Last Year's Magic

This is a game about people with a fondness for the little-known and obscure, who present themselves with ostentatious affectations in their manner of speech and dress, and are sometimes seen with eye-catching facial hair: Wizards.

There is a fundamental truth about magic: it doesn't work for everybody. In fact, if it worked for everybody it wouldn't be magic, it would just be normal. Here's another fundamental truth: wizardly magic is based on knowledge. You have to know things about spiritual power, the deep structure of the universe, the connections among things, and the imposition of will upon reality. Naturally, in concordance with the first fundamental truth, this knowledge wouldn't be magical if everybody knew it.  As such, wizards prize esoteric knowledge that sets them apart from the rest of society. Of course, some people merely pretend to have knowledge instead of actually possessing it. What separates a real wizard from a charlatan is that they know real stuff, they're not just making it up. As such, it's important to most wizards that they let you know what they know, so you can tell they're a real wizard who knows stuff that's worth knowing.

Each of you is playing a wizard who has chosen to spend the evening in pub that's well-known (among those who are in-the-know) for its exquisitely authentic local flavor. As often happens when wizards gather, however, your evening is beset by problems. But there are two sides to every coin, because for every problem is also an opportunity for you to explain how best to solve it. And, as luck would have it, there are several other wizards in the pub: exactly the sort of people who can fully appreciate your expertise.

Beginning the game
Think about what sort of wizard you are. Describe yourself as you enter the pub and take a seat at a table. If you aren't sure, cast your fortune to get a hint from the Great Beyond: Draw two cards. Oftentimes, some combination of features of the meanings, symbolism, or folk-interpretations of the suits and values of these two cards will reveal your True Self.

Suit	True Meaning	Folk Interpretation	
♥ Hearts	Spiritual Power	Elves, faeries, and the forces of nature	
♦ Diamonds	The deep structure of the universe	Dwarves, wealth, and the subterranean	
♣ Clubs	The connections among things	Animal-men, goblin-kind, and the monstrous	
♠ Spades	The imposition of will upon reality	Humanity, tools, and war	
			
Value	Folk Symbolism	Folk Interpretation	
A	Hermit	The desire to keep to yourself	
2	Lover	The desire to make someone happy	
3	Fool	The desire to amuse the group	
4	Hero	The desire to protect the group	
5	Devil	The desire to tempt someone	
6	Traveler	The desire to experience something new	
7	Death	The desire to end someone	
8	Brute	The desire to display dominance	
9	Elder	The desire to understand the environment	
10	Artisan	The desire to make a lasting impression	
J	Child	The desire to play	
Q	Mother	The desire to teach	
K	Father	The desire to provide	

Example: Brad draws two cards to discover what the universe says about his wizard and gets the 5♥ and the 6♣. Looking over the interpretations, Brad decides that he is a Faerie wizard who enjoys tempting lesser mortals with magical bargains and, because of his desire to see and experience new people and places, has traveled far and wide, including into the subterranean depths of the dwarven kingdoms.

If anyone used cards to cast their fortune, shuffle them back into the deck.

Deal seven cards out to each player, placing the remainder face-down where everyone can reach it.

After each player's wizard is introduced, feel free to roleplay your interactions in the pub for a bit. When the action hits a lull or a player takes a larger than normal draught of their drink, something happens. The first player who notices the lull and touches the card deck has a premonition of danger.

Playing a Round
The player with the premonition draws zero, one, or two cards from the deck (your choice, constrained by the number of cards available) to determine the nature of your premonition:

Zero cards: An incursion from the Outer Void

One card: A stranger approaches (use the symbolism and/or folk interpretations of the suit and value to glean more details)

Two cards: Use the combination of suits to determine the nature of the problem (sometimes the symbolism or folk interpretations of the values of one or both cards also gives hints).

Combination of Suits	True Meaning	
♥♥	An incorporeal spirit	
♥♦	Agent(s) of the cosmic powers	
♥♣	Magical monster(s)	
♥♠	A natural disaster	
♦♦	A magical anomaly	
♦♣	Politics	
♦♠	An imbalance in fundamental forces manifests, or balance reasserts itself	
♣♣	Strife or schism within a group	
♣♠	An organization devoted to a purpose	
♠♠	An elaborate plan nears completion	

Say whatever you wish to your fellow wizards about your premonition. Then, as it is a True Prophecy, it immediately begins happening. Describe what the other wizards and any other pubgoers see, hear, and feel that would confirm this state of affairs.

Example: Dana, sensing a lull in the conversation about Brad’s travels through ancient Dwarfish mines, reaches out to touch the deck, signaling that she is having a premonition. Dana chooses to draw one card (a stranger approaches) and gets the 3♥. After a moment of thought, Dana says, “I sense the presence of Djinn! It is a fiery prankster who foolishly believes that it’s arsonist ways amuse and delight all who feel the heat and look upon the fires it creates.” 

