[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Iron]

Spoiler

Dilapidated Shack

The inside of the shack somewhat matches the outside. There are loose boards, protruding nail-heads, and peeling paint everywhere. However, it is clean as a whistle and smells quite pleasant. The reason for this is quickly revealed: a Minccino rides on a Chikorita, and together they rearrange the many many shelves, bring up boxes of product, and sweep up dust and grime.

Just looking through the window into the Shack, you find it is a lot bigger than you expected. Ten or fifteen people could browse comfortably in there.

Inside are tons of posters advertising new card releases - looks like they are releasing 387-482 next week, Turtwig through Mesprit. There's a long table for a playspace, and a low glass case with a cash register on it. Behind this counter is a skinny man and a portly woman. The man has his hair swept up and back, and it is dyed green. The woman has flowing white/gray hair, though she doesn't seem any older than the man (mid-30's).

Hanging from the ceiling are big origami legendary birds, the edges of their wings lined with foil.

The store also sells Pokemon comics, fake tattoos, sleeves, playmats, dice, and organizers. They've got a big calendar of events that they host, including a regionally famous con in August (obviously it's not held in this shack!)

There are  two games you can play with any trading cards:
Creshire Crash
A typical deck consists of 50 creatures plus 25 energy cards. There are no Trainer cards - all that kind of thing are Pokemon abilities or moves. Each Pokemon has four abilities of some kind, which can be moves, spells, held items, Pokemon Powers, whatever. Some Pokemon are so worthless that they are only good for their abilities. No more than 4 of a single Pokemon species in a deck - or just 1 of a legendary species.
Battle is much like the Pokemon TCG we have IRL.
It's possible to play for keeps.

Triple Triad
This game originated in the Torren region (as far as the Pokemon world is concerned!).
This is played on a 3x3 playmat/battlefield. Your deck is only 4 or 5 cards. On all four sides of any Creshire Crash is a number from 0 to 10. You take turns placing your cards in the grid, trying to place bigger numbers adjacent to your opponent's. Whenever you do, you place a counter on their card to show you have Taken it.
Since each card is for Triple Triad as well as Creshire Crash, it's possible to have a Legendary that's great for one but terrible for the other.
It's possible to play for keeps.



A booster pack contains 10 cards. One is guaranteed to be a rare. $100 a pack.
The Starter Set contains 52 unique Kanto Pokemon - all the Kanto Fire, Water, and Grass types. Plus the legendary birds as holographics! There are appropriate duplicates of these 52 species in order to make 3 preset decks, or you can mix and match a dual-element deck.
Singles are available too. Most rares are about $200, and they don't have every species. Of course, if you're selling a rare, you only get about $50 for it!

There are different varieties of any given species, but we won't get into that much here. It's possible to take a Gaming Science specialty if you have XP to burn, but most players in Creshire are very casual. Battles will go off Insight+Knowledge+Gaming, with modifiers for rare cards and such.

(How much is a Starter Set, out of curiosity?  Also, 482 is Azelf, not Mesprit)

Having received that Skarmory print earlier, Nathan's actually quite a bit more interested in these cards now.  If his Skarmory is Steel/Metal type instead of Flying/Colorless though (cuz TCG types are slightly different from the games'...and all but one Skarmory card have all been Metal type IRL), that's going to be hard to slot into a deck without the appropriate Energy and like-typed pokemon...

For now, he and Ralts are just going to browse, see what kind of cards are on display (would Furret be interested in what's going on here at all?).  Maybe there's some more Morgusi cards hanging around, though they're probably super duper expensive collectibles if they're the real deal instead of prints...

Interesting that the Sinnoh pokemon are getting released next week...well, minus the BIG legendaries of that region...Nathan might have to keep an eye on that, though...Gallade would be in next week's release...

For what it is, the shack is actually kinda nice looking as well.  They've done a good job of making do with what they have.

Updated that price.

They have all the Gen IV cards up to and including the Lake Trio. 
Creshire cards are a bit more varied/random than IRL, so I'll roll for it! Heads it's Colorless. (4) Yep, the decision was to focus on the Flight of this fearsome bird. (Not that it entirely matters for a print).

Furret is more interested in that Minccino than the cards, which she doesn't really think of as anything more than cardboard right now. But this shack is perfect Furret habitat.

Genuine Morgusi cards may be used in conjunction with a printout of a card of the same species - in other words, it counts as owning all cards of that species. The originals are too valuable to do this with, but they often make an official limited edition card from his art. The amount of detail and spirit is so fine that they are extremely hard to counterfeit.

In that glass case are three Morgusi cards: Geodude, a new Lucario promotional card, and a Cofagrigus. 

"Yes! You have a Keen Eye, my friend!" says the green-haired man. "These are our Morgusi cards. Together they're worth as much as the rest of this collection. Geodude is a card prized by collectors, one of the first Morgusi did when he became famous. That'd be tournament legal. Lucario is a Morgusi original! He's here to promote the release of the next wave of Pokedex numbers. No one uses these in tournaments because they're worth so damn much. But it might be tournament legal someday, so if you're interested, get in ahead of the game!"

"ohhhhh, ohhhhh, but they're nothing compared to this Cofagrigus. He did this back before The Change, pre-2009. That's the height of Keni Morgusi art, right there. Right, dear?" She nods. "Look at the differences between Lucario vs Cofagrigus. Both hand-painted originals, but...well, something just seems a little less special about today's Morgusi cards."

It's true. It's not like the amount of skill or quality has lessened, but a little of the spirit has gone out of the art in Morgusi's modern work. Geodude looks like it's almost up to the old standard, but of course this is just a high-quality copy.