recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Dreadnoughtus

## Did You Know?

Thought to rival the length of a Boeing 737, this behemoth of a dinosaur is aptly named **Dreadnoughtus**, or “fears nothing”. That makes sense: if you weighed 65 tons and stood almost 2 stories tall, you wouldn’t scare easy.

Estimates based on the skeleton suggest Dreadnoughtus had the greatest mass of any land animal that ever lived.
Florence Cathedral

## Ability

### Ability

**Get a Foothold****(Play)** If your deck contains The Renaissance, gain +15 Power/Turn and gain +1:energy/turn: for 4 turns.

## Did You Know?

Greatness takes time. Case in point: The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore took over 140 years to complete. With over 4 million bricks, weighing over 40,000 tons and towering 10 stories high over Florence, Italy, this iconic landmark is the largest masonry structure in the world. If that’s impressive today, imagine the reaction in 1493 when construction was finally finished.

Strangely, the man who designed and built the domed roof of the **Florence Cathedral** had no previous architectural experience. The man in question was a goldsmith by the name of Fillipo Brunelleschi. By the time he was born, the cathedral had been under construction for 80 years, because the original design incorporated a dome, but no one knew how to make one.
Egyptian Nightjar

## Ability

### Ability

**Fly By Night****(Play)** Your Birds cards in hand gain +25 Power this turn. **(Return)** Your Birds cards, wherever they are, lose -5 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Blink and you’ll miss it: the Egyptian Nightjar looks like many things, the least of them being a desert bird. Basking in the hot sun, it’s often mistaken for a leaf or a mound of sand. The coloring helps the bird to blend in with its surroundings, but it’s the nightjar’s own judgement in choosing the best background that makes it a master of disguise.

Each bird of this species looks a little different, and self-awareness about plumage patterns is key to successful camouflage. Besides blending in, this bird has a reputation for “goatsucking” - an unfortunate term that came from a myth that Egyptian nightjars were drinking goats milk straight from the source. In fact, they were simply eating the insects that surrounded the animals, a pretty normal bird activity.
Footprint Nebula

## Ability

### Ability

**Leave Nothing But Footprints****(Return)** If you have played at least 5 Life on Land cards this game, your Life on Land cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

That’s one small step for man… one giant leap for an exploding star. No, sadly, the **Footprint Nebula** was not created by a gigantic cosmonaut stepping on the very fabric of time and space.

Also known by its official name M1-92 (Minkowski 92), this protoplanetary nebula was papped by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1990s, but discovered decades prior by the German-American astronomer Rudolph Minkowski (hence the name.)

Situated approximately 8000 light years from home (Earth, for most of us) in the constellation Cygnus, the footprint nebula features two onion-shaped structures on either side of a central ageing star. Technically speaking, M1-92 is currently a very young reflection nebula - but in a few thousand years, the star will get hotter and grow up to be a fully fledged planetary nebula.
Diving Bell Spider

## Did You Know?

If you thought you were at least safe from spiders underwater, we’ve got some bad news. Meet the **Diving Bell Spider**, the only known spider to live underwater. Since the spider still has to breathe oxygen, it spins a fine web to trap a bubble that becomes its air supply and its home. It’s also where the spider takes unfortunate tadpoles, small fish and invertebrates to feast on, since it's killer digestive juices would be diluted underwater.
Floppy Disk

## Ability

### Ability

**Save/Load****(Draw)** Your History of the Internet cards in hand gain +25 Power until played. **(Return)** Your History of the Internet cards, wherever they are, gain +16 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

First introduced by IBM in 1971, the **Floppy Disk** made it possible to load software and updates onto mainframe computers, and back then, it had a storage capacity of about 80 kilobytes. As the technology evolved, the disks got smaller and allowed people to share data and programs easier.

In 1986, IBM launched the 3.5 inch floppy disk with 1.44 megabytes of space. Sure, that doesn’t sound like a lot in modern times, but in the 80s it was hard to imagine needing more storage space than that. Still, the floppy disk outlived its obsolescence, becoming the universal symbol for saving files.
European Fire-Bellied Toad

## Ability

### Ability

**Fire in Your Belly****(Play)** If you have lost 1 round this game, your Common and Rare Amphibians cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Alarm clock let you down a few too many times? Get yourself a **European Fire-Bellied Toad** and pop it in a tank by your bed: their <link="https:>adorable little “whoop” calls</link> will help get you moving in the mornings.

That being said, you might want to avoid slapping it like you would an alarm clock, as this toad has poison in its pores to protect against predators. Those bright orange markings on its underbelly serve as a warning to predators, effectively saying “eat me at your own risk.”

Found in ponds, lakes and streams with slow moving water across mainland Europe, these toads use their mouths to catch prey rather than a long sticky tongue like other toads.
En Canot

## Ability

### Ability

**Confiscated****(Return)** Your opponent's remaining Arts & Culture cards in hand lose -10 Power for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

In the Cubist painting **En Canot** a lady sits in a canoe, holding an umbrella while the waves move behind her. Like much Cubist art, its uneven shapes and strange proportions might make you a little uncomfortable but probably more curious than anything else. But there’s something even more curious and uncomfortable about En Canot…and that’s because it’s missing.

