Supremacy- a Rosharan cardgame FINISHED(free pdfs available)

[Evie she/her]

 

 

Concept: a card game based on the description of the game played in Oathbringer. 

The ultimate goal is to make an accurate in universe "Herdazian" varnished wooden set as a gift. 

Read below for project intro and status

Status checklist 

The cards:

Design cards✓

Write rules ✓

Send to printer✓

Recieve cards ✓

 

The box:

Acquire box ✓

Chose hardware✓

Sand ✓

Stain ✓

Inlay ✓

Varnish and seal✓

Install hardware✓

Line inside of box✓

 

,,[/spoiler]

 

Hi. Im Evie. No, not Evi. Im certainly someone's future dead wife but hopefully not soon. 

I got the idea to make a wood "herdazian" set of the cardgame in Oathbringer as a gift for my husband. (No, not Dalinar. Again, not that Evi. ) 

Upon googling i found some folks here on 17thshard had already been working on it. So i got excited. 

I got very excited. 

Maybe too excited. 

This project has mostly branched off from the first thread  completely. 

New design. New rules. And yes, a functional plan to make this damn thing out of wood. 

Ive been using this thread to log my progress, from sketch phase to final. 

Once im done, ill put the pdfs in this first post so anyone can have them. 

You can check my progress throughout the thread along with my decisions for each aspect .

 

Anyway. I hope I can be forgiven for messing around editing this thread. It's not like anyone is holding their breath watching my progress lol 

…..............

Project status:

Designs finished, printer friendly pdfs available for free are below.

Rules are in 6th draft and require playtesting to polish. 

Wood cards are in production. 

Physical deck of cardstock cards professionaly printed. 

 

 

..............................

Rules, draft 6

Roshar War cards draft 6.pdf

.....................................

Card faces 

 

..................................

 

Printable pdfs and instructions  

Supremacy Final6.pdf

 

To print at home using cardstock. 

instructions and game tokens

gametokens.pdf. print x 1

blue deck

cardsfrontblue.pdf print x1 

cardfrontblue2.pdf. print x3

cardbbackblue.pdf.   flip papers, reload,  print x4 

green deck

cardsfrontgreen.pdf.  print x1

cardfront green2.pdf.   print x3 

cardbacksgreen.pdf.  flip papers, reload, print x4

 

 

.......................

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 13 by Evie
Adding info

[Evie she/her]

I got this idea to make a physical "herdazian make" copy of this game as a gift and it turns out the kings in this thread already figured out the design and rules, which makes me so happy I could cry. 

So my idea is based entirely on "Sah's set of wooden, lacquered cards is of Herdazian make" , and obviously I would die happy if the lighteyes who figured out the game in the attached thread would approve of this nonsense. 

 

I want to post here for both guidance and support. Here's what I've got so far. Ill post the other pages on other posts

 

 

(Transcripts of my bad handwriting. A quick sketch of a squire card is above) 

The cards will be on laquered wood. 

*What kind of wood? 

(Laquered wood is cheap and pliable vs thinly sliced wood. Which would be better/more accurate? )

*How is image applied? 

*What size?

*Would the numbering system be the same? 

*Do I want this playable or as an object? 

 

24 total cards graulas added 4 more  cards

Total of 32 cards 

 

End of page 1

 

 

 

Okay page 2 of my notebook. 

"The box"

The box. If im going to make something as insane as this its going to need a nice box. I found this sexy lookin' cigar box im stripping the paint off of. 

Ill strip it and refinish it to match the stain of the cards. Ill decorate it with a faux inlay method, where different colors of stain are applied flush together, usually masked off. 

Then Ill seal it so its nice and shiny, and line the inside with baize. 

 

Transcript of my bad handwriting: 

 

( Arrow. Whats going to he the glyph on top? 

 

Line it with baize maybe? 

*Order swatches

*Decorate box with false inlay

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2023 by Evie

[Evie she/her]

The cards themselves

So here I am agonizing about what kind of wood I should get and at what size. I do not have the ability to cut wood myself. 

