Chapter 37: Rules Card – Neverlands Poker

Neverlands Poker

Inspiration

Kaiji, No Game No Life, Future Diary, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Yu-Gi-Oh!

Set-Up

Neverlandersimaginary or half-imaginary creatures such as Malice and Knights have a silly way of playing games. In a typical game with a Neverlander, they assign you a [Character Sheet], chase you around, and slowly devour your concept until you are just as imaginary as them! Humans'Humans' here refers to humans without divine powers; treat Divinity with the most applicable ruleset at any given moment. have a natural barrier to this sort of nonsense which prevents Neverlanders from assigning them a [Character Sheet]. Humans are rather serious creatures and tend to believe in the real and the practical. The strange and the magical wished for ways to communicate with Humans and devour them, inch by inch, but they could not touch the mundane. Quite the predicament!

Then, humans invented the first tarot deck, and a rather clever and devious Neverlander named The Bard devised a solution to their problem.

"Humans will not offer themselves freely," the Bard began, "and we have nothing of value to share with them. But humans will always gamble themselves for sport. They have assigned this game a sort of future magic and believe it to hold power. Why do we not grant their wish? Let us play games with the humans in their language, and they will make deals with us in this way."

The Bard created the [Carrow Deck], a blatant mockery of humanity's designs. It is a deck filled with blank cards designed to be colored by the user's imagination. Each [Minor Arcana] lacks a suit, a value, or any marking that tells you what kind of card it is. The person playing the card decides what the card represents. Then, the Narrative/Awareness SystemN/AS or N'as decides how much a card is worth. If you lack a Narrative/Awareness System, an Emissary of The World the game master for your party will suffice as an arbitrator. There are [Major Arcana] in a [Carrow Deck], but we will tackle those cards at a later date; remove them from your [Carrow Deck] before playing [Neverlands Poker].

How To Play

Each player is dealt five cards per hand, so there is room for error; as long as you do not fill all five cards with imaginary wagers, you may reconsider your bet and select other cards in your hand. You may play any number of cards for each round of chance. You may add or remove additional cards from the wager at any time before flipping these cards face up. You may also play cards face up or inverted if you so desire; the only limitation of Neverlands Poker is that you must play a [Minor Arcana] each round.

A round of Neverlands Poker is called when all cards in play are flipped face up. An opponent may concede a round by either taking one of their own face-up cards back into their hand during this timing or otherwise admitting defeat. If a party to the wager concedes a round, their opponent may attack them directly. Neverlanders are allowed to devour players who have conceded, and Humans are allowed to corrupt an oath belonging to the Neverlander who has conceded. If the Neverlander has already violated two oaths (and has consequently become an Oathbreaker), the Human is instead allowed to revert them to an Indolent state.Being devoured, becoming Indolent and Oathbreaking are outside the scope of this rulebook; thankfully, you are no longer playing Neverlands Poker! Good luck on your own, kid.

Conceding at any point in a game of Neverlands Poker is consequently a loss. The game does not end until either one party has conceded or a round has concluded, and both parties agree to leave the table peaceably.

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If a round ends with neither party conceding, then the Narrative/Awareness System judges the value of each wager in play and the kind of wager it is. The kinds of wagers are Pentacles (monetary value and services), Cups (relationships and memories), Wands (skills and artistic value), and Swords (knowledge and passion). Generally speaking, in the event of a tie, cards are often judged by their suits; the order in which the Narrative/Awareness System tends to value suits is not fixed as it prefers the most dramatic outcomes. In any case, the order in which the Narrative/Awareness System values kinds are typically as follows: Pentacles -> Swords -> Wands -> Cups.

The order in which the system values face values are as follows: Ace -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> 7 -> 8 -> 9 -> 10 -> Page -> Knight -> Queen -> King. The Narrative/Awareness System assigns these values based on their worth to the one wagering; a teddy bear that you have cared for since you were a child may well be worth a castle! Neverlander Skills do exist to craft illusions atop their wagers, but the System cannot be fooled; if you have used an illusion, the card's value is still the listed value, not the illusory value.

The winner of each round is determined by the Narrative/Awareness System or the Emissary of the World; this is usually determined through the simple addition of all card values in play and comparisons to other hands and their suits. Whichever player has the most points is determined to be the winner of that round! If the Narrative/Awareness System or the Emissary of the World feels the wagers are roughly even, it may choose to declare multiple winners instead of a single winner.

In the case of multiple winners, the Narrative/Awareness System determines the most equitable distribution of rewards based on the desires of those claiming the cards. This split will always feel fair, although it may be inconvenient-- splitting someone's heart played as a wager may result in each winner gaining a second heart every other day (and this may be difficult to adjust their lives around).

The Narrative/Awareness System will rarely kill a participant of Neverlands Poker; if they would be killed by a gamble they have made, the Narrative/Awareness System will make them into a Neverlander instead. Some Humans may consider this fate to be a fate worse than death.

So what's the optimal strategy to play Neverlands Poker? First: don't. Second: try not to wager the highest value of cards blindly. Your opponent may decide to wager cards that are negative for your wellbeing; everything they are and everything they own is up for grabs, including their student debt and the tumor in their brain. So, bet accordingly to what you think your opponent will bet; high if you think they'll bet high, low if you think they're betting something terrible. Each game you lose will wear away at your [Plot Armor] if you have it. If you're Human, try to hang on long enough that any Neverlander players drop out from a lack of [Plot Armor] or all other parties have conceded. Between rounds, attempt to convince the Neverlander that the game is over and hope for the best.

Now you know how to play [Neverlands Poker]! Please enjoy responsibly!

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