Initiating a Round
Now that a problem is clear, it is time for the wizards to discuss how a problem like that ought to be solved. The wizard who foresaw the problem starts off the round by making a suggestion about how magic could address the issue. As they do so, they put forward a card from their hand face-down, keeping in mind the convention that different card suits correspond to different elements of magic: 

> Hearts corresponds to spiritual power 

>Diamonds corresponds to the deep structure of the universe 

>Clubs corresponds to the connections among things, 

>Spades corresponds to the imposition of will upon reality. 

Any act of magic will be comprised of all elements, but it's natural for a wizard to feel that a particular act of magic will give primacy to one of the elements over the others.

Proceeding clockwise around the table, each other wizard in turn cites some argument or source of authority that would endorse or support the premonitioner’s suggestion, while putting forward their own face-down card to represent their position.

Resolving the Round
After each player has commented upon the premonitioner’s suggestion, reveal the cards. The suit with the majority of representation in the trick determines the ascendent suit. If there's no suit which has greater representation than all other suits then it's not verified and it's a null result – the player who led the round should describe how the problem has transformed and escalated while the discussion occurred such that the original suggestion is now moot, and the player to their left will initiate another round by suggesting a solution to the problem as it now stands. The cards from the null round are placed into the discard pile.

Otherwise, whichever player has the highest value of the ascendant suit wins the trick and takes the cards and places them in a pile in front of them (don't add them to your hand, and keep each trick in its own pile for end-of-game scoring). 

If all the cards are the same suit the magical idea is so popular that the power has been diffused out of it and it's a bad trick. Otherwise it's a good trick.

If you win a bad trick, describe how your wizard attempts to implement the suggestion and how it fails to resolve the problem due to inefficacious magic (maybe they honestly believed it would work, maybe they were guilted or shamed into going through the motions, all that sort of stuff is up to you, but the description must involve the wizard attempting to carry out the suggestion and failing to get the result). Also describe how the problem is even worse now, either due to the failed magic or merely because it has escalated because it wasn't addressed in an effective manner. Then the player to the winner's left initiates a new round to deal with the problem as it now stands.

If you win a good trick, describe how your wizard implements the suggestion and how it resolves the problem. 

Once a problem has been resolved, deal new cards to each player until each once again has seven cards in their hand. Then continue to roleplay your interactions in the pub until there's another lull or long draught and a wizard has a new premonition, beginning a new round.

Ending the Game
After the deck has been exhausted (or the wizards grow weary and retire for the evening) determine who is the best wizard: add one point for every card of the ascendant suit in every good trick that you won, and subtract one point for every card in a bad trick that you won. The number of points can clearly be used to determine the status among the wizards, although most wizards know that it's more appropriate to signal this through passive-aggressive condescension or barely-disguised jealousy (depending on the polarity of the status relationship) rather than open acknowledgment. 

Using the knowledge of the relative status of each player’s wizard to inform your roleplaying, play out a final scene as the evening winds down and the wizards depart the pub.

A note on strategy
There's no strict rule about how tightly connected your suggestion or commentary must be to the suit you play. It's usually useful to have at least some relationship, but due to the scoring mechanism there are downsides to being too obvious but also downsides to being too obscure. Remember that the suggestions and citations of authority aren't necessarily expressions of personal endorsement by your wizard, they could just as easily be passive-aggressive baiting or shade-throwing. But if you win the trick, you're on the hook for it anyway.

Example of of Play
[Anna notices Curt finishing his drink and reaches for the card deck to start a new round. She gets a 4♥ and 7♦.]

Anna: My eyebrows shoot up on my forehead. “Be mindful, friends. An army of demons approaches!” Just then the door of the pub slams open and an out-of-breath peasant stumbles in. He says, “Gods preserve us, there's an army of demons bearing down on us!” Everyone in the pub turns to look at me and I nod sagely.

[Anna looks at her cards]

Anna: Pfah. Demons should be no trouble at all. If one of us simply invests a part of themselves into a Baleful Wail of Bansheekind the demons' weak spirits will be stripped from their corporeal shells and the whole lot of them will fall down dead. [she puts a 9 of Hearts forward, face down]

Brad: That's certainly one way to go. Zarmak's “Among the Damned” does claim that corporeal demons have especially tenuous connections to their spirits, what with the Curse of Arg-Anak clinging to them. [he puts a Jack of Hearts forward, but emphasized connections to make it ambiguous whether he was focusing on hearts or clubs]

Curt: The Baleful Wail of Bansheekind is certainly what Tendrik the Hermit would recommend in situations like this. [he puts a 3 of Hearts forward].

