You can call me Jamie or Dreams. This is my Tumblr blog of randomness. Mostly Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Animorphs, Elder Scrolls, Steven Universe, and a few other fandoms.
You will need a deck of cards, preferably one with 5 suits and a joker - I used cards from one of my favorite card games, Five Crowns. (A great game in its own right!)
If you need to use a regular deck of cards, then grab a joker, and A-5 of all four suits, plus 9-K of one suit to make up your ‘fifth’ suit.
Regardless of what deck you use, decide beforehand what suits equal the Wicked Grace suits. Serpents < Daggers < Songs < Knights < Angels.
(It doesn’t really matter what each individual card equates to — suit is what is important. Still, I’ve posted the individual card names at the bottom, in case anyone wants to create their own custom deck somehow.)
Winning conditions
The game is over when the Angel of Death (joker) is drawn and discarded. *
Hands are ranked the by number of suited cards in your hand. Lowest to highest - no matches, one pair, two pair, three of a kind, full house, four of a kind, five of a kind
Suits are ranked lowest to highest - snakes, daggers, songs, knights, angels
When two hands are equal, e.g. full house, the person who has the most cards of the highest rank wins. Example 1: 2 knights + 3 daggers is a better hand than 2 daggers + 3 snakes, Example 2: 2 songs + 2 knights is a worse hand than 2 angels + 2 daggers, Example 3: Pair of Knights vs. Pair of Knights, compare other unmatched cards (kickers) to determine who has the highest ranked kicker(s).
* Thus it is not too terribly hard to cheat and pretend like you didn’t draw the Angel of Death, using it whenever you think you have the best hand. Or, you could be like Isabela, and just cold stack the deck, palm cards, draw two at a time, hide good cards about your person, etc…
Gameplay
Pick who shuffles/deals however you like. (Coin flip, winner or loser’s choice, age before beauty, etc.)
Shuffle, then deal 5 cards face down to each player.
Place the remainder of the deck on the table. Do NOT turn over the top card.
First player (non-dealer) draws one card from the deck, then discards one card face up onto the draw pile.
Players take turns drawing one card from the deck or the top of the discard pile.
When the Angel of Death card is drawn, the game ends immediately. Players will compare their hands.
The highest ranked hand wins.
General Tips & Hints
Only 5 cards are allowed in your hand at one time, except when you are preparing to discard. Any more than that is cheating ;)
You must play the Angel of Death card immediately upon drawing it, or announce if you are dealt it. Anything else is cheating ;)
Because of the ranked suits, it is a good idea to favor cards like knights and angels, but don’t discard a strong hand like four of a kind for it.
Cheating is a big part of the game, but do it at your own peril. No one wants to play Wicked Grace with an obvious cheater.
Card Names
Some are directly from DA:Origins. Others, I filled in myself to make up 5 of each suit (6 of Angels, since the Angel of Death is a special card.)
Here are some scientific facts about blood loss for all you psychopaths writers out there.
This is actually very nice. I like the soda bottles as reference. (I remember when I was writing ‘Wizards of Ceres’ how I had to do a similar soda-bottle conversion to try to work out how much blood Fai could drink from Kurogane without killing him.)
On the topic of vampires incidentally, this basically means that there is no reason why feeding from someone should necessitate killing them, unless the vamp can chug two soda bottles worth of liquid in one go or carelessly leaves the bottle open when they’re done
@fieldofclover thought this might come in handy for, you know, vampirey things
Ooh, I like this! The bottles as a reference makes it quite easy to picture mentally - especially since, having previously experienced just how much mess a litre-bottle spilt on the floor actually makes, it gives a better idea of volume etc.
Incidentally, as a frequent blood donor myself (thank you, haemochromatosis), and thus being more aware of the volume of blood donated at each session (the average appears to be 450ml, or 0.45 litres per blood bag filled) and needing to know how long it takes red blood cells and plasma to recover after donation–
about 24 hours for plasma, and up to 8 weeks for red blood cells themselves, which is why the average length between donations is 12 weeks, to ensure the body is well recovered by the next donation (which is also why I was so fucking tired after having to donate once a month for the first three months of my treatment)
– I ended up doing a bit of reading re: blood loss, but this really is the best imagery for it I’ve seen without bogging down into too much science stuff.
Other crucially important facts relevant to vampire porn I have learned:
yes, you can get an erection after donating blood, as the body generally maintains blood pressure equilibrium even if the volume of red blood cells per liquid ml is lower, though if you lose anything more than half a litre you’re probably gonna find it a bit difficult;
erythropoietin is a funky chemical involved in converting stem cells to red blood cells which your body produces when you need more of ‘em, so if we’re going with the standard ‘vampire saliva is an anticoagulant and narcotic stimulant, and/or induces arousal’ conceit, it probably makes sense that said saliva introduces a similar compound into the human blood stream in the post-feeding stage to encourage their food to recover quickly for a repeat feeding, usually while licking the wounds left behind;
your vamp is probably gonna have a really full belly if they try and drink more than the average 450ml or so in one sitting. Blood is quite a bit thicker than water or soft drink; it’s more like drinking a hearty broth or soup. Can you imagine attempting to chug a litre of pressurised soup as it squirts into your mouth with considerable force? No thanks!
tl;dr the science behind blood loss is fascinating, especially in a vampire context, and the government agencies monitoring my search history probably think I’m a serial killer
@audreycritter was it you who was looking this up for a fic last week?
I’m a slut for AUs and it’s literally in the title of the month. What can I say? I saw an AUpportunity and I took it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Celebrate August with a month of Miraculous AUs - any pair don’t care - we’re here to bask in coffeeshops and alternate timelines. They’re enemies, they’re neighbors, oh my god they’re roommates.
This calendar may be boring but AUs aren’t!
Tell your friends! Tell your co-workers! Tell your local barista!
because we’re about to get alternate universe up in this bitch.
