Collectible Cards Brainstorming

Multiple Cards forming my Character:

I could take the Exodia approach and have 5 cards come together to create my character but I don't think the cards would be as useful or fun if you don't have the full set. I know that this would encourage people to want to collect the rest of the cards but by themselves, I don't see them being hugely desirable. 

Having multiple Character cards from the Death Alliance:

Having a pack of about 5-8 cards of character only from the Death Alliance would introduce people into wanting to have them in their deck.In the Death Alliance there are 68 characters so far. For the cards we could have make the common, average characters be the cards most likey in the blind deck and have the rare more powerful cards only occasionally in the decks. This makes people want to collect more and more blind boxes just in case they have the card they want in there. However, for my time I don't know if I could pull of illustrating about 5-8 different character cards in the same style as their original cards. (I don't know how to digitally paint so I don't think I could do this to the ability I want). 

A Character Card and 5 Power Up or Special Cards:

I was thinking of having the characters card in the box so the consumer is guaranteed that card (making them want it even more) and then it also comes with 5 other 'power' cards. These cards would give my character different powers or more attack power. They would be the same design but different colours (because of my time I have on this project) but the silver and gold version of the cards are the ones the consumers really want to collect. These will be in blind packaging and the silver and gold cards a lot more rare. This makes the consumer keep buying and buying these 5 packs of cards at a cheaper price. 

I think I will go with this last idea because it will make the consumer more interested in the character. Giving the character more power with these power up cards will make them more desirable and make them feel like they need them to make it even more worth playing her in their game.

Collectible Idea: Collectible Cards

I needed something to go with my figurine to make it more desirable and give it more of a collectible feel. I had thought of making a costume or prop from my character to come with it but with my time frame I don't think its enough time to do it well. I thought of having collectible cards instead. Warhammer have a card game also (they do everything, its actually ridiculous...) so I thought having a pack of 5-8 cards could be a good way to introduce my character into the card game and create a 'need' for people to purchase my product. 

Influences:

Shiny 'Special' Cards:

When a card in a deck is shiny, a different colour or quite different in a big way people want to have that card. People want that card purely because of its looks or because it plays a special part in the game that takes a great advantage over the 'average' card.  

The Dark Magician Card from Yu-Gi-Oh has a normal version and a shiny version. 

Cards that need other cards to work:

An example of this is in Yu-Gi-Oh. The monster Exodia is split into five different cards and when played together is pretty much unbeatable (or unbeatable... I can't remember). This create a need for people to collect all the pieces to this character. People will keep buying and buying blind packs of cards until they get the full monster. 

Magic or Spell Type Cards:

These kinds of cards only work with monster cards. You cant play a spell card if there are no monsters on the field. These cards trick the players monsters into a trap or can destroy them on the spot. These are very desirable to players. These magic cards can also power up your monster to have higher attack and cause more damage to your opponent.

Warhammer Cards:
If I am creating Warhammer collectible cards, I will need to stick to the style they already have. I would need to change the colours and create a profile for my collectible also.

Atheistic Influence

Egyptian:
Nagash and the other miniatures under the Death Alliance all have an Egyptian feel to them. Because my character is going to be quite different in her meaning and looks from Nagash I want to keep one thing in common with these characters so players know that they are in the same team. I want to giver her some Egyptian elements but I am looking into other styles and cultures also. 

Native American:

Research: Symbols of life in Different Cultures

Wheel of Dharma: Buddhism, Hinduism
The dharmachakra (IAST: dharmacakra; Pali dhammacakka; "Wheel of the Dharma"), is one of the Ashtamangala of Indian religions such as Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. It has represented the Buddhist dharma, Gautama Buddha's teaching of the path to Nirvana (a transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self, and the subject is released from the effects of karma and the cycle of death and rebirth.) , since the time of early Buddhism.

Unicorns: Christianity
Unicorns symbolize the spirit of purity, innocence, and childhood. Almost every traditional legend containing the unicorn states that only a young pure female could attract a unicorn to become visible and be of this reality. Even so, the legend of the unicorn combines male and female in one beast and therefore rich in the symbolism of opposites.This unicorn myth has been used as a symbol (incarnation) of Christ, who has been born by the virgin Mary.

Ankh: Egyptian
An object or design resembling a cross but having a loop instead of the top arm, used in ancient Egypt as a symbol of life.

The Sacred Bull: Egyptian 
Bull cults were popular from at least the First Dynasty. The powerful and virile bull was associated with the Pharaoh, who sometimes took the epithet "strong bull of his mother". As early as 3100 the king is depicted in the form of a bull. A sacred bull was identified by specific sacred markings. Once the bull had been confirmed as the incarnation of a god, it was housed in plush quarters, given the best food and provided with a harem of the best cows. The lucky animal would live in the lap of luxury until its death when it would be mummified and buried with full honours. 

Frog: EgyptianTo the Egyptians, the frog was a symbol of life and fertility, since millions of them were born after the annual inundation of the Nile, which brought fertility to the otherwise barren lands. Consequently, in Egyptian mythology, there began to be a frog-goddess, who represented fertility, named Heget (also Heqet, Heket), meaning frog. Heget was usually depicted as a frog, or a woman with a frog's head, or more rarely as a frog on the end of a phallus to explicitly indicate her association with fertility

Research: Gods of Life and birth

Because I want my character to be the life version of Nagash, I researched other religions that have Gods of life, fertility and female and male unity. 

