

### Ability

**Skeleton Sequence****(Play)** Your Sue Black's In The Bones cards, wherever they are, gain +6 Power until played. **(Play)** If you have played Genetic Identity this game, your Facial Reconstruction card, wherever it is, gains +15 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

The FA has determined that the skeleton found in the woods is most likely:

A male, as determined from his pelvis and the skull,
Between 25 and 35 years of age,
Between 6ft and 6ft 2ins from his leg bones,
Most likely white,
There was no match from the DNA database

When this information is fed into the Missing Person’s database which houses records of all persons registered as ‘missing’, it returns 1,500 possible names. This is too many for the police to be able to investigate, and so assistance is needed from the public.

Most of us recognise people we know from their faces and so a facial reconstruction may be attempted.

Professor Dame Sue Black is an anatomist and a forensic anthropologist. She led for her discipline in the war crimes investigations in Kosovo and has deployed to many countries around the world including Thailand, Iraq, Sierra Leone and Grenada. She is the author of 14 textbooks and 2 popular science books about her career. She is a Fellow of 5 learned academies and is a cross bench Peer in the House of Lords. She is currently Pro Vice Chancellor for Engagement at Lancaster University and is President Elect for St. John's College, Oxford.
Magna Carta

## Ability

### Ability

**Righting Wrongs****(Draw)** Your Epic and Rare cards, wherever they are, cost -2 Energy until played. **(Play)** Your Declaration of Independence and Universal Declaration of Human Rights cards gain +20 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

*No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.
…
To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice.*

Prior to 1215, a King could pretty much get away with anything, and justice was at best arbitrarily applied. That all changed when, following an uprising from rebel barons, King John agreed to the terms of the **Magna Carta**.

One of the most important documents in history, Magna Carta made the law supreme for all - even the King was subject to it. It also guaranteed all free men (not for the last time, ‘free men’ in a document was a very loaded term) the right to a fair trial by a jury of his peers.

Wonderful, right? Except that it didn’t last long. King John didn’t like being subject to the law, and petitioned the Pope to have the Magna Carta annulled. The Pope obliged (not the proudest moment for Catholicism), declaring it “illegal, unjust, harmful to royal rights and shameful”… as well as “null and void of all validity for ever”.

This was a premature call, to say the least. It was reinstated within ten years, and portions of it are still valid in English Law to this day.

The impact of the Magna Carta has been felt throughout the centuries since. It was an inspiration for the Declaration of Independence, and Roosevelt described the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a ‘Magna Carta for all mankind’.
La Amistad

## Ability

### Ability

**Takeover****(Play)** Your Shake Up The System cards in hand gain +26 Power this turn and next.

## Did You Know?

In 1839, plantation owners Don José Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes bought 53 captives and boarded them onto a two-masted schooner called **La Amistad**, bound for Puerto Principe. But when the cook “jokingly” told the slaves that they were to be “killed, salted and cooked”, it was the final straw.

Since the ship wasn’t designed for trafficking people, the captives were relatively free to move about. Armed with cane knives, they attacked the crew, killed the captain and gained control of the ship. Ruiz and Montes were spared so they could guide the ship back to Africa. But Montes deceived them, guiding the ship along the American east coast. Although they were caught and stood trial, it was ruled that they acted as free men and were all returned to Africa.
Menshen

## Ability

### Ability

**Threshold Guardians****(Draw)** If it's the first turn of a round, your cards in hand cost -2 Energy this turn.

## Did You Know?

Here at CUE, we are proud members of the Good Vibes Only crew, so thanks goodness for the **Menshen**, the guardians of gates and doors that usher those Posi Vibes in and those Evil ones straight out.

Door spirits have been referenced as early as the Book of Rites, a collection of texts from the Zhou Dynasty. Originally, the gods were Senshu and Yulü, who were painted onto peachwood and attached to doors, until Emperor Taizong’s generals Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong took up the mantle in the seventh century.

According to legend, the Emperor, also known as the Great Ancestor of the Tang, was being hassled relentlessly by the spirit of the Dragon King until his generals guarded the door and allowed him to enjoy a restful night sleep. Ever since, Chinese homes have used the images of the Menshen to protect their homes, being replaced at the turn of the Lunar New Year.

'頂泰山巖門神' by Taiwankengo (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Marrella

## Ability

### Ability

**Active Swimmer****(Play)** If played between any two Oceans cards, your Ancient Creatures cards in hand gain +35 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

When Charles Doolittle Walcott discovered **Marella** in the Burgess Shale in 1909, he called it a lace crab. But this was no crustacean - nor was it an “odd trilobite”, as he later decided. Instead, the Marella turned out to be a complex arthropod - specifically, a member of the group known as 'great-appendage' arthropods that used paddle-like appendages for swimming.

