House of Cards

Warmages who join the House of Cards approach combat the same way they do games of chance, with high stakes, and calculated gambles. Each warmage of this house wields a special deck of cards tied to the very threads of fate, through which they can empower their magic with deft flurries of hands. However, while these warmages command incredible power, their magical surges are at the whims of the cards, and so they must make strategic, ingenious plays to master them.

Level 3: Bluff

Your poker face carries you through practically any lie. You gain proficiency in the Deception skill and with the playing card set, if you don’t already have it. Additionally, you can use your Intelligence instead of Charisma for Charisma (Deception) checks you make.

Level 3: Deck of Fate

You gain a deck of magical playing or tarot cards, called a Deck of Fate, through which you can enhance the power of your cantrips. Shuffle a standard 52-card playing card deck and draw a hand of five cards when you roll initiative.

Whenever you target a hostile creature with a warmage spell that deals damage, you can use your bonus action to play one or more cards from your hand to enhance the power of the spell. If the cards exactly match one of the results on the Hands table on the following page, the spell deals extra damage to one of the spell’s targets of your choice or grants you one additional effect, according to the result. If the cards don’t match a result, they have no effect. Aces count as ones for results. Once you play a card, place it on the bottom of your deck and draw until you have five cards in your hand again.

Level 7: High Stakes

You’ve mastered a very risky card trick using your Deck of Fate. On your turn, you can choose any number of cards from your hand and place them on the bottom of your deck (no action required), losing 2 hit points per card you chose. You then draw until you have five cards in your hand again.

Level 10: Dealer's Choice

You can use your bonus action to gain one of the following effects, chosen by the GM:

• You gain resistance to all damage until the end of your next turn.
• You teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 60 feet of you.
• You vanish into a safe, endless demiplane until the start of your next turn, at which time you return at the same location from which you vanished.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Level 15: Card Reading

Once on each of your turns when you draw a card from your deck as part of your Deck of Fate feature, you can declare a suit (Clubs, gain proficiency in the Deception skill and with the playing card set, if you don’t already have it. Additionally, you can use your Intelligence instead of Charisma for Charisma (Deception) checks you make.

Level 18: Ace in the Hole

You are a deckmaster. Whenever you would draw one or more cards from your deck, draw twice as many. Put half of the drawn cards on the bottom of your deck and the other cards in your hand.

Hands