Painted in 1913 by artist Jean Metzinger, En Canot is one of many artworks which were seized by the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s. It was last seen on display in Berlin in the National Art Gallery in 1936 before it was confiscated. It was thought to have travelled with the Nazi’s Degenerate Art Exhibition, highlighting Hitler’s hypocrisy that he was happy to confiscate works that didn’t fit his ideals but he was even happier to sell them and use the money to fund his war efforts.

En Canot was not amongst the pieces sold off so we have absolutely no clue where it ended up and it’s yet another piece of art lost to the War. Was it destroyed? Is it hiding in a vault? Is it sitting in someone’s attic somewhere? Nobody knows for sure. You should probably check your attic, cupboards and garden shed just in case.
Flores de Noche Buena

## Ability

### Ability

**Poinsettias in Bloom****(Play)** Your Plant Life cards in hand gain +10 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Poinsettias are a popular flower to have as decoration at Christmas time, but their relationship to the season goes back to a Mexican legend which began in the 16th Century.

It tells of a girl, Pepita, who could not afford to give a gift to Jesus at Church on Christmas Eve. Her cousin Pedro tells her that Jesus will accept even the smallest gift, given by someone who loves him. Pepita gathers some weeds from outside the church and arranges them nicely, then leaves them by the altar. As she does, they suddenly transform into a beautiful bouquet of poinsettias, and from that day on they're known as "Flower of the Holy Night".
Figure Skating

## Ability

### Ability

**Blades of Glory****(Play)** Your cards adjacent to this gain +25 Power this turn. **(Return)** The card opposite this costs -2 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

The concept of ice skating is thought to have existed for more than 3000 years, back to when people in Finland strapped shards of sharpened, flattened bone to the bottom of their boots to cross frozen lakes. Then, in the 1200s, the Dutch created ice skates – this time, with sharpened iron blades.

It was only much later in the 1850s that skaters began experimenting with different jumps and spins on the ice – and so, **Figure Skating** was born. In 1908, Figure Skating debuted during the London Olympic Games, pre-dating the winter games by 16 years.

If you’ve ever watched skaters execute a spinning jump, you’ll know it’s an impressive trick to pull off. At more than 300 revolutions per minute (RPM), figure skaters experience as much RPM as astronauts in centrifuge training.
Eye of Providence

## Ability

### Ability

**Always Watching...** **(Play)** Two random cards in your opponent's hand lose -20 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

You've seen the picture of the **Eye of Providence**, but what do you think it means?

Dan Brown and Nick Cage would have us believe it's a conspiratorial symbol linked to the Illuminati, appearing in all sorts of places to denote tinkering from our unseen lizard overlords.

Of course, our American chums will recognise it from the back of a dollar bill or on the Great Seal of the United States (the coat of arms)\*. It represents the all-seeing eye of God with the three points of the triangle representing the 'Father', 'Son' and the 'Holy Ghost'. The unfinished pyramid supporting the eye was designed to symbolize strength and duration and its thirteen steps represent the thirteen original American states.

When English philosopher Jeremy Bentham and architect Willey Reveley got together and designed Panopticon, a prison allowing for full surveillance of every cell with minimal staff, they needed a flashy new logo. Having just used up all their creativity designing their prison, they stole the Eye of Providence, exchanging the eye of God for the Eye of Authority and the 'Father', 'Son' and the 'Holy Ghost' for ‘Mercy’, ‘Justice’ and ‘Vigilance’.

Many of you will notice we haven't talked about the Freemasonry and their possible links to the image. To that, I'd say it's all made up. But then I would say that, wouldn't I...

* For those of you (like me) who thought the seal was just a spatchcock eagle with a Union Pacific shield, it does, in fact, have a reverse - and on the reverse is the Eye of Providence.
Elmer McCurdy

## Did You Know?

The corpse of Elmer McCurdy really had the ride of his life after being discovered at The Nu-Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California, when a crew member for 70s American TV show The Six Million Dollar Man moved what he thought was a hanging mannequin, only to find it was actually a real corpse. That's showbiz!

To give a little back story to this gruesome discovery, McCurdy was something of a comedy of errors when it came to heists. Think Laurel and Hardy trying to become hardened bank robbers to imagine the farce.

In 1911 he tried to rob a train near Oklahoma but the explosives melted the silver that he wanted to steal. When he tried to rob a bank in Kansas later that year, he yet again melted the contents of the bank’s safe. After his demise, and winning no medals for ‘bank robber of the year,’ (because he melted them all), McCurdy was taken to a funeral home where the undertaker embalmed the body and put it on display for visitors to put a nickel in its mouth.

