recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Albert Camus

## Ability

### Ability

**Existential Absurdism****(Play)** Your Philosophy cards, wherever they are, gain +9 Power until played. Repeat if played next to Friedrich Nietzsche.

## Did You Know?

If you’re trying to give up smoking, don’t look at pictures of **Albert Camus**. No one has ever made cigarettes look cooler. When he wasn’t smoking, Camus was busy being an exceptional author, editor, journalist and philosopher.

Even if you don’t read in French, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of his novels. Since its publication in France in 1942, Camus' debut novel, “The Stranger,” has been translated into 60 languages and sold more than six million copies.

However, due to wartime shortages of paper, this masterpiece almost didn’t get published. Fortunately, they were able to scrounge up enough sheets to print 4,000 copies.

As well as publishing his first novel, Camus got involved with the French Resistance movement during WWII, working as a journalist for the underground newspaper, Combat.
Asian Giant Hornet

## Did You Know?

Look, we're not going to lie to you. Asian Giant Hornets, also known as Giant Sparrow Bees, are the largest hornet on the planet and they are UTTERLY TERRIFYING and we refuse to sugar-coat it.

You can find them (if you're crazy enough to go looking for them) in the temperate and tropical forests of Asia and the mountains of Japan, where they are responsible for 40 human deaths each year.

40 seems to be a cursed number when it comes to Asian Giant Hornets - it's also the number of honey bees they can kill in a minute. When they find a hive, they secrete a pheromone that lures the bees out. The Hornet then goes on a killing spree, and feasts on their larva. Bee-ware.
Adam's Apple

## Did You Know?

Let’s kick this one off by dispelling the myth that women don’t or can't have an **Adam's Apple**. Semantically they might not (it’s named after the biblical first man who got a bit of the forbidden apple stuck in his throat), but an Adam’s Apple is simply a grownup (post-puberty) larynx (thyroid cartilage if we want to be precise).

Generally speaking, a male’s larynx will grow more making it more pronounced, but it’s perfectly normal for this to occur in females as well (although rarer), and, similarly, they aren’t always visible on men.

So what’s the point of them? Well, like the rib cage protects your heart and lungs etc the thyroid cartilage protects your voice box. So why do females generally have smaller ones, surely their voice box needs protection too?

Well, recent research has shown that deeper voices are probably an evolutionary response, not to attracting the opposite sex but for intimidating the same sex. The larger the protection, the larger larynx, the deeper the voice to scare off would-be rivals. This might not be an entirely convincing argument, but it does explain Barry White’s allure.
Alpha Centauri

## Ability

### Ability

**Everybody Needs Good Neighbours****(Play)** Your The Solar System cards in hand gain +30 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

**Alpha Centauri** is a triple star system located just over four light-years, or about 25 trillion miles, from Earth. While this is a large distance in terrestrial terms, it is three times closer than the next nearest Sun-like star... it's just not a distance we can ever imagine tapping into our Sat-Navs.

Alpha Centauri was discovered in 1915, while its only confirmed planet, Proxima Centauri b, was discovered in 2016 and it is the closest exoplanet to us.

The two main stars Alpha Centauri A and B form a binary pair and are 4.3 light-years away from Earth. They are also named Alpha Centauri AB; to the naked eye, they appear to be one single megastar. Like Ant and Dec.

Alpha Centauri was strongly featured in Ancient Egypt, where many temples to various deities were built to have their principal features aligning with the point on the horizon where the star rose.

Since it is so close to us, the Alpha Centauri system will remain closely studied. The only planet detected has made enthusiasts pretty desperate for the discovery of possible other exoplanets in this system.

Many have been proposed but have yet to be confirmed. Since Proxima Centauri b is the closest exoplanet to us, a future mission is estimated to take place in approx 2069 and begin a search for habitable planets in the nearby star system. So let's, erm, all put that date in our calendars.
Auðumbla

## Did You Know?

In Norse mythology, **Auðumbla** was a primaeval cow who provided the frost giant Ymir with nourishment from her milk. Of course, Auðumbla needed nourishment too – and so she licked some ice-blocks, which were salty. After a day of licking the ice blocks, a man’s hair came forth from the rocks. Auðumbla kept licking the rock, and by the next day, an entire man’s head had appeared.

By the third day of licking the rock, a whole man came out of the ice block. His name was Buri, the grandfather of the gods and brothers Odin, Bili and Vé. For their existence, these gods had a cow to thank, whose name is generally accepted as meaning ‘hornless cow rich in milk’.
Alligator Gar

## Ability

### Ability

**Living Fossils****(Play)** For every Oceans card in your hand, your Paleontology cards, wherever they are, gain +6 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

You’re looking at a living fossil that dates back over 100 million years ago. And honestly, in all that time, **Alligator Gars** haven’t changed a whole lot. Modern gars still retain many of their ancient characteristics, including their ability to breathe in both air and water.

This big boi is heavily armoured with unique, hard interlocking scales covered in ganoine, a crystalline mineral coating. The Native Americans were clearly impressed by the Gar’s natural armour, and used its scales to make arrowheads and axes.