A scavenger by nature, Marella feasted on the corpses of dead arthropods with a side of sea-floor detritus. All that was missing was a Marie rose sauce! Although Marella is one of the most abundant of all the fossils found in the 520-million-year-old Burgess Shale in British Columbia, this site is the only location in the world where fossils of this strange creature have been found.
Laser Cannon

## Ability

### Ability

**Commence Primary Ignition****(Play)** Your opponent's Space cards in hand lose -24 Power this turn and next.

## Did You Know?

No longer reserved to starships in sci-fi movies, the **Laser Cannon** is very much real - but very much impractical in its current form. Developed by the US Navy, the Laser Weapons System (LaWS) is the first working laser cannon in the world. When turned up to high power, it’s capable of frying sensors, burning out motors and detonating explosive materials. It can even shoot down a small unmanned aerial vehicle in two seconds or burn through vital components of a helicopter and cause it to crash.

Currently, laser cannons are still in an experimental stage - their main problem being “thermal blooming”, whereby the laser is distorted by the air and worsened by fog, smoke, rain, dust or snow. Whether we could use them in space combat remains to be seen.
Long Corridor

## Ability

### Ability

**Richly Decorated****(Play)** If played between two Prominent Painters cards, your Prominent Painters cards, wherever they are, gain +5 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

When the Qianlong Emperor’s mother asked her son for a place to stroll after breakfast, the emperor didn’t just build a little path. In 1750, he commissioned work to create an imperial garden and a magnificent covered walkway where she could enjoy a walk while being protected from the elements.

The result is the **Long Corridor** in the Summer Palace in Beijing, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Stretching over 728 metres, this idyllic walkway is officially the longest corridor of any Chinese gardens. Not only that, but the entire length is adorned with over 14,000 paintings depicting scenes from Chinese history, literature and mythology and lots of flowers and animals. You could spend hours admiring the art, and hours more trying to understand the story behind each one.
Marrus orthocanna

## Ability

### Ability

**Active Swimmer****(Play)** If played next to 2 Oceans and Seas cards, your Oceans and Seas cards, wherever they are, gain +16 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

FACT: The deeper the ocean, the weirder the inhabitants. Case in point: the **Marrus orthocanna**, a bright, orange-red siphonophore that looks just like a rocket blasting off into the darkness.

First discovered by Paul Lassenius Kramp as part of the Godthaab Expedition of 1928, this squishy friend can be found at depths of 200 to 800 metres. But this is no ordinary sea creature. Like other siphonophores, M. orthocanna isn’t just one animal, but a colony of specialised individuals known as zooids that have different functions like movement, capturing prey, waste removal and reproduction.

Since one Marrus orthocanna is made up of millions of smaller organisms, this animal is like a city with a population of genetically identical citizens fulfilling different roles. That’s enough deep sea exploration for today.
Maple Tree

## Ability

### Ability

**Tonewood Smoker****(Play)** Your Instrumental and Curious Cuisine cards, wherever they are, gain +16 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

It’s the national tree of Canada and is seen as a common symbol of strength and endurance. The **Maple Tree** doesn’t just make for delicious pancake syrup, but it also plays a vital role in the production of furniture as well as musical instruments like violins, viola, guitars and drums.

Just think - from a few maple trees, you could have a chair to sit on, a table upon which to eat your maple pancakes and a maple-made band to serenade you while you eat. Like Heinz, the maple tree has many varieties (although the tree tops the sauce brand with 128 species and a couple thousand varieties of maple).

Fossil remains show that this type of tree existed on planet Earth at least 100 million years ago (presumably when the syrup refining process wasn't refined yet.)
Ninja

## Ability

### Ability

**Shadow Strike****(Play)** An opponent's random card in hand loses -30 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Quick clarification before we begin; Ninja is a Youtuber who plays Fortnite for a living; **Ninjas** were an espionage class of warrior in feudal Japan. Please be clear that we are talking about the latter.

The name '**Ninja** comes from the Japanese 'nin' ("persevere") and 'ja' (a modified form of 'sha', meaning "person"), although that name wasn't in use until the 20th century - 'Shinobi' was the term used while they were active, and there is evidence of them having existed as early as the 12th century.

Mostly mercenaries, **Ninjas** were stealthy and cunning. They were hired by daimyōs to perform espionage and sabotage missions against their enemies. Samurai would also hire them - **Ninjas** weren't as scrupulous and could be used to perform tasks that the Samurai's Bushido code forbade - specifically, assassination. As such, they were seen as a dishonourable class of soldier.

