A few cards short of a deck? Not anymore!: Filling out the missing Mystic Fortunes

[AspieAnarchy]

It's been much too long in coming, but I think I've finally hammered out how to translate the rest of the Tarot Major Arcana to the Mystic Fortune power. I am rather proud of some of the character-image connections I've managed to attach to some of these, but there are several where I'd be happy to hear if someone else could think of an even better fit:

 

The High Priestess

Image: Lady Grey

The High Priestess represents intuition, instinct, contemplation, secrecy, repression, subtlety, and that which is hidden. This Fortune imposes a reduction to the damage you deal, but increases your perception, stealth, your to-hit buff and to-hit debuff effects, and strengthens all of your control powers.

 

The Empress

Image: Vanessa DeVore (Primal, or Praetorian? It's deliberately ambiguous)

The Empress represents beauty, physicality, creation, and abundance, but also envy, personal insecurity, and stagnation. This Fortune makes all of your powers take a little longer to recharge, but increases your maximum hit points, strengthens all pets you may command (not counting "pseudopets"), and provides some insulation against experience debt.

 

The Emperor

Image: Who do you think!??

The Emperor represents stability, discipline, protection, and personal responsibility, as well as the rigidity, arrogance, overconcentration, and tyranny that so often leads such things to ruin. This fortune reduces all of your movement speeds, but grants a small bonus to your maximum Endurance, increases the effects of all your to-hit buff and endurance-modification powers, as well as the effect of all your taunt, placate, slow, and/or hold powers.

 

The Heirophant

Image: The Center

The Heirophant represents authority, tradition, and society and its strictures, as well as personal obligations and compulsions, but can also hint at the rebellion these things invite. This Fortune weakens all of your confuse effects, as well as reducing your potential flight speed and jumping height, but increases your accuracy and provides additional protection against all control-effects and debuffs.

 

The Chariot

Image: The Rikti Mothership (with U'kon Gr'ai striking a fearsome action-pose in the center?)

The Chariot represents ambition, willpower, focus, decisiveness, and independence, but also recklessness, hubris, and loss of control. This Fortune grants you increased run and fly speeds, increased endurance recovery, improves the effects of all your powers that buff speed or grant travel-abilities to others, and also slightly improves any pets that may be under your control.

 

Strength

Image: Back-Alley Brawler

Strength represents not merely physical might, but inner courage, resilience, patience, and the will to power. This Fortune grants increased maximum hit points, running speed and jumping height, considerable protection from knockback, repel, and trawl effects, and amplifies your own stun and immobilize powers.

 

Justice

Image: Statesman (drinking from, or sitting on the lip of, the Well?)!!!

Justice represents a concept some would call so transcendent yet fundamental that it would be a disservice to attempt to mince its definition any further; however, kindred concepts include such things as karma, integrity, truth, and even causality. In any case, this formidable Fortune imposes a penalty to both your accuracy and your defense, but in exchange, increases your damage, and provides one of the following: If you are at or below 50th level, you gain a bonus to all experience gained, or if you are an Incarnate, you gain an increased chance to acquire Shards and Threads.

 

The Hanged Man

Image: Dr. Aeon (a triptych, perhaps, of his 3 aspects as Egon, Aeon, and Echo?)

A most curious portent, The Hanged Man represents suspension, stasis, uncertainty, sacrifice, self-reflection, and infinity within the infinitesimal. This Fortune noticeably diminishes your healing powers and your hit point regeneration, but provides an increase to your damage and resistance to damage, both of which increase even further the lower your hit points.

 

Temperance

Image: Frostfire (not entirely sure about this one despite the obvious appeal)

Temperance represents balance derived from a union of opposites; it can further mean inner peace and serenity...but not necessarily, as balance might also be found in constant conflict, thus it can also stand for frustration and stalemate. Either way, this Fortune increases both your regeneration and recovery, provides greater resistance to taunt, placate, and similar effects, and also provides a discount to all of your endurance costs.