Measuring roughly 3 metres and weighing 135 kilograms, the Alligator Gar is the largest of all the gar species and one of the biggest freshwater fish in North America. However, despite its large teeth and fearsome appearance, it poses no risk to humans.
1849 Gold Rush

## Ability

### Ability

**Miner Inconvenience****(Play)** Your Gold card, wherever it is, gains +30 Power until played. **(Return)** Your Raging Rivers cards, wherever they are, gain +7 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

At the start of 1848 one mans discovery at the base of Sirra Nevada Mountains near Coloma, California would start a Gold Rush like no other! Before the Gold Rush the population of the California territory was less than 1,000 by 1849 this had swelled to around 100,000, during the **1849 Gold Rush** (1848-1855) a total of 300,000 people made the journey in the hope of striking it rich.

Would-be gold miners who made the journey to California overland or by sea were known as the “forty-niners’. Indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seeking travellers because at the beginning of the Gold Rush there was no law regarding property rights.

California’s admission to the Union as the 31st state was unprecedented due to the increase in population from the **1849 Gold Rush**.
Apennine Colossus

## Ability

### Ability

**Man of the Mountains****(Draw)** If your deck contains at least 1 Majestic Mountains card, your Raging Rivers cards, wherever they are, gain +24 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Standing at around 35 feet tall, the **Apennine Colossus** is perhaps the most breathtaking feature of the gardens of Villa Medici at Pratolino, near Florence.

Built over 400 years ago by Italian sculptor Giambologna, this impressive sculpture was designed as the personification of Italy’s rugged Apennine mountains. If video games have taught us anything, it’s that this mountain of a man is guarding something, and a peek inside only confirms this suspicion.

That’s right - the Apennine Colossus isn’t just a sculpture - he’s also a building. In the upper part of his body and head is a secret compartment containing a number of rooms with frescoes and fountains moved by hydraulic mechanisms. There’s even a fireplace that would have blown smoke from the giant’s nostrils.

'Apennine Colossus' by Costantinus (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Bactrian Camel

## Ability

### Ability

**Hump Day****(Play)** If you are trailing by 100 Power or more, this card gains +55 Power **(Play)** If it's the second turn of a round, this card gains +55 Power.

## Did You Know?

When Black Eyed Peas wrote their 2005 hit ‘My Humps’, they surely had the **Bactrian Camel** in mind. Sure, you may not be able to get “love drunk” off their humps, but with their tolerance for cold, drought, and high altitudes, you could certainly rely on this even-toed ungulate to help you make bold expeditions across the desert.

Humans have been doing this for centuries – in fact, the domestication of Bactrian Camels dates back to sometime before 2500 BC in Northeast Afghanistan or southwestern Turkestan. It’s thanks to Bactrian camels that nomadic tribes were able to carry goods back and forth across the Silk Road.

Interestingly, Bactrian camels are part of a small group of animals who regularly eat snow to quench their thirst.
Barnacle Goose

## Ability

### Ability

**Potential Descendants****(Draw)** If your deck has 1 or more Crustaceans card and 1 or more Tremendous Trees card, your Sea Birds cards, wherever they are, gain +22 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

If you’re born into this world a baby **Barnacle Goose**, don’t expect any handouts. Like, literally none. While your friends from other species might have their parents bring food directly to them, you’ll have to take your chances with gravity when dinner time comes. That’s because your mummy and daddy decided to build their nest on high mountain cliffs, far away from the likes of Arctic foxes and polar bears.

Getting food to you in the traditional bird way is a little trickier, so your parents will leave food on the ground below. Unable to fly, you will be forced to jump off the cliff and fall to find your food, but thankfully, your small size and feathery down will keep you safe from serious harm! (Probably.)
Astatine

## Ability

### Ability

**Unstable Isotopes****(Return)** If your deck has exactly 3 Excellent Elements cards, your non-Science cards, wherever they are, gain +20 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Its existence was predicted in the 1800s and confirmed in 1940 when physicists Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross MacKenzie, and Emilio G. Segrè produced **Astatine** synthetically at the University of California. Yet, decades after its discovery, very little is known about this element.

Given it has no stable isotopes, that’s understandable. Between the time you leave for work and the time you get home, Astatine’s most stable isotopes have already decayed. Astatine is also extremely rare: it’s estimated that there is less than one gram of astatine in the Earth's crust at any given time.

In fact, a sample of the pure element has never been assembled, because any macroscopic specimen would be immediately vaporised by the heat of its radioactivity.
Barringer Crater

## Did You Know?

The Barringer Crater in Arizona is the point where a nickel-iron meteorite crashed into Earth over 50,000 years ago. It's estimated that the meteorite was between 30 and 50 meters in diameter, and hit the earth at a speed of 71,000 kph - that's enough to create a hole in the ground about 1 mile wide and 570 feet deep. That's kind of like if you threw a ping-pong ball on the ground and an Olympic-sized swimming pool appeared.

It looks pretty innocuous these days, a big old hole in the ground, but at the time of impact it would have sent nearly 6 million tons of earth flying into the sky and devastated all wildlife in the surrounding area.
5 Astraea

## Ability

### Ability

**And Then There Were Five...****(Draw)** A random card in your hand gains +10 Power until played and if you are losing the round, repeat this 4 more times.

