A FULL 174 CARD FANUCCI DECK 1    A FULL 174 CARD FANUCCI DECK 2    Double Fanucci Table

DOUBLE FANUCCI

Legend has it that Double Fanucci (or Fanucci) was invented by the deposed Zilbo III in the late seventh century. His scheme was for thousands of rich bored old people in retirement homes across the country to love it. He dreamed of making a quiet, personal fortune by publishing rulebooks and strategies and variations on the strategies, not to mention the playing fees he would collect from workshops and demonstration games. Exiled to a Mithican villa, he devoted the remainder of his life to implementing this card game. By 665 the card game was finalized and released to the public. And as early as 670 GUE, Double Fanucci was already the most popular game of all Zork.

A game of tremendous complexity and almost infinite rules, the thirteenth accomplishment of  King Mumberthrax was to proclaim it the national sport of Quendor in 757 GUE after nearly a hundred years of growing popularity. This proclamation merely gave official royal approval to those who had been holding annual Fanucci tournaments since its first championship competition in Suspendur 691 GUE. These Championships, held in the city of Borphee during the first week of autumn, frequently leave thousands homeless in the ensuing Fanucci mania. (It is not certain if the Borphee Fanucci Stadium was built after or before the start of these championships.)

Double Fanucci is an extraordinarily complex card game which has led many otherwise successful gamblers to bankruptcy. Despite years of research, our team from the Frobozz Magic Appendix Compilers has been unable to get a complete grasp of this game, and not even its greatest players can fully explain the rules. Fanucci is in fact so complicated that some who do not wish to waste the time required to learn the rules simply play a corrupted version of the game, known as Gabber Tumper. In fact, unbeknownst to most, the version of Double Fanucci that has infested almost all of Zork much more resembles Gabber Tumper (a thinking man's version of Double Fanucci) rather than the mammothly unabridged version:
    An unabridged transcript from the 904 Annual Double Fannuci Champion Ship (part 1) / (part 2)

Those who do elect to brave the dangers of this widely-circulating abridged edition of Fanucci are immediately faced with an immense deck. This deck is divided into face cards and suits. The original 15 suits (Mazes, Books, Rain, Bugs, Fromps, Inkblots, Scythes, Plungers, Faces, Time, Lamps, Hives, Ears, Zurfs, and Tops) each have eleven cards, valued at 0-9 and Infinity. The face cards are as follows: Granola, Death, Light, the Snail, Beauty, Time, the Grue, the Lobster, and the Jester.

For example, for the suit of Mazes:
    "the Naught of Mazes"
    "Singled Mazes"
    "Doubled Mazes"
    "Trebled Mazes"
    "the Four of Mazes"
    "the Five of Mazes"
    "the Six of Mazes"
    "the Seven of Mazes"
    "the Eight of Mazes"
    "the Nine of Mazes"
    "Infinite Mazes"

The biggest mistake made about Double Fanucci is the number of cards in the desk. Most claim that the complete deck contains 174 cards, but this number only refers to the number of unique cards per deck. In a proper game of Double Fanucci, there are in fact at least four of each card, which would give a complete deck at least 696 cards (it is assumed that this version of the game was called Double Fanucci because it was played with a double deck, thus both a Single Fanucci or a Solitaire Fanucci deck may be thought to have only two of each card).

The Rules Committee of the Greater Gaming Guild in Port Foozle issued Amendments #494 through #575 shortly before 945 GUE, which began to include the expanded version, containing 250 different cards instead of the normal 174 card version, which did not include the additional twelve suits: Caves, Corbies, Rat-Ants, Edible Rocks, Lyres, Ships, Ales, Slugs, Talismen, Yipples, Insecurity and Loaves (based on the card count, it is safe to assume that each of these suits did not include 11 cards per suit and/or Insecurity was misidentified as a suit instead of a face card).

At the start of the game a player is dealt four of these cards, and at any point during the game when the player has less than four cards, he can take another card from the top of the discard pile. Play progresses with players taking one turn after the other, either drawing or discarding a card or using one of their current cards to execute a special play. These possible plays are as follows: Combine, Single-Play, Double-Play, Pass, Overpass, Trump, Undertrump, Reverse, Muttonate, Divide, and Ionize.

In the beginning of the tenth century, there was much debate among Guild members over the proposed elimination of the Undertrump, Muttonate, Divide, and Ionize moves. Whereas the Guild apologized formally for any offense taken by Trumps, Mutton, Divides and Ions in the Empire, the Fanucci rulebook authors had no reason to take action, until the offended parties petitioned the Guild themselves. (Which, should be noted, is not the same thing as partitioning the Guild, as several Mutton attempted to do. Though the new walls are greatly appreciated, and do much in the way of wall space, the proper channels of petition convention must be observed for the petition to be legally filed.)

This is where our comprehension of Double Fanucci becomes a little vague. Doing certain plays with certain cards can either cause you to gain or lose points, or cause your opponent to gain or lose points. Clearly, some plays are to your advantage, while others can be quite detrimental. Over the years, Fanucci players have developed fond names for certain of these plays, and a few of them are listed here. Plays that are to a player's advantage are marked as positive, and the number represents the number of points that the play is worth.