It wasn't all about sneaking into castles and stabbing people (though there was lots of that) - **Ninjas** were also keen innovators and used a variety of surprising weaponry to help them in their missions - like Q and James Bond rolled into one! Some of the items we know about that they used are poisoned caltrops, blades concealed in the hair and specialised claws called "shuko" which were used to scale walls.

As time went by and the **Ninja** way of life diminished, they began to feature in Japanese folklore that glamorised them more. They'd be associated with abilities like invisibility and power over the elements and as a result, popular culture's depiction of them is based on the fantasy rather than the reality.
Mercury

## Did You Know?

After Pluto was reclassified, Mercury became the smallest planet - so it won’t surprise you to know that Mercury has low gravity.

No-one has yet marketed the Mercury diet but they should - if you moved there you would lose half your weight immediately. (There may be some practical problems with this? - Ed.)
Maratus volans

## Ability

### Ability

**The Whole Spectrum****(Play)** If your deck contains Color Spectrum, your Bugs cards in hand gain +19 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

With their vibrant colours and exceptional eyesight, the **Maratus volans** spider is living proof that size isn’t everything. Although they will only reach a maximum of 5 millimetres in length, this species of jumping spider native to Australia has other ways of making their presence known.

It seems wrong to describe any spiders’ courting ritual as sexually appealing, but in all honesty, the Maratus volans has <link="https:>moves to rival Shakira.</link>. This is the spider that she tells you not to worry about.

However, if the male spider continues his exotic dance after the female has clearly shown a lack of interest, she will attack, kill and feed on him if she can. Even if they do end up mating, she might just kill and eat him anyway.

'Male Maratus volans peacock spider' by Jurgen Otto (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Laufey

## Ability

### Ability

**Maternal Instinct****(Play)** Your Loki card and your Common and Rare cards in hand gain +25 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The biological mother of Asgardian trickster god Loki, **Laufey** the Just, or Faye for short, was a Frost Giant from Jotunheim and the consort of Farbauti, Loki’s real father. Laufey is referred to several times in the 13th century Prose Edda, but she never makes an appearance.

As a result, not much is known about Laufey, but her role in Norse mythology is that of a legendary Giantess warrior. Critically, Laufey was also a Goddess – however, since Loki’s father was a frost giant and not a God, Loki can only be considered a demigod in the maternal line. And, since the paternal line determined lineage in Norse culture, Loki was regarded to be a giant and not a God at all.
Lotus Flower

## Ability

### Ability

**Symbol of Longevity****(Return)** If you have won 1 round this game and if you have lost 1 round this game, gain +70 Power/Turn this round.

## Did You Know?

Looking for a flower that can thrive in adversity? Nelumbo nucifera has never lotus down. But seriously, there’s a reason this flower is a symbol for wealth, prosperity and purity in Buddhist and Hindu tradition.

Despite growing in murky water, the pink or white leaves of the **Lotus Flower** remain crisp and unstained, and keeping up appearances isn’t the only trick this water-resistant perennial has to offer.

Even when the temperature drops to 10 degrees Celsius, the Indian lotus flower stays at a nice n’ toasty 35 degrees. Plus, most parts of the flower are edible, and medical experts say it even contains chemicals that kill cancer cells, reduce blood sugar, help breakdown fat and protect the heart and blood vessels. Now that’s flower power!
Liberty Cap

## Ability

### Ability

**A Shroom With A View****(Draw)** This card **Lock**s this round. **(Play)** Your Musically Minded and Prominent Painters cards, wherever they are, gain +16 Power for 3 turns. **(Return)** This card costs -1 Energy permanently.

## Did You Know?

You may not have heard of the **Liberty Cap**, but you’ve definitely heard of magic mushrooms. This is one of the most widely distributed psilocybin mushrooms in nature, and one of the most potent.

```
Unlike its innocent cousins the Chestnut, the Button or the Portobello, the Liberty Cap isn’t eaten for its taste. Rubbery and bitter, these mushrooms are ingested for their hallucinogenic properties. Forget selling them though - even picking a Liberty Cap and preparing it is illegal as it is deemed a class A drug.

```

However, these fungi have long been used in spiritual and medical rituals going back 10,000 years. And, in recent years, research has been conducted into the positive effects of magic mushrooms on mental health and illnesses like PTSD and depression.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

## Ability

### Ability

**Ground Control****(Play)** If your deck contains Mars, your The Solar System cards, wherever they are, gain +16 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Since 2006, the **Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter** has been circling the red planet, studying its atmosphere and terrain. At the time of its launch in 2005, Mariah Carey’s ‘We Belong Together’ was #1 in the UK singles chart, the lyrics of which state that the singer “lost a part of me when you left, boy, can’t you see.” Was Mariah talking about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter? Probably not.

