Discworld Character Card Project (DIY Playing Cards)

[Jan Van Quirm]

Would you like to learn how to play Cripple Mr. Onion...?
Using hand-made Discworld-themed playing cards...?
... and collect unique character cards designed by other boardies? *

After testing the generic set at the 2012 Convention this thread is now open as a contact/ordering page for our 8 suit card deck of Discworld Playing Cards that can also be used for traditional Roundworld cards games.

The generic decks come in a choice of 2 back designs -

THE TURTLE & ELEPHANTS - for devoted fans with an adaption of a Stephen Player illustration (with his permission)

AND THE TURTLES & DRAGONS - for the purist using original artwork for a more traditional-looking deck that might be used on the Disc itself

with the same turtle-based design for the fronts as used at Birmingham

and the 4 Jokers

Further visuals of the traditional-style court cards can be found on the old thread from HERE

Cripple Mr. Onion - A Vague Guide to Gameplay is available to view/download HERE (PDF 2MB)

Full Guide to Rules and Gameplay is available to view.download HERE (PDF 653KB)

HOW TO GET YOUR DECK - simply PM JAN VAN QUIRM, specifying which back design you'd like and get your download and printing details

IMPORTANT
All the cards bear the following disclaimer THIS DECK IS REPRODUCED BY FANS FOR FANS FOR NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY

We do not have permission to make or sell these for profit and no licence has been or will be issued to us for their production - they are simply for our own personal use and should not be sold under any circumstances in any version shown above.

* details of the Character Card Project in the post below

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Re: The Cripple Mr. Onion Character Cards (DIY playing cards

rcs-birdies: THE REAL CAROC! rcs-birdies:
Now with the new MAJOR ARCANA Suit!

OK - the original project was to get a game together that could be played by Roundworld rules - NOT how they would play it on the Disc... :doh:

This is because in strict canon the Caroc in fact only has 8 number cards and 4 court cards per suit in its minor arcana, which means they have 96 cards in a deck rather than the 104 in the deck we made above (less the 4 jokers that is). Also the suits are slightly differently symbolised with sceptres replacing wands/batons in the tarot-based deck and turtles and elephants joining crowns and octagrams for the Disc version of our more familiar cards.

So this is the challenge for the next phase for our artistic peeps - use this template

to post all your character card designs on this thread WITHOUT any numbers or suits.

You post them in here on condition that you're allowing them to be downloaded from this thread and used on the Caroc templates that will be obtainable from me on PM in the same way as the Roundworld version of the decks above.
Sorry for the formality but as we don't have permission to produce these for commercial purposes we need to maintain issue of the sets on a non-profit basis and to avoid having to obtain expensive licences as it's on a 'fair use' sharing as fans this way.

The theming for this Real Caroc set is also different to the Roundworld usable decks and produced in 4 colourways as follows

The character designs can in time be used on both versions of the combined decks and I'll be working on another generic/traditional treatment for the purist Caroc which should be ready in a few days time (I'll be adapting the court cards using the original version plus an additional one for the Lord/Knight card).

Both versions of the cards will be available as blanks (with the central space empty so you can insert whatever character(s) you want to download and apply to the template as you like. If you don't have the software to do this then let me know what ones you want to use and I'll do it for you if you ask nicely

As before we do not have permission to make or sell these for profit and no licence has been or will be issued to us for their production - they are simply for our own personal use and should not be sold under any circumstances in any version shown above.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Re: The Cripple Mr. Onion Project (DIY Disc Playing Cards)

Bumps - now open for business for the original playing deck. The purist version (post above) will be ready to order from next week I hope

 

[michelanCello]

Jan, those decks are soooo beautiful! I just keep looking at them and it's like they're moving or something... how did you manage the colours?

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

There's a little Weatherwax in my copy of photoshop...

It's just using a variety of filter effects to put some texture on the images and give them an 'enamelled' effect to lift them off the paper without having to emboss with foil or whatnot

Just heard from Brian Nisbet that Colin Smythe is after a copy of these as well - for his archives! :ugeek:

 

[michelanCello]

Wow... you're WANTED, Jan!

