The Viashi Card Deck

About the Deck

A Viashi deck is a deck of 54 cards, five regular suits of nine cards each and a special suit of nine god cards. The regular suits are: Winds (white), Flames (red), Stones (purple), Waves (blue), and Leaves (green). The ranks of those suits from most powerful to least powerful are: Queen, King, Prince, Princess, Warrior, Merchant, Worker, Scholar/Magician, Fool. Each individual card also has a name, (the Queen of Winds is 'the Priestess' and the Worker of Flames is 'the Minstrel'). The god cards are always referred to by name and do not follow the ranks of the regular suits, (the Thief is NOT the Princess of Gods, and the Minion is NOT the Worker of Gods,) however they do have an order, and in game play are often used as if they belonged to the equivalent rank.

Elvish decks do not usually have suits or rank symbols marked on them (although they do usually use border styles and colors to indicate suits), and have elaborate hand-painted portraits for each card. The card names are used or omitted as decreed by the whimsy and artistic taste of the painter. Human decks have symbols for both rank and suit, and frequently use black and white stamped symbol icons rather than elaborate paintings, card names are always used in expensive human sets, and rarely used in cheap ones.

The elves always have the queen as the highest rank, whereas most humans assume that the king is the highest rank (this does not change the order of the god cards, where the Lady is always higher than the Dark Lord). 'Learner' cards are frequently numbered to indicate ranking, especially among humans, however these numbers are backwards to our world playing cards, the highest rank is '1' and the lowest is '9'.

The '8' rank is sometimes magician, and sometimes scholar, with different card names depending on which is used. The same rank symbol is used for both, and the change has no effect on game play.

Quote from Talking With Winds
 
'Asolde spent nine days in a high fever. Goddesses are likely the least of what she saw.'
 
-- Prince Asond
 
 
Copyright © Michelle Bottorff

Email mbottorff at lshelby period com