Card games began in Morrowind with the ancient Dunmeri word ‘card’, or ‘undeparted kin-wardens,’ which in turn refers to — behind the slightly obtuse language — the various forms of undead found in Dunmeri tombs: Ancestor Ghosts, Bonewalkers, Bonelords, and so on. The Dunmeri New Temple’s officially sanctioned explanation for the leap of language from ancestor guardians to slips of paper employed in gambling games has to do with the original use of the cards (here referring to the slips of paper) as tools of mysticism and divination. The tradition amongst such diviners is to rub the ashes of one’s own ancestors into the paper, enriching the paper with the knowledge of the benevolent dead.

However, there is also an unofficial explanation. Said explanation is reviled and censored by the New Temple as sacrilege and blasphemy, but it is certainly a much more entertaining theory. According to a certain story which is somewhere between a folktale and an urban legend, the ancestor guardians themselves invented the game. The tale goes that a particular tomb robber (tomb theft being a terrible crime in Morrowind, but also one from which opportunistic adventurers and merchants were and are more than willing to profit) entered his most recently targeted tomb to discover that the ‘cards’, or ancestor guardians, were playing an odd game with slips of paper.

Presumably, guarding ancient tombs is a rather boring job, so these specific guardians had invented a game to pass the time. The enterprising tomb robber watched on for a short while, learning the rules of the game, before charging out of the shadows and putting silver to the spirits, as tomb robbers do. He retrieved the deck and spread word of the marvelous ‘card’ game, or the game played by ‘cards.’ The game was a hit, swiftly spreading from the tomb robber’s personal circles to all of Morrowind. Over time, some amongst the common folk forgot that the ancient word ‘card’ referred to the guardians, and assumed that the word ‘card’ referred not to the inventors and original players of the game, but to the slips of paper themselves.

The Dunmeri card game developed a set standard, mired in a sticky mixture of religious symbolism and greed. The intense Dunmeri numerology and symbolism of the standard deck is especially interesting, what with its sixteen cards per suit (anologous to the sixteen Daedric Princes), its inclusion of a group of ‘Power Trio’ cards (originally played out by the three Good Daedra, and then by the Tribunal, and now by the Good Daedra again), its three suits (most often accompanied with the same imagery as the ‘Power Trio’), its twelve minor cards (anologous to the Four Corners of the House of Troubles confronted by the three Good Daedra, to the Heavens that are the twelve worlds of creation, and to the twelve New Temple Saints with the exception of the Tribunal), and so on. The use of guar-bone dice was introduced to the game later on, borrowed from a popular game amongst guar herders. The particulars of gameplay shall be discussed later on.

Card games were first introduced to the Empire, and thereby to Tamriel at large, by the Dunmeri Empress Regent Katariah. The preserved and highly treasured letters of the Vlindrel family reveal that Katariah introduced the game to her nobles on more than one occasion, and stubbornly labored to ensure that the game became a popular upper class pastime. Modern historians believe that Katariah’s propagation of her native card game was yet another of her clever diplomatic tactics. By teaching her court to play the game, she not only established a shared interest between herself and the nobles at large, but she gained access to a coartload of gossip, as many wealthy and powerful figures cannot help but gossip as they gamble.

Katariah, in her extensive diplomatic travels throughout the Empire, spread the seed of the Dunmeri card game throughout Tamriel. Predictably, the game took strongest root in Cyrodiil, the home of Katariah’s court. Because the game first had to filter through the noble classes before reaching the common folk, the Imperial deck is arguably the most convoluted. For example, in the name of adding their own brand of religious imagery, the nobles separated the suits into entirely different themes; for example, the ‘Power Trio’ of each of the three suits is aligned to a particular set of three of the Nine Divines.