Ethan Wolfe
Level: 1 Mortal (2 levels pending)
Deckbearer Stats
Perk 1: Master Mantle
+50% to all numerical benefits gained from mantles
Perk 2: Man’s Best Friend’s Best Friend
Gain a second type and one Beast Power. May have one extra card in play so long as it is a Beast[Any Canine or Hybrid Canine]
Flaw: Fallen
May not use Divine cards
Cards in Deck
10
Cards in Hand
3
Cards in Play
2
Length of Play
5 minutes
Specialty Cards
Gain a Companion Card Slot in Deck and Hand
Type 1 and Power
Beast 1
Type 2 and Power
Infernal 1
Energy 1 and Power
Fire 1
Personal Perks
Inborn: Vicious Killer
+25% to all Attack and Defense, check twice for attack modifier and take the best
Inborn: Tough as Nails
+10 to health
Acquired: Crafty Street Fighter
+3 to Attack and Defense
Combat Stats
Attack
10
Magical Attack [none]
0
Defense
10
Magical Defense [none]
5
Health
30
Infernal Mana, and Divine forbidden. He may have seen it before, but seeing it again reminded him of his status. He sighed and put the thought aside to focus on what was important.
“What does this all mean?” Shel asked, her eyes fuzzed out as she likely stared at her own chart.
“You didn’t just google it? I mean, this is known stuff—a lot of famous people make their living selling guides to it. Hell, you play a deckbearer in a ton of popular games… ever played Deckbearer Car? Beast Summoner? The Thirteen Series? Deckbearer Car 2? Or 3 or…?”
Shel shook her head. “I focused on my studies a lot, and my family really needed money, so I got a part time job as a shelver at the local grocery store… and I studied to take the SAT, and learned about creating a college application…”
No one gives a shit about the child labor laws in these parts. Or tax laws. They probably paid Ms. Goody-Two shoes under the table as well.
Wolfe took another drag on his cigarette, then put it into the tray gently, tapping the ash off the end once. Damn shame her brother dragged her into this world, and damn shame she was stupid enough to follow him. Sounds like she coulda made something of herself in the corporate world. Or, with those looks and that kindness, grabbed some soft but smart dude pulling six figures and had a great life raising a bunch of overachieving rugrats. Not my fucking problem though—I’ll do my last good deed, just to flip the Infernal the finger. Get her a second chance, and then it’s in the gods’ hands.
“So…?” Shel asked.
“Right. Quick course, then. Right now you’ve got ten cards in your deck. You also have a maximum of ten cards. You can change that by five when you level—I’ll get into that in a moment. With me so far?”
“Yeah, but, I mean, if you had a great set of cards, why wouldn’t you want to just keep it to ten?” Shel asked.
Wolfe shrugged. “Some people do. But a lot of cool shit is gained from having more cards. Some cards add years of life per card in your deck, so gathering levels and cards could theoretically make you immortal. Some fucked up people go around trying to murder deckbearers to gain experience to keep buying more cards and gain that next five years of life.”
“I’ve heard about the Thousand Card Killer,” Shel said.
Wolfe gave a second shrug, then picked up his cigarette. “Yeah. But other people too, I’m sure. More commonly, though, people want a lot of cards because they can affect the outside world, like getting a cool mansion with magical flowers or a waitress card so you just have a magical worker in a restaurant, shit like that. If you want a lot of those so you don’t have to work and stuff, but you still want to kick ass, you need to have a lot of cards in total. The gods set the system up to encourage large deck sizes I think. Also, to encourage deckbearers killing each other. At this point, I think the gods might all be sadists.”
Shel shuddered at Wolfe’s musings but nodded.
“Next is cards in hand. Every minute, you can switch to another draw of cards, equal to your cards in hand score, drawn randomly from your deck. You can play a card every thirty seconds. So more cards in hand is just having more options each switch phase, since you can still only play two cards a minute. But having more options each pull is better, right?”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Shel nodded.
Wolfe continued. “You can increase the total hand size by spending level points as well, one extra card for each time you increase it. One of the better choices in my opinion.”
Shel just waited.
“Cards in play is just total cards you can have in play at one time. More monsters. More mantles. Things like that. The more you have in play the better, obviously. For most people their total power is the bigger restrictor, but some need a lot of cards in play at once as well. Like goblin tribal deckbearers.”