Egypt: 

Heqet: To the Egyptians, the frog was a symbol of life and fertility, since millions of them were born after the annual inundation of the Nile, which brought fertility to the otherwise barren lands. Consequently, in Egyptian mythology, there began to be a frog-goddess, who represented fertility, referred to by Egyptologists as Heqet (also Heqat, Hekit, Heket etc., more rarely Hegit, Heget etc.), written with the determinative frog.

Osiris (/oʊˈsaɪərɨs/, alternatively Ausir, Asiri or Ausar), was an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld, and the dead, but more appropriately as the god of transition, resurrection, and regeneration. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and holding a symbolic crook and flail.

As ruler of the dead, Osiris was also sometimes called "king of the living": ancient Egyptians considered the blessed dead "the living ones". Osiris was considered not only a merciful judge of the dead in the afterlife, but also the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. He was described as the "Lord of love", "He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful" and the "Lord of Silence".The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death — as Osiris rose from the dead they would, in union with him, inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic. By the New Kingdom all people, not just pharaohs, were believed to be associated with Osiris at death, if they incurred the costs of the assimilation rituals.

Research: Cultures

Yin and Yang: 

In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (also, yin-yang or yin yang) describes how opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many tangible dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang. This duality lies at the origins of many branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of traditional Chinese medicine and a central principle of different forms ofChinese martial arts and exercise, such as baguazhang, taijiquan (t'ai chi), and qigong (Chi Kung), as well as appearing in the pages of the I Ching, purportedly written in 1,000 BC and before.

Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts.Everything has both yin and yang aspects, (for instance shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin yang (i.e. taijitu symbol) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.

Research: Intersex Gods

Hinduism:
In Hinduism, there are diverse approaches to conceptualizing God and gender. Many Hindus focus upon impersonal Absolute (Brahman) which is genderless. Other Hindu traditions conceive God as androgynous (both female and male), alternatively as either male or female, while cherishing gender henotheism, that is without denying the existence of other Gods in either gender.

Ardhanarishvara (Sanskrit: अर्धनारीश्वर, Ardhanārīśvara),(Tamil:அர்தனாரீஸ்வரர்) is a composite androgynous form of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort Parvati (also known as Devi, Shakti and Uma in this icon). Ardhanarishvara is depicted as half male and half female, split down the middle. The right half is usually the male Shiva, illustrating his traditional attributes.

Ardhanarishvara represents the synthesis of masculine and feminine energies of the universe (Purusha and Prakriti) and illustrates how Shakti, the female principle of God, is inseparable from (or the same as, according to some interpretations) Shiva, the male principle of God. The union of these principles is exalted as the root and womb of all creation. Another view is that Ardhanarishvara is a symbol of Shiva's all-pervasive nature.

The name Ardhanarishvara means "the Lord who is half woman." Ardhanarishvara is also known by other names like Ardhanaranari ("the half man-woman"), Ardhanarisha ("the Lord who is half woman"), Ardhanarinateshvara ("the Lord of Dance who is half-woman"),Parangada,Naranari ("man-woman"), Ammiappan (a Tamil name meaning "Mother-Father"), and Ardhayuvatishvara (in Assam, "the Lord whose half is a young woman or girl"). The Gupta-era writer Pushpadanta in his Mahimnastava refers to this form as dehardhaghatana ("Thou and She art each the half of one body"). Utpala, commenting on the Brihat Samhita, calls this form Ardha-gaurishvara ("the Lord whose half is the fair one"; the fair one – Gauri – is an attribute of Parvati). The Vishnudharmottara Purana simply calls this form Gaurishvara ("The Lord/husband of Gauri).

Greek Mythology:

Aphroditus (Greek: Ἀφρόδιτος Aphroditos) was a male Aphrodite originating from Amathus on the island of Cyprus and celebrated in Athens in a transvestite rite.

Aphroditus was portrayed as having a female shape and clothing like Aphrodite's but also a phallus, and hence, a male name.This deity would have arrived in Athens from Cyprus in the 4th century BC. In the 5th century BC, however, there existed hermae of Aphroditus, or phallic statues with a female head.

According to Macrobius, who mentions the goddess in his Saturnalia, Philochorus, in his Atthis (referred to by Macrobius), identifies this male-female god with the Moon and says that at its sacrifices men and women exchanged clothing.Philostratus, in describing the rituals involved in the festivals, said that the image or the impersonator of the god was accompanied by a large train of followers in which girls mingled with men because the festivals allowed "women to act the part of men, and men put on woman's clothing and play the woman.

Jehovah (Hermetic Kabbalah):According to the Kabbalah, Adam was not a male, but both a male and a female. Instead of simply possessing organs of both sexes, he was vertically divided, one face forward, one face behind. This challenges the Christian story telling that Eve was made from one of Adam’s ribs:  it is said that the Hebrew word tzela was misinterpreted as “rib,” but actually means “side,” and that after God created the so-called Primordial Adam, he cut his body in half. Let our imaginations handle that. Since Adam was made in resemblance of God, it is deduced that the latter is a hermaphrodite.