The options are very thin pieces of wood, or veneer wood which is weird. Its like glue attached to a very thin layer of actual wood. Its what they apply over cheap furniture to make it look like more expensive wood.   Its pliable though. 

The glyphs are more of a problem, although I could have someone engraved them, but im not sure how that would look. 

 

Lots of decisions to make. 

 

Transcripts

(*What material? 

*What size? 

*Vaneer or whole wood? 

Back of cards should mirror mox 

 

False inlay: masking different stains dorectly against each other. 

*Is there a way to make a stencil? 

*How to apply glyphs without giving up on life? 

Paint? False inlay? STAMP?)

 

 

Well thats my progress so far. Ill post here as I go to show my progress and hopefully some helpful folks can assist me make some decisions. ❤️

[Evie she/her]

https://www.cardsofwood.com/cart/

 

This is my first idea as it requires less time and energy and on research is probably more accurate to what i want. 

 

Ive ordered a sample pack and 10 sheets of letter size maple pieces. 

The sample pack will allow me to see the different woods and their printing. 

 

Ill test : 

Waterproofing

Stain application

Sealant application

Painting 

Woodcut printing 

Whether I can use it in the printer

 

My potential moves from this event tree are to :

A) print them myself. This may require purchase of a waterproof ink, but otherwise will just require empty sheets and my own abilities

B ) See if i can have the project printed by them. Business cards are out, since there are 11 different cards and business cards for a single design are a minimum of 100 but I might be able to have a pdf project with multiple cards printed on a large sheet and cut it myself. They can also print on the reverse so i can have a backside design. 

The minumum number to buy blank sheets is 10 so maybe thats the minimum for printed sheets too. I'll have to speak to the company about a custom project.  This seems like the least effort so ill pursue that.  

From there Ill stain them and the box to match each other, and shazam. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Evie she/her]

Printing considerations 

A letter sized piece of paper can hold 8 unique cards. 2 sheets of such would be needed to make the whole deck for one person. 

Blanks are 34$ for 10 pieces which is the minimum. This would make 5 decks, so two full card sets and an extra deck, so thats wiggle room for mistakes.

Ive sent the inquiry for a double sided letter sized project which I can jusy cut to size. 

So i would need two seperate projects to cover all the cards, which would then give a full 5 sets of cards. Maybe I could send them to Rashak, Parchment engineer and Graulas who are responsible for the game. 

 

It would be double the price to make whole seperate pdfs and jobs for different colors, so i could stain the cards different colors instead. 

 

Transcript for bad handwriting:

(Blanks = 34 per 10

If printing can buy just 10

Sent inquiry

Stain different tones for different decks to differentiate

10 min 34$

10 min 34$. 

              68$ for blanks

 

*A series of letter proportioned boxes are divided into 8 with the card names in each square.*

2 letter size = 1 set ) 

[Evie she/her]

Next thing i need to consider is design. 

Since this is the mentioned Herdazian make, i need to consider what the herdazian stylistic language is. 

Since herdaz is much like mexico, im going to look at mexican patterns and aesthetics to make design decisions. 

Im looking at talavera designs primarily, especially vintage tiles. 

Ill probably modify the pdf of the cards to include more decorations. Im unsure of Ill have it printed directly onto the cards or paint it on myself. But im going to have to do some sketches. 

Im particularly interested in the monochromatic designs because that would make my life so incredibly easy. 

Whatever. Ill do tests with rhe samples I ordered what stain overtop printed designs look like. 

Next step: 

Sketches

Get pdfs

Wait until the wood samples come

 

[Evie she/her]

Wow that was fast. 

So 106 ish plus shipping. 

Ill have to wait until next month to order them but awesome

 

Ill get the designs ready in the meantime. 

[Evie she/her]

Heres some concept designs.

Since this is an item rather than a playable game, i think I can take some liberties to make it make more sense in universe.

The two most noticable things im thinking of is removing all english. The game would need to be accessible to men, so actual writing would be unnecessary. The glyphs themselves would inform the player of the card. 