In the time since, the MRO has completed about 45,000 trips around Mars, taking more than 200,000 high-res images of it that help scientists discern how geologic forces shaped the surface. And in its decade of service, it’s seen some cool things: evidence of salty liquid, a possible supervolcano, a 12-mile high dust devil and potential landing sites for new missions.
Lambert Simnel

## Ability

### Ability

**The Pretender****(Play)** For every Hoaxes and Cons card in your hand, this card gains +10 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Some ten-year-olds get into trouble by fighting in school, stealing their siblings’ toys or breaking a window or two while playing football in the street. Ten-year-old **Lambert Simnel** threatened to overthrow King Henry VII. Bit extreme, we know.

Not surprisingly, this wasn’t some evil child genius, twirling his yet-to-grow-in moustache, but rather an attempt by Yorkist sympathisers to use the boy as a pawn to give Henry the boot. Now, it’s going to sound like we’re making a lot of this up but we swear this is true. A priest named Richard Simon spotted the boy and was convinced that he was handsome enough to be one of the sons of Edward IV, who were famously known as “the princes in the tower”.

Simon then tutored the boy and dragged him around Britain, spreading rumors that young Lambert had escaped the tower and was now ready to take his rightful place on the throne. He was even given a coronation and amassed an army, resulting in the Battle of Stoke Field.

Lambert’s army lost and King Henry pardoned the boy, concluding that - as a ten-year-old - he certainly wasn’t the mastermind behind all this. He was even given a job in the royal kitchens for his trouble!

'An illustration of Lambert Simnel riding on the shoulders of supporters in Ireland' by Wikimedia Commons (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen

## Ability

### Ability

**A Royal Affair****(Play)** If played next to any History of Heartbreak card, your History cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

**Therese Charlotte Luise von Sachsen-Hildburghausen **was on the shortlist in 1809 to become the bride of Napoleon Bonaparte, but instead she was matched with Crown Prince **Ludwig I of Bavaria.** At 18 years old, Therese was wed to the future king.****

****The festivities that followed their marriage in Munich on October 12th, 1810, went down as the very first Oktoberfest. While her new husband stated he could not wish for a better woman, he did make it known that he “married without passion as it’s more profitable for the future.” Charming.****

****Although Ludwig was absent for large parts of their marriage on his “travels” (affairs - so many affairs), Therese went on to have nine of his children.****
L. Frank Baum

## Ability

### Ability

**Follow the Yellow Brick Road****(Draw)** If you have played at least 10 History cards this game, gain +7 Power/Turn permanently.

## Did You Know?

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Or, actually, you should pay lots of attention to the man behind the curtain because we’re talking about the creator of *The Wizard of Oz*, **Frank L. Baum.**

In his 20s, Baum was a playwright and an entertainer (among other things) but he didn’t start writing seriously until his 40s. He pored over a manuscript and when it was finished he framed the stub of a pencil he’d used because he wanted to hope that he’d just finished something amazing. He had. It was *The Wizard of Oz.*

The book was released in 1900 and became an instant bestseller. It also made Baum one of the first American children’s writers because up until then, children’s books had mostly come from European writers. Beautifully illustrated by William Wallace Denslow, the book gave children an accessible story but with mature themes and didn’t shy away from encouraging them to think for themselves.

The Wizard of Oz is now so deeply rooted in popular culture that it’s hard to imagine a world without cowardly lions or ruby slippers or the phrase “and your little dog too!” Whether you fell in love with the film, the terrifying sequel (*Return to Oz* lives in such a special dark corner of my heart) or the blockbuster musical, it’s safe to say that there’s no place like Oz.
Livia Drusilla

## Ability

### Ability

**Romana Princips****(Draw)** Your The Roman Empire cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

When Octavian, who later became Emperor Augustus, decided he needed the political leg-up of **Livia Drusilla**’s family, Livia was already the mother of Tiberius. When Augustus died, his will adopted Livia into the Julian family and gave her the name Julia Augusta, allowing her to claim that she was the daughter of a god and implying she could co-rule with her son.

How did Tiberius take that? Considering he was against women having political power, not well at all.
Mercury-Atlas 6

## Did You Know?

Mercury-Atlas 6 is the name of the America's first orbital spaceflight - not the name of the spacecraft itself, which was called Friendship 7. The original launch date had to be moved due to thick clouds - a stroke of luck for pilot John Glenn as engineers later discovered there had been a fuel leak.

