Cards

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Cards are a distinct set of abilities used by followers of Nemelex Xobeh (or invoked against you by Nemelex's wrath).

Decks

There are 3 player drawn decks: the deck of destruction, deck of escape, and deck of summoning. While worshipping Nemelex, the god will occasionally gift you cards. You can see the deck which the cards were dealt, but not specific cards themselves (at least, without using an ability). You can store a maximum of 26 cards for the deck of destruction, and 13 cards for the other two. Nemelex draws from the deck of punishment as divine retribution.

Power

There are two aspects to the potency of a card's effect: called "power" and "power_level" in the source code.

Power is the card equivalent to spellpower. Players draw cards at power = (9 × Invocations) + (1.5 × piety) + (piety × (Invocations + 25) / 27). Cards drawn by wrath have a power of 18 × XL.

Most cards then translate power into power level, a number ranging from 0, 1, or 2. Each level can be considered a new "tier", and may add new effects or simply improve the card; for example, the Orb fires multiple orbs of destruction at power level 2. Every time a card is drawn, the game rolls twice: power / 900 and power / 2700 - each successful roll raises power level by 1.

Lists of cards

Currently available cards

Destruction	Escape	Summoning	Punishment
Degeneration the Orb Pain the Storm Wild Magic Vitriol	the Cloud the Elixir Exile the Tomb Velocity	the Dance the Elements the Illusion the Pentagram the Rangers Swarm	the Swine Torment the Wraith Wrath

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Removed cards

• the Alchemist
• the Banshee
• the Blade
• the Bones
• the Crusade
• the Curse
• Damnation
• Dowsing
• the Feast
• Famine
• Focus
• Fortitude
• the Hammer
• the Helix
• the Helm
• the Herd
• the Mercenary
• Metamorphosis
• the Potion
• Repulsiveness
• the Shadow
• Placid Magic
• Solitude
• Swap
• Venom
• Warpwright
• Xom
• the Bargain
• Battlelust
• Experience
• Flame
• Flight
• Frost
• the Genie
• the Map
• the Minefield
• the Portal
• the Sage
• the Shaft
• Shuffle
• the Spade
• the Spark
• Summoning
• the Trowel
• Vitrification
• the Warp
• Water

History

• Prior to 0.23, decks were evocable items with different tiers, and card power and power level depended on the quality of the deck.
• Prior to 0.19, there were many more decks, many more cards, decks could be found on the floor, and card power scaled off Evocations with and without Nemelex.

See also

Decks