Piktas
Piktas is a Northern Lepidosian card game. Based on an elementalist system of belief predating both the Occult Fraternity and Lepi Monotheism, the art and some of the cartomantic flavoring surrounding Piktas has nevertheless persisted into the present day. The game has since spread to the Execution Hill Launch Complex and, by extension, throughout the Cobalt Protectorate wherever citizens of Lepidosian descent may be found.
Execution
The deck is shuffled and a dealer is assigned. The dealer starts a round of piktas by dealing a hand of six face down cards to each player. Three cards are then dealt face up into the center of the table as the 'field.' Starting with the player to the dealer's left and proceeding around the table in a clockwise fashion, each player chooses either to pass his or her turn to the next player or take one card from the field and replace it with one (1) from his or her own hand. Once every player has had a chance to swap or abstain in this manner once, the dealer then deals another card into the field and the cycle of passing or swapping repeats. This process continues until there are six cards in the field, at which point each player in succession shows his or her hands. After each round, all cards are shuffled back into the deck and the role of dealer passes to the player on the current dealer's left.
When a player shows his or her hand, it is treated as though it is 'pooled' with the cards in the field for the purpose of determining that player's score. As shown in the list below, scoring may be based on the number of cards with matching suit, when six or more cards are found to be in sequential order with regards to value, when six or more cards are found to belong to the same suit, or when two or more cards match in value.
Trump cards are special because they have two suits for the purpose of determining 'Suit Runs' and may take the next value above or below other cards with which they share a suit for the purpose of determining a 'Value Sequence' or 'True Sequence' (see below). If two sets of consecutive value cards in different suits would not otherwise not have enough cards in them to constitute a value sequence, but the player has a trump card that occupies both suits, then the trump can be used to 'knit' the two sets together to add up to the number of cards required to constitute a Mixed Sequence, even if the two sets of cards are not consecutive with eachother; more than one trump card can be used in this manner to knit together a Multi-Mixed Sequence, and any trump cards used in this fashion count twice for the purpose of determining length. Also, if a trump card could count towards more than one such scoring unit, then it does so and is counted amongst all of them; in this manner, a trump card may count more than once towards a player's score. Trump cards are considered a 'Duo' only if they share both suits in common.
Void cards are special because they serve to prevent another card from being exchanged. If a void card is dealt into the field, then the dealer immediately deals another card and places it under the void card. On his or her turn, a player can place a void card in his or her hand onto the field atop any card that isn't already covered with a void card; that player's hand is subsequently reduced in size for the remainder of the round, as the void card is not replaced with another from the field. In either case, a card in the field with a void card under it cannot be exchanged during a player's turn, though it may still contribute to scoring (see below). A void card itself has no value or suit and, thus, does not itself contribute to scoring.
True Sequence: Consecutive run of six or more cards with ascending values in the same suit. Add twice the number of consecutive cards together, then the value of the highest card in that run. Remember that trumps at the top and bottom are treated as the next highest and lowest value respectively and can count for more than one run.
Example: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, T = 22
Value Sequence: Consecutive run of six or more cards with ascending values in different suits. Add the number of consecutive cards together, then the value of the highest card in that run. Remember that trumps at the top and bottom are treated as the next highest and lowest value respectively and can count for more than one run.
Example: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, T = 18
Mixed/Multi-Mixed Sequence: Two or more sets of cards with ascending values in any suits combined into a super-set of at least six cards through the presence of a trump card in the set that shares both suits. Add the number of consecutive cards together, then the value of the highest card amongst both sets. Count trump cards twice for the purpose of run length as normal. Remember that trumps are counted as the next highest or lowest value of a consecutive run with which they share a suit and can count for more than one run.
Example: 4, 5, 6, T, 1, 2, T, 9, 10 = 21
Suit Run: Run of six or more cards with any values all within the same suit. Add the number of cards together.
Example: T, 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 10 = 8
Quintet: Five cards of a matching value. Add five.