## Did You Know?

The discovery of **5 Astraea** was a pretty big breakthrough in astronomy. On December 8th, 1845, an amateur German astronomer and post office employee by the name of Karl Ludwig Hencke was looking for 4 Vesta, the second most massive asteroid in the solar system. By accident, he stumbled upon Astraea.

Until the discovery of this big-belt asteroid, it had been thought that there were only four asteroids. It may not be the brightest (it’s only the seventeenth-brightest main-belt asteroid), but its discovery opened the floodgates. Soon, thousands of asteroids would follow, and the four original asteroids (which were regarded as planets at the time) were demoted. For his discovery, Hencke was awarded an annual pension of $300 by the King of Prussia.
Barosaurus

## Ability

### Ability

**He is Heavy, He’s My Brother****(Play)** Your Diplodocus card in hand gains +49 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Having a 15-metre-long neck certainly has its advantages. For the **Barosaurus**, it meant getting all of the best leaves on those hard-to-reach branches, which is ultimately the biggest win in herbivore culture.

When under threat from predators, the Barosaurus used its tail to protect itself. Palaeontologists believe it would stand up on its back legs while swinging its tail or stomping the attacking dinosaur. The rest of its bulky body was as long as a school bus, and it’s thought that the beast weighed approximately 20 metric tons in total.

This in mind, its name makes perfect sense: the term Barosaurus comes from the Greek word ‘barys’ meaning “heavy” and ‘sauros’ meaning “lizard”.
AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven

## Ability

### Ability

**Droning On****(Return)** Your Birds, Sea Birds and Fearsome Flyers cards, wherever they are, gain +32 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Now used by military forces across the world, the **AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven** is a small hand-launched remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicle (SUAV) that was originally developed for the US military. This powerful little vehicle flues at an altitude of 100ft – 500ft, providing a ground control unit with real-time colour or infra-red imagery of target areas below through a digital data link.

This makes the RQ-11 Raven the perfect technology for performing intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance operations. It can even land safely through autopilot without the need for landing gear and prepared landing strips. Having proven an invaluable piece of military tech, the RQ-11 Raven got upgraded in 2005 to add a remote video unit, spare batteries, a charger and support equipment.
Bamboo

## Did You Know?

You know that feeling when you and a friend are fully in sync? **Bamboo** feels it too. See, most species of woody bamboo are subject to gregarious flowering. That means that all plants of a particular species bloom at the same time - regardless of differences in location or climate conditions. From this information, we can only draw one conclusion: there’s got to be a global group chat for bamboo plants, right? Especially considering that most bamboos only flower once every 60 - 130 years.

The long flowering intervals remain a mystery to botanists. If you’ve got nothing better to do (and the paint has already dried), go watch a bamboo growing. Every two minutes, this plant species grows another millimetre. That equates to around ten centimetres every single day.
Alexander the Great

## Did You Know?

Alexander the Great was born and raised in Macedonia and became King at age 20 when his father died. His legendary conquest of the ancient realm saw him win the titles of King of Macedon, Pharoah of Egypt, King of Persia and Lord of Asia. He died in Babylon at age 32, leaving billions of people after him to lament how they spent their twenties.
Artificial Intelligence

## Ability

### Ability

**The Future of Tech****(Draw)** Your Common and Rare Ingenious Inventions cards, wherever they are, gain +18 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

A real crowd-splitter, **Artificial Intelligence** is usually tipped as either the solution to all of our problems or the catalyst to the demise of the human race. Either way, scientists are on track to creating AI systems that are one-tenth as smart as a human by 2035. By 2060, some researchers expect AI to perform nearly all the tasks that humans do.

Initially coined by John McCarthy in 1955, artificial intelligence is a machine that can solve problems that humans perform using natural intelligence. Already, AI robots have proven capable of repairing themselves and writing like humans, with one robot penning an article on an earthquake in California. Weirder still, Saudi Arabia has already given citizenship to a social humanoid robot called “Sophia”.
Apatosaurus

## Ability

### Ability

**Apat on the Back****(Play)** Your Flatback Sea Turtle, Silverback Gorilla and Humpback Whale cards, wherever they are, gain +40 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

Due to the immense size of **Apatosaurus’** neck, getting cropped out of the picture is a fact of life for this ancient herbivore (except on the front of this card, CUE found a way!)

Weighing between 16,000 – 22,000 kg, it would take five elephants to balance the scales with this sauropod dinosaur on the other end. The name ‘Apatosaurus’, meaning ‘deceptive lizard’, was given by American palaeontologist Othniel C. Marsh who discovered its fossil remains. Marsh chose this name because some of its bones resembled those of some mosasaurs, a type of large aquatic reptile. Apparently, Marsh put the wrong head on the Apatosaurus when attempting to assemble his fossil findings. Well, either that, or he had travelled back in time about 156 million years ago and been lied to by the dinosaur. The first explanation is more likely.
Ajax the Great

## Ability

### Ability

**Great Stature****(Draw)** If your deck has 6 or more Greek Mythology cards, your cards, wherever they are, gain +4 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

First up - let’s spare a thought for Ajax the Lesser, who really wasn’t ‘lesser’ material at all. He was the second fastest Greek after Achilles, a skilled spear thrower, and commanded forty ships.

