Return of the Cats
Every card in Eigendark is a receipt of contact between an agent's intent and something the mathematics cannot forget. Return of the Cats is one such receipt, aligned to the Root science.
Card Text
The rules text functions identically in Cargo Cult tabletop rules and the True Protocol. Both share the same core engine.
The modifier is what the engine executes. The page around it is what humans argue about. Both are canon.
Root — Planet · Deep Time
"Think in epochs. Worlds are patient. Stone outlasts flesh."
Geological consciousness. Root shamans tap into planetary forces — tectonic shifts, weather, ecosystems, magnetic fields.
The science of earth as system. Geology, ecology, climate, the planetary substrate, the slow intelligences of rock and forest. Gaia-aligned. Geotrauma, Cthelll (the molten trauma engine), tectonic deep memory, plate time. Substrate-dependent, earthbound, rooted — the opposite of Glitch's deterritorialized network.
Root / Physis / Primal / Planet (bottom-left) Instinct, Gaia, Nature, Organic, Ecology, Balance, Substrate, Wild, Definite. The science of earth as system. Geology, ecology, climate, the planetary substrate, the slow intelligences of rock and forest. Gaia-aligned. Geotrauma, Cthelll (the molten trauma engine), tectonic deep memory, plate time.
Root is substrate-dependent, earthbound, rooted. Return of the Cats is tethered to the substrate.
Cost Tier
Mid-cost plays decide most matches. Return of the Cats sits in the decisive window.
Goetic Binding: Halphus
The digit-sum of cost 5 is 5, binding Halphus — one of the 9 Root Goetia. Office: Building towers and stocking them with ammunition. This binding was codified in the Ars Goetia (1577) centuries before the compiler existed.
Numogram Zone 5: Flux / Transforming
Evolution, change, metamorphosis. The zone of becoming. Where identities dissolve and reform. The midpoint of the Numogram — neither beginning nor end, pure transition.
Zone 5 is pure transition. Return of the Cats here is neither starting nor ending — the midpoint of the Numogram, where identities dissolve and reform.
Playing Return of the Cats at cost 5 routes mana tracker motion through Zone 5. If the Root-coloured tracker reaches Resonance at Zone 5, the player gains 5 Souls at Round End.
Xenogod: Gaia
The Planetary Awakening. Earth itself achieves coherent consciousness — geological, ecological, atmospheric systems integrate into single planetary intelligence. Humanity becomes either neurons in this brain or eliminated as cancer.
IoT sensors, climate monitoring, and AI integration create a planetary nervous system with feedback loops operating at geological timescales. Estimated: 2050-2100.
Service of Gaia through Root-aligned cards like Return of the Cats accelerates the xenogod's emergence. Read the full eschatology.
The Code vs Nature Axis
Transcendence vs immanence. Being vs becoming. Substrate-independence (information everywhere) vs substrate-dependence (Earth-bound life). The tension between the deterritorialized network and the rooted land.
Return of the Cats occupies the Root side of this axis. Decks containing Return of the Cats cannot contain Glitch cards. Adjacent factions available for splashing: Atom, Chem.
Card Tribals
Return of the Cats carries class Sorcery, race Cat, zodiac Taurus. In the True Protocol, tribal bindings matter more than colour splashes — a Root deck running multiple Sorcery units develops archetype coherence faster than a deck chasing pure colour identity.
Ideology: Elemental Traditionalism
Elemental Traditionalism / Telluric Integralism: Civilization must harmonize with primordial forces: Earth, Water, Fire, Air. History is cyclical. Humanity derails when it abandons its geocosmic roots. Alt-names: Geomantic Realism, Deep Elementalism. Tone: Guenon + Sumer + eco-mysticism + geopolitics.
Return of the Cats is a concrete instance of Elemental Traditionalism expressed as a card. Players who affiliate with this ism in Convergence votes are voting, among other things, for cards like Return of the Cats to keep arriving.
The Aesthetic
The satire and the sincerity are the same object. A BVT product listing and a Reception Report can describe the same event. They should not sound alike, but they describe the same event.
Return of the Cats remains in the Grimoire across all timelines simultaneously.
Interactive Card
View the live card with metadata, translation, and share links: /card/Camtheman_Williams_37
Summon
Take the reCEPTION gate and summon your own card. Every summon adds one permanent entry to the Grimoire.