#kingsandthrones

The alternate win condition for the Throne of Cobra-La. If your opponents let you assemble 16 Cobra troopers then they should be rewarded with dying. It would only take the initial 5 troopers plus maybe 3 full turns with both of your teammates revealed for you to get Serpentor and a reasonably sized army. Assuming your deck plays spells and maybe creatures too, I would think someone is being eliminated. You may notice that Serpentor’s own ability gives himself the bonus too. If someone wasn’t paying attention and has no creatures to block with then you can sneak in for the kill!

I couldn’t find a good screen grab from the cartoon or even a semi reasonable toy picture. I was lucky when I found the recent comic book scans. This art isfrom the IDW comic book series. I liked the full frame art here because it is so different from the regular artifact frames of the other Cobra creatures. It shows that something special is happening. 

Theta VIII

Theta VIII is the world where the Enterprise-D comes across an illusory hotel and casino. The hotel/casino was created by aliens who felt bad for killing the crew of a human exploratory vessel. They created the hotel to help the lone survivor have a more pleasant experience as he grew older. The only drawback was that the “people” who inhabited the hotel were 1 dimensional characters from an awful work of fiction. It’s not one of the best episodes, but it gave me the idea to create the opposite effect from Talos IV. It doesn’t quite fit the storyline, but it is close enough. In these larger games there are always powerful artifacts and enchantments on the battlefield.

Trill

Ullia

A Ullian in the episode “Violations” is responsible for one of the many instances of “mind rape” in Star Trek lore. I find it a bit icky that it comes up as often as it does. Telepathic history reading would have been a bit of a stretch for a planet power, but going into someone else’s mind and playing their spells for free seems like a strong ability. I didn’t make this ability infallible in the same way I did some of the other similar abilities. I thought that with this one very strong power that there should be some bit of chance, even if it’s small. When I saw how quickly someone took the throne (turn 2) and then put Ullia onto their battlefield, I was happy I gave this planet a tiny downside.

 Vulcan

Sigma Iota II

Sigma Iota is the planetary power I may have stretched the most to come up with. The inhabitants of this planet live according to a book that describes Gangs of the 1920s. It’s one of the funnier episodes of The Original Series. “A Piece of the Action” describes the people of the planet as very industrious and in only a few short years were able to bring themselves up to 1920 era technology. I turned that industriousness into spell cost reduction because they are helping you out. I added the clue ability on because in the episode it takes a bit of detective work on Kirk’s part to figure out why everyone talks like a movie mobster. It’s a stretch, but so was that episode.

Talos

Romulus

Romulus is home to one of the main villains of the Star Trek universe. They come off as sneaky and underhanded in most episodes, so I decided to have the planet follow this theme. I used the Alpha card Illusionary Mask as my template. I have always loved this card. In olden days one of the players in my group would hide his Royal Assassin whenever he played it. It used to die immediately, but because he hid a majority of the creatures in that deck he usually got a few good uses out of it before it died. That’s what I envisioned for Romulus. The few times this has come up, the morphed creature has been a big one (Blightsteel Colossus is still my favorite).

Rubicon III

Regula, (Genesis Planet)

Regula, The Genesis Planet is created at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The Genesis device was such a powerful MacGuffin that it managed to kill one of the main characters. I wanted an effect that was almost as powerful. I assume that when everyone benefits from searching for any card that it will 100% of the time create drama, cause action or possibly end the game within a few turns. If the king/queen gets to search again, then they should be well on their way to their team winning. I think that should be a lot of motivation to the non-king/queen teammates to remove them from the throne. All the way around it manages to do everything we want in Kings and Thrones.

Rigel IV

Paxan

Paxan is another slightly obscure world that is seen only in a single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. We see it in the episode “Clues”, and it’s one of my favorites. Paxan is the home of a very xenophobic species. In the episode Data convinces the aliens to let the crew live if they have their memories erased and won’t ever go back to the Paxan homeworld. It doesn’t work the first time, and the ship finds its way back at Paxan, but by the end a solution is discovered. I really wanted a counterspell planet, but initially I couldn’t figure out how to create one, until this planet came up. Putting Paxan on the bottom of the planet deck fits about as perfectly as possible, and it isn’t abusive.  Also, when someone else becomes king/queen then you get to revisit the deadly planet. It is almost perfect.

Qu’noS

Nausicaa

I was very fortunate that when I was creating the abilities for these planets Conspiracy 2: Take the Crown was just coming out. That set gave me a brand new ability that I think fits perfectly into Kings and Thrones. Goad pushes the action by creating possible openings in an opponent’s wall of blockers, and more than likely dealing a good bit of damage to a player that isn’t you.  I used Nausicaa because of its infamous inhabitants. It was a Nausicaan that stabbed Jean-Luc Picard thru the heart, forcing him to get an artificial heart. That episode “Tapestry” established the species as belligerent and fairly hostile. I took the interaction between young Picard and the Nausicaans who wanted to fight as the impetus for the ability. I have gotten lucky several times when it comes to new abilities or updated wordings, I feel like it’s a sign.

Ornara