by Peter Chiykowski
Read Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, and Volume 6
Welcome back to the Lore Master's Deck Development Blog! Today, we're moving beyond the main deck and turning our attention to the Master of Names: Namesakes Expansion!
As you might expect, the Namesakes Expansion is inspired by the Namesake card type from Deck of Worlds, which we released at the end of 2022. Namesakes are actually my favourite card type in Deck of Worlds. They provide some short text-based cues that you can combine with a Region or Landmark card to create an instantly-evocative nickname that feels like it originates within the lore of your world.
Screenshot from the Deck of Worlds Guidebook.
I find these Namesake cards achieve an almost alchemical reaction when people use them. Like magic, suddenly you're not just creating a boring "tower" or "swamp." You're creating "The First Tower" or the "The Swamp Where No Bird Sings." Your creative brain is waking up to ask questions about where these names come from and imagine interesting answers!
Namesakes as a dedicated card type didn't fit in the main Lore Master's Deck (although a few secondary cues do introduce nicknames and epithets). However, I saw some amazing opportunities to adapt Namesakes into an expansion. My original plan was to create 60 Namesake cards that would work like Modifier cards, except they'd provide fragments of nicknames that could be paired with primary lore cards as in Deck of Worlds. Here are some examples of these cards from the Namesakes Expansion booklet:
Namesakes as a dedicated card type didn't fit in the main Lore Master's Deck (although a few secondary cues do introduce nicknames and epithets). However, I saw some amazing opportunities to adapt Namesakes into an expansion. My original plan was to create 60 Namesake cards that would work like Modifier cards, except they'd provide fragments of nicknames that could be paired with primary lore cards as in Deck of Worlds. Here are some examples of these cards from the Namesakes Expansion booklet:
Screenshot from the Namesakes Expansion Guidebook.
Screenshot from the Namesakes Expansion Guidebook.
However, translating Namesake cards from Deck of Worlds to Lore Master's Deck introduced some challenges and opportunities that had me rethinking how to construct the set:
- Compared to creating Namesakes for just geographical features as in Deck of Worlds, it's hard to find name fragments that work universally with the 7 primary lore card types: Factions, Figures, Events, Locations, Objects, Materials, and Creatures.
- Lore Master's Deck offers a unique opportunity to construct nicknames that combine two card types, but this would be hard to achieve using just the original Namesake card format.
- A full expansion of 60 Namesake cards would outnumber the 48 Modifier cards in Lore Master's Deck. Too many Namesake draws might lead to the card type being less special and featuring too prominently in lore webs.
So during the alpha playtesting, we made some adjustments:
- We went from 60 to 32 Namesake cards to better balance the draw ratios and focus on the very best universal cues.
- We also converted the Namesake cards into specialized Modifier cards instead of treating them as a separate card type with its own set of rules. You can just shuffle them in with your other Modifiers and you don't need to learn any new mechanics.
- We added 28 specially formatted lore cards to the expansion (4 each of Factions, Figures, Events, Locations, Objects, Materials, and Creatures).
This third change was the biggest one, and it's where the math comes in. This one change let us do so much more with the expansion than the alpha version was achieving. The 28 new lore cards in the Namesakes Expansion feature a primary side with cues that combine with other primary lore cards to create a new named lore element in your world.
This format essentially turns every other lore card in the entire deck system into a potential namesake for another lore element. In other words, those 28 lore cards enable 252 additional cards to act like a Namesake card would, adding tens of thousands of interesting combinations and exponentially increasing the reusability of the expansion!
Here's an example from the booklet featuring a Figure named after a cue chosen from a Location card in the main deck. In the lore of this setting, this character is known by the epithet "The Voice of the Mountain."
This format essentially turns every other lore card in the entire deck system into a potential namesake for another lore element. In other words, those 28 lore cards enable 252 additional cards to act like a Namesake card would, adding tens of thousands of interesting combinations and exponentially increasing the reusability of the expansion!
Here's an example from the booklet featuring a Figure named after a cue chosen from a Location card in the main deck. In the lore of this setting, this character is known by the epithet "The Voice of the Mountain."
Screenshot from the Namesakes Expansion Guidebook.
The primary cues in the Namesakes Expansion feature words we curated to work well with a wide variety of random card draws from specific card types. The cues we ended up with include a mix of new words and some primary cues from the main deck that take on interesting new meanings and resonances when paired with other cards.
The secondary side of the lore cards from this expansion feature a variety of cues, including additional nicknames that are specific to that card type. In the same way the original Namesake cards from Deck of Worlds work well because they're focused on geography, these cues work well because they delve into the specific quirks of the different kinds of cards.
Check out the replay of the Namesakes beta release livestream to see what the deck looks like in action, or pick up the Namesakes PDFs to get instant access to the expansion!
The secondary side of the lore cards from this expansion feature a variety of cues, including additional nicknames that are specific to that card type. In the same way the original Namesake cards from Deck of Worlds work well because they're focused on geography, these cues work well because they delve into the specific quirks of the different kinds of cards.
Check out the replay of the Namesakes beta release livestream to see what the deck looks like in action, or pick up the Namesakes PDFs to get instant access to the expansion!