Alchemy was one of the most famous games of chance of the middle Uzdumalian era. It was played with three dice and a special set of seventeen playing cards, each illustrated with a different figure. It enjoyed its greatest popularity during the first Interregnum, when it was very commonly played in the clubs and parlors of the moneyed classes. It has since fallen out of fashion so thoroughly that there is significant debate over the rules of play; no complete description of the rules exists, and what we know of them has been reconstructed from descriptions of play in novels, poems, and accounts of a few famous matches.

In theory, Alchemy was a game of pure luck, involving no skill whatsoever, though some players claimed to have devised winning strategies. It is probable that most, if not all, of these "strategies" relied on chicanery of some sort. The more brazen gamblers and con artists of the period bragged of fixing the game by several means, including weighting the dice, gaming the throw, gaffing the cup, and marking the cards. Because Alchemy was always a parlor game, never played in the great Gaming Houses of Khlam, the opportunities for cheating were plentiful. For the same reason, of course, the stakes were generally quite low. However, there are several recorded examples of significant disputes settled by a game of Alchemy, most famously the great Wager of Hortus.

Rules of Play

Alchemy was played by two or more players. It appears that the most common number of players in friendly games was four or six; when a significant wager was at stake, the number of players seems almost always to have been two. An exception to this tendency was the occasion on which three Bankers of the Realm played a hand of the game to determine which should succeed to the Presidency of the Exchequery. (This event is recorded in volume 322 of the offical Exchequery accounts.)

The game was played in six rounds, called "hodges". The first five rounds employed the dice, while the sixth round was devoted to the cards. In each of the first five rounds, each player rolled the dice in turn until one player struck "pips", or "the Spotted Uncle". This seems to have been a particular combination of points keyed in some way to the number of the round. A device called the "keeper" was used to keep track of pips, and side bets were sometimes placed on each round using special tokens known as "coppers" or "pfennings." There is some debate over whether real pennies were ever used as coppers in these bets (see, for example, chapter seven of Beakman's Gameplay and Empire, vs. section three of Yarbosa's A History of Hazard). The outcome of the dice rounds then determined the order of play for the sixth and final hodge.

In the sixth round, players could lay their wagers on any one of the seventeen cards in the deck. How the play proceeded from there is unknown, but apparently this round could vary enormously in length -- it might end in a single move, or last for over an hour of tense, protracted play.

The Dice

Alchemy was played with three ordinary eight-sided dice. These were thrown from cups designed for the purpose, often elaborately decorated and made of luxurious materials. These are collector's items even today, and many of the finest can be found in the Central Vault. It was quite common for unscrupulous parties to commission "gaffed" cups, which allowed a player to throw certain combinations at will. Eventually these became so common that hosts ceased to allow guests to bring their own cups, and the new practice was to provide sealed, disposable cups to all players at the beginning of each hand.

The Cards

There are no known examples of original Alchemy cards that have survived to the modern era. There are a few representations of individual cards in paintings and, in one case, a photograph, but most of what we know comes from descriptions of cards in literary texts. The designs on the backs of the cards seem to have varied widely, but were always quite elaborate and colorful. The depictions of the figures, by contrast, were typically spare and monochromatic.

There are seventeen cards in an Alchemy deck, numbered as follows:

1. The Dice

2. The Hovel

3. The Rider

4. The Lady of Wheels

5. [unknown]

6. The Bottle (or "The Drunk"?)

7. The Greater Pin

8. The Lesser Pin

9. The Weasel

10. The Shoes

14. [unknown]

15. The Knight of Marble(s?)

16. The Loser

??. The Tramp

??. The Cuckold

??. The Forgotten Beast

??. The Whip (apparently a person, rather than an object)

Famous Games

The best-known historical game of Alchemy is of course the so-called "Wager of Hortus". Games of Alchemy, both straight and gaffed, also play a prominent role in a number of literary works, including The Tale of Drezdl, Tepal the Nightman, and the "Consanguinity Cycle".

See also:

Chance

Wager of Hortus