Shel nodded again and Wolfe continued. “Length of play is how long a normal card can remain in play. A powerful creature staying on field is great, obviously. A mantle lasting longer is also great. Five minutes is forever in a close-in fight but it’s nothing in a chase or gang war. It can help a lot. You can raise time in play when you level up as well, at a minute per pick.”
Shel nodded a third time. She was starting to look like a bobblehead, but Wolfe ignored it. At least Shel wasn’t making more wisecracks, and he could almost see the wheels going behind her eyes. She’ll probably be a great deckbearer someday. If the frail girl makes it to ‘someday,’ anyway.
“Power types are the types of magic you can use to cast your cards. There are technically two subsets—type power and energy power. I have Beast and Infernal, one each, for types. I also have a Fire energy type, so three power total. I could use a one power card of any of my three types, or a one power card of either type with an additional one or two cost, basically. Other combinations as well.”
Wolfe took another drag of his cigarette, the smoke now a slight haze around his living room. He leaned forward a bit. “Now, the most important thing is this—most cards have drawdown. That means that when you play them, you don’t get the power back until the card is killed or the time is up. Also, lost cards don’t return their power until the next card switch, when you draw a new hand. Managing the timing is extremely important if you don’t want to die.”
“Why?”
“Because creatures fight in thirty second units of time. So, if you lose your creature in the first thirty seconds of a card switch, you won’t get another creature out to defend you, and their creatures can just wail on you. But if you lose your creature in the last half, you can play another creature card… assuming you have one to play. Make sense?”
Shel nodded.
“All right… the last thing. This season apparently opened up a new specialty card, the companion card. You have one?”
Shel nodded. “Yes. It said I get a companion card slot, and I have a special card.”
“Perfect. I checked online, and there’s already a guide written by some nerd deckbearer. Apparently, these are solid power increases for most deckbearers that got one. Companion cards are creature cards that have no time limit. Just summon the thing and it can hang out like the world’s most demented purse dog or something. Also, they can remember shit, like a real person, from summon to summon.
“They also don’t have drawdown, and everyone says they’re about as strong as a tier five to seven card, two power, which is huge. So the deckbearers for this season are a lot stronger at start. Still nothing compared to the insane high-level champions and other asshole bigwigs, but stronger than most starting deckbearers. I’m going to summon mine. You do the same.”
“How do card tiers work?” Shel asked.
Wolfe took one last puff and ground his cigarette out. “I’ll talk it over with you in a minute, since I have some cards I want to screw with. If we start deep-sixing a bunch of deckbearers, or if we get rich and can buy cards, or if we get lucky and find one of the new dungeons that came with the season, you can do the same. Now summon your companion card. It’s supposedly your best.”
Wolfe stood and placed his hand over his heart. He could feel his deck, and his power. Dark, angry, and hungry. He pushed his hand forward and brought forth his deck, willing it into existence. He had ten cards in it, and three came up—his torturer imp, an escaped damned, and soul hunter, his persistent mantle card.
Now you show up on first pull.
He was extremely curious about the soul hunter, but he ignored it for the moment, instead pulling out his fourth card—the companion card Cereboo. Every other card he had was Tier one, but this guy was special. The card had already proven its worth multiple times over in the one fight. He checked the card again, noting the attack, defense, and magical variety scores… but he remembered that its real value had been its resistances and strengths. It reduced damage from mortal sources, including actual mortals, thanks to its Infernal typing. But the card’s special powers gave it a bonus against its own card type of Infernal.
In short, it was an absolute perfect card for someone that spent most of his time punking or fighting other thugs and infernal deckbearers.
Cereboo (Unique, effective Tier-7)
Companion
A pup of Cerberus.
Infernal, Beast[Dog]
N/A
Attack
5 x3
Magical Attack
7
Defense
7
Magical Defense
4
Health
12
Special: Companion. While in play, Beast and Infernal power may be spent as if they were the other.
Special: Guardian of the Gate: +100% attack and magic attack against other Infernal cards.
Special: Preferred Typing: Gains all the better type matchups of both Infernal and Beast, not both.