Example: 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 = 5
Quartet: Four cards of a matching value. Add four.
Example: 7, 7, 7, 7 = 4
Trio: Three cards of a matching value. Add three.
Example: 7, 7, 7 = 3
Duo: Two cards of a matching value. Add two. If the Duo is comprised of trump cards, add another two. Void cards don't have a value and, as such, aren't considered a Duo even if both in play.
Example: 7, 7 = 2
Full Hand: If all cards in a player's hands are accounted for in at least one scoring unit, then add two.
Example: 4, 5, 6, T, 1, 2, T, 9, 10 | 7, 7, 7 = 26
Scoring
The winner of a round of piktas is the player with the highest score. The scoring value of a given player's pool is the sum of the score provided by each scoring element within it. In the event of a scoring tie, the player with the highest value scoring unit wins, then the player with the higest value score in a scoring unit, then the player with the highest value card overall. With the exception of trumps and 'Full Hands', each kind of element is counted only once, and it falls to each player to arrange the cards in the pool into the scoring elements which will net him or her the most points. These are:Win Conditions
For casual play, each player's score is marked down and summed at the end of the game to see who won. For gambling, each player must 'buy in' by placing bets in the center of the table at the outset of the game. Before hands are revealed, another round of betting occurs in which each player may choose to raise the bet, match the bet of the preceeding opponent still in play, fold (stay regardless of previous raises but immediately forfeit the game), or, if no prior player has raised in this cylce of betting, stay (place no further bets). Once turn order has gone all the way around the table at least once with no further raises, the cards are revealed and scores tallied as normal to determine who wins the betting pool.Components and tools
A piktas deck is comprised of 72 cards, each a square with rounded corners roughly three inches on a side. These include:
Values 1-10 pip cards in the Stone (O) suit. These are usually stylized as dark red triangles, representing the mountains, though they are sometimes stylized with skulls, as stone/earth was once associated with death.
Values 1-10 pip cards in the Water (W) suit. These are usually stylized as dark blue circles, ovoids, or droplets in both modern and historical interpretations. Water was considered to be associated with life and the vital force across all known eras of Lepidosian culture.
Values 1-10 pip cards in the Sky (K) suit. These are usually stylized as dark green papyrus stems, representing the visible flow of the breeze through plant fronts, though they are sometimes stylized as purple lightning bolts for the air's association with thunder and electricity.
Values 1-10 pip cards in the Sun (U) suit. These are usually stylized with orange sunbursts, though they are sometime stylized with flames instead for the sun's association with fire and heat.
Values 1-10 pip cards in the Moon (M) suit. These are usually stylized wtih light blue crescents in both modern and historical interpretations, though some historical stylizations showed snowflakes for the moon's association with cold.
20 Trumps (T), 2 for each pair of suits. These are usually decorated with animals historically associated with the blendings of the various primal elements represented in the pips. These are the raven and sagebrush (sky/sun), bat and beetle (sky/moon), lizard and serpent (sun/stone), rabbit/coyote (moon and stone), reeds and man (water/sun), lily and woman (water/moon), tree and grain (water/earth), goose and toad (water/sky), eagle and bee (sky/stone), and jackal and mountain lion (sun/moon).
2 Void (V) cards. These are typically stylized as a black field featuring one or more white four-pointed stars, though modern sets tend more often to depict star fields or even nebulae.
Traditional piktas decks are kept in clasped, sometimes ornately carved wooden boxes. Modern mass-production decks are instead kept in cardboard sleeves to save on weight and expense. Those meant for use aboard spacecraft will often feature borders made of ferromagnetic wire or hook-and-loop material so that they can be adhered to a playing surface in micro-gravity.
Traditional piktas decks are kept in clasped, sometimes ornately carved wooden boxes. Modern mass-production decks are instead kept in cardboard sleeves to save on weight and expense. Those meant for use aboard spacecraft will often feature borders made of ferromagnetic wire or hook-and-loop material so that they can be adhered to a playing surface in micro-gravity.