Five years later, carnival owners acquired the body and displayed it throughout the United States as “The Bandit Who Wouldn’t Give Up." The body continued passing into different hands, showing up in places such as a haunted houses and a wax museum. Following the gruesome discovery that it was in fact McCurdy in 1976, he was buried, thus ending his strange freak-show afterlife.
Francisco de Orellana

## Ability

### Ability

**Improbable Success****(Play)** If played next to Amazon River, this card gains +40 Power until played. **(Return)** If you won the turn, your Exciting Exploration and Riding the Waves! cards, wherever they are, gain +13 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Not to belittle your achievements (doing the dishes is a big deal! Well done you!), but **Francisco de Orellana** was the first European to explore the Amazon. Apparently, his violent encounters with the tribe of Tapuyas in which women fought alongside men reminded Orellana of the Amazons from Greek mythology, and that’s what inspired the naming of the river.

After sailing the length of the river and founding the city of Guayaquil in what is now Ecuador, Francisco de Orellana made quite a name for himself. Sadly, his return to the river was a disaster: ships and men were lost en route, and their vessel capsized near the mouth of the river. According to his wife, Orellana died of “illness and grief.”
Esophagus

## Ability

### Ability

**Hard Pill To Swallow****(Return)** If you lost the turn, this card loses -30 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Food and drink doesn’t just slide down to your stomach through gravity. It’s all the work of the **Esophagus**, an 8-inch hollow tube lined with muscles that contract to move everything you consume down to the stomach - a little process known as peristalsis. It also keeps stomach contents from refluxing upward.

Think of it like a little traffic control officer, keeping the flow of food moving in the right direction. However, when you consume something acidic, high in fat, or super spicy, the oesophagus can experience some unpleasant back-flow. In this case, stomach acid creeps back up through the lower oesophageal muscles, causing that fiery sensation we call heartburn.

So, next time you indulge in a plate of buffalo wings, give thanks to your oesophagus for trying its best.
Emperor Yang of Sui

## Ability

### Ability

**Rising Taxes****(Return)** Your cards, wherever they are, with 4 or less Base Energy lose -20 Power until played. Your cards, wherever they are, with 6 or more Base Energy gain +10 Power until played and your cards, wherever they are, with 8 or more Base Energy gain an additional +10 Power and cost +1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

When he died, Emperor Wen of Sui left his son a wealthy and unified Sui Empire with stable borders, nearly 50 million populations and enough food to support the empire for 60 years. What could possibly go wrong?

Even before took the throne, **Emperor Yang of Sui**  was consumed by paranoia that someone would try and usurp him. So, Yang did what anyone would: he had his brothers and nephews murdered. Still, Emperor Yang did bring about some positive change and committed to several construction projects like the reconstruction of the Great Wall. But those projects required endless manual labour, and caused the deaths of tens of thousands of workers. Coupled with unnecessary wars that wasted lives and money, the Sui Dynasty was brought to a chaotic end.
Emperor Scorpion

## Ability

### Ability

**Pinch Pressure****(Play)** Your cards adjacent to this gain +16 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The **Emperor Scorpion**, also known as Pandinus imperator or “a whole lot of nope” is the largest species of scorpion in the world, with adults measuring an average of 20 centimetres in length and weighing around 30 grams. Unless you’re living in the African rainforests or the savanna, you’re probably not going to encounter this beast any time soon.

Even if you did, emperor scorpions aren’t particularly dangerous compared to other members of the species. It’s one of those “all bark and no bite” creatures: if it does sting you, which it will only do if it feels threatened, the pain will be similar to a bee sting – it isn’t pleasant, but you’re unlikely to need medical attention.
Ennead

## Ability

### Ability

**The Nine****(Play)** Your Gods of the Ennead, wherever they are, gain +12 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Like the Avengers of Egyptian mythology, the **Ennead** were the O.G. group of nine gods who formed the tribunal in the Osiris myth: Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys. These nine gods are associated with the creation myths of Heliopolis in Lower Egypt - the first five represented the gods of light, air, water, earth and sky and were responsible for the creation of the Earth, while the other four members were said to belong to the world after creation.

The word “Ennead” itself comes from the Greek name ‘Enneas’ meaning “the Nine”. According to mythology, they all emerged from Atum, the creator god who spontaneously appeared from the waters of ‘Nun’ onto the first mound of dirt. Sounds legit.
Doumu

## Ability

### Ability

**Queen of Heaven****(Play)** If your deck has exactly 9 Constellations cards, your Constellations cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Dubbed the 'Mother of the Big Dipper,' **Doumu** oversees not only the visible seven stars but also two hidden ones. In this celestial family dynamic, these stars are considered her sons, solidifying her position as the ultimate momager of the cosmic realm.

Doumu is depicted wearing full length robes, sitting cross-legged on a lotus flower with eight pairs of arms projecting from her body. Each arm is said to clasp one of her attributes.