 

You knew this was coming...!

The Devil

Image: Lord Recluse!!!

No sign leaves less room for doubt as to just where you stand than The Devil, for it represents The Enemy in all its forms: Glowering at you the heat of battle, lurking in the mists of an uncertain future or the regrets of the past, or even toying with you from within. There is nothing benevolent about this Fortune, which substantially reduces both your defense and your healing powers, but increases the effects of all your debuffs and fear and confusion abilities, and furthermore, imbues you with a passive medium-range aura that debuffs the damage resistance of all enemies in range.

 

The Star

Image: Penelope Yin (again, this is one I'm a bit less certain of)

The Star represents renewal, healing, inner power, youth, idealism, and above all, hope. This Fortune increases your recovery, accuracy, movement speeds of all types, the effects of all of your healing powers, and provides some protection against all control effects.

 

Judgment

Image: Mender Silos (perhaps looking out over Ouroboros, or to the horizon on that ledge of his, with a stern but inscrutable expression)

Judgment represents the moment of reckoning, be it internal or external, the moment of truth, and the point of no return. Though this Fortune may punish you in the form of reduced resistance to both damage and control effects, it makes up for it with both a noticeable boost to your regeneration, and a passive medium-range aura that slows the movement and recharge-rates of all enemies in range.

 

Finally...!

The World

Image: The statue of Atlas (perhaps with a number of small figures at his base, holding torches...?)

The World represents fulfillment, wholeness, the journey's end, and the return home. This Fortune increases your perception, both your maximum hit points and your maximum Endurance, and increases your resistance to debuffs.

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 02:19 PM by AspieAnarchy
added some color

[Psyonico]

Why do so many have negative aspects?  Right now, only The Fool has a negative aspect, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

59 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

increases your perception, stealth

Also, stealth that you can’t turn off is bad for escort missions

[AspieAnarchy]

2 hours ago, Psyonico said:

Why do so many have negative aspects?  Right now, only The Fool has a negative aspect, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

 

Not true, The Tower does too (maybe a third, but if so I can't recall). While those two aren't good examples of this, a penalty allows for an even better bonus tradeoff that'd be too good otherwise (e.g. my Justice, Hanged Man, Devil and Judgment all have steeper penalties, but really good and weird tradeoffs). Besides, the penalties would for the most part be no more severe than the existing ones.

 

2 hours ago, Psyonico said:

Also, stealth that you can’t turn off is bad for escort missions

 

I never said anything to that effect; if you have stealth powers, High Priestess makes them more effective. Simple.

 

BTW, love your avatar!

Edited Saturday at 05:10 PM by AspieAnarchy
added clarifiers, commentary

[Rudra]

Novel idea, but I have to oppose it. Why?

 

1) Having too many possible effects come up from the power dilutes the likelihood of getting a desired effect. Sometimes, less actually is more.

2) Current negatives are a ToHit debuff (The Fool) and the loss of HP at application (The Tower) are easy to overcome when they come up. Being hit with a damage reduction debuff, recharge debuff (especially if it can't be resisted like how Mystic Fortune powers are and you have a character built to ignore recharge debuffs), being slowed (especially if it can't be resisted, and even more especially on faceroll teams which will gladly leave you behind), weakening your confuses for multiple Controllers/Dominators, a combined hit to accuracy and defense, reduction in heals and healing powers, a combined hit to damage resistance and control effects (especially for melee ATs that will find themselves getting Held when they normally wouldn't be while also eating more damage than they normally would be), and a combined hit to defense and healing (especially for Regeneration characters whose only real defense is their healing) is too much to ask players to overcome for the sake of adding some more cards.

3) The increased number of cards and the number of added cards with trolling effects (in my opinion) makes the likelihood of getting a bad outcome very likely with low chances of outcomes that can either be ignored or actually helps the character popping up.

