Playing Cards – VoVatia (original) (raw)

Category Archives: Playing Cards

Madam Lucifer, You Never Looked So Sane

Something About Eve: A Comedy of Fig-Leaves, by James Branch Cabell – The books in this series that I’ve read so far are pretty formulaic, usually about a somewhat sleazy guy who philosophizes a lot without doing much of anything, … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, Authors, Board Games, Book Reviews, British, Catholicism, Chess, Christianity, Fairy Tales, Games, Greek Mythology, Hinduism, History, Humor, Korean, Magic, Mythology, Playing Cards, Religion, Rick Riordan, seanan mcguire, Wayward Children | Tagged ahasuerus, alexander the ratcatcher, biography of the life of manuel, demons, dinosaurs, dom manuel, fox snare, foxes, james branch cabell, kalki, king solomon, lucifer, madam lucifer, merlin, michael scot, mislaid in parts half-known, odysseus, peter of abano, poictesme, pope alexander vi, pope alexander viii, prometheus, richard garnett, rodrigo borgia, saints, salamanders, satan, something about eve, the bell of saint euschemon, the claw, the demon pope, the poison maid, the rewards of industry, the talisman, the twilight of the gods, thousand worlds, tigers, vampires, vishnu, yoon ha lee |

Zooming with the Wizard

To Oz? To Oz! is the second online Oz event I attended this year, the other being OzCon International. Originally, the International Wizard of Oz Club was going to hold its national convention in upstate New York this weekend, but that … Continue reading →

Posted in Atticus Gannaway, Characters, Games, L. Frank Baum, Music, Oz, Oz Authors, Places, Playing Cards, Plays, Ruth Plumly Thompson, Video | Tagged aaron adelman, anthony whitaker, colin ayres, dina schiff massachi, dorothy gale, eliza wren, garrett kilgore, gayelette, home from oz, international wizard of oz club, j. l. bell, jane albright, jessica south, joseph south, margolotte, nandywog, patchwork girl, pons maar, return to oz, ryan jay, sarah crotzer, sarah crozter, scott cummings, scraps, spirit of oz, strange tale of nursery folk, the purple prince of oz, the runaway shadows and other stories, the wiz, the wizard of oz (1939), the wonderful wizard of oz, to oz? to oz!, wheelers, zoe o'haillin-berne, zoom |

For You to Know and Me to Find Out

While looking up information on Martin Gardner earlier this year, I noticed that one of his Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American was about a game called Eleusis. While I can’t find his article, at least not in any format … Continue reading →

Posted in Games, Greek Mythology, Mystery Cults, Mythology, Playing Cards, Religion, Science | Tagged crazy eights, demeter, eleusinian mysteries, eleusis, eleusis express, john golden, mao, martin gardner, mau mau, robert abbott, scientific method, uno |

Nothing But a Pack of Cards

I’ve written before about the origin of playing cards, including Tarot decks containing trump cards, as well as why I take issue with the adjustable rules of fortune telling. While I don’t know of any evidence connecting Tarot decks with … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Characters, Chris Dulabone, Eric Shanower, Games, L. Frank Baum, Magic, Oz, Oz Authors, Playing Cards | Tagged arthur edward waite, david sexton, fortune telling, mark anthony masterson, pamela colman smith, prince pompadore in oz, rider-waite-smith tarot, tarot cards, tarot of marseilles, tarot of oz, the deadly desert around oz |

Mind Your Mana

I don’t recall when I first heard the term “mana,” but it’s present in a lot of video games, especially role-playing ones. I think I used to get it confused with manna, the stuff the Israelites ate in the desert. … Continue reading →

Posted in Dragon Quest, Etymology, Final Fantasy, Games, Language, Magic, Mana/Seiken Densetsu, Mythology, Pacific, Playing Cards, Video Games | Tagged dragon quest v, dungeon master, dungeons and dragons, ether, experience, final fantasy adventure, final fantasy ii, final fantasy vii, koichi ishii, larry niven, levels, magic: the gathering, mana, manna, melanesia, robert henry codrington, secret of mana |

Mythical Cards and Magical Crystals

Another game I played in my youth, this time somewhat later than many of the others, is a 1981 card game called Dragonmaster. Essentially, the gameplay was a lot like Hearts. Each player plays a card, and whoever has the … Continue reading →

What’s a Wumpus?

You might have heard of Hunt the Wumpus, a game originally programmed for BASIC by Gregory Yob in 1972 or 1973. It was a map-based game with the Wumpus hiding out in one of the spaces, and your job was … Continue reading →

Posted in Games, Playing Cards, Video Games | Tagged basic, catawampus, death march, gregory yob, hunt the wumpus, magic: the gathering, texas instruments, thomas baxa, wumpus |

You Know Uno, But Do You Know O’No?

I’m sure you’ve all played Uno, which is more or less Crazy Eights with extra cards that do such things as reverse play and skip a person’s turn. It was invented in 1971 by a barber in Ohio (I’d previously … Continue reading →

Cats in Black

An old game that I was interested in finding out about is the Black Cat Fortune Telling Game, which appears to have been first released in 1897. Part of the Victorian obsession with fortune-telling, this game consists of twenty-four cards, … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, England, Games, History, Playing Cards | Tagged black cat fortune telling game, black cats, cats, fortune telling, luck, superstition, witches |

Snapper Soup

There are several card games, primarily intended for kids, where the object is to capture all the cards in the deck. At least as far as I’m concerned, these games tend to start out fun but get tedious. One game … Continue reading →