Despite several issues on the flight, Glenn splashed down after nearly 5 hours and three orbits. On exiting the Friendship 7, his first words were: "It was hot in there."
Lined Chiton

## Ability

### Ability

**Ventral Vulnerability****(Play)** The card opposite this loses -15 Power this turn. **(Return)** This card loses -15 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

It may look like a psychedelic sea woodlouse, but under its technicolor dreamcoat, the **Lined Chiton** has a muscular foot that allows it to clamp down in spite of the motion in the ocean.

Found in the intertidal and subtidal waters of the northern Pacific Ocean, this species of Chiton can grow to reach around 5 centimetres and can be recognised by its beautifully coloured shell. Life as a lined chiton isn’t always the easiest, especially when you’ve got sea stars trying to envelop you and open your shell with their tube feet. However, you do have the benefit of being friends with spiny but sweet sea urchins who let you hide under them when the hot sun beats down on the sea.
Mary the Prophetess

## Ability

### Ability

**True Alchemist****(Play)** If your deck has 2 or more Excellent Elements cards, your The Occult cards, wherever they are, gain +19 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

In the pantheon of famous Marys, Mary the Prophetess surely makes the top 5 (the other four being the Virgin Mary, Mary Queen of Scots, Typhoid Mary and the Mary who had a little lamb). An early alchemist, **Mary the Prophetess** was born in Alexandria, Egypt. Like nearly all alchemists, she worked tirelessly to create gold from base metals from the Earth.

Uniquely, Mary believed that metals had two different genders. Only by joining the two together could a new entity be made. As part of her work, she invented a heated-bath device to gently boil the contents of a separate container and collect the vapour. Her invention provided the inspiration for what we now call a ‘bain marie’ – a device still used in labs and kitchens to this day!
Luxor Temple

## Ability

### Ability

**Watch the Throne****(Return)** Your Common History cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

**Luxor Temple** gets a 1-star review from sunme4 of Los Angeles, because *“manny people missed this temple due to the terrible wake up time required to see it”*. (TripAdvisor)

We’ve written to Amenhotep III and Ramses II for comment, but so far neither have responded. In the meantime, here’s some historical background…

Originally linked with **Karnak** by the 3km Avenue of the Sphinxes, the Temple was known as the Southern Sanctuary. Each year during the Feast of Opet - when the Nile’s floodwaters rose - statues were carried down the Avenue from Karnak in celebration.

Luxor Temple was a work in progress for many centuries: Tutankhamun had the walls decorated with scenes from the festival, with drummers and acrobats in the avenue procession. Later, Alexander the Great rebuilt the Shrine of Amun with himself portrayed as pharaoh.

Later still, the Romans added fortifications, and it is actually the Arabic name for these - *Al-Uqsur* - that gave the Temple (and the surrounding city) its modern name.

[UPDATE] We now understand that Amenhotep III has apologised to sunme4 for the ‘terrible wake up time’ and has provided two free vouchers for a return visit. They may have been more satisfied with their Las Vegas location, to be honest.
Labrador Retriever

## Did You Know?

The Labrador Retriever (not originally from Labrador, but Newfoundland) is 'America's favourite breed'. So much so that in 1981 a Labrador was elected as Honorary Mayor of Sunol in California. (We're crossing our fingers for a Labrador President.)

Labradors are also the most common breed of Guide Dog for the blind. While some medical authorities are sceptical about their ability to detect cancer in humans, Labradors are increasingly used to detect diabetes.
Longsword

## Ability

### Ability

**Double-Hander****(Play)** If played in the middle slot between any two cards, your opponent loses -100 Power/Turn this turn. **(Return)** Your Weapons of Choice cards, wherever they are, cost +4 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

No one wants to be on the receiving end of a **Longsword**. An iconic weapon from the Middle Ages, the longsword was used in battle to slice up enemies, and in judicial duels, where it was used to settle legal disputes (i.e. your tree is growing onto my property, face my longsword).

When it comes to swords, size matters - and this one had a blade measuring 35-40 inches long. Due to the relative shortness of the hilt, it was almost always used one-handed, wielded with either a shield or an axe for good measure. Although the longsword was forged for hacking, slashing and stabbing, they were often given pet names by their owners, such as "Joyeuse" (meaning "joyful" in French), which was the name of Charlemagne’s legendary sword.
Metropol Parasol

## Ability

### Ability

**Needs Reinforcement****(Play)** Your Tremendous Trees cards in hand gain +5 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

With dimensions of 150 metres long, 70 metres wide and an approximate height of 26 metres, the **Metropol Parasol** is the largest wooden structure in the entire world. And, to be honest, you probably won’t find another mushroom this tall.

Known to the locals as Las Setas de la Encarnacion (“Mushrooms of the Incarnation”), these parasols are the result of a competition held by the Seville City Council to carry out renovation in the market square. Designed by German architect Jurgen Mayer, the structure comprises six mushroom-shaped parasols inspired by the arches of Seville’s cathedral.