The second decision in the second model is that I didn't include the sword and shield, only the number. A player who spends the money on a fancy set will know what number is which on a simple game like this. 

 

So what have i got here. The first image of a rough looking thing is the concept of a cheap set. Mass production is obviously not a thing, so reproduction would be done with wood cuts or something similar. In wood cuts, what you cut away is white, and what you dont remains black. For smaller details like the numbers at the bottom, i imagine an artisan would chose to leave that area black and cut the numbers in. The print is rough and messy, but this one is a cheap deck. I will not be making a set of wood cuts. I dont hate myself that much. 

 

printed playing cards , italy 15th century

Then at the bottom I have the herdazian concept. I made the glyph in a different "font" reminiscent of the confident brush strokes you find in folk art or calligraphy. Unlike the cheap set these would been to be painted on. 

The difference in the players decks would come from additional colored details. 

The decoration on the back of the card would have a similar font. 

My plan is becoming more coherent now.

*Make the files with each card,

*have the company print them double sided on the veneer.

*Cut the cards to size

*Stain them to match the box 

*Add enamel decorations in two tones to differentiate the different decks. 

 

Now how to keep the decks seperate? 

Maybe divide the box into compartments? Or make little bags for the decks? Maybe out of the felt lining remnants. I could embroider the game glyph on it, but I dont wanna. 

And I should probably have a playable version and a rulebook included, because this bastard is going to want to play it. 

 

Bad handwriting transcript:

(Beside the first image: Cheaper, less durable possibly carved on woodblocks for mass production a bit sloppy, no names needed. Men cant read . 

 

Official glyph

 

Herdazian would be more ornamental. Glyphs in a different but recognizable font reminiscent of brush strokes. The different decks would be differentiated by enamel details (the red and blue) painted over the black glyphs. )

 

Making progress here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Evie she/her]

Veneer printing samples came today and Im wasting no time testing them. 

 

The quality is very good and im very pleased. Its pliable but more heavy duty than card stock. It has a wonderful wood smell and the printing on it looks very good. 

I got a variety of samples in different woods. My favorites are oak, cherry and walnut. I like walnut the best but am concerned it is too dark for the card information to show up. 

I did some testing with different materials. My goal is for them to be shiny and match the box. 

 

heres my tests. 

 

Cutting was very successful. It was fairly easy to cut with scissors or craft knife, even against the grain. 

 

Waterproof: bad. It warped badly. Pretty much what I expected. Waterproofing on a printed piece was promising in that the ink did not run, even if I scratched at it so it will hold onto any varnish no problem. 

Staining: okay. Took the stain well, but slightly warped. I will not use the stain, but instead match the stain of the box to the cards. 

Acrylic paint: good. The medium. The wood did not warp. Looks okay I was displeased to find that my enamel paints were dried up. Ill have to get ahold of some to test. 

Spray varnish: okay. Low shine. Didnt warp the wood but didnt give the effect I wanted. A good backup option if future tests fail. 

Modpodge: bad. Wood warped. Didnt expect much from it anyway. 

Tung oil: meh. Not the effect I wanted. Shiny, but not very much so. 

These were the materials I had on hand. I will be buying some wood varnish and some enamel paint to test next. 

 

Conclusion:

Im pleased with the material, and will be going forth with having the company print the cards.  My plan is still to have single a4 sheets in one color printed, then add details in paint and cut them myself to keep the costs from being too absurd. 

Im abandoning the idea of staining entirely. It would cause too much pointless warping when I can just pick a nice color of the woods available. 

Next step is to design the cards. I dearly hope I can get in contact with the gentlemen who designed the game. If any of you are reading this, kindly DM me. I would love your blessings on this project, but if I dont get them Im continuing on anyway. This is afterall, a personal project not intended for sale etc. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Evie she/her]

Doing some more designing of the cards

 

Played around with numbers and decorative elements. Flirted with using a drawing but i didnt like it. I did some designing of the card backs too and im liking the direction its going but im not 100% . 