That’s a high bar for a ‘Lesser’. So who was **Ajax the Great**?

Well, he was Achilles’ cousin, and the strongest of the Greeks, and managed to escape unwounded from all of the battles in the Iliad (I’ve read it, and it’s basically nothing but battles.) He also recovers Achilles’ body - at considerable risk - after he dies.

Then after all that, Ajax gets upset when Achilles’ armour is given to Odysseus, and so he kills himself. While this may be an effective means of conveying displeasure, it is hard not to see it as counter-productive.
Bakeneko

## Ability

### Ability

**Changed Cat****(Draw)** If you have played Nekomata this game, your Cute Cats cards, wherever they are, gain +19 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

The **Bakeneko** is a type of kaibyo (literally “strange cat”) - a supernatural cat and fun research rabbit hole. It’s thought that it’s the cat’s wild nature and gentleness, their quiet tiptoes and their changing irises (gosh, aren’t cats just the coolest?) is what causes cats to be considered yokai.

Although like the nekomata, the Bakeneko is thought to have a tail that forked into two upon its transformation from cat into yokai, there are distinct differences in their folklore. Bakeneko are thought to lick lamp oil for instance (probably because of the cheap fish oil that was often used in lamps), and that they can speak (which was thought to be misinterpretations of a cat’s meow!). However its coolest skill is probably when it pops a towel on its head and begins dancing.
Angel Oak

## Ability

### Ability

**Arbor Day****(Play)** Your Tremendous Trees cards in hand gain +28 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

One of the oldest living trees east of the Mississippi river, the **Angel Oak** tree is the stuff of fairy tales. Standing 20m tall and 8.5m wide, Angel Oak covers 1,600 square metres of land around it in a welcome shade for tourists visiting in summer. This tree isn’t just a pretty face: in the 400 years of its life, the Angel Oak tree has survived earthquakes, floods and hurricanes.

The Angel Oak is a sacred location for many, as Civil Rights activist Septima Clark and many African American families would find solace under its branches during times of segregation. As you probably guessed, climbing the tree or carving your name in its trunk are strictly prohibited.
Anomalocaris

## Ability

### Ability

**Abnormal Shrimp****(Play)** For every Monsters of the Deep card in your deck, up to a maximum of 7, your Crustaceans cards, wherever they are, gain +3 Power until played, and vice versa.

## Did You Know?

The **Anomalocaris** is unlike any other shrimp. And that’s literally what its name means: abnormal shrimp.

Now long extinct, the Anomalocaris was originally mistaken for three different creatures. And that’s understandable, because its sheer size (38 centimetres long excluding the tail fan) is highly unusual for the time in which it lived.

First discovered in the Ogygopsis Shale of the Stephen Formation in British Columbia, Anomalocaris is thought to be one of the earliest known apex predators. Scientists once thought that it would have preyed on trilobites by grabbing one end with its disc-like mouth while using its frontal appendages to rock the other end of its prey back and forth. What’s more likely is that Anomalocaris just stirred up the bottom sediment to access a soft diet of sea worms.
Alligator Snapping Turtle

## Ability

### Ability

**Turtle Power!****(Play)** Your Reptiles cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

There was a viral internet video in the late 00s called "The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon", which is a perfect description of the Alligator Snapping Turtle.

Okay, their bite isn't that inefficient - it's actually very fast, and able to break broom handles - but they are very slow moving. If one did want to kill you, it couldn't keep up with a normal human pace but it wouldn't need to - they've been known to live for two hundred years, so they can just wait for you to die of old age.
Assassin Bug

## Ability

### Ability

**Deadly and Swift****(Return)** An opponent's random card in hand costs +7 Energy for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

If the name of the **Assassin Bug** alone doesn’t put you on edge, these facts about the vicious insect certainly will.

Firstly, the Assassin Bug has a misleading nickname: The Kissing Bug. This bug is no romantic – it gets this pet name because it likes to bite the lips of humans while they sleep. It’s made worse by the fact that their “kiss” can spread a parasite that causes Chagas disease, which can be quite dangerous.

Assassins by name and nature, a “reduviidae” can kill a cockroach in 3 seconds. Once they’ve caught their prey, kissing bugs perform something called external digestion, which involves them injecting their prey with toxins, waiting for the body contents to liquify and then sucking out the liquified organs with their straw-like mouthparts.
Alexander Hamilton

## Ability

### Ability

**History Has Its Eyes On You****(Draw)** If your deck has 1 or more Stage and Screen card, your History cards, wherever they are, gain +9 Power until played. Repeat if your deck has 1 or more Musically Minded card.

## Did You Know?

In case you missed the theatre production and wondered what all the fuss was about, we’ve got you.

* ahem\*

Now this is a story all about how Hamilton’s life turned upside down
I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there
We’ll tell you how he became the United States first Secretary of Treasury.

Yeah, it doesn’t really hit the same. But this guy was pretty impressive. A founding father of the United States, **Alexander Hamilton** fought in the American Revolutionary War, taught himself the law, helped draft the Constitution, served as the first secretary of the treasury, built the American financial system and helped form the Federalist Party in 1791. Just over a decade later, he was killed in a duel by the then-Vice President, Aaron Burr.
April Fools

## Ability

### Ability

**Fool Me Once...****(Play)** If you have played **April Fools** this game, lose -2:energy/turn: for 4 turns. **(Return)** This card loses -80 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

Today, **April Fools** is an opportunity for companies to pretend they’re quirky by doing something “funny” on the internet. But it wasn’t always this way. Historians think that April Fool’s Day originated when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.

