The Marvellous
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"They say that once every nine years there's a card game where you can gamble your soul and win your heart's desire. That sounds like tremendous fun."[1]
The Marvellous is an esoteric, high-stakes card game, held at rare intervals and played by a select few who seek to claim their heart’s desire.
Structure[edit]
"'First,' Pages says, 'you must understand that the Marvellous is not a single game. What a disappointment that would be! No, it is a tournament – a series of contests in which two players face one another. One is knocked from the running; the other advances.'"[2]
The Marvellous is played only at precise celestial alignments, determined by planetary conjunctions.[3] However, if all players agree, the game may begin at any time.[4]
The tournament opens with the Honour, a round in which all players compete simultaneously. The outcome determines the order of eliminations, the pairings for subsequent rounds, and grants the winner a free pass into the second round.[5]
After the Honour, the tournament progresses through head-to-head matches: the first player eliminated faces the second eliminated, and so forth. Each match ends with the winner advancing and the loser leaving the game. This continues until only two players remain.[5] They face off in a final, decisive hand at the heart of the Bazaar.[6] The victor receives their heart’s desire, though it can only be granted to the best of the Masters' abilities.[7]
Rules[edit]
"In the end, your head is full of rules, rulings, conventions, revisions and variations. How on earth are you meant to translate this gibberish into a winning strategy?"[8]
The Marvellous is played in a series of hands, and follows a structure reminiscent of poker.[9] The deck consists of four Suits (Cats, Rats, Bats, and Hats) and distinctive face cards known as Trumps (Jacks, Queens, and Kings). Each face card has unique artwork depicting a different being: for instance, the Jack of Cats is a tiger, while the King of Bats is a Master.[10] The Marvellous also incorporates a river; shared cards are revealed gradually, allowing players to build their hands from both their own cards and the river.[11]
Each player begins with a stake of 77 First City coins, gathered personally. They ante 7 coins to enter a hand and are dealt five cards. Players can call (match the current bet), raise (double the bet), or fold (forfeit the hand and their stake in it).[12] If a player raises, their opponent must match, raise further, or fold. Once bets are equal, players may discard and redraw cards — up to one more than they discarded — before continuing. The hand progresses to a showdown, where the highest-ranking hand claims the stake.[13] A player at the table is assigned to keep track of raises and fold order, and there is a time limit on each round to discourage players from dallying.[14]
A player is eliminated when they lose all their coins. At that moment, they face a choice: leave the game in defeat or wager a Chance. This could be wealth and property,[15] or something more abstract, like one's sanity, destiny, or even humanity.[16] A winning opponent can refuse a Chance wager,[17] but if they accept, one final, all-or-nothing hand is played. Should the desperate challenger win, they reclaim their place.[17] Should they lose, their opponent claims both victory and the staked Chance.[18]
The Marvellous additionally adheres to an array of arcane rules and bylaws: some are never interpreted the same way twice,[19] some are illegal but used anyway,[20] others dictate the pace of the match...[21] and one permits excessive drunkenness while in play.[22]
This game is never played masked; all the players know each other.[23] The winner traditionally leaves the Marvellous, as winning is the only way to do so[24] — though this is a convention, not a rule.[25] A new candidate must then be found, or they may enter of their own accord.[24] The newest inductee is given the task of procuring a venue and consecrating their own deck before play begins.[26]
The Players[edit]
"The Marvellous has seven players, traditionally."[27]
The Marvellous requires seven players, each one an individual of remarkable ambition. The following individuals are known to have played this game in recent iterations:
- The Cardsharp Monkey – Once Gregory Beechwood, a prior victor who wished to become a monkey,[28] he now seeks to end the game itself.[29]
- The Bishop of St Fiacre’s – A pious clergyman who longs for a return to the Garden with his fellow Cousins.[30]
- The Topsy King – Once a musician and scholar, now a madman; Tristram Bagley played to finish his magnum opus, but lost his mind in the process,[31] and now plays to reclaim it.[16]
- The Manager of the Royal Bethlehem – An ancient and powerful figure who dreams of becoming a city like his beloved, the King with a Hundred Hearts.[32]
- Virginia – A devil of considerable influence, who plays the Marvellous to win one simple thing: "sanctuary."[33]
- Mr Pages – One of the Masters of the Bazaar, whose deepest desire is to return to the High Wilderness.[34]
- October - A member of the Calendar Council. Playing under a false identity,[35] she used her victory to make her dreams come true: she gained power over Parabola[36] and used it to imprison Mr Mirrors.[37][38]
- His Amused Lordship – A respectable member of the gentry who played and won the Marvellous in a desperate play to save his friend, Mrs Plenty.[39]
Other past winners include the Yearning Custodian (the originator of the game, discussed below); the current Boatman;[40] and possibly also Penstock, though the implication is vague.[41]
How the Game Began[edit]
"The Marvellous has been played a long time, you see. All the way back to the First City. The stake was seventy-seven of their coins then. It's the same stake now."[42]
The Marvellous was not always played with cards; it was played with tiles in prior centuries, but once upon a time, its game pieces were scales etched with searing glyphs.[43] In the days of the Third City, a survivor from the First City[44] found himself bored beyond measure after living for thousands of years. He petitioned Mr Hearts, and the Lords (as the Masters were called back then) devised a solution:[45] they borrowed the basic principles of a Presbyterate game[46][47] that had long been played among the College of Mortality, and made it more complex to their liking.[48] They gathered six other players[45] and set the stakes at seventy-seven First City coins, in an apparently humorous commemoration of the weary man.[44]
The man from the First City won the inaugural game of the Marvellous, but did not know what he wanted, and hesitated when the time came for the Lords to fulfill his wish. What the Lords gave him, then, was a purpose; he became the Yearning Custodian, eternal keeper of the Marvellous and chronicler of its history.[49] He now resides in Parabola, at a place called the Root of Need, down the Wanting Way.[50] Here he consecrates new players’ decks,[51] instructs them in the rules,[52] and watches over the game that was born (or rather, redesigned) from his own original desire.
Historical & Cultural Inspirations[edit]
Many of the rules of the Marvellous draw inspiration from Mornington Crescent,[53] a beloved British parlour game popularized by the BBC Radio 4 show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. Mornington Crescent is an improvisational comedy game in which players take turns naming London Underground stations, aiming to be the first to declare "Mornington Crescent." The humor lies in the elaborate yet entirely fictional rules, which satirize the complexities of traditional strategy games. Since its first appearance on the show in 1978, the game has become a fan-favorite segment, celebrated for its witty, freeform nature. Though it presents the illusion of intricate regulations, the true essence of Mornington Crescent lies in improvisation, with players crafting the experience through spontaneous creativity and comedic timing.
References[edit]
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