Special: One of the ‘Gate to the Underworld’ cards. If all 6 are possessed in the same deck, the bearer will gain 7 Legendary Infernal or Beast card pulls. Additionally, the deckbearer may either gain the Mythic ‘Gate to the Underworld’ Building Card or evolve Cereboo.
He wished he could have named it Pierce, after his old dog, but his new companion was already named. He called it forth.
There was a flare of magic, and a brief hint of fire and brimstone in the air. Cereboo popped out, wagging his tail.
At the same time, a pure white light shone, and woman appeared next to Shel. She was six feet tall, with blue eyes, and carried an old-style ironmongery lantern in one hand, chained to her wrist with no obvious way to take it off. But her most notable features were the white wings that spread back from her body and the over-sized purple halo above and behind her head.
Cereboo ignored the divine card, something that surprised Wolfe.
“What’s your companion?” he asked Shel, staring at the angel.
Before Shel could answer, however, the card appeared in Wolfe’s vision. “Nevermind, I see it.”
Sorenia (Unique, effective Tier-7)
0 Power
A particularly zealous and dedicated member of the hundred-thousand lantern angels. She once received a lesson from Archangel Raphael directly.
Divine, Light
Companion
Attack
0
Magical Attack
9
Defense
8
Magical Defense
3
Health
7
Special: Companion.
Special: While in play, all ‘mortal’ creature cards gain divine typing and +25% to all stats.
Special: The benefits to ‘mortal’ cards stack with the other three named companion lantern angels. If all 4 are possessed the card, Zarachiel, Commander of the Lanterns, a 4 mana mythic tier-8 equivalent divine companion card will be gained as well as a free companion card slot.
Wolfe whistled. Okay, that’s strong as heck—she could make an amazing divine mortal combination deck, but how much would three additional companion card slots cost? A ridiculous amount of leveling points I’m guessing. Fuck.
Although the gods made decks a lot more specialized this season. It feels like she almost has to go into a divine mortal split... plus, to really become powerful, she probably has to whack other divine deckbearers. The gods really are dicks.
“Nice companion, girl. I think I see where your deck is going.”
The angel frowned. “I am Sorenia, dark deckbearer. A guiding light to mortals from the realm of the Divine. Something my deckbearer probably desperately needs given that beast you just summoned.”
Cereboo gave a half-woof, more playful than anything, and went up and licked at the angel. She tried to fend him off and look regal, but couldn’t seem to put down the lantern. The ‘one hand to three tongues’ matchup resulted in Cereboo getting quite a few licks in.
Wolfe laughed and turned his attention back to Shel.
Shel stared at her angel for a bit longer, but then turned back to Wolfe. “How do I get more companion card slots?”
“Level a whole bunch and save your leveling points to open up additional companion card slots. Each time you add a specialist card slot, it costs five leveling per slot, except for minion cards, which are one each… and then it goes up by an equal amount each time you level.”
“And you level by defeating other deckbearers in the arenas?”
Wolfe suddenly yawned. “Girl… there are a lot of ways to level. I just got two levels by killing some thugs that tried to off me on the way to see you. You only get limited challenge options each season—very limited. But there are other ways—like the killing I just mentioned.”
Wolfe yawned a second time. “But I’m tired. It’s almost three in the morning and I’m still awake, something that is almost entirely your fault. How about, we instead go to sleep, and we can talk about card combinations and leveling tomorrow, okay?”
Shel nodded, then grew visibly pensive, staring down the hall at Wolfe’s bedroom. “Do I sleep in your bed, or…?”
“Do not be so Brazen, my deckbearer,” Sorenia said. Wolfe glanced over and saw that the angel was now just petting Cereboo, who was panting happily.
Wolfe turned back and shook his head. “I told you, you don’t have to do any of that shit for me. You’re a crazy dumb martyr—no offense—but you can save it for people that need it. I can take care of myself. You sleep in the guest room, girl. If you want to do me a real favor, don’t bug me before noon.”
“You’re just going to leave me alone in your house? While you sleep?” Shel asked.
“Yeah. You’re smart, right?”
“I mean… yes?” Shel said, her voice rising on the last part as if it were a question.
“Well, I’m sure a super smart girl like you can figure out what’ll happen if you steal my shit or fuck with me while I sleep. Now quit bothering me, I’m going to bed.”