The Deck of Broken Things: A Closer Look

Greetings Survivors,

We’ve had a few questions about how exactly the Deck of Broken Things works at the table, so we wanted to share an update giving a closer look at how the deck works in play.

Broken Weave is live on Kickstarter now, was funded within 1 hour and has reached 5 additional stretch goals already. Head over to the campaign page if you want to keep up to date with everything we unlocked.

The Deck of Broken Things is a pack of 52 standard playing card sized cards (perfect for those of us who like to sleeve our cards with deck protectors!). It’s split into two halves, 26 cards for use in Decayed Monsters, and 26 for use in Decayed Places. 

Each card lets you apply a unique ability, modifier, or other change to an existing creature or location, to represent the twisting, uncanny effects of Decay upon the world and its inhabitants. 

Let’s look at a couple of specific examples now.

A Decayed Deer

A party of survivors are on a journey to find a long lost pre-Breaking ruin. As they travel through a thick jungle of tree-sized bioluminescent fungi, something darts in front of them. The Warden signals for a halt, and the Seeker moves forward to investigate. The GM announces that the Seeker sees something ahead of the Survivors:

‘It looks like a Deer… but there’s something not quite right about it…’ 

The GM quickly picks up the Decayed Monster cards from the Deck of Broken Things. Considering that this is a heavily Decayed area, they decide to pull two cards from the top and apply both to the Deer.

With just a few seconds notice, the GM has taken a humble deer and broken it with the power of Decay. The deer is a tragic creature that cries with an unknowable loss so powerful it can stop people in their tracks, but its hide is a beautiful and valuable resource. Now imagine these traits applied to any of your favourite 5e compatible creatures. What strange, twisted wonders would it create? 

And these are just two of the cards in the deck. You can expect plenty more strange, tragic, and terrifying mutations to grace your fingers once the deck is fully complete.

The Decayed Ruins

Having left the Decayed Deer behind, the party continues on their journey through the jungle until they eventually reach the ruins of legend. Ancient subterranean buildings loom out of the darkness, and strange building sized crystals glow with the telltale hue of magic.

The GM knows this place is going to be heavily decayed, so they pick up the pile of Decayed Places from the Deck of Broken Things and pull two cards from the top…

Once more, the GM has instantly altered the ruins with the power of Decay, turning them into a surreal place where time has come untethered and gravity bends on a whim — a proper Decayed ruin fit for the Broken World.

Worry not though! All the mechanical effects found in the Deck of Broken Things are also all present in the Broken Weave book — presented as tables you can roll on and entries you can reference instead. 

The great benefit of the Deck of Broken Things is that it comes with additional flavour text for each ability, offers a much faster way to use the effects at the table, and works as handy rules references for your monster and area — so you don’t need to worry about flicking back and forth to the specific page. Any time you want to twist or decay a creature or location, you simply draw a card or two and place it in front of you, or even your players if you’re feeling brave.

And that’s a summary of how the Deck of Broken Things works in play! What 5e monster are you keen to apply Decay to?