Westerisk! Cards Part 5 of 4?

Urgh, this took far too long to make...and even now I'm not happy with it! Westerisk! is still something that's being ironed out by me and my friends, and so the rules are still in a state of flux as we figure out which effects are too overpowered or underpowered. Anyway, during a conversation with one of my friends (who has yet to play the game) over Xbox Live, he suggested that there should be cards to negate the effects of other cards. I had toyed with making "Spymaster" cards in the past, but I had several problems with this that ultimately led to me leaving them out...one, I couldn't find enough shields that could be recognisable as belonging to characters in the series who have been particularly clever (Varys, Littlefinger, etc). Two, I felt that tying a card to a character meant that the game lost the sort of timeless feel I was going for...when you play, you could be any random Lord from the history of one of Westeros' noble houses, not necessarily a character from the books or TV series. Three, I thought it kind of made the game too easy...Game of Thrones is brutal and cruel, and horrible things happen when you least expect it! Having the ability to negate an assassination card would be going against the spirit of the series! Plus, it seemed unnecessary given the sheer number of cards in play...with 102 territory cards and 30 special cards, it seemed unlikely that you'd have a scenario where people would be using assassination cards every turn. Eventually, after a lengthy mental debate, I concluded that by using the arms of House Blackfyre on a card, I was already vaguely tying the game to a specific point in time, and it also occurred to me that I could always make the cards and then leave them out of the final game, so I ended up using the personal arms of Brynden Rivers (Bloodraven, one of Aegon IV's Great Bastards), and making five such cards.

As for the other cards, I concluded after the conversation with my friend that I should at least try and make sure there was an equivalent for each card, so even if there wasn't a negate card, there could still be a card that would oppose another card in some way. Conveniently, most of the cards already paired off, but I wound up needing three new "Add Commander" cards. The first of these; "Kingsmoot", was a card that I'd actually almost put in an earlier draft, but I left it out in the end because I thought it was too exclusive to the Iron Islands (that, and I was toying with using it for a bonus trait that an Iron Islander player could have), but the other two were ones that I came up with after a lot of thought...I eventually decided that since I was using the arms of House Greyiron for the first card, I wanted to use the arms of two of the most prominent Extinct Great Houses of Westeros for the others. First, there's the Green Hand of House Gardener; the former ruling family of the Reach. Most of the noble houses of the Reach are related to this family in some way, so I figured that a "Distant Kin" card would work here (and it's sort of reminiscent of how the Karstarks are distant kin of the Starks)...it represents a scenario where another family rises to take over from a fallen family. Secondly, there's the Crown on Brown of House Mudd, the most memorable of the former ruling families of the Riverlands (well, the one we know the most about, and that's not saying much...the known ruling families were House Fisher, then House Justman, then House Mudd, then House Teague, then House Durrandon invaded, and then House Hoare took it from them and held it until House Targaryen showed up). Since the Riverlands apparently went through various ruling houses that might not have been connected by blood, I figured a card like this would also represent a scenario where another family took over from a fallen one.

At the end of all this, I had room for two more cards, which would mean I'd have 40 cards all up (10 Betrayal Cards, 10 Add/Kill Commander Cards, 10 Reinforce/Weaken Territory Cards, 5 Spymaster Cards, and 5 Special Cards). Since me and my friends still hadn't figured out a way to work dragons into the game properly (we'd agreed that a three-of-a-kind roll would give the attacking player a dragon, but we couldn't agree on whether the dragon should last for one turn or until the end of the game), I figured that this could solve this problem, and also add a new mechanic to the game. The way I'm picturing it, the "Dragon Egg" card adds a dragon egg piece that goes with a Commander Piece, and moves with him (or possibly moves to a stronghold). If that piece (or territory) is captured, then the egg passes to another player, and so on, and so forth...but it won't actually hatch unless a player has the "Death For Life" card! And as noted before, if this mechanic doesn't work, the cards can be taken out of the deck...although I don't think it'll be an issue...what are the odds that both cards will end up being played out of 142 cards? The idea is that it's a random scenario that COULD happen, but it's unlikely it will; just like the possibility of a White Walker invasion if a player rolls three ones...how often does that happen? Yes, yes, I know it CAN happen more than you expect; I read the Murderous Maths book on Probability years ago...but my point still stands!

I may actually adjust some cards a bit more after this, as there was a misprint on one of the old cards...I might change the Great Fire card image to one of a burning castle (since it's based off the Tragedy at Summerhall) and use the fire image from that on the "Death For Life" card. We'll see. That's also why the document is so huge and empty...it's scaled to print out on an A4 sheet of paper.

Shields from the Game Of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings II ( ck2agot.wordpress.com/ ) and also www.twcenter.net/forums/showth…!
A Song Of Ice and Fire copyright George R.R. Martin (and Game of Thrones to HBO)
Risk copyright Hasbro