Room17 LTD680 (2019)
Just as I did for Heretic and Gemini, I had envisioned a quest for this project. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the time and energy to prepare it. I postponed the quest and took advantage of a production surplus: overproduction is customary in mass manufacturing, where orders are typically placed in rounded numbers, often exceeding the actual requirement by up to 10% or more. There’s a risk of underproduction as well. To account for this, customers are usually required to sign a contract allowing for a discrepancy of up to ±10% in the order. Cartamundi’s tolerance level is 5%.
For The House Of The Rising Spade, Cartamundi printed a substantial surplus of Cartomancer decks, well beyond the +5% tolerance, resulting in an excess of 680 decks. Rather than see them discarded, I chose to purchase and reserve them for a spin-off project: Room17.
I created a simple puzzle for Room17, utilizing a custom alphabet I originally created in 2004 for a different narrative in the archaeofantasy world of The Eye of the Ocean. This alphabet appears in various parts of the cards, on the inner print of the Cartomancer deck, and on the custom brick box.
For Room17, I also designed a new tuckbox, introduced a numbered seal, and gilded all the excess Cartomancer decks.
The concept behind this variant revolved around creating a kind of Rosetta Stone and inviting people to decode it. The quest involved deciphering the glyphs, reading the story, and discovering the name of the Queen of Diamonds. The short story was expertly penned by Regina Hopingardner (USA), crafting an intriguing tale featuring two characters from the deck.
| Cards printed by Cartamundi, Belgium Tuckboxes printed by Oath Playing Cards, Greece SOLD OUT |
