Taking Risks/The "Shifter" Card

Here's another first look at a card from "Spirit Blade: The Adventure Card Game", coming to your game shelf in 2012!

Before getting into the game info, a brief word specifically to fans of the Spirit Blade audio dramas:

One of the risks of developing a card game based on the Spirit Blade audio drama trilogy is imprinting a specific visual interpretation of the world onto minds of fans who may have, to this point, imagined the world very differently. I'd hate to think that I'm taking anything away from a listener's experience.

So before I get into the details about the "Shifter" card I'm showing in this post, let me at least say to fans of the Spirit Blade Trilogy that the visual look and feel of the Spirit Blade world as presented in "Spirit Blade: The Adventure Card Game" is just one of many valid interpretations of the source material. In fact, even I don't have a perfectly fixed idea in my mind of what this world or its characters look like. So feel free to keep a firm grip on whatever cool images you've created in your mind for the world and characters of Spirit Blade.

I've also purposefully kept specific characters from the story separate from their corresponding Seeker character cards in the game. For example, the "Shifter" pictured on this card is not necessarily my idea of what either Vincent Craft or Merikk Scythe look like. And the "Tech" character card (which I'll possibly showcase in the future) pictures a female character, instead of a male character (such as Raan Galvaanik).

With those issues out of the way, let's get an overview of what's on this card, shall we?

First off, this is called a "character card", and specifically one for a Seeker. (Seekers are the good guys.)

The picture obviously represents the character, with an open portal in the background referring to one of his chief abilities.

"Shifter" is the type of Seeker represented here. (Like a "character class" for you RPG fans.)
Standing out prominently in the bottom right of the character card are the character's primary statistics, or "primary stats". Each stat is a point value for a different stat.

AP stands for "Attack Points". When attacking, each Seeker rolls dice equal to their AP. A character's total AP is increased by whatever weapon they are using and most characters have zero AP before any weapons are factored in.

DP stands for "Defense Points", and determines how many dice you roll when defending against an attack.

HP stands for "Hit Points". When a character takes damage, they gain "hit counters" equal to the damage they have taken. When a character has a number of hit counters equal to their HP, they are defeated.

SP stands for "Spirit Points", and represents the strength of a character's convictions (whether that be toward good or evil ends). SP plays a role most often when determining the effectiveness of some abilities, or a character's chances of withstanding abilities used against them.

"Advantages" are special traits that the Seeker can make use of on Missions, to either help themselves or other Seekers with them.

"Limitations" are traits that hinder a character, such as a limitation on what kind of weapons and armor they may use.

"Starts With" indicates the weapon the character starts with. In this case, the Shifter starts with the "Seeker's Blade", a weapon that adds 2 to his AP.

Whew! That's a lot of info and I've just barely scratched the surface! Stay tuned for more!