4) This is a video game, powers with random effects don't need to be a comprehensive array of everything that can be found in the real world version of something. For instance, characters with electricity powers in comics almost always have more than 9 different ways they use that power. Since we are playing a video game though, we only get 9 possibles to pick from for our character out of that power set.

 

Edited Saturday at 05:51 PM by Rudra
Edited to remove duplicate "different".

[megaericzero]

1 hour ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Not true, The Tower does too (maybe a third, but if so I can't recall). While those two aren't good examples of this, a penalty allows for an even better bonus tradeoff that'd be too good otherwise (e.g. my Justice, Hanged Man, Devil and Judgment all have steeper penalties, but really good and weird tradeoffs).

I see it if the player had agency over which buff they're taking, and by extension its tradeoff.

Edited Saturday at 06:37 PM by megaericzero

[AspieAnarchy]

To those saying the downsides are too big of a problem/risk, this IS why Null the Gull can make you auto-reject Fortunes if you're scared of getting the wrong thing - also, IIRC you can also just voluntarily end any non-hostile buff on you at any time.

 

Please understand, the debuffs would be comparatively small (like The Fool's accuracy penalty - noticeable, but not damning).

In the case of the stronger ones:

 

- Justice is simply The Fool penalty plus defense, in exchange for a unique and considerable benefit (plus damage); it's like a miniaturized version of the difficulty slider ("What the Fates demand is Balance....").

 

- The Hanged Man, as you may have noticed, is original Defiance reborn and improved (which I've always wanted a chance to play with but never got to because I either wasn't very active or didn't have an active Blaster character during its brief reign); the penalties actually complement it and help it to do what it does.

 

- Surely you'll agree The Devil ought to extract a price!? And take that price it does, but it gives so much in return, and since debuffs as secondary effects are pretty common, it's got something for everyone (but the main attraction of course is the aura - I originally thought 'damage' aura, but realized that would be a problem for interrupting sleep and stealth).

 

- Judgment is a high-risk, high-reward card, it's true, but suppose that control-vulnerability should get you trapped when you otherwise wouldn't be: The regeneration buff would help keep you upright, and thanks to the aura, it'd be like when a Mastermind gets mezzed - locked down, but still useful!

 

On a team in particular, there'd be every incentive for others to look after someone bearing The Devil or Judgment in particular.

 

I'd be willing to reconsider the debuffs that go with the High Priestess, Empress, Emperor, and maybe the Hierophant.

 

Finally, I'd argue none of these penalties would be as daunting or debilitating as the chance of Secondary Mutation turning you into a Monkey.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

also, IIRC you can also just voluntarily end any non-hostile buff on you at any time.

Can we choose to turn off Mystic Fortunes? I don't know if we can or not.

 

  

2 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Justice is simply The Fool penalty plus defense, in exchange for a unique and considerable benefit (plus damage); it's like a miniaturized version of the difficulty slider ("What the Fates demand is Balance....").

Uh huh. Now look at it from the perspective of players whose characters can't (at least yet) handle increased slider difficulties. Or how it would stack with existing slider settings and can be applied to the character randomly during a mission. Or how setting the slider is the player's choice but receiving Justice when accepting Mystic Fortunes is not.

 

2 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

- The Hanged Man, as you may have noticed, is original Defiance reborn and improved

No, it isn't. If it is Defiance 1.0 redone, it is Defiance 1.0 made worse. Because at least with Defiance 1.0 you could get the full benefit of healing whereas the Hanged Man reduces the ability to be healed back from the brink. Because of an effect someone else chose to apply to you.

 

2 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Surely you'll agree The Devil ought to extract a price!? And take that price it does, but it gives so much in return, and since debuffs as secondary effects are pretty common, it's got something for everyone (but the main attraction of course is the aura

 

8 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

which substantially reduces both your defense and your healing powers,

Better have a healer in your team when you get saddled with this because the character getting this effect is hosed. It may grant over the top benefits, but it takes away your ability to self heal and avoid being hit.

