Hither

Hither, also called the Elven game is a family of banking games originating in the Regime. The original versions of the game were played using the Eastern Deck, but variations exist for most known deck patterns.
In all versions of the game, the players are dealt two cards and try to get as close to a set total as they can. After viewing their cards, a player can take or refuse a third card, and sometimes more.
The two main variations are known as High Hither and At-No (Orcish for '9-zero'.)
In High Hither variations, considered the quintessential elven version, the target number is typically 21. Wild cards are discarded, all court cards are worth 10 and the ace/master is worth 11. By raising their stake, a player can buy any number of cards, but if the total exceeds 21, the hand is discarded and the player forfeits their bet. Further variations may allow the player to split a pair of cards of equal values and play each as part of a separate hand with its own stake.
At-no variations are often played with Orc Darochi decks, but a similar variation was developed by the Sea Elves using the Eastern Deck. In either case, the high suit or wild cards are not used, court cards are worth zero and the aces count as 1. The player can take or refuse a single additional card. In the earliest versions of at-no, if the total of the three cards exceeded 9, the player could discard one of the cards to leave a more favourable total. When the game spread to dwarvern communities, a common variation - now predominant - was to make use of the dwarvern place value system, count only the units and discard any tens.