the deck of cards came from china.
the deck of cards came from china.
where did the deck of cards come from?
china
while playing cards were invented in china, chinese playing cards do not have a concept of face cards. when playing cards arrived in iran, the persians created the first face cards. in their ganjifeh decks, each suit had ten pip cards that are outranked by a mounted vizier and a seated king. cards were transmitted further west where mamluk egypt created a third court card. the best preserved deck is located in the topkapı palace. to avoid idolatry, the cards did not depict human faces and instead featured abstract designs or calligraphy for the "malik" (king), "nā'ib malik" (viceroy or deputy king) and "thānī nā'ib" (second or under-deputy). it is possible that the topkapı deck, a custom made luxury item used for display, does not represent the cards played by commoners. there are fragments of what may be mamluk court cards from cheaper decks showing human figures which may explain why seated kings and mounted men appear in both indo-persian and european cards. both mamluk and modern european decks include three face cards per suit, or twelve face cards in a deck of four suits.
face card
bullet::::- story cards come from a shared deck, and are the object of the game. players compete by placing "success tokens" on these story cards. once a player has placed 5 success tokens they win the story, earning the option to execute (or ignore) the effect written on it. once a player has 3 story cards they win the game. standard players use the 10 latest story cards, of which 3 randomly chosen are in play at any time. the nameless city is a special promotional story card that requires 10 success tokens but allows a player to win the game instantly. another promotional story card is named "the challenge from beyond" (after a story written in collaboration by h.p. lovecraft and four of his correspondents), and has the opposite effect: it cannot be won like a normal story, but players may draw extra cards by scoring "successes" at it.
call of cthulhu: the card game