Complexity: 3

Summary & Strategy: 

Antiquarian is an adventuring archaeologist who is the current curator of the Vault of Ages - and acts as a living key to overseeing it and the potent artifacts and relics within. With her trusty companion and aide Masudi, Antiquarian utilizes a wide variety of unique relics for powerful combos and effects - but must excavate her way through her deck to find them and work around those that surface.

When playing Antiquarian, there are only a limited number of means to retrieve specific relics, other than Masudi. As the relics are also targets, they can be vulnerable to destruction and damage effects - but if you're able to bring the Vault of Ages into play and keep cards on hand to fuel it, she is capable of building up a reserve of relics to cycle into play and bring her most potent combinations into effect.

Bio

Dr. Asha Kimani was an esteemed archaeologist and anthropologist with a keen eye for antiquities. From the sands of the Sahara desert to the lush terrain of the Lacadon jungle, Asha's expertise brought her expeditions and research into the attention of an affluent entrepreneur by the name of Anselm Strauss, whose apparent passion for history drew to provide substantial financial backing and resources for archaeological pursuits across the globe.

It was during such an expedition in the jungles of the Yucatan that Asha came upon a vast temple complex, once lost to history. Though initially thought to be a corollary to Chichen Itza, it soon became apparent that its many faded murals and carvings seemed to foretell of a terrible evil hidden away in the darkness between stars - and an ancient order which sought to protect the world from such.

Facing myriad perilous traps and navigating treacherous depths, the procession was thinned to Asha and Grigori, a fellow explorer in Strauss' employ. Together, the pair breached a long-sealed chamber, where they were faced with untold riches. As Grigori began to sift through the treasures around them, Asha was drawn inexorably to a pedestal at the center of the chamber, upon which rested a strange red stone.

When Asha laid her hand upon the stone, it flared to life - and in an instant, her mind was flooded with a dizzying barrage of images across centuries overwhelming her senses. The Sagacious Stone, she then discovered, was a potent relic joining its bearers across lifetimes - Curators of an otherworldly space, the Vault of Ages. An immense pressure descended over Asha as she felt the deepest core of her very being scrutinized and weighed by her predecessors: she was not found wanting.

In that moment, Asha was drawn into their fold as the Vault's past curators impressed upon her the dire importance of safeguarding its relics from to forestall impending calamity. Worse still, it became clear that her benefactor, Strauss, pursued the collection of artifacts and relics of power for nefarious ends. Though it would forever change her fate to face great peril, Dr. Kimani accepted the role of Curator and thus became the Antiquarian.

Stirred from her reverie, Asha realized the temple had begun to quake: Grigori's greed had set off grand mechanisms to seal the temple and all within forever-more - but that is a tale told in a future issue of The Antiquarian.