BaltiLore Cards
Collect and battle lore cards about your friends, family, and neighbors.
Make one for yourself or a friend! Here's some guides:
Elemental Types
There are eight types of lore cards, each with its own associations, strengths, and weaknesses. Choose the element that best represents you for your card. Your strongest attack should be your card's innate elemental type.
💗 Heart
Compassionate and caring, the element of Heart embodies our connection to others. Heart movesets often focus on humor or allyship. Teachers, activists, and healthcare workers gravitate toward this element.
🔥 Fire
Fire elementals are known for their bold choices and their warmth. These folks may even have fire-powered hobbies or careers as cooks, ceramicists, or welders.
âš¡ Electric
Those with a technological proficiency have an Electric affinity. Electromagnetism, circuits, and actual lightning feature heavily in Electric movesets.
🌳 Nature
Knowledge or passion for the natural world and its inhabitants. Nature moves may command animals, plants, or fungi.
â›… Wind
This element is associated with speed, dexterity, and athleticism. These elementals may have a literal command of the air as pilots, gymnasts, or woodwind players, or they may simply endeavor to be as swift as the wind.
🌊 Water
The solvent of life! Water cards may be for those who love to be near the water as swimmers, sailors, or anglers, or they may simply be those who embody the power of the waves.
🌘 Shadow
The mysteries of the universe. Those with an interest in the unseen, the secret, and the occult will be drawn to the realm of Shadow. And also probably goths. Shadow moves usually deal with invisible forces such as spirits, dreams, and gravity.
🗻 Rock
Not just for geologists! Rock represents both the strength of the earth and the power of rock and roll. Rock on.
Moves
Each card can have up to three moves, with a combined power of 50 points. Moves can be of any combination of elemental types, but the strongest move on a card determines its overall elemental type (e.g. a card with the moves:🌘 Doom Spiral (25)
🌊 Tie Dye (15)
🔥 Burned Toast (10)Would have to be a Shadow card. The most powerful move on a card should be the one listed first.Moves can also be defensive. Put a minus sign (-) in front of them to subtract their value from damage done that turn. (e.g. the move "💗 Therapy Dog -10" would subtract 10 points of damage from an opponent's attack.) The absolute value of the move still contributes to the power total (maximum 50).
Strengths and Weaknesses
Each element has two strengths (types against which they do double damage) and two weaknesses (types which do double damage to them). They are as follows:💗 Strong vs 🌘⚡, Weak to 🗻⛅
🔥 Strong vs 🌳🌘, Weak to 🌊⛅
⚡ Strong vs 🌊⛅, Weak to 🗻💗
🌳 Strong vs 🗻🌊, Weak to 🔥🌘
⛅ Strong vs 🔥💗, Weak to ⚡🌘
🌊 Strong vs 🔥🗻, Weak to ⚡🌳
🌘 Strong vs 🌳⛅, Weak to 💗🔥
🗻 Strong vs 💗⚡, Weak to 🌊🌳These should be listed at the bottom of each card.
Hit Points (HP)
It's your age. That's it.Does it give old people an advantage?
Yes. I think that's neat.
Flavor Text & Quotes
Demonstrate your personality. Tell us about you. Do you have a catchphrase? Maybe you should. You could even add a special ability (maybe you are a horror film buff and immune to nightmare-based attacks, or maybe you are arachnophobic and receive double damage from spider-related attacks).Get silly with it. It's not always about winning.
Portrait
Place a photo of yourself in the frame on the card! Crop it to fit. You can and should also draw a picture of yourself if you're able to! Or you could ask someone to draw one for you.Don't use an AI image. That's shitty and people will be disappointed you did it.
Shiny Cards
These are special variants of your cards. Maybe they have a different type to reflect a special skill or hobby you have. But they should be less common than your basic card.For example, maybe you volunteer at an animal shelter on the weekends and want to make a special "Kitten Wrangler" shiny version of your regular card, with cat-based moves. Shiny cards are just special because they're less common, they're not inherently more powerful in any way.You could also make a special version of your card for your fursona. You furry.
How to Play???
I'm gonna be real with you, I'm an artist, not a game designer. I think you should play these in whatever way is fun for you.The way I play is: players choose an equal number of cards to put into their draw piles. Each player then draws three cards from their pile and each round, players choose one card from their hand to send into battle. Players each choose one move to deploy from that cards against one another at a time, and when a card's HP is depleted, it is removed from play at the end of the round. Cards cannot be withdrawn once played. Each move on a card can be used once. If it is a draw, they are both removed from play and put in that player's discard pile. When a player's card is knocked out, they may then draw another card from their draw pile and choose to send someone else into battle. Play ends when one player's draw pile is depleted.But if you want to House Rules it, you should! I do recommend you create your card with the parameters described, so the game is somewhat balanced and more fun.
Printing Your Cards
You can print the cards at home yourself on a color laser printer, but there are also many affordable printing sites that you can upload your design to online.Vistaprint, Printrunner, and many more offer different options like rounded corners or glossy finishes. Just make sure your card is a standard business card size (2" x 3.5".) These are smaller than most other playing cards, but they fit inside a wallet for ease of giving away to friends.I print mine with Vistaprint as glossy standard weight cards with rounded corners, with the BaltiLore cardback on the shiny "front" side of the card and the unique side on the "back."To make shiny cards with holographic overlays, I use holographic cold lamination film.
Cardbacks
Here are some cardbacks you can use when you print your cards. Feel free to recolor them or make your own regional variants! The font used is called Supermercado and it is free and widely available.
That's It!
Have fun! Go make some cards!
If you'd like to show your cards to me (Wren) or have them displayed on this page, email them to me!