A deck about yourself

[DharmaDan]

I had this idea to turn my life into a LOTR card deck. I wanted to share it and maybe inspire somebody else to try the same thing!

I was thinking of getting back into playing LOTR during lockdown after many many years of my cards just sitting in a cupboard. Simultaneously I am exploring ways to bring meditation into education and encourage inquiry and self reflection.

So I thought I'd get creative and use LOTR cards as a means of self reflection.
I made a fellowship side based on my personal strengths and gifts, and a shadow side based on the things that hold me back in life. The site path is made up of events throughout my life.

If you had a group of friends who all did this, you could play against each other as yourselves, and you would feel your friends shadow side weigh against you. I imagine it could help develop empathy for how that person's personal struggles affect them to have the experience of having it played against you as a strategy.

The mechanics are essentially exactly the same, but I changed some of the wording. Here are the changes:

- Minions are Demons. Rather than being Orcs, Uruk-Hai etc, they are: thoughts, ailments, entities, memories etc
- Rather than skirmishing minions, you encounter demons.
- Rather than Strength, it's power.

-The ring bearer is the gift bearer, and rather than bearing the one ring, you bear a particular gift.

-Archery is foresight, and the keyword Archer is Pre-emptive.

Other than that, the mechanics are the same. The fun is in thinking about how your life would play out as a strategy that matches the mechanics of the game

Feel free to have a look! (the number of each card in the deck doesn't add up, I haven't got that far)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tfEft8y4-Kn6VEooLAjWD5yq2zRWHKFg7vfImFdLjY0/edit?usp=sharing

[menace64]

(In No Particular Order.)

•Beup, Bearer of Imagination
Companion • Man
Strength: 4
Vitality: 3
(R)esistance: 8
Gift-bound.
Each time you play a hope or a hope, you may add to draw a card.

•Bedown, Bearer of Criticality
Companion • Man
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
(R)esistance: 7
Gift-bound.
Each time you draw a hope or a hope, you may add and reveal it to heal a Gift-bound character.

Intrusive Thought
Event • Response
If the fellowship moves, reveal a Shadow card from your hand to reveal 2 cards at random from the Free Peoples player's hand. If either of those revealed cards is a Shadow card, exert a companion.

Lingering Demon
Demon • Entity
Power: 8
Vitality: 1
Site Number: 3
Twilight. Lurker.
While you can spot a burden, this demon can't be killed.

Unseen Shade
Demon • Entity
Power: 9
Vitality: 1
Site Number: 3
Twilight. Lurker.
While you can spot a burden, this demon can't be killed.
Regroup: Shuffle your Entity into your draw deck.

Despoiler of Dreams
Demon • Entity
Power: 13
Vitality: 1
Site Number: 3
Twilight. Fierce.
While you can spot a burden, this demon can't be killed.

•The One's Gift, Power of Insight
Resistance +3
Maneuver: Add a burden to utilize The One's Gift until the regroup phase.
While using The One's Gift, other companions are resistance -1, and each time the Gift-bearer is about to take a wound, add a burden instead.

•••Seer of Darkness [MX]
Ally • Home [MX] • Entity
Strength: 0
Vitality: 4
Cunning: 7
Immortal. (This character is immune to any effect which results in it entering the dead pile.)
Regroup: Exert Seer of Darkness twice and reconcile your hand to play a [MX] vehicle.
"The cluster of six cloaked bipeds raised their top-limbs towards the infinite-black heavens, all the sky of unstarry space rimmed along every horizon by the palest meanest crimson casting of hellfire light you could ever imagine. The bipeds were chanting while focusing intently on the core of their silent de-hued world."

A Study in Tragedy
Condition
Strength -1
To play, remove 3 hope cards in your discard pile from the game. Plays on a companion. Limit 1 per bearer.

Machinations of Time
Event • Shadow or Regroup
Hope.
Exert your Wizard to return up to 2 Free Peoples cards borne by a character to their owner's hand, then exert that companion for each Free Peoples card that companion yet bears.

Artist of Disaster
Minion • Man
Strength: 3
Vitality: 3
Site Number: 1
Tracker.
This minion is strength +2 for each card borne by each character involved in its encounter.

Infiltrator's Fate
Event • Response
If your tracker is about to take more than a single wound during a phase, remove each card in your hand from the game to exert three companions.

Coalition Charter
Condition • Support Area
Hope. To play, exert the Gift-bearer.
When you play this condition, stack the top 6 cards of your draw deck here.
For each card you play that is a copy of a card stacked here, replace any culture icons on that card with , or vice versa.

•Monster of the Infinite Abyss
Demon • Entity
Strength: 18
Vitality: 18
Site Number: 18
Enduring. Immortal. To play, spot no cards in an opponent's hand.
Each time a Free Peoples character dies during a skirmish involving Monster of the Infinite Abyss, it participates in an additional assignment and skirmish phase.

Totem-tether
Possession • Armor
Resistance +1
To play, spot a hope. Plays on a Free Peoples character.
Encounter: Return this possession to your hand to cancel an encounter involving bearer. A demon in this encounter may die to prevent this.

[DharmaDan]

That's fantastic!
Liked the concept of burdens resulting in demons being undestroyable.

Intrusive thought was a really clever mechanic too!
And monster of the infinite abyss