Notepad of Forgotten Ideas (New cards)

If you searched around my house, you would likely find a bunch of mini yellow notepads (from Staples, sold in, I think, packs of 10), stored away in odd places or just in piles one things waiting to be attended to.

I "found" one of these notepads. Found is a strong word for it was literally sitting in one of those aforementioned piles next to my nightstand in my bedroom. Most of the pages are gone and maybe half of those remaining are blank, including the top page, making this pad seem all the more innocuous.

When I flipped over that first blank sheet, there were motes for homebrew Guardians CCG cards that I may or may not have posted somewhere, anywhere, in the past, I don't know, ten years. I have no memory of writing these down, and dating from the 20-aughts is not out of the question. Possibly they were meant to be ".sigcards" on the mailing list or maybe an entry of their own. I've chosen to do the latter since it's a 30-year-old dead game without much of a following (but the following it has it definitely vocala and exuberant!).

So without further procrastination, and allowing me to tear off this page and toss it in the recycling, here are a bunch of ...

Random Homebrew Guardians CCG Cards

Note: It looks like I didn't add any Up numbers. But as there's no system to those, feel free to add any number you wish.

New World Order: Spell, You may replace an Event card in play with a different Event card from your hand. Changes take effect immediately. Costs 1 Stone to play.

Lingering Effects (or The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same): Spell, Play during the T & S phase. Event card in play stays in play for another turn. However, opponent may replace it with a new Event card at the beginning of the next turn.

Phantasmal Terrain (or Tectonic Shift or something else): Play at any time. You may swap any two terrain cards you control that do NOT have Shields on them.

(no name given): Play at any time. Replace a face-down terrain card you control with a different face-down card from your hand.

Morb Rule: Event, Up 1. All creatures illustrated by Brom have +3 Vitality until end of turn.

Yhettanothi: External, Vitality 14. +8 in Mountains. Unclassed/Cyclops, Large, Gold, CMP 0 Red bar.
Note: I belive Cyclops is unclassed, so this might be "counts as a Cyclops" should that ever matter for a future card.

Flight of Angels: Event. All Angels are +2 vitality. All Demons and Devils are -2 Vitality (but never below 0).

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And that's it. What do you think?

If anyne knows good artwork for any of these, maybe we can construct actual cards like I used to do. Then again, this might be a good use for all those AI bots that software (Bing, Adobe) want me to use!

What Could I Do With This Image? (Flying Whales)

I looked through some image prompts on reddit, which is where I got images for a bunch of the homebrew cards that I posted a few years back. And then I saw these flying whales.

 

The mind reels with what to do with them. I am NOT saying that I definitely will. One problem is that I can't find a source for this image, and Google isn't much of a help. Most of the links point back to reddit. And the oldest link was from 2015, and it didn't have any attribution either.

But how could I use "Flying Whales" or "Wall of Whales" on a card? Would it make sense for a creature that traveled though the Woods and Mountains? Maybe it could be the image for a Spell card?

If I made it a "Wall" rather than a "Pod" then maybe it would have a bonus against secondary attacks because it's a wall! Also, I'd think it'd need to have a Rivers & Lakes bonus because most of the time, it'll be out of its element. So make it stronger at home.

Any opinions?

Note: anyone is free to run with my idea, but again, I have no information about the artist.

Books That I Have Out

Greetings to everyone in the Mid-Realms and beyond!

It's been years since I updated this page, and I mostly blame the demands on my time, and the interest I see online.

As far as the first one goes, I've been writing more, I've tried to keep up with my math blog, which contains math exam discussions and my webcomic (x, why?), and work itself has picked up for me after several years as a glorified floating substitute teacher. (I've landing an actual position and inherited all the demands that go with it.)

As far as the second goes, I've seen recent interest online within the Guardians community, so I figured that I could update this blog once in a while. It exists to be a resource, and all the resources are here, but I think people don't want to interact with a blog if they think the creator has gone away. Note: If you leave a comment or question, I'll get an email, so I will get back to you.

On the writing front, you can check out my Writing Credits on my Author Page. But here are some highlights:

In 2020, I had my first book, In A Flash 2020 published by eSpec Books. One of the stories in there was called "Once Upon A Time", which I mentioned a long time ago in my entry on the Naiad, a homebrew card based on an image I found online. Side note: I don't know if I still have those files that I used to create the cards. I will say that I use MS Paint, so it was a difficult process.

In 2021, I had three more flash stories published in Devilish & Divine from eSpec Books. One of them got mentioned in Publishers Weekly, which instantly made my bucket list and then got crossed off as completed.

The following year, I finally managed to crack Daily Science Fiction but they folded before I could managed to sell a followup story.

I produced another book of flash fiction, but in the chaos of the past few years, it had to wait until its time was ready. Getting a little antsy, and trying to create a market for myself, I started publishing Burke's Lore Briefs, which would be mini books containing a few short stories, which were a part of Burke's Lore.

 

For the Guardians fans, "Burke's Lore Briefs" contains TWO bad puns, so I had to use it. However, as a result of self-publishing these books, my new book of fiction won't carry the banner of "Burke's Lore" -- unless I get ridiculously famous or something in the meantime. That's on me.

Anyway, if any one is interested, I added the Amazon links to my books with the images above.

And I'm pleased to announce that A Bucket Full of Moonlight is scheduled for release in August 2024. I can't wait.

So if any of my Guardians fans are avid science fiction and fantasy readers, please, check out my books.

New Card: Time Traveler (Seven Seas #27)

Years ago, many of my "sigcards" from the Yahoo Mailing List for Guardians CCG were incorporated into the fan-made expansion set Seven Seas. I have started to import my homebrew cards to this blog in case Phil, the Bar Fly's website ever goes away.

