Black Cards: Inorganic Encounters
You step out into this strange new place. The diner is behind you with its warm light and kitchen hum, the smell of your own workspace. Ahead is everything this world has to offer.
You’re looking for ingredients, and the world is full of them. Living creatures. Structures built by hands long gone. Paths worn by feet you’ll never know.
What you find first is…
You find what someone built. A structure. Still standing or mostly. These are the marks left behind. When you find them, the question isn’t what was made. It’s what became of it.
♠ Spades: thriving, active, working ♣ Clubs: ruined, broken, abandoned
| Rank | Encounter | ♠ Condition… | ♣ Condition… |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | More than a few buildings. Enough to call it something. People have been here long enough to build habits and stores. | Noise, movement, and something good coming from somewhere nearby. | The buildings are still standing. Whatever was in the stores was left when everyone went. |
| 2 | A space designed for exchange. Stalls, tables, the architecture of wanting things and having things. | Open. Loud. Full of things you didn’t know you could want. | The goods are still on the tables. Nobody’s come to collect them. |
| 3 | Something had to be built here because getting across wasn’t otherwise possible. Someone did the math, did the work, left the result. | Solid. Has held up for a long time. Will hold up for longer. | Holds. Probably. One of you should go first, just in case. |
| 4 | Four walls, something overhead, and the particular smell of a building built around food. Smokehouse. Larder. Drying room. Hard to say from outside. | Warm, occupied, and exactly as stocked as you were hoping. | The door hasn’t been closed in a while. Something’s still on the shelves. |
| 5 | Enough feet went this way enough times that the ground remembers. Not made. Worn. | Clear, recently used, easy to follow. | Barely there. You’re mostly guessing. |
| 6 | A decision built into the landscape. Here is in. Here is out. Someone made that permanent. | Open. Welcoming, even. Someone left it this way on purpose. | Shut tight. The mechanism looks like it hasn’t moved in years. |
| 7 | Built to do something specific with food. Press it, grind it, dry it. Gears or levers or something that hums. | Whatever it does, it’s doing it. The output is right there. | Still running. Unattended. Whatever it’s been producing has been collecting. |
| 8 | Built to be seen. To say: here. Remember this. You’ll need to find it again. | Still standing. Still pointing at whatever it was pointing at. | Most of it is down. The part still standing is enough to know where you are. |
| 9 | Space built for holding things in wait. Shelves, containers, a system someone designed for keeping track. | Full. Well-organized. Someone knew what they were doing. | Empty. Not abandoned. Cleared out. Deliberately and recently. |
| 10 | Built to carry something from one place to another. Still loaded. Whatever it’s carrying hasn’t gone anywhere yet. | Parked deliberately. The cargo is intact. | Not going anywhere. The cargo is still there. Most of it. |
| J | Not obvious at first. Designed not to be. Someone put thought into where you’d step, what you’d reach for. | Sprung already. Harmless now. Someone came through before you. | Still live. You almost didn’t see it in time. |
| Q | Built to say something that words can’t, or to say it to people who might not read. Big enough that you had to notice it. | Maintained. Flowers at the base. Someone still cares. | The inscription is mostly gone. Whatever it meant, it meant a lot to someone. |
| K | Built for control. For staying, or for keeping things out. Everything about it says: we thought about this. | Occupied. Guards visible. Smoke from the chimneys. | The gate is open because no one’s left to close it. |