Mortalis Machina Playing Cards

Mortalis Machina playing cards is where mortals meets machine. A beautifully unique concept and delicately designed deck of premium playing cards with carefully refined details put into with a world’s first real mechanical box with dynamic open and close gear function made entirely out of paper which is no bigger than a standard deck of cards.

Conceptualized and designed in its entirety by us at The Paper Gear Company over the last 3 years, we hope the Mortalis Machina playing cards will be a deck that you consider worthy to be in your collection. This is a very limited run and we will produce only 999 copies.

THE DESIGN

Mortalis Machina playing cards is a themed design where mortals meet machines. The design contains many elements of steampunk which was a heavy influence to this deck of cards right from the very beginning. Throughout the deck of cards, you will find intricate Victorian details mixed with Baroque and Gothic elemental designs. There is also a good mix of fantasy and witchcraft added to the playing cards and box design. What was also important was that the design of this deck of cards must fit in with the one of a kind mechanical box which we have developed ourselves for this project so, cogs and gears are also added to the design concept.

Each of the court cards and the 2 Jokers were designed very thoughtfully and in great detail which did take us many rounds to get right where we wanted the deck. The beautifully intricate designs of these characters took inspiration as follows:

Jacks (Death Messengers)

• Spades – Hellbound
• Hearts – Black Cat
• Clubs – Horse (Apocalyse)
• Diamonds – Raven

Queens (Gods)

• Spades – Santa Muerte/Catrina
• Hearts – Koli
• Clubs – Mengpo
• Diamonds – Valkyrie, Hel

Kings (Reapers)

• Spades – Reaper
• Hearts – Anubis
• Clubs – Hades
• Diamonds – Yama

Jokers

• Angel and Demon

For the 2 Joker cards, one represents love (so holds a heart) and the other money (holds coins/jewels) (very cynical, I know), as they both are often at the center of our life’s biggest dramas, advertising that they will bring happiness but very often bring misery instead. They both wear Harlequin to keep to playing cards tradition.

GEAR BOX

The “gear box” which we have made for this project was conceptualized and developed by our team at the Paper Gear Company. I guess it should be now clear why our company is called this name. This is a very unique design which did not immediately come to our minds at first until we created our first prototype but without the gear action. Although we were very happy with our first prototype, having the box in our hands and playing around with it allowed us to think further out of the box and try what no one has tried before which is to make a playing card box that has a mechanical function to it with moving parts as you open the box.

The gear box, which is what we are calling it as it deserves a name, is a first of its kind. Using our combined vast paper engineering knowledge, we are able to develop a box that is no bigger than a standard playing cards tuck box with a mechanical gear box opening function which is visually astounding. We have spent a huge amount of time perfecting the mechanics of the box ensuring that it works every time you open and close it and that it’s solid enough and not easily broken.

It had to feel good in your hands too so we kept on thinking on how to reduce elements in it until it was similar to the size of a standard playing cards tuck box.

The intricacy and the attention to detail, we hope you will agree with us, is out of this world. What makes this gear box more amazing is that it is made entirely out of paper. Super environmentally friendly, which is another very important factor to us when developing the box.

999 COPIES

The Mortalis Machina Playing Cards is a very limited-edition deck of specialty cards and there will only be 999 copies produced. Constructing the gear box is very manual, fiddly and very time-consuming so we don’t want to commit to more than we can handle. These mechanical gear boxes are definitely one of a kind. We also have a luxury gift box which has our silver foil certificate hot stamped onto it so that you know you have 1 of the 999 decks available in this world.

PRODUCTION

We have already found our manufacturer for our mechanical gear box which we have worked with extensively already on the prototyping part so we are sure they will do an excellent job as they have proven so. The box is printed inside and out and made from multiple sheets of paper, finished off with a layer of super gloss sheen application with true accuracy.

We will have the cards printed by one of the world’s most famous and reputable playing cards manufacturers such as USPCC or TWPCC.