 

I chose the glyph "determination" for the back, because out of the known glyphs on yhe wiki I felt like it was the best for the name of a card game. Im fond of it and I think im definitely going to use that glyph. 

I used a sword styled after oathbringer as a decorative element instead of a standard sword. 

Im still playing with the level and style of decorational elements, but im happy with the rough outline. 

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ he/him]

Looks very good and well made

[shortcake they/him/her]

This is super awesome that you're doing this! if you do end up using acrylics, something that would be worth giving a try is only doing the design itself in paint, and then leaving the rest of the wood exposed

good luck!!

[Evie she/her]

Thank you!! Ill test that out, im just concerned about keeping it consistent within each card. 

Ill see if my printer can handle one of the veneer sheets to test it out, if not ill have figure out the best way to transfer it lol. 

 

Have either of you got any input on the design? 

 

[Evie she/her]

Okay here today's labors. 

More fooling around with the card back. Im liking bottom right, and I think ill fiddle with the front designs to match it better with less decorative elements. 

 

Nextly im comparing the images against the different wood swatches. Like I thought, walnut is too dark. Im leaning towards cherry. What do you guys think? 

[Evie she/her]

*vibrating* 

We have PROTOTYPES 

 

I did a print test. The veneer pages do indeed go through my printer! But only against the wood grain. I tested 4 varieties of paint. I found my testers enamel but i couldnt get them open T-T

Here are the paints I tested today: 

 

Folk art acrylic: cheap end acrylic commonly used for crafting. Bad opacity, flow was okay. I wasn't impressed. 

Liquidex heavy body: a middle grade acrylic I used often in college for its  affordability. im underwhelmed. Its not opaque enough, and it doesnt flow well enough , so the lines are choppy.  

I tried this partially: 

9 hours ago, shortcake said:

This is super awesome that you're doing this! if you do end up using acrylics, something that would be worth giving a try is only doing the design itself in paint, and then leaving the rest of the wood exposed

good luck!!

But i didnt like the look of it. I might try again with other paints later. 

Tulip paint marker: Its a paint marker. The opacity was excellent and it was the easiest to apply of all of the paints I tried today. This is a contender for my final decision. Ill get a finer tip to see if I can use shortcakes suggestion. 

Golden iridescent copper acrylic: one of the higher end brands. Excellent flow and opacity. Im in love. I cant even describe how excessive and extra the iridescence is, and im very tempted to use it. Its glorious. Im going to make some more wood cards and try shortcakes suggestion , but as it is its elegant, excessive, and Im in love. I worry that doing the entire linework in this color would make it difficult to read. Still worth a try. 

 

 

Conclusion: I'll use either golden or the acrylic paint marker. Cards should ve printed against the grain. More testing needed. 

Time to cut them out. Please dont be too scandalized by my exposed safehand. Consider it a sexy reward for reading to this point. 

AGHDJEBS 

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. 

They feel just right, sturdy but not too hard as to make them unmanageable as playing cards. 

They are small, so I might size them up but I do like them this size. It makes them feel delicate and precious. 

I still need to see what varnishing does to them. The goal afterall is to make them Storm proof. 

I might do more work on this project today, or I might not. Dear husband went into the office today, and my plans for the day fell through, so ive got some alone time. 

I honestly cant believe how well this project is proceeding. 

 

[Evie she/her]

Im still going. 

Tried out coloring all the markings in the paint pen and the golden paint

 

Conclusion: 

Im digging the fully colored glyphs. Especially in blue. It feels very alethi. 

I will need a finer tipped paint marker because alot of details are lost. Its also less opaque than I realized.

Either way, the back will need to be redesigned to be more simple. 

The iridescent paint is a bit ... Too much covering the whole card. Its better as a detail. I like it against the black but not so much against that blue. Maybe if I got a silver, or made the base paint red.

So more experiments needed. Im out of things to test today without getting more supplies though. 

 

 

 

 

[shortcake they/him/her]

2 hours ago, Evie said:

Okay here today's labors. 

More fooling around with the card back. Im liking bottom right, and I think ill fiddle with the front designs to match it better with less decorative elements. 

