[Artemisia] For Lady Orianna (and others into card games)

[Bruce Padget]

I lost quite a few missives in the recent innoculation
of my laptop, so some business remains unfinished. 
Lady Orianna in Crystal Crags had requested some game
information.  Rather than make her wait still longer,
here goes:

-- Rules for French Tarots (A game which introduces
all the main features of Tarot games, without getting
into to weirder tweaks of them): 
http://jducoeur.org/game-hist/game-recon-tarot.html

(by the way, Sir Justin's games page,
http://jducoeur.org/game-hist/, is the Mother Of All
SCA game pages, not just for the information contained
therein, but also for his approach to it.  If he
claims to know something, he tells you how he knows
it.  If he's at all uncertain about something, he
describes the uncertainty so you can look into it
yourself.  And when (not if, as any honest researcher
will tell you) he's wrong about something, you hear
about it from him first.  If you're confused as to
what documentation is all about, Sir Justin's pages
shed much light.)

-- Rules for As Nas (a Persian five-suited gambling
game, which is possibly a predecessor to Poker. 
Unfortunely it's solidly documented only back to the
17th century, but we're tryin', believe me.) 
http://www2.kumc.edu/itc/staff/rknight/Game5.htm

By the way, if there's a period game nut in your life,
Francis Willughby's _Volume of Plaies_ is just out. 
Although Willughby's work dates only to the 1660s, it
is often the earliest, and almost always the clearest,
description of games named and/or only vaguely
described in pre-1600 sources.  Ashgate Publishing
(UK) is marketing it under the title _Francis
Willughby's Book of Games_, ISBN 1 85928 460 4. 
https://www.ashgate.com/shopping/title.asp?key1=&key2=&orig=results&isbn=1%2085928%20460%204
Current price is $114.95 USD, but it's the gamer's
equivalent of a Janet Arnold book.  (No, this isn't a
troll for a Twelfth Night gift.  I've got my copy from
a UK book dealer for $80, which surely qualifies me
for the Estrella Combat Shopping Squad :D)

Regards,
Niccolo
Abbastanza Buon Non E Abbastanza Buono
bapadget at yahoo.com

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