Using the Everway Fortune Deck with Wargames Campaigns

I collect roleplaying games and one of those I picked up many moons ago was "Everway" by Jonathan Tweet. The cool thing about this game was the "Fortune Deck" a set of 36 cards based - I understand - on the "Major Arcana" of Tarot cards.

The list of cards is shown below. I found this list online and have reproduced it here as I found it. Not sure what the "correspondences" are all  about. I haven't found a use for them yet.

The important bit for me, and the way I have used the deck in the past, all has to do with the card subject or theme and its meaning. I used to use the card deck itself, but when I started thinking about it again I found mine had gone astray. Then today I realized that since there were 36 cards I could easily use dice to get the same results I used to from drawing the cards. Not as pretty, but very functional.

What follows is a system for fleshing out various characteristics in a campaign. Have a look at the card list and the meaning of each card. And also the meaning of the card if "reversed".

The notes explain how it works.

The Everway Fortune Deck

D66	Card	Meaning/Reversed	Correspondences
1-1	Autumn	Plenty/Want	earth, Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn
1-2	The Cockatrice	Corruption/Recovery	earth and water
1-3	The Creator	Nurture/Abandonment	earth, water, the moon
1-4	Death	Change/Stasis	water
1-5	The Defender	Safety/Peril	air, fire, the sun
1-6	The Dragon	Cunning/Blind Fury	earth, air
2-1	Drowning in Armor	Protective Measures Turn Dangerous/ True Prudence	air (negative)
2-2	The Eagle	The Mind Prevails/Thoughtlessness	air
2-3	Fearing Shadows	Unnecessary Fear/Recognizing Safety	fire (negative)
2-4	Fertility	Growth/Decline	water and earth
2-5	The Fish	The Soul Prevails/Shallowness	water
2-6	The Fool	Freedom/Lack of Connection	the sun
3-1	The Griffin	Valour/Cowardice	fire and air
3-2	The Hermit	Wisdom/Isolation	Mercury
3-3	Inspiration	Creativity/Lack of Imagination	water and fire
3-4	The King	Authority/Tyranny	Jupiter
3-5	Knowledge	Truth/Falsehood	air
3-6	Law	Order/Treachery	air and earth
4-1	The Lion	The Body Prevails/Weakness	earth and fire
4-2	Nature	Life Energy/Energy Sapped	earth
4-3	Overlooking the Diamond	Missing Opportunity/Recognizing Opportunity	water (negative)
4-4	The Peasant	Simple Strength/Lack of Vision	Venus
4-5	The Phoenix	Rebirth/Destruction	water and fire
4-6	The Priestess	Understanding Mysteries/Impracticality	the moon
5-1	The Satyr	Indulgence/Moderation	fire and earth
5-2	The Smith	Productivity/Evil Effort	Mars
5-3	The Soldier	Duty/Blind Obedience	Saturn
5-4	Sowing Stones	Fruitless Labor/Ceasing Fruitless Labour	earth (negative)
5-5	Spring	New Growth/Stagnation	air, Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
5-6	Striking the Dragon's Tail	Underestimating the Challenge/Recognizing the Larger Problem	all four elements
6-1	Summer	Energy/Exhaustion	fire, Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
6-2	Trickery	Deceit/Subterfuge Revealed	fire and air
6-3	The Unicorn	Purity/Temptation	air and water
6-4	War	Great Effort/Effort Misspent	fire
6-5	Winter	Maturity/Inexperience	water, Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
6-6	The Usurper	At War/Civil War	conflict

Notes:

1)      The Usurper is my own interpretation for use in the campaign.

2)      D66 – Roll two six sided dice one after the other to determine the card result. Or roll two different coloured dice together, with one die as the “ones” and the other as the “tens”.

3)      Results cannot be duplicated for a given entity. Re-roll duplicate results.

4)      Each result can be either normal or “reversed”, giving an alternate meaning. Roll a third six sided die for each result: 1-3 = Normal 4-6 = Reversed.

5)      List source: http://www.highclearing.com/amberway2/fortunedeck2.html

6)      The Fortune Deck is used to establish the campaign background in very general terms. 

7)      All significant entities in the campaign should have a card result rolled for each of the following categories: Past, Present, Future, Virtue, Fault, and Fate.

8)      The Past, Present and Future results serve to describe the overall tone for each of those time periods for each entity.

9)      The Virtue and Fault results describe strong characteristics about the entity.

10)  The Fate result describes the end result for the entity in very general terms.

11)  Example:

Kingdom of Olokand

Past: 3-1 = The Griffin, Valour

Present: 4-2, reversed = Nature, Energy Sapped

Future: 2-6 = The Fool, Freedom

Virtue: 5-2 = The Smith, Productivity

Fault: 3-4, reversed = The King, Tyranny

Fate: 6-2 = Trickery, Deceit

Result: The Kingdom of Olokand has long stood as a bulwark against the forces of darkness. Its people are strong, brave and industrious but the long struggle has left the nation spent and the coffers empty. The current ruler is a ruthless tyrant who is squeezing the people dry. In the future a rival within his court will rebel and release the people from his oppression.