 

Nextly im comparing the images against the different wood swatches. Like I thought, walnut is too dark. Im leaning towards cherry. What do you guys think? 

Cherry looks super cool, and I think it fits with the vibe it gives off quite nicely.

You got this! <3

[Evie she/her]

I agree. Its richer without being too dark. 

One could sit here and imagine what the most appropriate in universe tone and grain would be, but other than giving me something more to fret about, that wont matter one bit. XD

[Evie she/her]

Im back with more art supplies an a headache. 

 

i got the testors open. Ive always had trouble but i got it open with a vice and some pliers. Its very hard to open  with one hand in a sleeve. 

 

short story: was not worth the struggle. It bleeds and im not good with it. Maybe if it was just decorative elements it would work, but absolutely not as a main color. 

 

Moving on. Fully coloring using my new fine lined paint pens. Looks okay. Is very tedious. Very, very tedious. I would dearly not like to do this for two faces of two entire decks. I am not a herdazian craftswoman being paid big spheres for this. 

 

Next is just coloring the details, trying out with the new paint pens. Tried multicolored and one color. Im not happy with multicolored. In fact I hate it. 

 

 

You may notice (or you may not) that there is another back design. Im liking it better. Its far more simple and has a greater contrast to the fronts. I also really like the oathbringer motif. Both the glyph and oathbringer made the design too busy, but Indont think I mind it being the sword without the glyph. 

I think ill stylize oathbringer a bit more and make it's hook more visable. 

Im considering adding more color in general to the backs. 

Ultimately i prefer the cards with colored details to differentiate the decks as opposed to the full color. 

The full color is very tedious, and if absolutely had to make them full color I would just have the company print them like that for me. It depends on how much I would like to spend on this endeavor. The minimum for printed sheets is 10, and since the cards require a minimum of two a4s thats over 100$

So thats 10 decks, which is 5 sets of playable pairs.  

Making two different colored decks would double that, and be up to 250$. 

I wish I had the money to just throw around. 

 

Right now my favorite is still the iridescent color but blue is still the most delightfully alethi. 

 

L

 

So soft final design decision is top as the back, right as the style of the front. 

 

Thats all from Evie today. 

 

[Evie she/her]

Total redesign. Less trying to make it "herdazian" and more "stormlight archive" 

 

 

I snooped around dragonsteel's products and used their oathbringer necklace as a base to redesign the sword. Its not exact, but its nuch more elegant. I dropped the shield and made the back into the stormlight archive symbol itself. 

I totally redesigned the front and made it slightly reminiscent of the cosmere symbol. I tossed the "painted" look and redid the glyph to me calligraphic.  I moved the numbers from rhe corners to the top and added spears as decorative elements. 

This design is more simple, more streamlined and more appropriate. 

This means im going to have to go back to the drawing board with coloration but thats okay. Just part of the design process. 

Do the decks really need to be different colors? Can I get away with just printing them in one color?

Ps. 

Husband knows im up to a largish project for his birthday. I asked him what my budget should be, and he told me 50$. Whoops. 

Ive been sneakily calling it my secret project because of course I have been. The other day he made the comment that its exactly what brando called his project for his wife.  

Oh really? What an incredible coincidence. Not intentional at all. Nope. 

 

 

[Evie she/her]

OK I didn't feel comfortable using the rules from the other thread since I can't contact the makers so I've made my own rule set. I'll, odify it as I go but here is what I've got so far

 

Alethi War Cards.pdf

[Evie she/her]

Sick today, so I had a lot of time to work today. Looking good. Pleased. Probably going to have the Printing company print in color. It will cost more but it is probably worth it. 

[The Sibling she/her]

This is incredible. Well done! I love the design.

[Evie she/her]

1 hour ago, The Sibling said:

This is incredible. Well done! I love the design.

Thank you so much! There is still lots of work to be done, but it's fun work! 

[Evie she/her]

 

Playing with colors now. Theres two versions of the card fronts, the glyph version and the english ones for airsock lowlanders. 

Do we like the natural brown on wood or do we like color?