Accardi Variation	+15
Antharian Attack	-81
Balsawood Convention	+17
Bloodworm Defense	+54
Borphee Bluff	+10
Doubleton Duck	+21
Egreth Convention	+35
Fanuccimeister	+60
Festeron Feint	+41
Festeron Finesse	+95
Forborn Chisel	-79
Frotz Factor	+64
Frotzen Ploy	+12
Fublian Gambit	-11
Full Foozle Progression	+4
Golden Fromp Clause	-15
Grand Slam Clause	+37
Hamster Substitution (third-level)	?
Inside Duo-Trick	+25
Kovalli Hustle	+78
Oddzio Gambit	+10
Porridge Variation	-20
Royal Bid	+28
Segmented Shuffle	+42
Shy Openers	-34
Skybreaker	?
Singleton in the 3rd Frame	-22
Unlimited Singleton Bids	+16
Unrejuvenated Slamboozle	+22
Zibble Ploy	+10
Zilbo Standard	+18
Zilbo's Half-Renege	+56

Other Rules:

1. A double-play time cannot be done except after a third-level Hamset Substitution.
2. Muttonate Singled Tops cannot be done from Second Seat in a two-person game.
3. Undertrump Snail cannot be done without a note from your doctor.
4. (?) cannot be done during the middle third of Mumberbur.
5. (?) cannot be done before a New Sun.
6. (?) cannot be done under Miznian rules.
7. (?) cannot be done in a coastal city without first eating the rind of a burnt casaba melon.
   

It should be pointed out that to accurately describe the conditions necessary to execute these plays is completely out of the question. An updated edition of the Fanucci rule book is quite probably larger than even the Unabridged Version of this Encyclopedia. For now, all we can offer the reader are a few minor points.

Any of the many changes made to the Abridgements or Addendum of Double Fanucci are made in accordance with the House Rules of the various casinos, provided those rules have been rightly registered with the House Rules Division of the Double Fanucci and Related Spin-offs chapter of the Greater Gaming Guild in Port Foozle.

Fanucci players at the Port Foozle Casino typically play with the Revised Miznian Rules, Seventh-Level Amendments, with the following exceptions: no side-handling after an underfunded discard, two draws after a Skybreaker, and an extra muttonation if the conditions of Rule 17.4.1.B are met.

Other Fanucci house rules were adopted by the Fanucci Casino Rebuilding Act of 817 GUE.

By Rules Committee Amendment #493, the game is suspended when one player's lead exceeds 1241, and the game must be replayed in its entirety, except during a Frotz Moon or in a six-player game where at least three players are of Mithican ancestry. Amendments #494 to 575 were put into effect by 945 GUE.

There are many more rules which are too numerous to list here. Our research team has made the decision to include an excerpt from the Double Fanucci rulebook, as a sample of the chaotic mess:

...composes the abridged version of the second subset to the eleventh chapter of the outline of the first set of rules which is used in the Borphee Double Fanucci Championships, which is not to be confused with the abridged version of the second subset to the eleventh chapter of the addendum of the first set of rules which is used in the Borphee Double Fanucci Championships.  That is still under its seventh series of revisions, and must await approval by the Double Fanucci and Related Fanucci Spin-offs chapter of the Greater Gaming Guild in Port Foozle.

 

Professional Fanucci players make use of a handicapping system in which the better the player is, the lower his handicap number. Forburn the Wily, possibly the greatest Fanucci player of all time, had a handicap of a mere 0.01. Because this system of handicapping runs contrary to other systems, it is believed that a player's handicap is the number added to his score at the start of the game. Thus a poor player with a high handicap would start off with a high score.

Three undertrumps after an opponent's discard of a Trebled Fromp is an indefensible gambit, and is the only known way to win at Double Fanucci.

Other versions, derived from this extremely abridged version of Double Fanucci are known: Single Fanucci, Solitaire Fanucci, Partnership Fanucci, 3D Fanucci, etc


FANUCCI CARDS IN BATTLE
At the beginning of the Great Monster Uprising of the Second Age of Magic, the often mysterious and enigamtic messages of Implementor One fueled an age of Fanucci card discovery unrivaled to this day. While there is no recorded evidence of Fanucci cards having magical abilities linked to the regular game, in this period, enchanted decks were found all over the world. Adventurers on the fields seemed to be more successful while they were carrying a Double Fanucci stack. They also found that traveling without them, had a negative effects on their spells, attacks, and even their luck. Obviously all of this was found quite by accident, and the earliest recorded adventurer who used them in this manner was Detective Softly; he was also the first known to master the use of the cards in this manner.

After years of testing, it was discovered that stacking up to four Fanucci cards in particular combinations or sequences gave the holder certain powers in violent encounters. When correctly applied by an adventurer to certain attributes of their own, the cards would generate a magical field effect which could enchance relevant skills with an extra modifier. Different combinations would add different levels. They called this their "Fanucci Gambit." Some even handed out Fanucci cards to their sidekicks.