I'm sure I thought of the mechanic for mechanic for a card to disappear if it loses and, instead of going to your Creature Pen or Stronghold, it goes back into the Shield, but not until the Shield's next battle. This, of course, presents the possibility that the Shield will not have a future battle if it is destroyed. Deciding to call the creature with this ability a "Time Traveler" isn't much of a stretch of the imagination. Likewise, it seems like Wanderer is a better fit than Misc. Human or Wizard.

Time Traveler:  External, Vitality: 5, OCB: 1, Medim, Gold, Wanderer, CMP 0, Green bar. 
If Time Traveler loses his primary match-up, he disappears into the future and reappears the next time this Shield goes into combat.
If Shield is destroyed, Time Traveler is destroyed.
(Artwork: Mattingly, Text: C.J. Burke, Design: Cath)

A thought that hadn't occurred to me before, or if it did, occurred a Very Long Time Ago: You have the opportunity to reinforce your Shield before the Time Traveler returns. This could be a way to sneak an extra 5 points into a Shield. However, you have to be careful not to be over the Vitality limit at the end of the battle.

This is the last of the cards in in the proposed Seven Seas expansion, although there may be one or two others that are very similar to ones that I came up with. It could just be that different people came upon the same inspiration for a card name (particularly if it's a pun), or maybe like minds came up with the same new game mechanic. I know I had my own Gloop card, which was a tribute to Mike Ploog, except that mine actually affected cards with Ploog artwork, similar to Morb's Revenge.

After this, I'll likely start linking to more .sigcards, this time over at the Guardians page.

What's your opinion. Feel free to respond in the comments.

New Card: Wandering Serpent (Seven Seas #26)

Years ago, many of my "sigcards" from the Yahoo Mailing List for Guardians CCG were incorporated into the fan-made expansion set Seven Seas. I have started to import my homebrew cards to this blog in case Phil, the Bar Fly's website ever goes away.

I don't remember the origin of this card. I found the message from the mailing list on which it originally appeared. However, that was answering someone else's question about cards like Make Juice which create Power Stones. Before that was a discussion about the Non-existent Stiverin card. (Please note: It does NOT exist. You don't need to find one!)

It's a good ability but I couldn't tell you why I applied it to a dragon. The name doesn't ring any bells for me.

Wandering Serpent:  External, Vitality: 6, OCB: 0, Large, Flying, Beer, Dragon, CMP 0, red bar. 
Wandering Serpent gains primary opponent's terrain bonus instead of opponent.
(Artwork: Zug, Text: C.J. Burke, Design: Cath)

So if the opponent is +3 in Swamps, and the terrain is Swamps, then the Serpent gets the +3, not the opponent. This could backfire since a couple of cards (particularly the homebrew cards) have terrain penalties.

It's been a while, so offhand I couldn't say how unbalancing, if at all, a Vitality 6 dragon might be. I do like the artwork on this one.

What's your opinion. Feel free to respond in the comments.

New Card: Daffy Drake (Seven Seas #25)

Years ago, many of my "sigcards" from the Yahoo Mailing List for Guardians CCG were incorporated into the fan-made expansion set Seven Seas. I have started to import my homebrew cards to this blog in case Phil, the Bar Fly's website ever goes away.

For those who are unaware, a "drake" is a male duck. On the other hand, the word "drake" comes from draco and, in fantasy, can refer to dragons. So Daffy Drake is a dragon-ized variation of the more familiar Daffy Duck. Once you get past the pun, it's just a generic large, flying, channeling-receiver, with a five-point ranged attack.

Daffy Drake:  External, Vitality: 11, OCB: 0, Babes, Dragon, CMP 0, Green bar. 
5-pt. ranged attack
(Artwork: Sweet, Text: C.J. Burke, Design: Cath)

It's up to the player to decide whether to yell "Rabbit Season!" when playing, or "Woo Hoo! Woo Hoo! Woo Hoo! Woo Hoo!..." when winning a match-up.

If you think about it, Daffy should be immune to damage. But in that case, he shouldn't count for control of the space because he can't control anything any way. (Note: I'm joking. Both of those suggestions would really be unplayable.)

What's your opinion. Feel free to respond in the comments.

New Card: Nosferatu (Seven Seas #24)

Years ago, many of my "sigcards" from the Yahoo Mailing List for Guardians CCG were incorporated into the fan-made expansion set Seven Seas. I have started to import my homebrew cards to this blog in case Phil, the Bar Fly's website ever goes away.

I know that Undead are already over-powered, but this seems like a natural choice for a card. I'm sure the name came first before deciding just what sort of ability it should have. Removing creatures totally from combat, instead of only not allowing them to attack, was a different mechanic to play with. I don't know how well it would have worked.

Nosferatu: External, Vitality: 12, OCB: 0, Medium, Babes, Undead, CMP: 1, Green bar. 
Can only channel to vampires
Command: Choose a creature from your opponents combat hand (at random). Remove it and Nosferatu from combat this round. They don’t count towards the control of the space. Each one comes back to its shield at end of combat.
(Artwork: Beauvais, Text: C.J. Burke, Design: Cath) Note: Cath added a lot of bats...

I have to go through my original notes to see if I counted Nosferatu as a Vampire or not. It would make sense that it is, but it would also make the text box even longer.

If there's one thing wrong that sticks out is it your opponent only has one creature, then this is an automatic win for the Nosferatu holder. I'm not sure I like that.

What's your opinion. Feel free to respond in the comments.