 

2 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Judgment is a high-risk, high-reward card, it's true, but suppose that control-vulnerability should get you trapped when you otherwise wouldn't be: The regeneration buff would help keep you upright, and thanks to the aura, it'd be like when a Mastermind gets mezzed - locked down, but still useful!

If your Scrapper/Stalker/Tanker/Brute/Sentinel finds himself/herself/themselves mezzed, then that character can't use any self heal abilities. Or any other abilities for that matter. And who cares if you are getting a regeneration boost when you are also taking a damage resistance debuff. Can't fight back to reduce the number of attackers, can't use a heal, taking extra damage, and a regeneration buff is supposed to keep you alive? Again, better have a dedicated healer present to keep you alive.

 

2 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

On a team in particular, there'd be every incentive for others to look after someone bearing The Devil or Judgment in particular.

Because teams are so well-known for watching out for each other's debuffs. Especially faceroll teams. Sorry, but no. Yes, in theory this will happen, but I have too often seen where it does not. Even with the mezzed and dying character's player calling out for help.

 

2 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Finally, I'd argue none of these penalties would be as daunting or debilitating as the chance of Secondary Mutation turning you into a Monkey.

Secondary Mutation is a self-applied power. You take the risks. Mystic Fortune is applied by others. And as best I know, our choices for Mystic Fortune is refuse everything or endure whatever we get.

[srmalloy]

8 hours ago, Psyonico said:

Why do so many have negative aspects?  Right now, only The Fool has a negative aspect, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

Also, stealth that you can’t turn off is bad for escort missions

I believe you can still right-click on the power icon in your buff bar and select 'cancel' to get rid of it. But that is a pain in the ass for drive-by buffing. Unless this is a back-door attempt to make people more accepting of the 'disable drive-by buffing' suggestion that was posted a few weeks ago, in which case I want to add my NWIFH to the sentiments about it.

[TheMoneyMaker]

14 hours ago, Rudra said:

 

4) This is a video game, powers with random effects don't need to be a comprehensive array of everything that can be found in the real world version of something. For instance, characters with electricity powers in comics almost always have more than 9 different ways they use that power. Since we are playing a video game though, we only get 9 possibles to pick from for our character out of that power set.

 

Technically up to 18 if you pick primary and secondary with electricity theme.

[starro]

Leave Mystic Fortune alone, call this Fortune Power Pool.

[Boas]

21 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

To those saying the downsides are too big of a problem/risk, this IS why Null the Gull can make you auto-reject Fortunes if you're scared of getting the wrong thing - also, IIRC you can also just voluntarily end any non-hostile buff on you at any time.

I just tried it and couldn't cancel by right-clicking. Gives me an idea, though...

 

Maybe make it so you can click the power off, if you get a detrimental card... but when it expires, you automatically draw one of the better cards? That would incentivize players to keep a bad draw in anticipation of getting a good one when it wears off. Just a thought! Might be a lot of work to develop something like that, though.

21 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Finally, I'd argue none of these penalties would be as daunting or debilitating as the chance of Secondary Mutation turning you into a Monkey.

Since I started playing again last year, I've used Secondary Mutation hundreds of times, and I have yet to get a single monkeymode. It used to happen all the time, at the worst times! I was starting to think they'd removed the effect, or made the chance even lower. At this point, I'm going to cheer when monkeymode happens again, because it's been so long... even if it immediately results in my death.

[Major_Decoy]

On 5/31/2025 at 7:08 AM, AspieAnarchy said:

It's been much too long in coming, but I think I've finally hammered out how to translate the rest of the Tarot Major Arcana to the Mystic Fortune power

 

I'm sorry, but you're working off of a faulty assumption. In the Primal universe there are only nine Major Arcana. I don't know about the Praetorian universe..