In Taoist esotericism, Doumu is connected to Laozi's birth and the initiation of the Yellow Emperor. And in Buddhist interpretation, she's none other than Bodhisattva Marici, the goddess of the dawn, with a chariot pulled by seven boars (quite the stylish ride).
Franz Liszt

## Ability

### Ability

**Ecstatic Hysteria****(Draw)** 3 random cards in your hand gain +14 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Legendary composer and pianist **Franz Liszt **was the 1800s’ answer to rock n’ roll. He may not have bitten the head off a bat or smashed a guitar on stage, but when he played, he often broke several piano strings in the process (we’ve got a badass over here…) In fact, audiences used to be disappointed if he didn’t break any strings.****

****Born in Hungary in 1811, Liszt rubbed shoulders with the greats like Chopin and Wagner and spent a decade of his life touring Europe, with shows scheduled 3-4 times each week. It’s thought that Franz Liszt played over 1,000 concerts over ten years! By his forties, Liszt was rolling in the francs, so much so that he gave virtually all his money from touring to charity.****
Emancipation Proclamation

## Ability

### Ability

**The Right Side of History****(Draw)** Your History cards in hand cost -2 Energy this turn.

## Did You Know?

*”I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper. If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.”* - Abraham Lincoln.

The **Emancipation Proclamation** did not in itself abolish slavery (that was reserved for the 13th Amendment in 1865). In fact, it only made slavery illegal in those states where the Proclamation could be least enforced - i.e. the Confederate states during the Civil War.

However, this document did change the course of the War - and as a result, the history of the world and human rights as we know them. It disrupted the Confederates ability to use their slaves as a support for the war effort, and it allowed African Americans to fight for the Union. Over 200,000 did just that.
Allan Pinkerton

## Ability

### Ability

**Spy Games****(Return)** Your remaining Espionage cards in hand cost -2 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

**Allan Pinkerton** was born near Glasgow, Scotland, on July 21, 1819. Involved as a young man in radical politics, he was forced to emigrate to America in 1842. There, he would be dubbed as America's first "private eye"...

He settled in Chicago, where he discovered the lair of a gang of counterfeiters and had them arrested. This discovery occurred quite by accident - **Pinkerton** was scouring an island in Fox River for lumber he could "borrow" when he happened upon the gang. He performed some of his own surveillance and helped the police apprehend them.

He became a bit of a celebrity after this, which led to his appointment as a deputy sheriff and then a special agent for the U.S. Post Office, where his success in catching criminals continued...

In 1850 he formed Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, with the motto "We Never Sleep" and an unblinking eye as its symbol. This would lead to the description of independent detectives as "private eyes."

In March 1861, **Pinkerton's** work on a railway robbery brought to light a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln at Baltimore en route to his Presidential inauguration, which was luckily foiled as a result of Pinkerton's prowess. After the outbreak of the American Civil War later that year, Lincoln appointed **Pinkerton** as head of the Union Intelligence Service. His agents often worked undercover as Confederates to gather intelligence, and legend has it **Pinkerton** himself undertook a number of secret missions.

'Allan Pinkerton on horseback at Antietam, Md.' by Alexander Gardner (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under Public Domain (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Ernest Hemingway

## Ability

### Ability

**The Night Hunt****(Play)** Your Hunter's Moon card, wherever it is, gains +29 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

He is often called the greatest writer of his century, remembered for his works like 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'The Old Man and the Sea’ - but poor **Ernest Hemingway** didn’t have the easiest life. As well as weathering several diseases including malaria and skin cancer, he was almost killed in two separate plane crashes, in two days, which ruptured his liver, spleen and kidneys and cracked his skull.

At the time, newspapers reported his death, so he was able to read his own obituary. But even before that, he had accidentally pulled a skylight onto his head that left him with a brain injury. Besides near-death experiences, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 - incidentally, the same year as the two plane crashes.
Fire

## Ability

### Ability

**Light the Spark****(Draw)** Your opponent's cards in hand **Burn** (10) until played.

## Did You Know?

We're not talking the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown here (or, if you need a just-barely more recent reference, the middling Kasabian single) but combustion, the process in which substances combine chemically with air (oxygen) and give off a bright light, heat and smoke.

So it's pretty hard to suggest that some early hominid discovered **Fire** as it has always occurred naturally. I mean it may be that 'Ugg' or some other primate with a less clichéd name spotted a bit of burning wood and claimed it as her own, but who's to know. What is important is when our ancestors gained a degree of control over it as it is this that changed the course of human evolution and history.

There is evidence to suggest the control of **Fire** by hominids began between 1.7 to 2 million years ago, but at this stage, they couldn't create it. Evidence suggests that around 400,000 years ago **Fires** started to occur in all sorts of locations they don't naturally start such as caves, which at least demonstrates a mastery of **Fire**. But there is also evidence to suggest that the use of **Fire** dropped in cold periods rather than increasing, suggesting that flames may have been harvested in hotter conditions that create thunderstorms and dry vegetation. The only concrete evidence of **Fire** creation by percussion (flints for example) comes as recently as 40,000 years ago.

It wasn't until 1826 that the friction match was invented by an English chemist, John Walker. Already reasonably well off, he refused to patent his invention, making it freely available for anyone to manufacture and he only received credit for his invention posthumously. What a guy!
Edgar Rice Burroughs

## Ability

### Ability

**Tarzan of the Apes****(Play)** If your deck has exactly 6 Primates cards, your Brilliant Human Body cards, wherever they are, gain +22 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

“If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.” - This was the philosophy adopted by prolific writer **Edgar Rice Burroughs**, who wrote nearly 80 books in his career.