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Worth a book you don't have Jan. :whistle:

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Possibly... possibly... :whistle:

OK - have been beavering away with the Purist version of the caroc (no 9 or 10 cards and an extra court card for 12 in a suit) and now have the templates 'perfected' so here's a preview of the 2 suits I hadn't designed yet with the Lord (knight) card for the 'occult' side of the deck and their related 'steeds'

The Elephant suit

Turtles

Swords

Sceptres (Wands)

Octagrams

Cups (had to get Binky in there somewhere & Death is a Lord of the Underworld type :shifty: )

 

[michelanCello]

LUUURVE the DEATH one! They look amazing, Jan! :clap:

 

[SimStars13]

They are Stunning. Just, wow. O.O

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Glad you like them! Here's the turtles & dragons back design for these in the 'authentic' deck colourway

The adapted Stephen Player illustration back design can be used instead too

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

And finally the box design

For the hard of reading the blurb says - Designed by fans for other discerning fans to enjoy, this is the definitive playing set as described in Witches Abroad and other books featuring the notoriously devious Discworld deck. For Cripple Mr Onion and other dastardly games of chance on the a world where Fate must sometimes move aside for The Lady.

 

[michelanCello]

:clap: :clap: Love the colours, Jan!

 

[meerkat]

I can vouch for Jan's cards. They are amazing!

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

And then I got Turtle Recall (The Discworld Companion ... so far) ...

There will never be a 'perfect' CMO deck as per the best outlined description of the game (in Witches Abroad) Turtle Recall has a whole appendix devoted to the game which is based on the San Diego Maths faculty put on the internet in the 1990s - BUT...

1. it assumes a deck as used in famous Roundworld casinos (i.e. it has 13 cards per suit with 8 suits or two normal 4 suit decks used)
2. it mentions the 73 cards of the caroc which is supposed to be the equivalent of the tarot
a) even if you're playing with Roundworld cards without the 9 and the 10 cards (DW decks supposedly only have 8 number cards) 8 full suits will come to either 104 for a full deck or 88 for a reduced Caroc deck?
b) the tarot has 14 card minor arcana/suits - the usual number cards plus Jack, Queen and King and an extra court card called the Knight or Page (depending on what constitutes a Jack in your opinion )
3. Roundworld Tarot has an additional suit of 22 major arcana cards which were completely ignored in the San Diego trial game.

TR has now come up with an additional 13 card suit for the Caroc that equates to the Tarot's major arcana

Ace = The Ruler
2 = Temperance
3 = The Pool of the Night
4 = The Desert
5 = The Dome of the Sky
6 = The Witch
7 = The Watch Man
8 = The Wizard
9 = The Star
10 = The Mountain
J = The Fool
Q = The World
K = Death

These are an amalgam of real tarot cards (Ace,2,9-Q) and 'Discified' ones (3,4-8 & 10) or 'crossover' ones like Death (who is either major card 8 or 13 in the tarot, depending on what deck you have)

So - I'm keeping to the San Diego CMO suit AND to the Real Caroc we've got already but I'll also (eventually) do designs for these new ones, even though they don't actually sit too well with 8 suits of the caroc that Terry describes in WA... :shifty:

I mean... you don't want to actually PLAY the game properly do you?

 

[michelanCello]

's right anyways, it worked just fine in Birmingham, so why not use it like that? I guess there are a lot of variants to the game...

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Keep forgetting to do this... :shifty:

Here's some character card sketches that Cheery did in the other thread -

and from Jane too -

and the one that started us all off (also by Jane ) -

I'll get these mounted up on some templates so peeps can see what they look like and hopefully inpsire some more artwork for the character card side of this project

 

[Errata]

Wow! They are good! But I'm afraid I'll be to scared to show my work if I attempted it...

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Hey - we'd love to see your art and how you 'see' some of the Discworld characters Errata :clap:

I've got a basic card template for download in the 2nd post of this thread that's compatible to use with blank versions of the 2 deck templates (Roundworld Standard and Caroc decks) so if you're too shy to let us see your work you can still make your own personal and unique set - those come with the back designs but you can even apply your own for that if you like

 

[Square12]

Surely, different regions of the disc have varying rules and different decks, as on roundworld (Spanish suits are coins, staves, swords and cups for example and the most popular game (mus) relies on a heavily stripped deck)? This would explain the differences between a deck that meets the W.A. descriptions and those appearing in T.R.

P.s. love the artwork!