Pantheon (game)

First seen in the short story "Pantheon", the eponymous game is popular among the Harat-Shar, and is played with two stacks of cards. Players are each dealt a five-card hand from a set of deity cards, each having an image of a different god or deific-figure from any of a number of alien pantheons, and a condition card is pulled from a separate stack, giving a simple descriptive phrase.

How to Play
Players choose a card from their hand that they think best embodies the condition, and the individual whose chosen card most closely matches the condition wins the round. Players can also concede the round if they have no appropriate deities. The winner gains a point and draws two more cards.

A draw results from players revealing cards that are equally appropriate to the condition, and in such a case no points are rewarded. A draw can be decided by a player laying down another equally-appropriate card if they have one in their hand, in which case they gain a point and draw two cards.

''[The story is a little fuzzy on the winning conditions. It seems they played a best three-out-of-five game, but I'd wager you could easily play a longer game by setting the limit higher. Tabard (talk) 06:23, January 20, 2012 (UTC)]''

In the case of a draw in the final round, a second condition card is pulled, and the player whose card is most appropriate to the new condition wins the point.

Known Decks

 * Hinichi
 * Human - this deck alone was ten years in the researching and creating, and contains 200 cards