Nine Kings is a turn-based card game played by characters within the Lightbringer universe. The game, as described in The Blinding Knife book, is played between two or more opponents, either purely for entertainment or as a form of gambling where the stakes can be anything, tangible or intangible. Games are most popularly played by Nobles in any of the six branches of the Card Guild. More than 700 different cards exist in a full set.
Kip has to learn Nine Kings by coercion, after meeting Andross Guile (Lux Lord Red) for the second time. They go on to play five high stakes games where the stakes range from the right to eat for one day to Teia's contract of ownership.
Card Design[]
Cards in Nine Kings are usually made by local artists in association with drafters. All cards have to have the same card backing, so it is only possible to tell the cards apart when they are face up. Normal cards are lacquered in blue luxin for protection and to make them uniform. Jewels denote the colours that drafter cards can draft and they are usually placed around the picture. Cards represent the personality and abilities of people throughout history.
Andross Guile's cards appear to be a deluxe set made from gold, silver, jewels and sealed in yellow luxin. These cards have their name written in braille on the side, so he can still play while blind. Each card is signed by the artist and has Parian cuneforms to denote strength and ability.
Janis Borig tasked herself with designing Kip Guile's card.
Deck Format[]
The main requirement of any single Nine Kings card is that the reverse of each card is nondescript, so as to prevent any player from distinguishing one card from another. The front of each card depicts a famous historical figure, heroic legend, military weapon, or deity (among others).
Black cards[]
The black cards (also referred to as the heresy cards) are a set of cards depicting pictures of people, deities or other elements considered taboo within the mainstream culture of the Chromerian Empire. For most people, it is illegal to be found in possession of black cards, although it the games adjudicators (known as justiciars) did not consider it an offense to play the cards in a Nine Kings game. Most of the True Nine Kings Cards are considered Black Cards by the Chromeria.
True Nine Kings Cards[]
The Mirror Janus Borig uses her abilities to determine the true nature of people and objects, and is somehow able to transfer a magical representation of the person or object onto a Nine Kings card in their likeness. The cards are hand-painted, with five small gemstones affixed to the face of the card, one for each of the seven main drafting colors, with sub-red sharing a gemstone with red and superviolet sharing a gemstone with blue. A drafter can touch these gemstones to will themselves into experiencing the memories contained within the card. The more colors they are able to draft, the more senses the drafter will have when they access the memory.
Senses felt by each color drafted:
- Superviolet/Blue allows for sight
- Green allows for touch
- Yellow allows for hearing
- Orange allows for smell
- Red/Sub-Red allows for taste
During the events of The Broken Eye Kip finds the deck of True Nine Kings cards hidden by Gavin, and accidentally triggers a trap, causing the cards to leap out of his hand and stick to his body. This triggers all of the cards at once, and bringing Kip into the realm of the Immortals.
After a discussion with Abaddon, Kip begins living the memories of each of the cards he has absorbed, now shown as shimmering tattoos on his skin. The process of living each card slowly kills Kip, eventually stopping his heart when he gets down to only the Turtle Bear tattoo. After being revived by Teia, Kip has frequent flashbacks of each of the cards he has lived through over the next year or so.
Rules and Gameplay[]
Although the exact rules of the game are not described in great detail by author Brent Weeks, readers are able to glean some detail as to how the game may be played through a combination of third person narrative of Nine Kings matches played between appointments, Kip's study of the game in The Blinding Knife book and random details exposed by various characters, who mention the game in passing in various conversations throughout the series.
The aim of the game is deplete an opponent's life total completely. A player is eliminated when they run out of life. Life total is measured by turning over knuckle bones and it is unclear how many are used in each game.
There are at least 3 kinds of cards in the game:
- Source cards - Which generate light for the drafters of both players. Garden, Forest, Red wall and Sky are named source cards in the book. They have elaborate artwork on them and set the scene for the game.
- Character cards - These represent the different characters, such as drafters and other important people from history. These cards have jewels on them to represent what colors they can draft.
- Effect cards - These cards appear to have an ongoing effect over the course of the game. For example, Kip plays Panic on Andross Guile to permanently reduce the time his turns can take.
When the game is set up, the first player can choose whether the field of play is Inside or Outside. Outside makes it "harder to control the light" while Inside produces more light sources for red, yellow, and sub-red drafters, thus making it harder for blue and green drafters.
Players then draw a hand of cards, however it is unclear how many cards in their hands. It is likely to be 7 or 8 cards, as Andross plays 8 cards in one turn, in Chapter 48 of The Blinding Knife.
While the first player gets to choose the field of play, they do not get to draw a card on their first turn.
Turns appear to have a influence on the time of the day in the game. There are 5 times in the game: Daybreak, Morning, Noon, Sunset, Night. This simulates the amount of light available for the players. The most powerful cards can be played at noon where light is the strongest.