In the Julian calendar, April 1st marked the beginning of the new year. People who were slow to the uptake that January 1st was the ‘new’ new year became the butt of jokes, such as pinning a paper fish to their back to symbolise a young fish who is easily caught.

(By the way, anyone who’s ever clapped back against an April Fools trick with the line “It’s after 12 noon, so you’re the fool!” is just bitter that they got fooled.)
Aviator Sunglasses

## Ability

### Ability

**Top Gun****(Play)** The card opposite this loses -10 Power this turn and your Awesome Aviation cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

They were originally designed in 1936 by Bausch & Lomb as a streamlined alternative to bulky flight goggles, but somewhere down the line, **Aviator Sunglasses** became a symbol of “cool.” Just like the rise of Scientology, Tom Cruise is largely to blame.

When he donned a pair of aviators in Top Gun, sales of the sunglasses shot up by 40%. But Tom Cruise wasn’t the first poster boy for aviators. In October 1944, General Douglas MacArthur landed on a beach in the Philippines in World War II and press photographers snapped pictures of him wearing the glasses. These newspaper photos became iconic, as did the shades. In fact, they’re credited with being one of the first popularised style of sunglasses to be developed.
Arthur Conan Doyle

## Ability

### Ability

**Endorsing Phenomena****(Play)** If you have played Secret Societies this game, your The Write Stuff cards, wherever they are, gain +8 Power for 3 turns.

## Did You Know?

The mind behind the timeless character Sherlock Holmes, Sir **Arthur Conan Doyle** was a bit of a detective himself. Using the tactics employed by his famous fictional character, Conan Doyle solved the murder of Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy old woman from Glasgow.

Although the author is now a legend in the literary world, Arthur Conan Doyle could have given up entirely when his first novel got lost in the post on the way to a publisher. Although he penned it down again from memory, the author never got round to submitting it a second time around. His first Sherlock Holmes story “A Study in Scarlet” was so successful, though, that he was able to give up his job as a physician and devote his career to writing.
Ask and Embla

## Ability

### Ability

**The First****(Play)** If it's the first turn of a round, your cards in hand gain +10 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

So, you’ve created seven realms. What now?

This was the predicament that brothers Odin, Vili and Vé found themselves in after defeating the giant Ymir and using his body parts to build Asgard, Midgard, Jötunheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, and Helheim.

As time passed, the brothers got bored. So, they created the first humans from two trees and called them **Ask and Embla**. First, Odin gave them life and breath. Vili gave them consciousness and movement. Thankfully, Vé gave them a face, speech, hearing and sight so they could interact with one another. In Old Norse, ‘Askr’ means ‘ash tree’, but the meaning of ‘Embla’ is uncertain, but some scholars of Norse mythology suggest it could either be ‘vine’ or ‘elm’.
Baphomet

## Ability

### Ability

**Equilibrium of Opposites****(Play)** The cards adjacent and opposite to this gain +25 Power this turn. **(Return)** All cards, wherever they are, cost -1 Energy this round

## Did You Know?

For a symbol supposed to represent balance in occult and mystical traditions, **Baphomet** sure has a bad reputation. That being said, his appearance isn’t really doing him any favours. A goat head on a human body tends to set off big alarm bells, and that five-point pentagram - despite originally representing justice, mercy and wisdom - is usually associated with Satan worshippers.

In fact, the first ever mention of Baphomet is thought to be referencing Muhammad, the founder of Islam, but his name got dragged through the dirt when Philip IV of France had every Templar in the country arrested on suspicion of worshipping him as a false idol. To add insult to injury, Baphomet was later adopted by controversial occultist Aleister Crowley, whose teachings did inspire modern-day satanism.
Anglerfish

## Ability

### Ability

**Catch of the Day****(Draw)** This card gains +30 Power this round and an opponent's random card in hand loses -30 Power this round.

## Did You Know?

Resembling as they do a space hopper from a particularly bad cheese nightmare (and if you learn one thing from your time playing CUE, it's that you should never eat cheese after 10 pm, 9 pm at a push), the **Anglerfish** is a fascinating deep-sea fish.

They live at depths of at least 6600 feet below sea level, which is so deep that sunlight doesn't reach them. So they can see down there, **Anglerfish** have a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria that can generate their own light. A long rod of flesh on their head holds what's called an "esca" that attracts these bacteria, which is used to lure in prey.

It's a fish that literally fishes for fish. And woe betide any creature lured in - look at that jaw! Those teeth among the sharpest in the ocean.

The classic idea of an Anglerfish, like the one on the front of this card, is actually the female of the species. Males rarely grow bigger than females and resemble tadpoles more than they do the aforementioned nightmare space hopper.
Atoms

## Ability

### Ability

**Matter Matters****(Return)** Your Dizzying Discoveries cards, wherever they are, gain +10 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

**Atoms** are the basic building blocks of everything in the universe; you, me, navel fluff, literally everything!

Atoms are tiny (one-tenth of a billionth of a metre across), so everything you see is made out of an almost incomprehensible number of atoms. Here's a widely used analogy; if an apple was scaled up to the size of the earth each atom would be approximately the size of a normal apple.

