Erannorth Reborn: How to Create New Card Sets

a) A plain text file with our cards
b) A folder with our card artworks
c) A ModLoaderUser.conf file loading our new card set to the game

Let’s pick any folder on our PC, and create there our Mod folder. I’ll name it ‘Rs Card Expansion 1’.

In Rs Card Expansion 1/ create the following folders:

1) Rs Card Expansion 1/Actions

In this folder create a file called: CardDB.RsActionsSet1.tdb
The only important consideration is to make sure that Windows won’t attach the .txt extension after, so if it does remove it. You can easily edit this file by dragging it in an empty notepad window.

2) Rs Card Expansion 1/CustomArtworks/Actions

In this folder add your PNG graphics, that will appear in your Actions.

In the root of your mod folder create a plain text file called: ModLoaderUser.conf

The only important consideration is to make sure that Windows won’t attach the .txt extension after, so if it does remove it. You can easily edit this file by dragging it in an empty notepad window.

In this file just add these two lines:

>> Cards
CardDB.RsActionsSet1.tdb

Making sure that the filename you declare match the filename of your card set.

Your mod is ready and should have the following structure:

Rs Card Expansion 1/
Rs Card Expansion 1/Actions/CardDB.RsActionsSet1.tdb
Rs Card Expansion 1/CustomArtworks/Actions [Lots of PNG files]
Rs Card Expansion 1/ModLoaderUser.conf

You can copy Rs Card Expansion 1/ folder in your ../Content/Mods/ or just send the folder to .zip and install it with the Mod Manager.

Pro Tip: You should never include in your ModLoaderUser.conf resources you don’t actually modify. It will cause conflict with other mods, and perhaps even break your own mod.

There are hundred building blocks you can use to create actions, and you can find all of them in my first Modding Guide. So here I will just show you a couple of examples on how to structure your .tdb file.

Let’s open our CardDB.RsActionsSet1.tdb in Notepad.

Each Action declaration consists of 2 lines:

Action Name, Discipline
(Comma Separated List of Effects) Effect:Value[Space], Effect:Value[Space],

i.e
Rapid Fire, Elf
Fury:2, Damage:3, Double:30, Actions:2, Tier:1, Element:Piercing, UserArtwork:1
Replenish Ally, Animist
Healing:5, ReactivateAlly:1, Actions:1, Tier:1, Element:Earth, UserArtwork:1

Since we used ‘UserArtwork:1’ to define a custom Artwork, we should also put:

Rapid Fire.png
Replenish Ally.png

files in the Rs Card Expansion 1/CustomArtworks/Actions folder.

As you can see you can declare your actions in succession and they don’t have to belong in the same Discipline. If you like to organize them better you can add single line comments using //:

// This line is a comment

And that’s about it. You can also overwrite vanilla Actions with your own. Just include your own definition of the action:

i.e That’s the vanilla Demonic Servant (That’s two lines in our tdb, the action definition should never be broken into more than one line.)

Demonic Servant, Warlock
SynergySloth:5, Summon:Cardname, Power:7, Health:9, Lifespan:2, AllyAbilityTaint:1, Actions:6, Tier:3, Element:Fire

You can add your own version in your Mod, and your version will take priority (That’s two lines in our tdb, the action definition should never be broken into more than one line.)

Demonic Servant, Demon
SynergySloth:5, Summon:Cardname, Power:9, Health:12, Lifespan:3, AllyAbilityTaint:1, Actions:6, Tier:3, Element:Dark

So now your Demonic Servant is a Demon Card and have different stats.

The best way to know that your Mod works is to run the game with it. In the case of a Card Set, if your set appears in the Player’s Handbook, you are good to go.

Easiest way to see that all the cards loaded is to check the Card Count before and after your Mod.

If the Card Count doesn’t match the amount of cards you added, either you override some of the vanilla cards, or a Card definition is broken.

If a Card definition is wrong, the card won’t load correctly and neither any of the cards after it, so you can visit each discipline you modify and see where loading stopped. This in most cases will help you quickly pinpoint the offending action.

Usual errors include mistyping of an effect & forgetting a comma or a space.

i.e1 this Action is wrong:

Eldritch Pillars, Warlock
Multicast:3, Ranged:1 Damage:8, Vulnerable:1, SynergyAmplify:1, Actions:6, Tier:3, Element:Fire

it misses a comma between Ranged:1 & Damage:8.

i.e2 this Action is also wrong:

Eldritch Pillars, Warlock
Multicast:3, Ranged:1, Damage:8, Vulnerable:1, SynergyAmlify:1, Actions:6, Tier:3, Element:Fire

It should be SynergyAmplify:1 not SynergyAmlify:1 etc.

i.e3 this Action is also wrong:

Eldritch Pillars, Warlock
Multicast:3,Ranged:1, Damage:8, Vulnerable:1, SynergyAmplify:1, Actions:6, Tier:3, Element:Fire

it misses a space between Multicast:3, & Ranged:1.

So after creating your first dozen of actions you’ll be able to recognize those mistakes right away. 😉