Observance
The active camouflage diodes beneath the surface of the Nautilus helmet flashed in dark shades of blue, violet, and gold, displaying part of Enzo's suit heraldry - the stylized raven, cunning and swift, as it would appear as a trump card in a piktas deck. His heraldry had always depicted a raven, as appropriate his line of work, but the change in style was meant to honor the family of his bride. Enzo could never have asked Midori's father for her hand in person, of course, the distances in space being what they are, but it was important to Enzo to heap glory on the family name regardless.Piktas is popular across cultures within the Protectorate sphere of influence in spite of the fact that not all worlds where human or human-adjacent species reside are inhabited by the animals depicted on the cards. Different cultures have different interpretations of the symbology inherent in the cards, but Lepidosians - and the rare players from Karst - recognize in piktas a focus on themes that relate to the realities of desert living. Piktas is unusual among non-trading card games in that it offers a heigtened degree of strategy in the form of card swaps and the employment of void cards. Games that are manifestly primarily driven by chance are not just considered less fun among spacers, but they are actually erosive to crew morale; in a hostile environment, surrounded by radiation, vacuum, and potentially alien species with unexpected motives, spacers appreciate anything that provides a semblance of control over the whims of unfeeling fate. At the same time, piktas features just enough surprise through its randomness that skilled players aren't guaranteed to win out over less skilled players every time and gambling - often hand-written 'passes' on distasteful shipkeeping duties - is still possible. Piktas is also a game that can be played without the use of computers, electrical power, or any external equipment, making it a popular past-time for when these tools aren't available. Despite its wide-spread adoption and the existance of several regional variants, piktas is still regarded as an element of collective Northern Lepidosian identity. Mythological concepts which only survived in the form of piktas from before the rise of the Occult Fraternity have since found a place in the Raikepist cosmology in the form of lesser spirits. This latter syncretism is where the occasional association between the Stone suit and death came from, as followers of Raikep (a water god) associate the dry soil of the Great Ilmenite Desert with the 'negative space' between oases and rivers of life-giving water. Some players of piktas are considered weakened because their cultural superstitions around the 1 of Water and 10 of Stone drive them to not want to include these cards in a run unless that end of the run is capped off with a trump card; this tendency most common among smaller city-states, like Stone River Hollows, where, historically, even a single season of drought could spell disaster.
9 of Sky by BCGR_Wurth
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Piktas Variants
As piktas decks are increasingly common across Protectorate-controlled space and their iconography has become somewhat detatched from it original mystic and religious connotations, the boundless creativity of interstellar culture has given rise to a perfusion of piktas card game variants. Though residents of the Sealed Kingdoms Region would have no concept of them, some notable examples include Go Fish, spades, and rummy equivalents wherein players compete to make the highest scoring sets of cards on the open table and/or empty their hands before their opponents can. Others use the trump cards as 'creatures' for the purpose of 'battle' games, wherein players attempt to craft hands to 'buff' their own trump card and 'debuff' that of their opponent. Yet others rely on attempting to reach a specific number without going over, in the manner of black jack, though again this connection would be unfamiliar to residents of the Sealed Kingdoms. Even when the overall structure of piktas remains unchanged, different city-states within the League may have regional variants. Some places remove the void cards entirely, or, conversely, allow them to be treated as 'wild' cards that can be any suit or value as required by the player. Other places remove the rule that trump cards are counted twice, requiring the player to designate which run a trump card belongs to before moving on to scoring. Still others simplify scoring by only taking into account the highest scoring unit present on the board. Moreover, while piktas is traditionally playable with up to six players, the appetite for a large play group varies from place to place; casinos, especially, often limit tables to three or four outside players and a house dealer. The largest possible play group, given the configuration of the deck and on the assumption that the voids might wind up being dealt directly into the field, is eleven players.
10 of Sun by BCGR_Wurth
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