This is obviously approximate, as atomic size does vary. Atomic size is the distance from the nucleus to the valence shell (outermost shell of an atom containing the valence electrons). We better not go too far down the rabbit hole on this one...
(3834) Zappafrank

## Ability

### Ability

**Peaches en Regalia****(Draw)** If your deck contains Peach Melba, your Curious Cuisine cards in hand cost -1 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

In the words of rock legend Frank Zappa, “The whole Universe is a large joke. Everything in the Universe are just subdivisions of this joke. So why take anything too serious?” Well, one of the subdivisions of this joke happens to be an asteroid called **Zappafrank** that has a 4.08-year elliptical orbit around the sun, mainly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Thankfully, this space rock is not classed as a Near Earth Object as its path doesn’t come into close proximity or cross the orbital path of the Earth as it makes its way around the sun. So we can sleep easy knowing we’re not all about to be obliterated by an asteroid named after a moustachioed musician.
Amazon River Dolphin

## Ability

### Ability

**Think Pink!****(Play)** Your Flamingos card in hand gains +50 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Move over Flipper, there's a new fashion icon in town. The **Amazon River Dolphin**, famous for its flamingo pink colour, actually start off grey when they're young. They only discover their more flamboyant side during adolescence.

Their final colour can be influenced by their behaviour, diet and exposure to sunlight. And (cute alert!) like humans blushing, they flush an even brighter pink when they're excited.

These dolphins are the subject of several South American legends. One story claims that during the night, the dolphins morph into handsome men to seduce the women of the village. Another claims that if you go swimming alone, the dolphins may whisk you away to a magical underwater city.

Their status as a semi-magical being has most probably helped protect the species - after all, who wouldn't want to be seduced by a handsome half-man half-dolphin...?
Aquila

## Ability

### Ability

**Eagle-Eyed****(Draw)** Your Eagle Nebula, Bald Eagle and Lunar Module 'Eagle' cards, wherever they are, cost -3 Energy until played.

## Did You Know?

The **Aquila** constellation sits in the northern sky, near the celestial equator. Its name means “the eagle” in Latin, representing the eagle of the god Jupiter in Roman mythology. In Greek mythology, Aquila is the eagle that carried Zeus’ thunderbolts and was once dispatched by the god to carry Ganymede, the Trojan boy that Zeus had chosen to be the cupbearer of the gods, to Olympus.

First catalogued by the astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century, the constellation contains eight named stars: Alshain, Altair, Chechia, Libertas, Okab, Petra, Phoenicia, and Tarazed. Aquila’s brightest star, Altair, is a white subdwarf located just 16.73 light-years away that shines with a visual magnitude of 0.77, making it the night sky’s 12th brightest star.
American Crocodile

## Did You Know?

The lizard-shaped **American Crocodile** is a prehistoric-looking creature and you can distinguish it from its cousin, the American alligator, by its longer, thinner snout, its lighter colour, and two long teeth on the lower jaw that are visible when its mouth is closed. It also has a long, muscular tail and four short legs that have five toes on the front feet and four on the back feet. Weird, but true!

A small population still lives in southern Florida, but most are found in southern Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. They prefer to hang out in the freshwater of river estuaries, coastal lagoons, and mangrove swamps.

Crocodiles are ectothermic, meaning they rely on external sources of heat to regulate their body temperature by basking in the sun or by moving to an area with warmer or cooler water.

American Crocs don't usually have any interest in attacking humans; not like their Australian counterparts who pretty much give the species a bad name. An American Crocodile may be surprised by an approaching person and quickly (and noisily) enter the water, but no one likes being disturbed from a nap. This behaviour might startle the person, but it shouldn't be misunderstood. Crocodiles normally enter the water discreetly and quietly so splashing indicates that the crocodile is frightened and feeling stressed out!

'American crocodile found in Jamaica's Black River' by Mattstone911 (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Adorned Dwarfgoby

## Ability

### Ability

**Shortest Lifespan****(Draw)** Your cards, wherever they are, with 0 Base Energy gain +10 Power until played.

## Did You Know?

When they coined the phrase “Live fast, die young”, they probably weren’t talking about the **Adorned Dwarfgoby.** But this tiny little fish, with its almost see-through red-orange flecked body, lives for less than 2 months. That’s the shortest life span of any vertebrate. Plus, they spent half that time as a larva and the rest as an adult. That’s pretty rough.

Gobies are amongst the smallest fish in the world and the Adorned Dwarfgoby is one of the smallest breed of goby. It can reach a mighty length of 3cm (or 1.2 inches, if that’s your preferred method of measurement). If you bring your magnifying glass, you might manage to spot them in the waters of the Seychelles. It might be a bit of a needle in a haystack situation there though. Good luck!
Archangel

## Ability

### Ability

**Divine Service****(Play)** Two random cards in your hand gain +25 Power until played (reveal before scoring). **(Play)** A random card in your hand gains +30 Power permanently (reveal before scoring).

