#temple solitaire

“Temple” deck

designed as a “common” card deck for a fictional setting

4 suits: Stones (grey), Drops (blue), Seeds (green), Lights (red or yellow)

2-9 are pip cards, R=1 (“Root”) and T=10 (“Tower”) are face card equivalents

inspired by classic 52-card deck (4 suits, simple colors), hanafuda cards (nature motif), mahjong tiles (9 per suit + honors → 10 per suit)

Root and Tower cards are designed to contrast each other:

R has solid color on bottom and backing color on top, reverse for T

R symbols are natural, T symbols are manmade

each pip card is arranged differently:

Stones = blocks stacked vertically

Drops = water drops aligned on a slant (flowing downhill?)

Seeds = leaves branching from a single stem

Lights = stars in a constellation

certain suits have alternating patterns, to make adjacent cards slightly easier to tell apart at a glance: Stones alternates between left and right stacks, Drops alternates between horizontal and vertical lines

deck also has a “dark” alt; Lights cards designed for dark alt first (yellow stars on a dark background)

face cards also have unique names:

R of Stones = the Mountain, T of Stones = the Temple (from which the deck derives its name)

R of Drops = the Sea, T of Drops = the Ship

R of Seeds = the Tree, T of Seeds = the Mill

R of Lights = the Sun, T of Lights = the Beacon

depending on the game, Stones are a “blank” suit with unique properties (another holdover from mahjong inspiration: 3 suits + honors → 3 suits + special suit → 4 suits, one of which is used as a special suit sometimes)

unused/alternate ideas I might come back to later:

T cards were originally C (“Crown”)

3 of Lights depicting three moons instead of three stars (related to the specific fictional setting)

alternate Seeds cards depicting different trees and plants, or variant colors (brown, perhaps pink)

alternatives to the Ship: a harbor, a dam, a sea wall, a watermill (with a different Seeds card), a lighthouse (with a different Lights card)