Cards

Cards are one of the two ways in which the player character can interact with Fallen London, the other being Storylets. Cards are found either at the top of the content area (desktop) or in the cards tab (mobile).

Mechanics

Discardable/Non-Discardable

Most cards can be discarded if for whatever reason you don't want to play them at the moment. Some have no discard option; such cards disappear only when you play an option on the card or no longer fulfill the requirements for the card.

Location/Universal

Most Cards are universally available and can be drawn anywhere in London. Most locations will also have some location-specific cards which usually have to do with the specific area the player character is in.

Location based decks

All areas in the main London setting share a deck, which means that the same cards will be drawn (with the exception of the aforementioned location-specific ones) and your hand will be preserved while traveling between them.

A few sublocations such as Heists, however, have their own deck of cards, which contains only cards unique to that location and tend to also have their own hand. Usually when you travel between such a location and the main setting, your main hand of cards will be preserved, but the location-specific hand will be discarded.

Conflict cards

Raising Favours to 5+ with certain pairs of Factions simultaneously will add a conflict card where you must make a decision in favour of one of the two Factions. This will reduce the Favours with the other Faction by 2.

Two more Conflict Cards involve Connected: The Widow, which has not yet been converted to the Favours/Renown system.

Connected: The Widow 30+ and Favours: other faction 5+ unlocks
Faction 1	Faction 2	Card	Notable Effect siding with
The Widow	The Docks	The Acacia and the Butterfly	: 1 x Strong-Backed Labour + 1 x Puzzling Map : 1 x Favour in High Places
The Widow	Urchins	A familiar face by the school railings	: -8 CP Nightmares : -3 CP Nightmares + 2 x Storm-Threnody

A compact way to visualize this is the following table:

Conflict Cards Overview

vs.
	-							X
		-	X			X
		X	-
				-				X					X
					-	X
		X			X	-						X
							-					X
	X			X				-		X
									-		X		X
								X		-
									X		-		X
						X	X					-
				X					X		X		-

Autofire cards

Some cards will autofire when drawn, meaning that they will immediately be played and you'll be unable to exit them without making a choice.

Force-drawing Cards

Sometimes you can force a certain card to be drawn, rather than wait for it to show up in your Opportunities Deck. There are two ways of doing this:

Slowcake's Amanuensis
If you are A Person of Some Importance -, have at least Notability 1, and the appropriate Making Waves, you can use your influence to force-draw A visit from Slowcake's Amanuensis by choosing to Attend to Matters of Society! in your Social Engagements.

Favourable Circumstances
Once per week, Time, the Healer will you give you a Favourable Circumstance. You can use this by either selecting it in your Inventory, or choosing to Send a Message to a Contact in your Social Engagements. From here, you can draw a variety of cards:

• Any Faction's Connected card
• The Secular Missionary: Investigate Further ( Intimate with a Secular Missionary 7–9)
• The Secular Missionary: a Package Arrives ( Intimate with a Secular Missionary 10)
• An Unsigned Message
• A Presumptuous Little Opportunity

Note that if you force-draw a card while also holding that same card in your hand, that card will be discarded from your hand as well.

Lodgings

Lodgings have some influence on which cards can you can draw and how many you can hold in your hand at any given time.

• The tier of your Lodgings controls how many cards you can hold in your hand at any one time and varies between 2, the starting lodgings, and 5, the three tier-5 lodgings.
• There are a few special remote lodgings which allow you to hold 3 cards in your hand and prevent you from drawing any of the City Vices cards.
• All Lodgings except some remote lodgings have their own unique Card, although the player character can loan out every lodging (except the one they're currently living in) to remove that lodgings card from their deck.

Border colors

A card will have a border with a certain color dependent on its importance. Most cards in Fallen London have a white border, which represents a normal card. Other colors include:

• Bronze cards are a little special - perhaps part of a continuing story.
• Silver cards are quite special, like Ambition or Seasonal content.
• Gold cards are something exceptional, often a once-only story or opportunity.
• Red cards are autofire cards and will do something the moment you click on them.
• Purple cards are rare cards which provide a positive effect.
• Black cards are related to Seeking Mr Eaten's Name and are not to be spoken of.
• Living Green cards are linked to certain World Qualities, representing worldwide events and happenings.
• Dark Green cards signal dangers while Zailing.
• Blue cards are Zee dreams.

More details can be found at Category:Cards#Colors.

Red card

Red cards work different in that they can be played at 0 Actions and in that case don't consume an action. However, when a red card is played while having actions it will consume one.

Further reading

• Beginner's Guide an quick introduction to Fallen London
• Stories (Guide) about the way stories work in Fallen London.
• Storylets, the other major way of interacting with the game
• Guides which contains guides on a variety of subjects.

See also

• Category:Cards which contains all 986 non FATE-locked cards in the game.