Dana: A Grand Reaping would be the Alarak School's procedure for severing those spiritual connections, but if Denzigar's Conjecture is correct then a Baleful Wail would be sorcerously equivalent as long as you account for the phase of the moon. [she puts forward a 10 of clubs]

[They reveal the cards. Three are hearts and one is clubs, so the ascendant suit is hearts. Brad's Jack of Hearts is the highest value card of the ascendant suit, so he wins. It wasn't unanimously hearts so it is a good trick.]

Brad: I stand up, stride over to the door, clear my throat for a second, and then open the door. My mouth opens and it sort of keeps opening, like my jaw has gone all weird and stretchy, and an ear-piercing shriek comes out. All the glassware in the pub shatters, but outside the demons just start slumping down to the ground. I say “there, that's sorted,” and I ask the barkeep if he has anything that wasn't made of glass that he can serve ale in. Obviously, he’s got tankards for when Dwarfs visit, so we can continue to enjoy our beverages.

[Brad deals out a new card to each player and roleplaying and small talk ensue. Until! During a lull in the conversation, Curt touches the card deck.]

Curt: What’s this!?! Something stirs the aether! [He draws two cards getting 9♦ and A♦.] Gadzooks! A tear in the dimensional fabric is nigh. Unless we want the spirits of the dead wandering hither and yon, I suppose something will have to be done. Hmm? 

Curt: At which point, a strange glowing crack appears appears in the air above the bar and a wispy cadaverous hand stretches through.

Curt: Of course, this is not but a simple problem to one who has studied Avansara’s “Delves in Dimensions.” If one employs the lady’s Salve of Spatial Sealant, this nuisance will be gone in a trice. [he puts forward a K♦]

Dana: Interesting. Yes. Avansara’s Sealant might work, of course. As someone more widely read, however, I prefer the work of Dembold the Divine. His Stitchwork spell is still the pinnacle of dimensional repair. [she puts forth the J♦]

Anna: I agree that Dembold was a true artiste, but unfortunately his work has been devalued of late. It’s likely that the Spatial Sealant is the best choice at this stage. [she puts forward the 4♦]

Brad: Two perfectly reasonable solutions, I suppose, but haven’t any of you heard of Euphanasia’s “Ephemeris of the Planes?” It is truly the definitive word in dimensional magic. Why, I think her Planar Patchwork would be the perfect solution. [he puts forward the 9♦]

[The cards are revealed and it is a bad trick because all the cards are diamonds. Curt takes the bad trick with his King and explains how he fails to solve the problem and it gets worse.] 

Curt: With a wave of my hands and a flourish of my wrist, I cast Spatial Sealant to a shower of multi-colored sparks. From the sudden frown that flits across my face you can all tell that something has gone awry. Instead of sealing the crack above the bar, the glow has increased as the gap widens large enough for everyone to gaze into the depths of the netherworld. 

[Dana now begins a new round.]
Dana: Ah. Clearly this situation requires a more forceful individual to solve it. I’m sure something more direct from Karagayi’s “Transformation of Order” will put this to rights. [She plays a 10♠] 

Anna: Karagayi? That hack? While I concur that a direct approach is now called for, clearly “Orin’s Forceful Gaze” is more appropriate. [She puts forward a Q♠]

Brad: Orin is an excellent choice! Though, clearly, the “Fundament of Pandimensionality” would be more efficacious. [He plays a 8♦] 

Curt: No, no, no! Someone nearby has called this portal into being. They have reached out with all their grief to be reunited with a lost loved one. This must be dealt with through that deep emotional connection. Charuntz’s “Salubrious Psychopomp” would better solve this crisis. [He plays a 2♣]

[The cards are revealed and Anna takes it with her Queen. It is a good trick, so Anna resolves the current predicament.] 

Anna: Harrump. “I’ll see to this,” I say. I get up and walk over to the bar, waving away the spirits that have begun to float around room. Giving the dimensional rip a good hard look, my compatriots can see magical visage settle over my features, hardening them and giving me a steely gaze. “Begone,” I say in a loud, authoritative voice! And, with that, the escaped spirits retreat back into the portal and the wound is healed with a small “pop” noise. The rest of the bar’s patrons give me uncomfortable looks but soon return to their drinks when the bartender loudly clears her throat. “Another round for me and my companions,” I say.

[Play continues in this way, with premonitions and rounds of cards interspersed with casual roleplay. Eventually, either the deck will run empty or one of the players will signal they are ready to finish up by remarking on the lateness of the hour. At which point the points are tallied and the preeminent wizard of the evening will be determined. After which, one last scene should be played out of the wizards taking their leave and the winner of the evening enjoying their victory.]