## Did You Know?

The Seven **Archangels**—also known as the Watchers—are mythical beings found in the Abrahamic religion underlying Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The highest-ranking angels, Archangels are responsible for watching over mankind, helping us receive divine inspiration and keeping order in the natural world. Seems like a pretty big task, considering… well… we’re not exactly the easiest-going species.

Only two Archangels are named in the bible used by Catholics and Protestants, as well as the Quran: Gabriel and Michael. However, in the ancient Hebrew apocalyptic religious text ‘The Book of Enoch’ where Archangels are mentioned, there are seven of them. The other five have various names but are usually known as Raphael, Urial, Raguel, Zerachiel and Remiel.
Anthias

## Did You Know?

If you’ve ever watched an episode of an ocean documentary, then it’s pretty safe to assume you’ve laid eyes on these vibrant multi-coloured shoals of fish during the quiet coral reef scenes (or at least until David Attenborough starts speaking).

Making up a large and respectable portion of tropical reef fishes, wild **Anthias** (first described in 1758) can grow up to 8 inches in length while their aquarium counterparts are usually no longer than a middle finger.

But before you head out to the pet store, it’s important to note that these seemingly simple fish have a complex social structure and are known to be peaceful with other fish but aggressive towards some of their own kind. A fishbowl is the last place a group of Anthias should be in!

The diverse characteristics of these fish don’t end there - Anthias are also what is known as protogynous hermaphrodites. They are born female and are one of the ocean’s sex change experts. If a dominant male in their group should perish, the largest female usually changes body colour as they reassign their sex, and gains the ability to spawn with other females.

Oh, and did you know that a new variety of Anthias discovered in 2016 was named after then-President Obama?

(Card written with contributions by users CurryBowl and Tonald Drump!)

CRAFTING CLUE BELOW!

- Now two bees follow.
Australopithecus sediba

## Ability

### Ability

**Karabo****(Play)** If played opposite a Paleontology card, this card gains +45 Power.

## Did You Know?

At some point, hominids started spending less time climbing trees and more time walking on land. That’s probably where we started going wrong, if you ask us. This change probably happened less than two million years ago, as evidenced by the discovery of the fossil lumbar vertebrae of **Australopithecus sediba**, a small hominid that lived around that time in what is now South Africa.

The fossils suggest that Australopithecus sediba had an upright posture and comfortably walked on two legs. The curvature of their lower back was similar to modern humans, but they also had clear adaptations in their skeleton designed for climbing. Although their brain size was considerably smaller than modern humans, they probably didn’t have all the hang-ups that come with being a modern human. Swings and roundabouts, really.

'Reconstruction of a largely hairless male' by Neanderthal-Museum, Mettmann (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Aaron Burr

## Did You Know?

He may have served as the third vice president of the United States, but **Aaron Burr** is best remembered for taking his conflict with Alexander Hamilton too far. Spoiler alert: Burr killed Hamilton.

Before his name became synonymous with Hamilton’s murder, Burr actually built a pretty impressive career. At the tender age of 16, he graduated from Princeton university. During the revolutionary war, Burr played a key role in the American retreat from New York, guiding 5,000 men to safety and salvaging US artillery. He was then promoted to lieutenant colonel.

After the war, Burr established himself as one of New York City’s hottest lawyers before eventually being appointed as Thomas Jefferson’s vice president. Since he fled to California, Burr was never tried for Hamilton’s murder.
Azurite

## Ability

### Ability

**Ocean Blue****(Play)** If your deck has 14 or more Oceans and Seas cards, your Oceans and Seas cards, wherever they are, gain +17 Power for 4 turns.

## Did You Know?

The ancient Chinese called it the Stone of Heaven, believing it could open celestial gateways. The Greeks and Romans revered it for its visionary insights and healing powers, and the Native Americans used it to contact their spiritual Indian guide and understand their message. **Azurite** is no run-of-the-mill mineral.

Whether it really can connect us to the spirit realm or cure illness is up for debate, but it certainly has its uses. Forming in the upper oxidised portions of copper ore deposits, this beautiful blue mineral is coveted by collectors, mystics and jewellery-makers alike. As far back as ancient Egypt, Azurite served as a pigment in blue paint and was used extensively in paintings through the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe.
Baiji

## Ability

### Ability

**Goddess of the Yangtze****(Play)** If played next to Yangtze River, this card gains +40 Power permanently.

## Did You Know?

If we could turn back time and reverse the damage we’ve done to the environment, the possible time-travel side effects would be worth it just to save the **Baiji**. During its 20 million years on Earth, the Baiji had a good thing going.

Found exclusively in China's Yangtze River, it was once considered a deity of protection by local fishermen and boatmen. Pale blue-grey above and lighter below, baiji grew to 2.4 metres, and when escaping from danger, this freshwater dolphin could reach speeds of 60 km/h.

Sadly, it couldn’t outswim habitat destruction. As the waters of the Yangtze grew more crowded and polluted, baiji became the first dolphin species driven to extinction by humans. The last known living Baiji was Qiqi, who died in 2002.

