The Deck of Many Things is one of the best-known magic items in Dungeons & Dragons. Players delight in the possibilities the deck offers, such as suddenly advancing in level or gaining fabulous wealth. Since its introduction, the deck has been associated with physical cards—game props Dungeon Masters could use to build a deck their players drew from. The cards and book you're holding are designed to satisfy this demand in the best way possible, providing a beautiful deck of physical cards DMs and players can handle, shuffle, and draw from when they encounter the Deck of Many Things in their games.
But this deck is much more than that. The deck has been expanded with forty-four new cards DMs can use to build customized versions of the Deck of Many Things for their games. This deck has also been designed for two additional uses:
Divination
Dungeon Masters can use the cards for divinatory readings that provide players with clues about the challenges that lie ahead. Divinatory readings are described in the "1" section.
Generating Adventures
DMs can use the deck to generate adventure ideas and even outline an adventure's starting situation, journey, encounters, and climax. The guidelines for this are found in the "2" section and include an example of how the cards can be used to create a story or a dungeon,
Customizing Your Deck
The Deck of Many Things is as old as D&D, first appearing in 1976. That earliest version of the deck had eighteen unnamed cards, and the DM was encouraged to build the deck from ordinary playing cards, Virtually everything about the deck has changed as the game has evolved: the number of cards has increased, the cards have gained names, the names have changed, and the rules have gone back and forth about whether the Deck of Many Things is an artifact or perhaps even an intelligent item with its own mysterious goals.
What this means for players and DMs is that no definitive version of the Deck of Many Things exists. Like everything else in D&D the deck is a tool you can customize to suit the needs of your table, You might include all the cards to capture the wild unpredictability of fate, use only cards that fit a certain theme or yield particular results, or select a few specific cards that precisely fit your adventure. You can even invent new cards. You can find examples Of how to customize the deck to suit your table, including card lists, in 1.
Card Meanings
The meanings of in individual cards depend on how you're using the deck. If you're using it to represent the Deck of Many Things magic item, the game rules for the twenty-two cards that make up the classic deck appear in the Dungeon Master's Guide while rules for the forty-four new cards are detailed in 6. However, you can change the powers of cards as you see fit.
If you're using the deck for divination or generating adventures, you have two main options for card meanings. The easiest method is to use the literal meaning of the card. In this case, the BMT card literally suggests a dragon.
For a more nuanced option, the "3" section presents an array of potential meanings for each card, depending on which way the card is oriented and using signifiers that suggest how the card applies to people or creatures the characters might meet, places they might visit, treasures they might find, and situations they might experience. For example, the BMT card could refer to a literal dragon, but it might also indicate a dragonborn, a dragon's lair, or someone hoarding treasure.
Card Spreads
In addition to having their own meanings, cards take on additional meanings when combined as spreads: arrangements of oracle cards on a surface. With spreads, the order in which cards are drawn and where they're placed in relation to other cards add meaning to a reading. For example, cards drawn earlier in a reading might be interpreted as talking about the past or the start of an adventure, while those drawn later might speak about the future or an adventure's culmination.