The Deck of Many Tarrasques

My first homebrew deck, because it HAD to be made

A set of twelve cards laid out on a wooden table, with an instruction sheet beside them, a tyrannosaurus rex behind them, the closest we could get lol, and a box in front of it all titled the deck of many tarrasques in red and black.

This was shown to me in the Discord, and, while I normally don't want to make homebrew items (because there's like a thousand of them), this one I had to make, I HAD to make. The idea of the deck was put forth by wookywok and created by David J Prokopetz on tumblr in 2020, and upon being shown this, I... I just couldn't get it out of my head. Like eh, homebrew, not really my thing, but... I mean... I should have at least *one* homebrew item besides my own. I mean... anything that my mind could to do justify it, this deck was being made. And so... made it was!

I'm sure if you know of this item, you've seen this image (for which the rules in text can be found here), and that's more or less the exact image I printed to make the little instruction sheet that goes in the deck with the cards! I printed the full height of the image to the height of an A4 sheet of paper, which conveniently made it fit the width of a playing card! A few folds later (and a tape-plastic coating for protection and strength), and the instructions were card-size and ready to go! Next, we needed cards!

This really was a very quick project, technically a two-day build, though it could (obviously) have been fit into one quite easily. I ran to the print shop to get the instructions, whipped out a spare deck of cards, yanked out all of the spades (debated which suit, but that just felt the best for this) up to the queen, and then debated how to label them. Do I add numbers? No, that's silly, the cards have numbers. But I need to write something. So I summarized each of the cards to a two to four word summarization of the rule, and ran with that! There's something amusing about pulling a card that says 'allegorical tarrasque' lol. For the last one, the miniature tarrasque that steals socks for some bizarre reason (yet somehow just fits, I don't think it would have been nearly as funny if it had been anything else at the end), and decided to add that sock part onto the card itself, because that seems to be an important part of this particular tarrasque. It's up to the DM, but I suspect it either eats the sock, or hides it somewhere like a cat batting a toy under a couch. The longest part of the build was actually the box! And goodness, am I happy with how that came out :D

The original box actually tore severely when trying to peel apart the seam to flip it inside-out, so I created a new one from scratch from a red hair-dye box (somehow seems fitting), and set about decorating it. Nothing much, nothing special, but writing the title in red and black felt suitably destructive (despite how like half of the results aren't actually all that destructive, but it's a mental image of a tarrasque that we're summoning here lol), and the other side... OH the other side came out well! I didn't want to leave it blank, so I just searched online for 'tarrasque symbol' in hopes that there was some agreed-upon token symbol or something, but it was pretty random. The literally second result however (designed by gfxpartner) looked pretty drawable. And so we free-handed it! We penciled it on first, basically filled in any of the linework separating the limbs, since trying to keep that would have been basically impossible, and wow! For being a pure tarrasque stencil, that came out amazing. Like, you know EXACTLY what it is at first glance, no separation of limbs, no sense of depth, just a single-colour stencil, that there is a tarrasque! WOW I'm glad that came out like that! So that's epic :D

One coat of tape to strengthen and protect the box later, and the cards and instruction sheet was slipped inside, waiting for a campaign. And this HAS to be given to an adventurer at some point, inadvisable, pfft, there shall be full advisal of this magic item from me! As like the Scroll of Titan Summoning, I've posted online that as a DM, you shouldn't terribly fear using these items, because like... ok, they summon a tarrasque. Worst case scenario (generally speaking, leave it to the players to find new and horrifying uses for things lol), the tarrasque rampages whatever area of the map for a while. DM-plan that it takes a few weeks, but an emergency gathering of active and retired adventurers comes together and defeats the creature, problem solved! So with that worry out of the way (barring whatever plan the players come up with that will throw ALL your plans into chaos lol), we have... the Deck of Many Tarrasques XD XD :D

Finished February 19, 2025




Oh you know you want to pull a tarrasque!
 The instruction strip partially cut out from the printed sheet of paper, with one of the playing cards laying on top of it to figure out the width, a ruler laying upside down in approximately the next cutting position, upside down because it has a cork bottom, and the thickness of that won't allow the metal to lay flat against the paper, and a yellow boxcutter sitting beside.The twelve cards laid out in a four by three grid, each one labelled in blue pen saying things like tarrasque, sleeping tarrasque, clumsy tarrasque, paracausal tarrasque, reputation of the tarrasque, or six inch tarrasque that steals socks.

The front of the box, pre-tape coating. Deck of many is written in red marker, and tarrasques in black, with a sharp zig-zag line drawn beneath in black as well. It's being held up in front of the table of art supplies and cards waiting for the ink to dry.The face of the box, with the stencil logo of the tarrasque drawn on in black marker, a sharp logo at the center of a white field, which well conveys the terror that a tarrasque will invoke. It's also being held up in front of the drying cards and art supplies.

The cards laid out in a four by three pattern on a wooden table, with the unfolded instruction sheet beside them. In front of the cards is the box showing the title, deck of many tarrasques, and behind it all is a large, roaring tyrannosaurus rex, the closest analog to a tarrasque that we had access to for the photo. I think Rexy does a good job of conveying the fright here lol

The face of the box beside the instruction sheet, which is folded up and the overflap titled deck of many tarrasques. On the face of the box is a stencil of a tarrasque in mid roar, rearing up in a terrifying way, a stark black stencil on a white background, emblematic of the chaos that could abound. Or you might get a six inch tall tarrasque that annoyingly steals one of your socks while you're asleep lol.