Smiting, Vodun 4 Player Rules
“Are you sure that you want to play with that deck?” Gu asked as the Vodun at the table shuffled their decks. Lêgba’s was less than half the size of the other decks being used.
“I would much rather just flip them and show you all what I’ve seen, but Jo is insisting on this game. It will demonstrate my point though, so I don’t mind.”
They placed their decks face down in their play areas outside of the grid.
Xêvioso flipped the first card into the grid. Gold Smiths, three humanoid beings in white smithing gold and capable of creating very strong armor or weapons for other cards. He placed it in the row closest to him
Jo flipped the Zār, a spirit card that clings to its target, leeching the life of the target each round that it is attached. She placed it next to Xêvioso’s Gold Smiths.
“This game is about Lêgba’s deck of impending doom, we don’t have to be so aggressive at the start,” Xêvioso says.
“I only know how to play to win,” Jo said. “We will hear his story and I will win. Go ahead Gu.”
Gu flipped Steel, a card incapable of attacking on its own, but able to be sacrificed to be made into weapons and armor for other cards. Sacrificing Steel also allows the card owner to flip a card from their deck to replace it on the grid the moment it is sacrificed. He placed it in the row closest to him.
Lêgba flipped…
“Did you shuffle your deck?” Gu asked before Lêgba could flip.
“Why would I shuffle when I told you all that I was telling a story?” Lêgba asked.
“I get it,” Jo said, “but we all shuffled. We didn’t arrange our decks to be flipped in a specific sequence.”
“This game really isn’t that important,” Xêvioso said. “I want to know why he showed up here after all this time. Just play your card!” Xêvioso slammed a fist on the table and Jo lifted both her hands to show surrender. Gu half nodded.
Lêgba flipped White Webbing Spreading the Cosmos.
“You all know that I have traveled the multiversal structure extensively. I have used many iterations to explore the multiverse and now that I have reassimilated many of them, I know a lot about the other existences that fill out the structure. There is so much life, so many beings, so much love and conflict, so much struggle and triumph, so many stories. I have seen so much, yet still so little, the structure is inconceivably huge. It has humbled me, I have encountered places that rival the Fonlands, with beings as powerful as we are, some on the level of the mother-father. It has been a wonder to explore. Until I saw this, the white webbing that hung across the vast distance of an entire existence, like that existence was a neglected space left to pests. Imagine it, this webbing wrapping stars and planets, and I didn’t notice this at first because I was overwhelmed by the sight of it all, but the webbing is not webbing at all. It only looks like silks. The White Webbing Spreading the Cosmos is like the roots of mushrooms from Agê’s disc. Do you know what the roots of mushrooms do?”
“The white web was consuming the universe?” Jo said with wonder and disbelief.
Lêgba nodded and he lifted a hand; a haze of black energy issued from it to the card and settled under it. As the card absorbed the power, very thin white tendrils began to spread the Smiting grid and the tendrils wrapped the cards in the grid and began to drain them of their magic.
“Any card in the grid loses a point of life any time a player takes an action. That includes flipping a card into the grid, activating abilities, and attacking.”
“This is crazy,” Gu said. “Nothing has this ability. You’re making this all up.”
“The memory behind this card is authentic,” Xêvioso said. “Look at it, you will see that he tells the truth.”
“I don’t know if I have anything in my deck to deal with that,” Jo admitted. “But let’s continue. Where does the white webbing come from?”
“That is the big mystery. Whatever it is, it knows how to systematically consume an existence. I saw the white webbing on a macro level. What I saw on the worlds that hadn’t been wrapped in the webbing was just as devastating.”
Xêvioso flipped Zacchaeus and the Needy and he placed the card next to his Gold Smiths.
“They only have a few points of life left anyway,” Xêvioso said, “so I will sacrifice the Smiths to add their remaining health points to Zacchaeus and the Needy.”
Jo flipped IsiLimela, a cluster of stars that control the growth of plants.
“I will exhaust IsiLimela, and activate the ability…”
“My Steel has been destroyed,” Gu said with disappointment and removed the steel from the grid.”
“So is your Zār, Jo,” Xêvioso said.
She removed it. “Too bad. I will activate the ability to attack a plant based card unopposed. The white web takes five points of damage.”
“Fine,” Lêgba said with a chuckle. “That might kill anything else, but this webbing is extensive.”
Jo shrugged and passed the turn.
Gu flipped Ali, the Amazing Alius.
“Go ahead, Lêgba,” he said, curious what he would flip next.
Lêgba flipped the All Black Warriors.
“When I went to a world of this existence that wasn’t wrapped in he white webbing, I found a world besieged by warriors clad all in black. The warriors moved around the world with ease,” Lêgba said and placed the card next to the White Webbing Spreading the Cosmos. “This world was known as Therin and they had powerful weapons infused with the magic of their gods, the Therosi, including powerful Godsticks that they used to conquer their universe before the arrival of the All Black Warriors. These All Black Warriors were more powerful than arcana wielded at the level of us Vodun.”
“That is hard to believe,” Xêvioso interrupted.
“Impossible,” Jo said, shaking her head.
“This deck is ridiculous,” Gu said. “That card can attack every card on the board each turn.”
“And if it is defeated,” Lêgba explained, “it respawns in its original position on the grid unless it is already occupied.”
“This can’t be real,” Xêvioso says. “But it is.”
“It is very real, and it is spreading the multiversal structure,” Lêgba said gravely.
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