'Qiqi, a Chinese River Dolphin' by Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Source: Wikimedia Commons) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (original image resized, cropped and altered)
Allosaurus

## Ability

### Ability

**Different Lizard****(Play)** Your Reptiles cards in hand gain +10 Power this turn and next.

## Did You Know?

Allosaurus means 'different lizard' - ironic, given its close resemblance to many other dinosaurs. It was the first ever Hollywood Dinosaur movie star, featuring in The Lost World in 1925. They got through a lot of camera men.
Albatross

## Ability

### Ability

**Bad Omens...****(Play)** Your opponent's cards in hand lose -10 Power for 2 turns.

## Did You Know?

The Albatross has, in this writer's opinion, been wronged. For a long time, it was seen as good luck in maritime circles if an Albatross followed your ship. Then along comes Samuel Taylor Coleridge with "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", his classic poem that features an Albatross being shot and several misfortunes befalling a ship, and suddenly they're the poster children for terrible omens. Which is a shame, because they're secretly very awesome.

Remember how sharks can smell a tiny drop of blood in 25 gallons of water? The Albatross can do that, but with smells - if it catches a whiff of something tasty, it can track it down even if it's 12 MILES away.

They've also got the longest wingspan of any living bird - the Wandering Albatross has been known to have a wingspan of up to 11 feet, which is as long as two human men. If those two human men were 5'6*.*
1000 Paper Cranes

## Ability

### Ability

**Wishful Thinking****(Start)** If you are losing the round, this card costs -4 Energy this turn.

## Did You Know?

According to ancient Japanese legends, anyone who manages to fold exactly **1,000 Origami Cranes** will be granted a wish by the gods. This story was popularised from the sad tale of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who was diagnosed with leukaemia after being exposed to radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Inspired by the ancient legend, she began making origami cranes with the goal of reaching 1000. Unfortunately, Sadako didn’t recover, although her family say she exceeded her goal, having folded approximately 1,400 paper cranes.

Today, a statue of Sadako holding a crane can be seen in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Every year on Obon Day, people leave cranes at the statue to honour the spirits of their departed relatives.
Archaeopteryx

## Ability

### Ability

**Bridge the Evolutionary Gap****(Play)** Your Birds cards in hand gain +20 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Look away now if you watched Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" and start screaming and shaking pretty much whenever you're outside. Archaeopteryx is considered to be an intermediate species between modern-day birds and predatory dinosaurs.

It gets worse for Hitchcock bird hysteria because Archaeopteryx had a full set of teeth and claws on each wing. Nightmarish.
Antony and Cleopatra

## Ability

### Ability

**Age Cannot Wither Her****(Return)** Your Paleontology and History cards, wherever they are, cost -2 Energy this round.

## Did You Know?

If you’re the queen of Egypt, sliding into his DMs just won’t do. To get Antony to fall for her, Cleopatra put on a show where she dressed as Venus while boys in Cupid costumes fanned her. Antony was smitten, and the two were said to have been like a college power couple, even forming a drinking society.

But the story of **Antony and Cleopatra** was ill-fated: Cleopatra staged a fake suicide, leading to Antony’s own death… and Cleopatra ingesting poison.
Albert Einstein

## Ability

### Ability

**Relatively Incredible****(Draw)** Your Science cards in hand gain +35 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

You may know Albert Einstein from the famous picture of him sticking his tongue out (that we struggled to get the rights to use), but the German scientist was known for so much more than just that!

He spent most of his life as a university professor. His career began at the University of Bern in 1909, and he taught in Prague and Zurich before settling at the Prussian Academy of Science in Berlin in 1915.

Einstein's 1905 was a year in which he was on something of a roll. As well as the general relativity paper, he wrote papers on quantum theory, Brownian motion and special relativity. These paved the way for what would be his most well-known work - the Theory of General Relativity.

In a nutshell, it's the idea that gravity isn't a force that pull things towards each other - it's a warping of space, and the more massive an object is, the more the space around it is warped. That's why planets are drawn to giant objects like the Sun, or the collective ego of the CUE editorial team.

As well as theoretical physics, he was involved in politics and international affairs. Before the Second World War, the Nazi Party began to smear him in their anti-Semitic propaganda. He resigned from the Prussian Academy of Sciences and moved to the United States for a position at Princeton. When the Second World War broke out, Einstein worked closely with the US Navy.

He wrote to President Roosevelt urging him to accelerate the country's nuclear weapons development program as a deterrent, but he never advocated the use of those weapons. He campaigned for international peace until his death in 1955.
Amethyst

## Ability

### Ability

**We Are The Crystal Gems****(Play)** Your Garnet and Pearl cards in hand gain +37 Power this turn.

## Did You Know?

Stress relief, spiritual wisdom, protection, tranquillity – these are just a few of the powers that the **Amethyst** is said to give to its owner. It’s no wonder that the ancient Egyptians worked these gems into amulets!

The ancient Greeks even believed that amethysts could prevent them from getting too drunk – in fact, the name of the crystal derives from the word ‘methustos’ meaning ‘intoxicated’. The prefix ‘a’ means ‘not’ – so the word amethyst translates to “not drunk.” Whether true or not, it might be worth keeping this gem in your pocket next time you head to the pub.

A purple variety of the mineral Quartz, amethyst is the birthstone for February. Apparently, St. Valentine even wore an amethyst ring with Cupid’s face carved into the stone.