He swung from story to story like Tarzan does trees and even kept count of how many words he wrote per year. 1913 was Burroughs’ most active year, when he penned an impressive 413,000 words. Of his 80 books, 26 of them were tales of a white hero in Africa, although Burroughs himself had never been to Africa.

It’s thought that the author got his inspiration for Tarzan from the real-life story of an English boy who was shipwrecked off the African Coast and adopted by monkeys.
Eileen Collins

## Ability

### Ability

**Rocket Science****(Play)** If played next to Space Shuttle, your Radical Rockets cards, wherever they are, gain +22 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

When **Eileen Collins** was in the 4th grade, she read a Junior Scholastic magazine about astronauts and decided they were the “coolest people anywhere.” So, at the tender age of 19, Collins learned how to fly with the long-term goal of going to space. Reader, she didn’t just smash that goal - she became the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle in 1995, and the first to command a Space Shuttle mission in July 1999, taking Columbia into Earth orbit to deploy the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Even before she was selected as an astronaut, Collins was smashing the glass ceiling in aviation, becoming the first female instructor pilot at Vance Air Force Base A veteran of four space flights, Collins has logged over 872 hours in space.
Fat-tailed Scorpion

## Ability

### Ability

**Man Killer****(Return)** Gain +2 Energy. If you won the turn, gain +2 Energy and if you lost the turn, this card gains +25 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Measuring in at about 4 inches, the delightful **Fat-tailed Scorpions** (or to give them their scientific name, the genus *Androctonus*) pack a punch. As any Latin speakers among you might have guessed from the English translation to “Man Killer” (crikey!), they are one of the most dangerous groups of scorpions in the worlds.

These scorpions are not fussy eaters - happy to devour pretty much anything smaller than them that moves; including insects, lizards and even rodents, which they eat by crushing and then paralysing them with their venom.

Somehow, despite the fact that everything about them screams “don’t touch me!” they are popular in exotic trade, despite being illegal to own in some parts of the world (we wonder why?)

Personally, we prefer hamsters, even the bitey ones… or any kind of pet that doesn’t have the ability to kill you with a single sting, really.

A bottom-heavy kind of creature, the fat-tailed scorpions are distinguishable by their small pincers, and… you know… fat tails. Although as a highly venomous and aggressive creature, and with their stings causing a number of potentially lethal symptoms such as seizures, unconsciousness and hypertension, we wouldn’t say that to their face.
Emperor Penguin

## Ability

### Ability

**Protect the Young****(Play)** Your Oceans and Seas cards, wherever they are, with 3 or less Base Energy gain +24 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

**Emperor Penguins** don’t give a damn for gender norms. When it comes to parenting, the world’s largest species of penguin does things differently. In the winter, the female will lay one egg and then head off to sea to hunt, leaving dad to do the babysitting. While the female is away, the male will balance the egg on his feet and drape a brood pouch - a flap of warm skin and feathers - over it to keep it warm. During this time, the weather can get fierce and many penguins huddle together to protect themselves and the eggs from intense winds.

Mum is gone for the entire incubation period and returns with food just in time for an incredibly fluffy baby penguin to hatch. Plus, dad hasn’t had any food during this time either. He’s been relying on his fat reserves to get him through the winter, which gives us a whole new respect for the concept of a penguin “dad bod.”

Just like humans, penguins leave their young in creches until they are ready to start hunting for themselves. We doubt they’re doing flipper painting and learning their ABCs in penguin creche though.
Dowsing

## Ability

### Ability

**Doodlebug****(Play)** If your deck has 9 or fewer Science cards and 1 or more The Occult cards, your Hidden Gems and Excellent Elements cards, wherever they are, gain +27 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

All out of gift ideas? Why not get your loved one a **Dowsing rod**! Instead of giving more money to conglomerates, just head down to your local woodland and look for a Y-shaped twig.

Despite being banned by the Catholic Church and deemed “satanic”, dowsing was practised in Germany during the sixteenth century in an attempt to find metals. In South Dakota, it was used in the nineteenth century to help ranchers locate water wells. There are even those who believe that dowsing can help locate buried remains!

So, with their new dowsing rod, your loved one can look for water, hidden treasure, and even dead bodies! Now that’s a birthday to remember! (\*dowsing has no scientific backing. Avid Games is not responsible for the discovery of dead bodies via dowsing.)
Firefish Goby

## Ability

### Ability

**Friendly Fish****(Play)** Your Fabulous Fish cards in hand gain +10 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

The Firefish Goby is one of the most distinctive saltwater fish, with its red tail and a dorsal fin that can grow as long as the length of its whole body. They can flick their dorsal fin to signal that they are conspecific (of the same species) as other Firefish Gobies, which I would argue is somewhat redundant because nothing else looks like them.
Beowulf

## Ability

### Ability

**Ancient Epic****(Draw)** If your deck has 14 or more Epic cards, your Epic cards, wherever they are, gain +19 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Grab a pint of mead and prepare for a tale of the most epic variety: **Beowulf**. Considered one of the most important works of Old English, this 3,182-line alliterative poem takes us on a wild ride through the lands of 6th-century Scandinavia.