The important factor seemed to be that only certain suits would combine well with others. Some would even act to reduce the beneficial effects of others. As to the face cards, their effects were slowly determined. Weaker cards seemed easy enough to find, enabling even the feeblest of adventuers to test the effects of these mysterious Fanucci cards and compelling them to complete the 174 card deck.

The Double Fanucci scientists are still researching combinations and there are still many unknown effects. A few threw caution to the wind and stacked cards with no particular decision on what they would affect, which actually impeded them in their efforts to keep monsters at bay.

Over time, several effects were discovered and a chart was gathered together by some of the more intelligent explorers:

1. never to combine three or four different sets (0%)
   
2. only combine pairs of suits from the same set (0%) or those that are separated by a blue line (-50%). All other combinations were counter-productive (as best their effects were nullified, at worse they were detrimental)
3. never combine more than two cards from the same suit. Larger cards within a suit yielded larger payoff.
4. The highest "power" one could obtain for a single ability was 100. There seemed to be four areas upon a person where these cards could be concentrated.

The Enchanters' Guild has applied the following rating value to each of the cards (of which it seems apparent that the highest total value one can achieve is 100, regardless of the cards used):

1. Naughts (2)
2. Ones (4)
3. Twos (8)
4. Threes (16)
5. Fours (20)
6. Fives (24)
7. Sixes (30)
8. Sevens (36)
9. Eights (40)
10. Nines (44)
11. Infinities (50)
    

Brother Suits (0%)

1. Ears, Mazes, Scythes
2. Hives, Inkblots
3. Plungers, Books, Zurfs
4. Tops, Rain, Faces
5. Bugs, Time
6. Lamps, Fromps

Allied Factions (-50%)

1. Bugs, Time -- Plungers, Books, Zurfs
2. Hives, Inkblots -- Bugs, Time
3. Plunges, Books, Zurfs -- Hives, Inkblots
4. Ears, Mazes, Scythes -- Tops, Rain, Faces
5. Lamps, Fromps -- Ears, Mazes, Scythes
6. Tops, Rain, Faces -- Lamps, Fromps

Neutral Factions (-100%)

1. Hives, Inkbolts -- Tops, Rain, Faces
2. Ears, Mazes, Scythes -- Bugs, Time
3. Plungers, Books, Zurfs -- Lamps, Fromps
   

Enemy Factions (-150%)

1. Bugs Time -- Tops, Rain, Faces
2. Bugs Time -- Lamps, Fromps
3. Plungers, Books, Zurfs -- Tops, Rain, Faces
4. Plungesr, Books, Zurfs -- Ears, Mazes, Scythes
5. Hives, Inkblots -- Ears, Mazes Scythes
6. Hives, Inkblots -- Lamps, Fromps
   

As for the face cards, their unique effects were only determined after rigorous research and finally private conversations with the Implementors themselves when all else failed (all stastics have been rigorously tested and charted on the official Enchanter rating system):

CARD	REGION FOUND	EFFECT
Beauty	The White House	+5% discount in stores
Light	Frostham	+5% increase to zorkmids won after a battle
Granola	Antharia	+2 increase to maximum health
Time	Gurth	+5 AP per day
Lobster	Grubbo-by-the-Sea	+20% carrying capacity +3% chance of item drop after battle
Death	Greater Borphee	+2% final win probability
Snail	Mizniaport	-10% enemy attack rating
Grue	reward for unknown event	+10% chance of gaining +1 maximum health after a successful battle
Jester	reward for unknown event	one of the above effects are activated at random each day

Along with these, there are still many other mysteries about the magicial abilities of the Fanucci cards that are yet to be discovered by adventurers even in the current age, if all of them can be discovered at all.

FANUCCI TRIVIA:
The 214th annual Double Fanucci Championship ended in a drew between Veldran of Aragain and Bobo the Somewhat Misguided, and Hobart the Unmerciful and Snuffie, making it the 72nd year in a row that the tournament closed without a confirmed winner.

"Babe would turn over in his grave if he could see my playing" is a quote commonly used by those who are fairing terribly in a game of Double Fanucci, as this sport was the only one that Babe Flathead was unable to master.

Beach Blanket Fanucci was filmed in 871 GUE.


EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK "HOW TO WIN AT DOUBLE FANUCCI"

When a KENDALL spell ("simplify instructions") was cast upon this book, the text was all erased except for these words on a single page, "The only way to win is not to play."

SOURCE(S): Zork I (A History of the Great Underground Empire), Zork II (The GUE on 9 Zorkmids a Day), Zork Zero, New Zork Times 5.3, Zork Nemesis (design documents), Zork: Grand Inquisitor, Legends of Zork (game, zorkpedia), The Encyclopedia Frobozzica, [also used the interpretation of Legends of Zork's usage of the cards from the zork wiki (http://zork.wikia.com/wiki/Double_Fanucci)]