Ahoy, mateys! (And hey, gang!)

Today I want to share some of the artwork that will be featured on the Action cards in Osprey Adrift! Action cards are what drive a lot of the gameplay during the game’s Day phase – the main phase each round. Action cards let players do a vast multitude of things, from sneaking a peek at another player’s Morality card, to outright killing another player, to bringing a dead player back to life. Here’s a look at four of the Action cards’ artwork and their effects. And if you want to check out more of Fiona’s amazing artwork, be sure to stop by her deviant art pages here and here!

Rum

Action card text: “Pick any player. Look at the cards in their hand, but show no one else. Discard this.”

Strategy: The Rum card’s use is fairly obvious. You pick a player and you get to look at their hand. Now, you have to be careful because (as with any of the cards that interact with other players) you don’t want to incriminate yourself. Sneaking a peek at someone’s hand might paint a target on you and cause the other players to wonder what you’re up to. However, the knowledge that can be gained with the Rum card can easily turn the tides of a game. Spotting Human Flesh lurking among a player’s belongings is a doozy of a discovery. What you do with that information is up to you. Do you tell the other players? And if so, how do you do it convincingly and in a way that won’t make you the Cannibals’ next meal? The Rum card is added to the deck starting at 9-player games, because it’s potentially too game-changing with fewer players.

Theme: Rum gets pirates drunk. Drunk pirates don’t pay very close attention to their personal effects. ‘Nuff said.

Artwork: I love the old metal look that Fiona gave to the tankards. This rum looks like it’ll get a pirate seriously drunk AND possibly give them lead poisoning too. Hangovers were serious business back in the day, what with all that lead floating around in peoples’ drinks.

Spyglass

Action card text: “Discard this and name a player. During Dusk this round, you may look at the Food card they eat, but show it to no one else.”

Strategy: Like the Rum card, this is another ‘discovery’ Action card. Using it can glean some useful information about a player, but one must exercise caution with how it’s played, lest one become dead meat. Also like the Rum card, the Spyglass doesn’t require any Resource cards to power it, so it can be used by anyone lucky enough to draw it. Looking at another player’s Food card later in the round has some serious benefits, but because you have to name that player beforehand, a flesh-eating Cannibal can easily eat some Fish instead… assuming they have one in their hand. The Spyglass card is added to the deck starting at 6-player games, because with any fewer players, eating Food isn’t really an issue as there aren’t many rounds, and because it’s not quite as game-changing as the Spyglass.

Theme: Looking through a spyglass at dusk lets the player see into the distance… perhaps into a crow’s nest or a dark corner, where another pirate might be preparing their meal…

Artwork: Like the rum tankards on the Rum card, I love how the Spyglass looks old-fashioned. Fiona did a great job of keeping the flat graphic style of hers that I adore, while adding just the right highlighting to keep the brass texture looking like brass and the leather texture looking like leather. The spyglass is a classic piece of pirate equipment, and this one fits the bill perfectly.

A Single Bullet

Action card text: “Requires 2 Gunpowder. Pick any player. They are dead. If you kill the Captain, you are the new Captain. Return this and the 2 Gunpowder back to the box.”

Strategy: This is one of the game’s two ‘kill cards.’ A Single Bullet lets anyone–Pure or Cannibal–outright eliminate one of their fellow crewmates. Just be careful with who you decide to kill, because eliminating someone’s best friend might not do so well for you when it’s time for everyone to vote for a crewmember to walk the plank… Breaking up alliances is not usually a good strategy when it’s done so bluntly. If you’re Pure, you also have to be careful that you’re not offing one of your fellow Pure crewmates. The Pure are at a distinct disadvantage because they don’t know who’s on their team, and it’s on them to figure out who the Cannibals are… you don’t want to help the Cannibals out. The A Single Bullet card is added to the deck starting at 8-player games, because it could be too game-changing with fewer players, and 7-players is when the second Cannibal is added (The A Single Bullet card is meant to balance out the revive card, Voodoo Manual, which is added at the 7-player point to balance the extra Cannibal among the crew).

Theme: I knew I wanted the ‘combat’ aspect of the game to be downplayed, since Osprey Adrift isn’t a game about fighting – it’s a game about deception and deduction. I decided early on in the game’s development that I wanted the crew to be lost at sea for a very, very long time, and thus have run out of most of the useful supplies. This is literally the only bullet left on the ship – even though the crew might not know it.

Artwork: Again, I love how Fiona captured the metallic effect while staying true to her strong graphic style. A Single Bullet looks especially menacing – something about it just being one bullet rather than one among several adds to the drama.

Tiny Bells

Action card text: “Requires 1 Rope. Pick any living player and place this in front of them. They may not be the Cannibals’ Victim this round, as long as there are other Pure players to choose from. Return the Rope to the box and discard this at the end of the round.”

Strategy: This is the ‘savior’ effect that many other social deduction games delegate to a ‘doctor’ type of a role. However, because Osprey Adrift uses Action cards to drive special effects, rather than character abilities, members of either team can use the Tiny Bells. What this means is: If you’re Pure, the Tiny Bells are an obvious play. You pick someone (including yourself) to save from being killed by the Cannibals. However, if you’re a Cannibal, there’s a few ways you could go with the Tiny Bells. 1) You could just hang onto it so it stays in your hand, out of reach from the Pure team. 2) You could use it on yourself or one of your fellow Cannibals to make it appear you/they are on the Pure team. Or 3) you could use it on a Pure crewmate to build a possible alliance with them, convincing them that you’re Pure. The Tiny Bells card is added to the deck starting at 9-player games, because its potential to save someone’s life could greatly change the balance of a game with fewer players.

Theme: The pirate ties these to a piece of rope which they use to set an alarm trap near where they sleep. Any Cannibal who wants to sneak up on them in the night would have to somehow bypass the trap. At one point in the game’s development, I played with the idea of the Whittled Shiv card being able to disarm the trap set by the Tiny Bells card. However, this made it far too obvious as to a player’s intentions, and it significantly weakened the Tiny Bells.

Artwork: These simple bells look great standing next to one another. As would be the case on a derelict pirate ship, one would have to gather enough of these to make a decent enough trap, and Fiona drew each bell slightly differently – complementing the idea that these bells had to be collected from disparate sets of bells scattered around the Osprey.

 

I hope you enjoyed this look at some of the Action cards in Osprey Adrift! Over the next couple weeks, I’ll share more of the artwork on the Action cards, so stay tuned! Until next time, gang. Keep it plucky,

Nick