Our fearless hero, Beowulf, springs into action to save the beleaguered king, Hrothgar, from the clutches of the monster Grendel. After defeating the beast, Beowulf reigns as king for fifty years before facing his final battle against a dragon, where he meets his end.

Academics squabble over Beowulf’s origins like seagulls fighting over a chip - the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. As for the author behind the poem, no one knows - they are simply referred to as ‘Beowulf poet’.
Egeria

## Ability

### Ability

**Water Nymph****(Draw)** If your deck has 2 or more Mythical Creatures cards, your Oceans and Seas cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

They say behind every great man is a great woman, and that was certainly true for Numa Pompilius, the legendary second king of Rome. Mythology holds that he was guided in his decisions by a nymph or minor goddess who imparted laws and rituals based on ancient Roman religion.

Her name was **Egeria**, and she was said to exchange her wise words and prophecy for libations of water or milk at her sacred groves. Sounds like a fair trade. So, what exactly did Egeria tell Numa Pompilius?

Numa wrote down some of Egeria’s teachings in sacred books that he had buried with him, and although those books resurfaced some 500 years later after a chance accident, the Senate deemed them inappropriate, so had them destroyed.
Dolly the Sheep

## Ability

### Ability

**Cloned****(Draw)** Your cards in hand gain +8 Power permanently and if you have played Dolly the Sheep this game, your cards in hand gain an additional +8 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Despite her fame as 'the first animal to be cloned', **Dolly the Sheep** was actually beaten to that title by *another* sheep in 1984, 12 years before her birth. She was however, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, which was thought of as an impossibility at the time. She shot to fame, and was considered one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the year. Not bad for a sheep.

Dolly was born to a surrogate mother on 5th July 1996, although she technically had three - with one sheep to provide the egg and another to provide the DNA.

Dolly gave birth naturally to six lambs herself over a period of three years, and although she was sadly euthanised at six years old after developing a progressive lung disease, (a particular danger for sheep kept indoors), her legacy lives on. Since her successful cloning, major steps have been made in stem cell research, including the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells, allowing researchers to obtain pluripotent stem cells without the use of an embryo.
Dreyfuss Model 500

## Did You Know?

**The Dreyfuss Model 500** walked so your smartphone could run. What may look to us now as a clunky design was revolutionary when it hit desks across North America in the 1950s. When it was designed by Henry Dreyfuss in 1949, the rotary dial technology was considered state-of-the-art.

For their design, the engineers at Bell Labs measured over two thousand faces to determine the average space between the mouth and ear. The new handset had a flattened appearance, which they fondly called “the lumpy rectangle”. The Model 500 was the first post-war designed phone and, until the 80s, it was the mainstay of homes and offices. Yes, you read that right: for thirty years, people were perfectly happy without an upgrade.

'Vintage Western Electric Model 500 Rotary Dial Desk Telephone' by Joe Haupt (Source: Flickr) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
François l'Olonnais

## Ability

### Ability

**Cher Torture****(Draw)** An opponent's random card in hand costs +4 Energy this round.

## Did You Know?

Jean-David Nau, better known as **François l'Olonnais** was one of the most notorious pirates during the Golden Age of Pirates. He was also said to be one of the most ruthless and barbaric – in one graphic occurrence, he was questioning the survivors of a party sent to ambush him. When they refused to speak, he cut out one of the prisoners’ hearts and started to gnaw on it. How could he be so Arrrrgh-tless?

'François l'Olonnais from "De Americaensche Zeerovers"' by Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under Public Domain (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Fox Glacier

## Ability

### Ability

**The Bed of Tuawe****(Draw)** This card **Lock**s for 3 turns and your opponent loses -15 Power/Turn for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

Located on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island is the world’s most accessible rainforest glacier. Yup, you read that right: somehow, you can hike through the lush green forests in the area and, in less than a few hours, find yourself on the icy white face of the dramatic **Fox Glacier**.

Since the glacier is surrounded by massive mountains, the pictures don’t always do this natural wonder justice. Fed by four alpine glaciers, Fox Glacier (or ‘Te Moeka o Tuawe’) falls 2,600m on its 13 km journey from the Southern Alps down to the coast, where it meets a temperate rainforest that sits 300 metres above sea level. The steepest and fastest moving glacier in New Zealand, Fox Glacier moves up to 4 metres per day.
Dungeness Crab

## Ability

### Ability

**Periodic Malting****(Return)** This card loses -90 Power permanently and your Crustaceans cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

East Coasters may laud the Maryland crab as the superior snack, but we all know West is Best. Rocking the Purple and Gold carapace, the **Dungeness Crab** is <link="https:>clearly a Lakers fan</link>, and is just as tasty.
This Pacific delicacy gets its name from one of the most fertile habitats of this species: the Dungeness Spit, a stretch of land in Northwest Washington. However, you’ll also be able to catch plenty of these in Oregon and California.