A whopping total of 3,500 pieces of wood were used to construct the Metropol Parasol. However, for each pine tree felled in the project, another three were planted in the same forest.
Pandora's Box

## Ability

### Ability

**Temptation****(Draw)** A random card in your hand gains +80 Power and another random card **Burn**s (35) until played.

## Did You Know?

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on Earth. So, no pressure or anything.

Zeus taught Pandora to be stubborn *and* curious, and then gave her a jar (later called **Pandora’s Box**) and told her not to open it. Just like those jars of preserve from 2016 you have at the back of the fridge, opening this jar was not a good move. Sickness, death and other such evils were released into the world. Zeus, this one’s on you.
Lithops

## Ability

### Ability

**Stone Cold****(Play)** If you are winning the round, your opponent's cards in hand lose -15 Power this turn and if you are losing the round, your opponent's cards in hand lose -25 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

This Perennial plant genus is native to South Africa, **Lithops** look like small stones, thus where they get their nickname "living stones" from. Living stones are a genus of succulent in the ice plant family. They resemble stones to prevent animals from feasting upon their planty goodness. Lithops don't stop there with their wonderful plantiness, with a long taproot they can also borrow down into the soil during longer drought periods to protect themselves and reach more moisture whilst still allowing a small section to be shown above the soil for photosynthesis. With over 37 different species of **Lithops** and 145 varieties, it can't be hard to see why these colourful living stones make good ornaments.
Latin

## Ability

### Ability

**Scriptor antiquis****(Return)** Your Paper card, wherever it is, costs -2 Energy permanently.

## Did You Know?

**Latin** is the language that was spoken by the Ancient Romans. It began as the dialect used by the people of Latium, a settlement in what is now Western Italy, and spread to become used across the empire.

It's currently considered a dead language because no one is adding or removing words from it, but it is still very much in use - the legal profession, the Christian church and academia still use plenty of **Latin** phrases.

The Roman alphabet has only 23 letters - the letters that are missing compared to the English alphabet are J, U, and W.

Did you know that Romans wrote only in uppercase or capital letters with beautifully proportioned straight lines, curves, and angles until much later in history? Imagine the passive aggression you could get away with if you could write emails at the time!

(The text front of this card is supposed to say "Cards, the Universe and Everything is the best game ever", incidentally, but we're not fluent in Latin. Plus it's not the most consistently translatable language, which mean you can make all kinds of mistakes and no one can get upset about it!)
Malva Pudding

## Ability

### Ability

**Lekker Dessert****(Play)** If you have played at least 2 Curious Cuisine cards this game, this card gains +30 Power.

## Did You Know?

A favorite dessert coming from Cape Town, South Africa, **Malva Pudding** is a delicious pudding which is moist and sweet. It contains apricot jam and has a soft, springy texture. Usually, it’s served with a sauce and some custard or ice cream and I’ve spent too long looking at pictures of it today and now I would really like some.

The dish has been around for quite some time but there is some debate over where its name came from. It could derive from the Afrikaans word for “marshmallow”, capturing its springy texture. Or, it’s possible that at some point malva leaves may have been used in the baking at some point.

Either way, I’m still waiting for someone to bring me some so if you could hurry up, that would be great.
Octavia E. Butler

## Ability

### Ability

**Perseverance****(Play)** Your Mars Rover Perseverance card in hand gains +46 Power this turn and if you are losing the round, your cards in hand gain +7 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

Ground-breaking American author **Octavia E. Butler** was the first science fiction writer to ever receive the MacArthur Fellowship, and it was well-deserved. Not only was she one of the few women of colour publishing in a genre dominated by white men, but her work transcended the conventions of the genre by blending sci-fi with African American spiritualism.

In the early days of her writing career, Butler would wake up at 2am to write before going to work as a potato chip inspector, and she also did stints in dishwashing and telemarketing. Butler credits the odd jobs she took over the years for the inspiration to details in her writing, although she mainly took on these jobs to free her mind for writing.

She passed away in 2006, and was honoured exactly fifteen years later by NASA who named the landing site of the Perseverance Rover on Mars after her.

'Octavia Estelle Butler signing a copy of Fledgling' by Nikolas Coukouma (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY 2.5 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Ngorongoro Crater

## Ability

### Ability

**A Natural Enclosure****(Play)** If your deck has 9 or more Life on Land cards, your Natural Monuments cards, wherever they are, gain +28 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Around 3 million years ago, a giant volcano erupted in northern Tanzania, creating what is now one of the most unique safari parks in Africa. Known as the **Ngorongoro Crater**, this extinct volcanic caldera covers an area of 264 square kilometres and is home to a huge array of wildlife - we’re talking elephants, big cats, hyenas, buffalos, impalas… But you won’t find any giraffes in the crater. Because <link="https:>giraffes aren’t real.</link>. Even if they were, the sides of the crater are too steep for them to walk down.

