PRL Serials

“Don’t disappoint me,” he said as he waved his left hand in front of him to collect and shuffle his deck for the Smiting game. 

I nodded as I produced the enchanted Red deck and placed it in front of me, then explained the rules.

“I won’t protest since this is just an exhibition, but know that this is my least favorite way to play this game. Smiting is about strategy, and revealing all of the cards to fill the grid to start benefits the strategist. Doing it this way is slow and boring, but you will bring me a battle realm so I will suffer it for your sake.”

His temper flared, but he maintained his jovial presence. 

My deck impressed me against Gu and I will say upfront that I lost because there’s no need for that tension in any of the accounts of my games with the Vodun. I wasn’t familiar enough with my cards to actually win a game against the Vodun who created the game, it was about showcasing the powers of the multiverse for the Vodun. I didn’t know if that meant that the Vodun were more powerful than the actual beings the cards were based on, but supposedly is it a good enough assessment based on information from the Smiting Chamber that will allow us to recruit more efficiently in the gargantuan effort of not only traveling the multiverse, but collecting beings to make our plans a reality. All that aside, though, I understood that I wouldn’t be a great match for the Vodun as I cobbled together some makeshift strategy against their decks that they had been playing with for longer than some galaxies in the universe had existed. So when I say I was impressed with the enchanted Red deck, I mean that it performed very well despite my ineptitude. These were powerhouse beings capable of absorbing massive damage and dealing out massive damage in turn. 

When the grid was full enough and the first attacks were launched, Gu’s cards on the grid included:

• The Hira
• Skilled Ram Craftsman
• Ògún
• Skilled Warrior
• Nyale
• General of the Warrior Miners
• Apedemak
• Bamana Blacksmiths
• Skilled Smith
• Gobet Warrior Women

And mine included:

• Super Maxx – Universe 4821
• femina tenebris – Universe 2VI1
• Richmond County, NC Riots – Universe 2IX33
• HX (Hummer Cross) Stadium – Universe 1124
• Unit SMITH, Android 19 – Universe 2126
• The Immortal Wendy – Universe IV1111
• Nameless Black Man – Universe II26
• Enraptured Rage – Universe 2I12
• Silas, High Daemon – Universe 2I131
• Fire, the World Burner – Universe II1032

The Ògún card is controversial in Smiting. The seven Vodun of the Fonlands are represented in Smiting as their Veve, there are no exemplar cards for the Vodun. There are cards that can turn the Veve into the Vodun they represent, but that is dependent on those cards. The Ògún card is very much like Gu, though, and it seems that he is the only Vodun with an exemplar cards. Having a Vodun in your deck greatly improves your chances of winning a game, and needless to say, the Ògún card is the most expensive card in the Fonlands and Universe Prime 5. It is banned in official play on many planets that play the game, and there have been fierce debates among the fanbase about the legitimacy of the card given that it is essentially a Vodun card. I tend to agree with those who feel the card shouldn’t be allowed because of the role the Vodun play in the basic concept of the game. When you play Smiting, you take the role of a Vodun and your deck represents the Fonladers who dwell the Disc over which you preside. You can play as an established Vodun by creating a deck of a single color, or mixing the colors to represent an entirely new Vodun. The Veve are the powers of the Vodun, so having exemplar cards feels redundant. 

But it is important to note that every card featured in Smiting is a representation of an actual being that exists somewhere, Gu’s Disc in the case of Ògún. This is an argument for keeping the Ògún card because he actually exists and is not a Vodun or even the underside twin of a Vodun. 

“Is Ògún your iteration?” I asked Gu and that temper of his flared. He glared at me.

“You must have me confused, Earther, Lêgba makes iterations. I am not so arrogant that I think the Fonlands is better by having copies of me in it. I’m not a self-centered, selfish brat who thinks the multiversal structure is his playground,” he said and slammed a fist on the top of the Smiting grid. “I would never create an iteration. Ògún is created of this Disc just like every other Fonlander who dwells these lands, and his immense power reflects the greatness of my Disc, that a dweller can attain powers to rival the Vodun.”

He went on and I was mostly silent as we continued the game. When he finished his rant, he apologized, not wanting to compromise the battle realm I offered him, and soon we were back on a jovial track and the game became fun again. 

There were a lot of great cards in the enchanted red deck and it may be a little on the nose but my favorite card was Nameless Black Man. When you move Nameless Black Man, you can give the card the name of any contact card (a contact card is a card that occupies a space that shares a line of the grid). When Nameless Black Man has a name, he has all of the card text, including attack and health dice, of the card that shares the name. He also enters a rage state when you exhaust a Veve 2, and he increases his attack by rolling an additional D4. Nameless Black Man is a being of Earth in his universe who can shapeshift to become anything that he sees and he uses those powers to rage war against the Establishment, the world government that imposes utopia on all of the inhabitants of Earth. 

“That card is fascinating,” Gu said when I used it to copy his Ògún. “I don’t have shapeshifters on my Disc. And this Nameless Black Man actually exists? In a universe that we can travel to?”

I had assumed that the Vodun could travel to any universe on the multiversal structure. Lêgba had been able to leave the cluster of universes, referred to as a node, that contains the Fonlands to reach other clusters, but the Smiting Chamber had deliberately selected beings of universes that were easy to access. 

“He does,” I said. “I assume he will be a definite recruit for you?”

“For sure. But he is only delaying the inevitable here,” Gu said and moved his hand over the Smiting Grid that by that point was filled with the cards of his first deck and so few of mine that there were only a few rounds left of play.

I shook his hand, relieved that we ended our encounter on a positive note, given the very good chance that I could have said something to anger Gu that might have resulted in him kicking me out of his workshop. He seemed eager to be left alone with the enchanted Red deck, and for me to get back to the Smiting Chamber to find his battle realm.