When crab season starts, you can catch and keep up to ten of them yourself, as long as they measure at least 5 and ¾ inches across. Just remember, if you’re selecting a live crab, choose one that is quick, alert and preferably large - <link="https:>the LeBron of crabs</link>, if you will.
Fibonacci Spiral

## Ability

### Ability

**Spiralling****(Play)** All cards in both player's hands lose -10 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Leonardo Fibonacci discovered the Fibonacci Sequence - also known as the Golden Ratio - while considering how rabbits multiply (!), and it occurs frequently in the natural world. The numbers in the sequence are characterised as being the sum of the two preceding numbers - i.e. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, etc.

The Fibonacci Spiral is drawn using arcs to connect opposite corners of tiled squares whose side length follows this sequence... and this is naturally observable on many different scales: in Spiral Galaxies, in Hurricane formations, and on the shells of Snails.
First Aid Kit

## Ability

### Ability

**Medical Attention****(Start)** Your non-Limited Brilliant Human Body cards in hand gain +10 Power for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

You’ll find them in most homes, businesses and on public transport, but it wasn’t until 1888 that the first commercial **First Aid Kit** was created. It started as some of the world’s <link="https:>greatest films</link> do: on a train.

While travelling on the Denver & Rio Grande railroad, Robert Johnson (co-founder of Johnson and Johnson) got chatting to the railway company’s chief surgeon and discovered that railroad workers often died from injuries they’d sustained on the job because they lacked access to emergency medical supplies. Immediately, Johnson & Johnson got to work translating this need into a product.

Over the years, kits were tailored to meet specific needs, such as medical kits for soldiers on the battlefield, kits for Boy Scouts and those for unfortunate snake bite victims.
Elizabeth Blackwell

## Ability

### Ability

**Fighting Prejudice****(Draw)** If you have played 3 or more Arts & Culture cards this game, your Marvellous Medicine cards, wherever they are, gain +17 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

In 1849, she became the first woman to receive a medical degree. **Elizabeth Blackwell** was, without a doubt, a pioneer in the field of medicine at a time when most schools and hospitals weren’t open to accepting women as students or practitioners.

In fact, her own admission to Geneva Medical College in New York was actually a fluke, as the faculty put the question to the all-male student body for a vote, and as a joke, they voted unanimously to accept her. Of course, they weren’t laughing when Blackwell graduated top of her class.

A proud advocate of women's rights and education, Elizabeth Blackwell went on to establish the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, which was staffed entirely by women.
Flat-Faced Seahorse

## Ability

### Ability

**Clip, Clop, Splosh!****(Start)** If your deck has 5 or more Oceans cards, your Friesian Horse and Arabian Horse cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

No prizes for guessing the distinguishing feature of this species. Living up to its name, the **Flat-faced Seahorse** has a narrow head with no nose spines. Its colour can be golden, sandy, totally black or even feature zebra-like stripes.

Found in the shallow seas of Australia, French Polynesia and parts of Asia, this flat-faced customer uses its snout to suck up delicious treats like plankton and small crustaceans. While feeding, the flat-faced seahorse anchors itself to sea grass to conserve energy.

When this species mate, the female gets to do the easy bit - giving the eggs to the male. What happens next is unique only to seahorses and sea-dragons: the male carries the eggs through the gestation period and gives birth to live young.
Dodo

## Ability

### Ability

**Symbol of Extinction****(Draw)** Your Paleontology cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy this round and gain +33 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The poster child for extinct animals, the **Dodo** bird sits firmly on the list of good things that humans ruined. The first time we as a species laid eyes upon the creature was in 1507. By 1681, there were no more dodos.

Over-harvesting of the birds, combined with competition from newly introduced animals was too much for their species to survive. Before humans, the dodo led a blessed life. On their native island of Mauritius, there were no predatory mammals, reptiles or even large insects and so no no need to evolve any natural defences.

Even if we did want to bring the flightless bird back from extinction à la Jurassic Park, there are barely enough preserved remains of the creature for this to be possible.
Excalibur

## Ability

### Ability

**Cast Me Away!****(Return)** This card loses -30 Power permanently and your Arthurian Legends cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

**Excalibur** was King Arthur's magical sword. But how did he acquire it? You know the legend of the ‘Sword in the Stone’, where Arthur retrieved the sword and proved he was the true king?

Well, that sword is *not* Excalibur - it’s just another magic sword. (Apparently, they weren’t hard to come by at the time.)

Excalibur was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake – and returned to her (or rather, lobbed into a lake) by Sir Bedevere, according to Arthur’s dying wish.

[As always with Arthurian legend, there are many variants of this myth. If you want to believe Excalibur was a light saber given to Taylor Swift by an orangutan, we really aren’t going to argue.]
Francium

## Did You Know?

Unlike toilet paper, you can’t bulk buy **Francium**. In fact, no one has even observed bulk Francium, because the high amount of heat of decay due to its short half-life of 22 minutes would immediately vapourise any viewable quantity of the element. For that reason, it’s estimated that there is no more than thirty grams of Francium in the Earth’s crust at any time.

