Cartomancer

Cartomancer is a role in SpliceHack. Cartomancers are spellcasters with a focus on using scrolls and summoning temporary minions to do their bidding. Many parts of the role are inspired by or pay homage to various trading card games.

Starting inventory

Each Cartomancer starts with the following:

• A blessed hawaiian shirt
• A blessed +1 dagger
• 60 blessed shuriken
• 4 random blessed scrolls
• 3 blessed scrolls of create monster

Intrinsics

Dragonmasters gain intrinsics at these experience levels:

• Level 1: Searching
• Level 7: Warning

Skills

Max	Skill
Basic	Weapons: axe, short sword, club, mace, quarterstaff, polearms, spear, trident Combat: riding Magic: healing Other: cooking
Skilled	Weapons: knife, sling, bare hands Magic: enchantment, clerical
Expert	Weapons: dagger, dart, shuriken Magic: attack, divination, escape, matter

Techniques

Cartomancers can make use of the following techniques:

• Level 1: Soul of the Cards: This technique polymorphs the first scroll in the player's inventory and immediately reads it. If the player is in trouble, then the scroll will be a type that can help them, otherwis the type of scroll is random.
• Level 5: Card Combo: This technique lets the player immediately read several scrolls in the same turn.
• Level 15: Card Capture: This technique transforms a targeted monster into a scroll of create monster, keyed to that monster.

Scroll Rarity

When playing a cartomancer, all scrolls are referred to with a rarity. This rarity does not refer to how often the item is generated, but instead to the base price of the item. This system functions as a limited form of price identification.

Cost	Rarity
< 60	common
< 100	uncommon
< 200	rare
< 300	super rare
>= 300	legendary

Create Specific Monster

When playing a cartomancer, every time a creature has a chance to leave a corpse, there is a 1/20 chance that a scroll of create monster is dropped instead of a corpse. Such scrolls are keyed to the type of the monster that was killed. Reading the scroll will create a tame version of that monster, which will serve the cartomancer for a number of turns calculated via the following code:

Role_if(PM_CARTOMANCER) ? rn1(70 + 4 * u.ulevel, 30) : rn2(20, 30)

When these turns have elapsed, the creature vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Other classes can obtain these special scrolls via bones, although reading a cursed scroll will always create a hostile version of the monster instead of a tame one.

Reading Scrolls

Every time a cartomancer reads a scroll, there is a 1/10 chance that the it is not used up. Additionally, any nearby monsters can respond by immediately reading scrolls of their own.

Writing scrolls as a cartomancer is considered forgery, and as such carries a hefty penalty to both luck and alignment.

Strategy

Conducts

Due to encountering corpses less often and starting with no food, cartomancers are a relatively poor choice for the foodless conduct.

Early game

Cartomancers are arguably the hardest role in SpliceHack, in large part due to the difficulty of living past the early game. Like tourists, they start with little to no combat ability and no spellbooks. Unlike tourists, however, cartomancers lack a reliable source of food. Many of the monsters that can be tamed are not very useful, and as such survival is a struggle. Players should prioritize finding a reliable food source, a decent weapon, and gathering spellbooks.

Late game

Cartomancers excel in the late game. There is ample access to scrolls of create monster, and the player can take advantage of the cartomancer's powerful spellcasting skills.

Quest

The Cartomancer quest sees the player fighting Dal Zethire in an attempt to obtain the Holographic Void Lily.