As well as animals, the conservation area is home to 40,000 people. When the site was excavated in the early 1950s, archaeologists found fossil remains that proved to be the earliest known evidence of the human species!
Lise de Baissac

## Ability

### Ability

**Special Operations Executive****(Start)** An opponent's random card in hand loses -19 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

In the pantheon of badass women of history, **Lise de Baissac** ranks high. In 1942, she and Andrée Borrel were among the first female Special Operations Executive agents to be parachuted into Nazi-occupied France. After the spy network she set up in Poitiers was blown, she was airlifted out and transported to the UK, where she trained new female SOE recruits in Scotland.

Two years later, she jumped back into France and made her way to Normandy, where she became the No. 2 commander of a French Resistance group fighting Nazis. In June 1944, de Baissac was in Paris when she heard that D-Day was imminent, so she biked for three days straight to reach the resistance headquarters in Normandy where she continued leading espionage and sabotage operations.
Maneki-neko

## Ability

### Ability

**Lucky Cat****(Draw)** A random Cute Cats card in your hand gains +100 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

It’s name means “Beckoning Cat”, and yet, it doesn’t demand food every waking minute. That’s because this is no regular cat, it’s a **Maneki-neko** - a lucky charm from Japanese folklore that sits on counter-tops of corner shops and restaurants across the world.

There are many types of Maneki-neko - some are white, some are gold, some hold gems, some hold mallets. Their meanings are all slightly different, but they’re all linked to the same origin story.

According to the legend, a struggling restaurant owner took in a hungry and neglected cat. In gratitude, the cat sat in front of the store, beckoning customers in and bringing prosperity. To be fair, that same principle seems to work wonders for cat cafés, too.
Orpheus

## Ability

### Ability

**Ghost Writer****(Return)** Your Paper card, wherever it is, gains +15 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

**Orpheus** is a musician and poet that features in Greek Mythology who has a tragic tale.

One day his wife, Eurydice, is minding her own business having a stroll when a satyr attacks her. She fends off the attack but falls into a pit of vipers and is fatally bitten. I would advise not walking near the viper pits if you can help it.

**Orpheus** finds her and, heartbrokenly begins to sing mournful songs. The gods listen in and appear to advise him to go down to the Underworld and get her back. **Orpheus** goes, and pleads with Hades for her life - IN SONG!

Hades's heart uncharacteristically melts, and he allows her to leave with one caveat - **Orpheus** cannot look back at her the whole way out. So he climbs back to the surface, trusting that she is following him.

He gets to the top, and turns around to see his beloved wife - only she hasn't quite made it out. She disappears and is lost to the Underworld forever.
Mountain Cottontail

## Ability

### Ability

**Situational Diet****(Play)** If it's on or before Round 3, your Plant Life cards in hand gain +12 Power until played and if it's after Round 3, your Tremendous Trees cards in hand gain +12 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

The small mammal property market doesn’t get cosier than a burrow built by a **Mountain Cottontail**. Found in the Western United States and in Canada, this species digs a cup-like cavity and proceeds to insulate it with fur, dried grass and small sticks. It may not be a human’s idea of home, but for a wild rabbit, it’s the height of comfort.

Plus, when you’re having four litters a year (that’s 3 - 8 newborn rabbits every litter), you need a safe nest underground out of sight from potential predators - of which there are loads. Coyotes, bobcats, lynxes, hawks and owls are just a few of the threats these bunnies face on the daily. To avoid being anyone’s lunch, mountain cottontails tend to do their foraging overnight.
Liberty Spikes

## Ability

### Ability

**Do-it-Yourself****(Return)** If played alone, gain +1:energy/turn: and gain +8 Power/Turn permanently.

## Did You Know?

Veteran punks know it takes a lot of gel and hairspray (or even glue if you’re really hardcore) to keep **Liberty Spikes** in place. But they may not know this trend originated with the ancient Britons, who washed their hair in lime water and styled it like this as a badge of honour. Legend has it that Celts weren’t allowed to have liberty spikes until they killed an enemy.

Of course, the hairstyle wasn’t called that back then - that name came from the resemblance to the crown on the Statue of Liberty. Rather than cosplaying Lady Liberty, the hairstyle was adopted by punks in the 70s in reaction to the smooth, long styles worn by hippies. But is taking two hours to style your hair everyday really punk? Probably not.
Mordred

## Ability

### Ability

**Treachery Afoot****(Play)** If your deck has 1 or fewer Arthurian Legends cards, this card gains +15 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Pretty much every element of Arthurian Legend has multiple variants in literature, and **Mordred** is certainly no exception.