Originally discovered in France (hence the name) at the Curie Institute of Paris in 1929, Francium is the second rarest element in the Earth’s crust, next to astatine. Luckily, as far as we know, Francium has no practical uses, so you can cross ‘digging for Francium’ off your To Do list.
Dromedary

## Ability

### Ability

**Over the Hump****(Play)** If you have lost 1 or more rounds this game, gain +40 Power/Turn this round.

## Did You Know?

“Whatcha gon' do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk?” The **Dromedary’s** gonna use it to survive. See, it may only have one hump compared to the Bactrian camel’s two, but the dromedary employs it to great effect.

Within this hump, the dromedary stores up to 80 pounds of fat, which it can use as a source of water and energy when sustenance is sparse. That means the dromedary can survive a water loss of 30% of its body mass. Impressive, since for most mammals, a loss of 15% is fatal.

Sadly, even its water-storing abilities didn’t save it from extinction in the wild. Humans hunted them out of existence, meaning the modern-day dromedary is a completely domesticated species.
Dugong

## Ability

### Ability

**Mermaid's Lure****(Draw)** Your Ancient Greece cards in hand cost -2 Energy permanently.

## Did You Know?

Dugongs are closely related to Manatees, and are believed to be the original inspiration behind Mermaids.

If you're thinking 'Wait, what?', we don't blame you. We're hardly talking Disney princesses here. Yet it's true. As they cradled their young by the sea, with something vaguely resembling hands, and mammary glands in a similar position to human breasts, you can almost... almost... see how sailors got the idea this animal was half-woman, half-fish. Although we think those sailors may have been a bit too long at sea.
Egg Nebula

## Ability

### Ability

**Eggs In One Basket****(Play)** Your Horn Shark Egg card in hand gains +40 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

The Egg Nebula is a pre-planterary nebula containing a central star that is slowly transforming into a white dwarf. As it does so, the gas and dust emitted is reflected causing an effect known as polarization.

'Egg Nebula' by Judy Schmidt (Source: Flickr) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)

## Trivia

* This card is available in the Easter special.
Fencing

## Ability

### Ability

**En Garde!****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, both players gain +30 Power/Turn this turn. **(Return)** If you won the turn, gain +30 Power/Turn this round and if you lost the turn, your opponent gains +30 Power/Turn this round.

## Did You Know?

It is one of only four sports to have been featured in every modern Olympics: the two-person showdown sport known as **Fencing** has certainly stood the test of time.

The sport made its debut in the 1896 Games in Athens - in fact, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympic Games, was a fencer. Apparently, the Greek King George I was such an avid fan of fencing that he declared any match that had taken place before his arrival was null and void and had to be replayed in front of him.

Although sword fighting as a sport has existed since ancient Egypt, fencing itself is believed to have originated in Spain, with some of the earliest books on the sport written in 1458.
Eurhinosaurus

## Ability

### Ability

**You, Rhino, Saw Us.****(Return)** Your Southern White Rhinoceros, Black Rhinoceros and Elasmotherium cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

The **Eurhinosaurus** looked like a regular ichthyosaur: it had a big fish-like body, large eyes and both a dorsal and caudal fin. But this aquatic beast had a distinctive feature that set it apart from its sea-dwelling friends: a massive nose.

Like a sawfish, this humongous creature may have used its nose to search the seafloor for prey by swinging its upper jaw from side to side through vegetation. It’s also possible that it used its long beak to violently stab prey to death as swordfish do. If that wasn’t damning enough, the size of its fins also suggests that the Eurhinosaurus may have been one of the fastest marine reptiles of its time.
Edmontosaurus

## Ability

### Ability

**Top of the Bill****(Play)** If you are not losing the round, this card gains +45 Power this turn

## Did You Know?

While it’s not likely **Edmontosaurus** was aware he came from Edmonton, the fossils were first found there, around the Horseshoe Canyon of southern Alberta\*.

(I wondered why I used the pronoun ‘he’ there, then realised it’s because I’d mentally shortened the name to ‘Ed’.)

Eddie Boy was around during the Dinosaurs’ rock’n’roll Cretaceous Period (and yes, as a medium-large herbivore that meant it was occasionally dinner for Tyrannosaurs). A social hadrosaurid that lived in groups in the coastal plains of North America, Edmontosaurus was one of the last non-avian dinosaurs to emerge before the K-T Extinction.

```
*That’s in Canada for the Geography dropouts among us.

```
Florence Nightingale

## Ability

### Ability

**The Lady with the Lamp****(Play)** Your Marvellous Medicine cards, wherever they are, gain +15 Power until played. Repeat if your deck contains 6 or less Marvellous Medicine cards.

## Did You Know?

Nursing has come a long way since the early 19th century, when nurses were given no training or even pay for the work they did. But one woman, known as the Lady with the Lamp, changed all that.

Born in 1820, **Florence Nightingale** began nursing from a young age, and by 1853, she was made superintendent of a London-based women’s hospital. But it was the strict hygiene measures she enforced during the Crimean War that changed the face of healthcare. After pushing for sanitation in hospitals and training many other nurses, the mortality rate of admitted patients dropped from 42% to just 2%. Not only that, but long after the war was over, she pushed the government to reduce sewage in the streets, helping to increase Britain’s life expectancy by 20 years.