Custom Munchkin Treasure Cards

Last time I introduced you to some door cards I designed for the RPG-spoofing card game, Munchkin.[1] The game is similar to D&D in that you're walking around a dungeon, kicking open doors (e.g. the door cards I designed in my last post) and confronting whatever's inside the next room—monsters, curses, or character cards. But there's another pile of cards—the treasure cards. In most cases you earn treasure cards by defeating monsters. The more powerful the monster(s), the more treasures it's carrying. Treasure cards can be weapons, powerups, enhancers, etc. Here are the ones I designed:

Next is a treasure card featuring a weapon: a Dragon Lance. This is an allusion to the prolific sword-and-sorcery fantasy series/role playing game, Dragonlance.[2] Since I haven't any experience with Dragonlance, I can't allude to anything more than the title. Well, and making it worth 200 gold coins alludes to the fact that there are around 200 published Dragonlance novels.

Here we have a treasure card called Oscillococcinum. In the real world "oscillococcinum" is a homeopathic alternative medicine frequently sold over the counter at grocery store pharmacies. According to the bottle, the active ingredient is "Anas Barbariae Hepatis et Cordis Extractum". That's Latin for "extract of the heart and liver of a Muscovy Duck (Cairina moschata)".[3] But the "extract" part is where they make all their money. The preparators of oscillococcinum take the heart and liver and dilute them two hundred times using the Korsakovian method [4], with each step representing a 1:100 dilution. That means the final preparation is diluted

1:10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
     000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
     000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
     000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
     000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
     000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
     000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
     000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
     000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!

Put another way, that's 1:10⁴⁰⁰ (which is bigger than a googol). What that really boils down to is that there isn't really any Muscovy Duck liver or heart in oscillococcinum.[5] That's why the duck in the blender on the card is drawn with dotted lines—it's not really there! But it's still powerful stuff. The makers of oscillococcinum claim that even though there isn't any Muscovy Duck left in the preparation, the water "remembers" the properties of the duck heart and liver and thus still confers healing properties. Which is why this card deflects the most onerous curse of all, the Duck of Doom!

The allusion is specifically, of course, to the Harry Potter series, but generally to all the sci-fi and fantasy material that involves a Chosen One of some sort or another.

This one comes to us from the action-adventure game series, The Legend of Zelda, via a Christmas present given to me a few years ago [6] by my friend and former roommate, Markham. In the game, you (the player) control a character named Link. In most of the games he is on a quest to rescue the Princess Zelda from the villain, Ganondorf. If Link encounters a fairy during the game, he can capture it in a bottle and it will heal his injuries or revive him if he loses all his hearts.[7]

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. I don't know if Charlie Sheen's rise was notable, but his fall has been meteoric. The man has serious issues. On one occasion he claimed to have tiger blood and Adonis DNA (hence the card). He also claimed to be a warlock (which is why the card can only be used by male wizards). And he demanded that CBS pay him $3 million for every episode of Two and a Half Men that he appeared in (which is why the card is worth 300 gold pieces).[8]

The writing is Quenya, written with the font Tengwar Annatar.[9] I chose this font because it has an italic font that looks a lot like the One Ring script.[10] The font has a specific but unusual encoding. If you don't want to figure it out for yourself, there is software that will automatically convert Quenya written with a roman script into the Tengwar.[11] For the actual inscription, I wanted it to have the Munchkin tagline: Kill the Monsters! Steal the Treasure! Stab your Buddy! Here are the best translations [12] I could manage:

• Kill the Monsters!: á nahta i úvanimor ("slay the monsters!"; encoded as ~C 5#d1E `B ~MyE5%t^6Á)
• Steal the Treasure!: á mapa i harwë ("seize the treasure!"; encoded as ~C t#qE `B 9D6nRÁ)
• Stab your Buddy!: á nasta meldotya ("sting thy friend!"; encoded as ~C 5#81E t$mY1ÍEÁ) [13]

Is it just me or is there an optical illusion that makes the card look like it's tipping to the right?

I put a monkey face looking back out of the mirror at you, but the mirror was already so small that I didn't think it looked very good. So I also made one with just the mirror. I'll let you decide which one you like best/want.

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Notes:

[1] See my post Custom Munchkin Door Cards.

[2] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance.

[3] When used in for culinary or medicinal purposes, it's called a Barbary Duck instead of a Muscovy Duck.

[4] This entails adding water to a vessel, shaking it vigorously, and then emptying it. It is assumed that 1% of that solution remains in the vessel when you add water again for the next step in the dilution series. This is also called "succussing".

[5] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillococcinum#Preparation.

[6] See my post Christmas Day.

[7] See http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Fairy.

[8] All of his claims can be read here.

[9] You can download the font Tengwar Annatar for free at http://home.student.uu.se/jowi4905/fonts/annatar.html.

[10] There is already a Munchkin card with Tengwar on it. The card is called "The Other Ring" and features a ring with the words "Made in Taiwan" written on it. See http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/68246/.

[11] See http://tengwar.art.pl/tengwar/ott/start.php?l=en) Note that there are different 'modes' for writing different languages with the Tengwar. Several of these other modes are also available from this converter.

[12] You can find a Quenya vocabulary list at http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/wordlists.htm. The Quenya vocabulary list is limited, so fans of Tolkien have constructed a 'post-Tolkien vocabulary list' at http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/ppq.htm).

[13] I also considered á erca meldotya ("prick thy friend!"; encoded as ~C `V6aE t$mY1ÍEÁ). But I decided I liked the way the other translation looked better.

Image attributions:

The images contained herein are my own creations. However, they are based on materials produced by Steve Jackson Games which are Copyright © 2012 by Steve Jackson Games. All Rights Reserved. My derivative works are not intended as copyright violations in any way. They are simply suggestions for cards that can be used to supplement the Munchkin card game. By themselves they are insufficient and require the purchase of the original Munchkin game (which I encourage you to do). All other copyrighted materials referenced in this post are used in a parodic manner and thus do not constitute a violation of the rights of the respective copyright holders.