Here he is Arthur’s nephew. There he is Arthur’s son. Here he exposes Guinevere’s affair with Lancelot. There he himself has an affair with Guinevere. Here he is made a Knight of the Round Table. There he anoints himself King. Here he is courtly, calm and pure of spirit. There he is a villainous traitor.

All we can say with some certainty is that Mordred likely needed a psychotherapist after all that, and that both he and Arthur died in the Battle of Camlann.

The most common version of events is that they died in a duel with each other. That was the end for Mordred - but Arthur was taken to Avalon to be healed/resurrected by Morgan le Fay.
Neptune

## Did You Know?

The French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier is known as 'the man who discovered a planet with the point of his pen' - and that planet was Neptune.

The most distant planet in the Solar System, 19th Century astronomers only suspected Neptune's existence because of anomalies in Uranus' orbit. After months of calculations, Le Verrier not only announced Neptune's existence but also predicted where it could be found.

Impressively, it was found at nearly the exact spot that same evening - showing that Le Verrier was a man who checked his work.
Nezha

## Ability

### Ability

**Marshal of the Central Altar****(Play)** Your other cards in hand gain +10 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Children grow up so fast… but never as fast as **Ne Zha**, the most unusual boy in Chinese folklore. It all started when Lady Yin had a pregnancy that lasted three and a half years. One night, Lady Yin dreamt she saw a Daoist immortal touching her well-overdue baby bump with a magical whisk. He asked her to accept the child and to call him Ne Zha. Things only got weirder from here.

The next day, Lady Yin gave birth to a big ball of flesh. To her amazement, the ball turned out to be a grown child who could already walk and speak and possessed superhuman abilities. In Chinese mythology, Ne Zha is seen as a teenage deity who serves as a patron saint of young adults.
Matthew Henson

## Ability

### Ability

**Pole(ish) Up****(Draw)** Your The North Pole card, wherever it is, gains +25 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Robert Peary may have led the first expedition to reach the North Pole, but it was African American explorer **Matthew Henson** who first stood on the top of the world. Without Henson’s survival skills, dog-handling prowess, fluent Inuit and all around resourcefulness, the mission would have failed.

After the team returned from their expedition triumphant, Henson set the record straight in an interview with a newspaper: “I was in the lead that had overshot the mark by a couple of miles. We went back then and I could see that my footprints were the first at the spot.” Credit for his achievement was finally recognised decades later, and Henson was received at the White House by presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.
Migratory Locust

## Ability

### Ability

**Swarm****(Play)** If you have played this card before, it gains +20 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

It isn’t just the Bible that gave these bugs a bad name. They did it themselves. But in defence of the **Migratory Locust**, devouring crops is just what it does. In just one day, a swarm of locusts can eat up to 400 million pounds of plants. And since they can travel long distances (we’re talking Africa to England), they can cause major damage, but of course, the narrative of locusts as a weapon of the gods to punish mankind didn’t really help their reputation.

In Africa, some tribes have learned how to outsmart the pesky crop-eating locusts. When a swarm approaches, the tribe builds a big fire. The smoke confuses the locusts, and they drop down to the ground where they are caught by humans (and often cooked and eaten.)
Motion Capture

## Ability

### Ability

**I Could Be Anything!****(Play)** Your Brilliant Human Body cards in hand gain +16 Power this turn. **(Return)** Your Brilliant Human Body cards, wherever they are, gain +16 Power next turn.

## Did You Know?

When Andy Serkis donned the skin-tight suit for his portrayal of Gollum in *Lord of the Rings*, it became one of the most memorable examples of **Motion Capture** – also known as ‘mocap’.

This is the term given to the process of recording patterns of movement, usually for the purpose of animating the actor into a digital character. It’s come a long way since the early days when the only way to achieve mocap was by actually drawing over footage frame by frame. In the 1950s, animator Lee Harrison III changed the game with the world’s first mocap suit, which could record and animate an actor’s movements in real-time. *Sinbad: Beyond The Veil Of Mists* was amongst the earliest animated films made exclusively with motion capture, using mocap suits.
Olive Trees

## Did You Know?

Olives, and the trees they were picked from, were a hugely important part of Ancient Greek civilisation. The wood from the trees was used in construction, and the olives themselves were a tasty snack. However, it was the oil that was most valuable. Greek olive oil was exported and traded throughout the ancient world, just as it is today - proving that money DOES grow on trees.