Epic Level Deck of Many Things

Oh man dat's epic

The Epic Level Deck of Many Things, the cards spread out above the box, showing the text for 'learn the answer to any 3 questions' written on the top card, sitting on a white surface.

I had the idea to make this over a year ago, back in 2022 sometime. I mainly didn't create it at the time because I couldn't find a suitable golden-type deck that would fit an epic level deck of many things, and also saving money to move to England. After moving to England, I eventually found a golden coloured deck, however... the Book of Many Things was announced, which dejected me from this project a bit. That dejection quickly turned to excitement though, and my mind turned to that instead, keeping up with news of its release and all that fun stuff. Eventually eventually, that was released, and I quickly sought to create the ridiculous number of things that came with that (the card-related ones). Or at least I wanted to create a less expensive "can use at conventions and around that I'm not scared of losing a card from" playing card version. And so we set out to do that, and all of those links above. And then... my thoughts returned to that of the epic level deck.

This item needed to be finished. The deck of many more things existed yes, but so too did the deck of wonder, a low-level deck of many things. And that meant of course, we needed a high level deck of many things... an *epic* level. The project returned.

As I said, I came up with all of the items for this somewhere in mid 2022, around the time of the Tarot of Many Things. The golden deck I had found, and I had already decided to go with the style of the 0e Deck of Many Things, in that I would write the instructions for each directly on the card, rather than re-use or create new names. I somewhat based the descriptions on the regular domt, but that just stands to reason. In either case, let's mix old with new and write the descriptions on the cards. Also I preferred shorter descriptions, so this works.

First up, let's umm... finish writing these here, you can see from the first photo that lots of them were summarized to like 3 words lol. Let's flesh this out here. Same rules as always, you must declare how many cards you want to draw, the ones with *'s are only in the 22 card deck, have at it:

A♦ - *Learn the answer to any 3 questions
K♦ - Gain 100,000 experience, and gain 2 random magic items
Q♦ - Gain 1d5 wishes to be taken when you like
J♦ - 3 ability scores of your choice go up by 2
2♦ - *Defeat the next monster or group singlehandedly to gain 2 levels
A♥ - *You may avoid or erase 2 events from the past
K♥ - Gain a Demiplane and 1 random magic item
Q♥ - Gain 3 random magic items
J♥ - Summon 1D10 adult Red Dragons to fight by your side for 24 hours
2♥ - *Gain 250,000 gp, or 500 gems worth 500 gp each
A♣ - *All magic items and one of your limbs disappears
K♣ - Your soul is drawn into an object in another location, guarded by a group of enemies
Q♣ - An indestructible snail chases you forever. If it touches you, you permanently die
J♣ - Four Werewolves attack immediately
2♣ - *All your stats are reduced to 1
A♠ - *You appear in another location without your belongings, emtombed in a Prismatic Sphere
K♠ - All nonmagic items and 5 magic items vanish
Q♠ - You take a -3 penalty to all saving and ability throws
J♠ - All NPC allies turn against you
2♠ - *You and all creatures within 10 feet of you turn to stone, no saving throw
J  - *Lose 50,000 xp, and draw 3 more cards
J° - Gain 50,000 xp, or draw up to 3 more cards
The DM decides any of the intricacies related to the cards, which limb you lose, how erasing past events affects the world, how often and what you use or cast to enter your demiplane, all of that miscellanea. Prismatic Sphere as per Prismatic Wall, details here. Snail moves at snail pace lol.

Back to sanding the faces of cards! Oh man, this made me nervous, this deck cost me 10 quid lol.
*cue 2 hours later*
Aaaaand wow, I forgot how sore this made my fingers with the 0e deck lol.

But, we sanded all needed cards down, and the spare cards for test writing (which in themselves became a spare deck), and we fit all of our text onto all of the cards. And then we modified the box to fit the 22 cards, and using the method of planning the box cover on a post-it note, we re-wrote over that text *really* firmly while that was stuck to the box. After that we sanded around where the indenting was to make sure the sanded area was correctly sized (the method I used with the Deck of Wonder), inked in the indented text, and then flattened that out from the back after it had dried for a while. Actually not needed for the cards themselves, these ones were *ridiculously* easy to write on! And then we ended up having a layer of tape over the box to attach the sides, which were made using the center strip of further spare cards, to cover up the strips that were cut out when resizing the box. And that looks pretty cool, kinda gets the entire box to flow golden.

And with all of that, the Epic Level Deck of Many Things! A pack of dragons allies, gain multiple levels, lose all your magic items and a limb, it truly is epic. Remember, we have a Dennis (or sidequest to a scroll with the wish spell on it to be fair), though the snail meme... that one's permanent, so think it over before drawing.

Though to be fair, I'd as a DM allow that one to be reversed with a sidequest to the outer planes to talk to a deity, but depends on your DM of course.

In either case, the Epic Level Deck of Many Things!!!

Written mid 2022, built December 29, 2023




Of course you can draw, if you dare.

Did you want the 13 card version or the 22 card version? 		The initial looseleaf writing of the epic level deck of many things, half in pen and half in pencil yet, as the top half of them I'd come up with first, and the second half (in pencil) I'd come up with several days after.The deck of gold coloured bicycle cards, removed from the deck and spread out, with the ace of hearts showing, laying on top of the looseleaf description, on top of a cardboard surface.

The partially completed sanding process, with the five spade cards sanded to much lighter, the ace and two of diamonds, and the jack of diamonds is partially sanded on the cardboard work surface. A small pile of sanding dust is to the left of the cards.The fully completed sanding, with all necessary cards for the deck stretched out below, and a haphazard pile of number cards above for the test writing, beside a larger pile of sanding dust and the sandpaper piece.

The cards partially filled out, the red suits complete, with below the spare cards also being filled out, the box, the blank remaining cards, and Kabutroid's pen and clipboard with the looseleaf planning of the cards.The completed set of 22 cards, withe below the looseleaf card plans, completed spare card deck, and box, and the 10 of clubs where I was testing whether I wanted the card of four werewolves attack immediately on two lines or four. The version with two lines of two words each won out.

Half of the card box, already having the sides trimmed down, with the text written firmly onto it, with beside it the green post-it note with the same text that was used to arrange spacing, sitting on a brown paperboard surface.Kabutroid holding the box over cardboard, showing the side and bottom of the box with the middle strips of cards used to pattern the box sides.

The deck spread out, showing the ace of diamonds, learn the answer to any 3 questions on top, above the box labelled epic level deck of many things, all sitting on a white surface.