Tournament of the Mythic Kingdoms: Illustrated Playing Cards

On Kickstarter July 21 – August 20

Add Extra Fun to All Your Favorite Card Games

Tournament of the Mythic Kingdoms is our new fantasy-themed set of standard playing cards (52 cards + 2 jokers), available starting July 21st 2020, only on Kickstarter. Hand-illustrated by Greg Swearingen with amazing attention to detail, these cards will add a new layer of fun as you use them to play all your favorite card games.

Watch the teaser video above to see prototypes of some of the cards. Then, Follow us on Instagram to get updates and some previews of the art and cards prior to the campaign.

Get Notified When We Launch!

Step 1: Visit the Kickstarter Prelaunch Page to sign up for notification (or click the button, if you already have an account)

Step 2: Follow us on Instagram. We will be posting some updates and might even be doing a couple prototype giveaways.

The Story So Far

A Kickstarter campaign is largely about the journey and story, so until the campaign officially launches, we’ll keep you updated via this page.

We (Jim, Greg, and Jon) have been talking about doing a kickstarter campaign for years. We toyed with various ideas for developing our own games, and based on our strengths we decided to develop a collector’s set of illustrated playing cards.

We love games with a strong theme and amazing artwork, especially fantasy. Themed playing cards is not a unique concept, but our goal was to develop a theme for the illustrations and design that was rich in story, allowing you to apply a new level of fun to your favorite card games.

When you are playing a trick-taking game (like Hearts, Three Thirteen, etc.), picking a trump is no longer just picking a color – you declare the Elves or the Undead to be dominant that round. When you play War with your kids, you don’t just compare numbers … you can immerse yourself in the story where 10 Elven knights are battling 6 Orcish warriors.

In this theme, the Tournament brings four mythic kingdoms together to compete in a variety of games. The elves, dwarves, orcs, and undead are fairly traditional fantasy races, but the characters are all unique and come from a completely new fantasy realm. The Aces are the champions and compete in matches of strength and skill. The royalty (J,Q,K) prefer games of wit and strategy. The connection to our world is through the games they play, so you will recognize in the art some familiar game elements.

In addition to the playing cards, throughout the 30-day campaign we will be sharing the backstory for the theme as well as each of the illustrations, then compiling the art and backstory into an exclusive Art Book that you can purchase along with the cards.

We vastly underpredicted the effort all those illustrations would take. But, after a huge push in 2019, we’re now about 99% done! There is still one more card to illustrate, and that will be one of the stretch goals (an extra joker).

Our original intention was to launch the kickstarter this spring, but COVID-19 put a huge wrench in that. On the plus side, the delay allowed us time to print a couple iterations of prototypes. We didn’t print these prototypes using USPCC (the company that includes the Bicycle, Bee, and other popular brands), but we will be using USPCC for the actual print run. That will involve printing and verifying proofs prior to the final run.

Those of you who have ever tried selling physical objects know how big of a job fulfillment can be (the process of receiving inventory and shipping it to customers). We will be handling the distribution within the US, and we are partnering with ArtOfPlay.com to handle the fulfillment for international orders.

How does Kickstarter Work?

If you have no idea what kickstarter is, you can Read about the basics on Kickstarter.com.

To purchase these cards, you will need to create an account on Kickstarter.com and then pick a pledge level that will be listed on our campaign page (after the campaign launches). You don’t actually pay anything unless the project is funded (but it WILL be funded).

The campaign will last 30 days, and you will have a chance within that time to change your pledge level (because of course you will want to get as many sets of cards as you can, right?). We will be sending updates about the project, stories about the cards, and other information throughout the campaign, but only to the backers, so pledge as early as you can.

How Can I Help?

The best way to help right now is to share the link to this page with your friends who love board and card games so that they can join the early backer email list.

Currently, we are in the pre-launch phase of this project, trying to spread the news, create some buzz about the project, etc. The goal is to get as many early backers as possible, so that we can have an awesome launch day.

We are hoping to make enough profit on this campaign to fund boardgaming.com for many years to come. To do that will require a very successful campaign, and the most successful campaigns are the ones that have successful launch days.

Follow Us via Social Media

We can only hang out in so many places, so we are choosing Instagram as the place that we will be monitoring most closely during the campaign. So, the best way to message us is to follow us on Instagram!

Instagram | Twitter | FaceBook | YouTube