The Decktet is a deck of cards with suits, ranks, and named images. It is structurally unlike ordinary poker and tarot decks, meaning that you can do different things with it.
Basic features
The basic Decktet is a deck of 36 cards. There are six different suits:
For each suit, there is an Ace and a Crown. Between them are other cards numbered 2 through 9. These each have two suits. For example, the Market is a rank 6 card with suits Wood and Knots. Suits are not repeated at a rank, so there are three cards of each numbered rank. For example, these are the 6s:
In earlier times, you could find a different version of the Decktet by travelling for a day in any direction. Just as every village had its own standards for measuring weight, length, and volume, every village had its own Decktet. Often the differences were only in which suits combined at which ranks, but there was no possibility not tried and advocated by some local gamesman or soothsayer. In the southern county of Buttermarch, for example, they had a deck with only seven ranks.
Local variation has given way to rational standards, and it would now be hard to find a public house without a copy of the basic Decktet. Yet there is still disagreement as to whether and how the deck should be extended. Some games are improved by adding the Excuse card. The four Pawn cards cannot be used in the game of Terrapin but are central to the game of Magnate. The four Court cards are a curiosity found in some lake country decks and may be used instead of Pawns. The Excuse is eschewed for fortune telling, but one savant calls the Pawn opposition between the Watchman and the Light Keeper the "most profound" in the whole Decktet. &c.
As long as people still shuffle and deal it, the Decktet is a living thing— and travellers should ask some questions before wagering on cards in the Buttermarch common house.
The extended Decktet
The extended deck adds cards to the 36-card basic deck. For most purposes, you can start with the basic deck. Set the extra cards aside when you shuffle, just like you would with the Jokers in an ordinary pack of cards. If you want to spice up a game, you can add in the Excuse, the Pawns, or both.
The Excuse has no suit and no rank. It is usually treated as a blank, inert card.
The Pawns are a new rank of card, between 9s and Crowns. There are four Pawns. Each one has three suits, with each suit appearing on two of the four Pawns.
The Courts introduce yet another rank of card, between Pawns and Crowns. Just as the Pawns, the Courts are four cards, each with three suits. The Court cards include the combinations of suits that don't appear on any basic deck card (like Moons and Wyrms) but none of the most common combinations (like Moons and Suns).
The Courts are the first expansion to the Decktet that is not freely available. Unlike the rest of the system, it wasn't released under a Creative Commons License.
- The official Decktet website has more stuff, including the whole deck available for download.