Andross and Kip play a timed variant of the game, using 5 second sand timers. Each player gets 2 sand timers, allowing them a total of 10 seconds per turn. Some cards, such as Panic can adjust the time players have for their turns. Kip successfully plays 2 Panic cards on Andross, reducing his 5 second timers to 3 second timers, which allows Kip to win the game.
Players' cards can fizzle, it is not mentioned how. Superchromats can prevent this.
Known Cards[]
The following cards are referenced, in no particular order, over the course of the story. For the sake of this wiki some cards will be marked as confirmed and some as unknown or suspected. Also, there may be some spelling mistakes in need of correcting. This list includes regular and True Nine Kings cards, spoilers below:
Source cards:
- Garden
- Forest
- Grass
- Red Wall
- Sky
- Torches
- Fires
Character cards:
- Zee Oakenshield
- Damien Savoss (Black card)
- Hanishu, Tremblefist
- Stalker
- Green Warden
- Sea Demon - This card attacks automatically at the start of the user's turn. If there are any other cards on the board Sea Demon must attack them, even if they are allied cards.
- Sea Giant - may be a different card from the Sea Demon card, though it's the same creature. In the Burning White Andross has a copy of the forbidden card.
- Mirrorman
- Vox
- Karris ShadowBlinder
- Wights of various colors
- Turtle Bear
- Andross the Red - Shows Andross in his younger years with his three sons around him.
- Andross Guile
- The Master
- Gunner
- The Butcher of Akbaloo
- Orea Pullawr
- Talon Gim
- Izem Red
- The Prisoner - possibly refers to Dazen, or Gavin, in the Color Prisons
- Samila Sayeh
- Aheyyad Brightwater
- Deedee Falling Leaf
- The Color Prince
- Halo Breaker
- The Fallen Prophet
- The Black Seer
- The Novist
- Zymun the Dancer
- Rass the Caster
- Flamehands
- Orlov Kunar
- Jing
- The Butcher of Ru - Gad Delmarta
- The Technologist - Ben-Hadad
- Three-Eyed Ben - Possibly refers to Ben-Hadad, who uses three-colored lenses
- Usem the Wild
- Ganesh the Bear
- Kors Angier
- Gan Govair
- Helane Troas
- Viv Grayskin
- Yras the Caster
- Sea Demon Slayer - Likely refers to Gunner
- Pleiad Poros
Effect cards:
- Panic - Reduces an opponent's sand timers by 1 second each.
- Eye of Heaven - A power enhancer
- Dome of Aracles - Effect not mentioned.
- Cloak of Darkness - Effect not mentioned.
- Spectacles - Effect not mentioned.
- Mirror Armor - Effect not mentioned
These cards have been referenced, however it is not mentioned which type of card they are:
- New Green Wight
- Polychrome Wight
- Black Powder Charge
- Heresy
- The Fixer
- The Shadow
- Tala
- Black Luxin
- Multicolored Spectacles
- The Angari Serpent
- Cause Anger
- Innervate
- Incarnidine
- Skimmer
- Condor
- Iron Elm
- Skirting the Issue (Chapter 65 in The Blinding Knife describes this card. Viewing the card shows a scene where a Blackguard is working with a younger Blackguard discovering how to use Green Luxin to enhance his legs.)
- The High Luxiat (Chapter 60 in The Broken Eye describes this card. Viewing this card shows a scene from Quentin Naheed's perspective, listening to his superior, Brother Tawleb, giving him an order to kill Kip. Quentin's thoughts reveal he is very uncomfortable and hesitant to kill someone, but he is not sure he can refuse an order.)
- The Golden Mean (Chapter 81 in the Burning White describes this card. The viewer sees/feels the world from the perspective of the ship)
Weapon cards:
- Yellow sword (Drafted) - Takes 1 turn to draft and another to solidify.
- The Color Prince's Rifle, Effect not mentioned
- Heaven's Finger - A Blinding Knife, Effect not mentioned.
- Shimmer Cloak - If light-splitter grants invisibility except against Sub-Red or Superviolet. Vox is featured on the card.
- Hellstone Dagger
- Flashbomb
- Luxin Grenados
- Flintlock
- Incendiary Musket
Trivia[]
- Brent Weeks has hinted that a playable version of Nine Kings is in the works.
- Though it may only be a storytelling tool, it's possible that viewing the True Cards works outside of Time. There are events, such as Vox's assassination of Janus Borig, that are not viewed until after the event happens, but Vox is able to tell that a 'fat boy' is somehow watching him. Various viewings of the cards are peppered throughout the novels, many of them before Kip has a chance to view them during the events of The Broken Eye. The Mirror's ability to see someone's future when creating their card may have some effect on this.