Trade Circle, A card game

A common card game played in most regions of the world. The game's most commonly played by deckhands or small time merchants, seen as a low class game. It's also not considered a good game for gambling houses to host as there's no house edge and is a game of skill instead of chance.
The rules of the game are simple: Two or more players must assemble a deck of 25 cards. Using these cards players can take turns assembling cargo to carry to ports. There can be 3, 6, or 9 ports depending on how long the game is going to last. Each turn the player can place one card on their merchant ship, increasing it's value. However the value can't be raised over 21 without overloading the ship. If the ship is overloaded, it must loose all points over the value of 21 as well as three randomly chosen cards, these cards being "lost overboard". The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
Each card holds a special value or skill:
Joker-The Joker card counts as a cheap scallywag who will laze away the day and slow the process of loading and cargo. When placed on any ship of your choice, no other cards can be placed for the players next turn until the scallywag is unloaded on the next port.
Ace-10-The Ace through the 10 cards represent their base number. Ace is one point, 2 is 2 points, etc. And can only be placed on the players own ship.
Jack-The Jack is an effective force of chaos that represents hired goons or gangs. When placed on any ship it will remove the card below it. When placed on a port it represents hidden stashes of pirate gold. Three randomly chosen cards from the players discarded cards are placed face down on a port with the jack sitting on top face up. If the cards go over the value of the ship, then it represents cursed gold, and several ship crew throw themselves off the ship in a fit of madness, causing the ship to use it's lost profits to pay off the dead crews families.
Queen-The Queen represents special cargo marked by a royal crown. When placed it will double the next card to be placed and also neutralizes the Jack's ability if it's placed within three cards of it. It can be played on any ship.
King-The King card is the most powerful in the game. When placed on your ship it represents an upgrade to a more powerful ship, and allows the player to hold up to 5 more points, raising the value to 26. it can also be stacked.
Bonus rule: Each player produces a verity of cards from their deck and spread them randomly, one to each port. Value of the cards are irrelevant. Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, and Clubs each represent a trading group such as guilds or kingdoms and means the port with the card falls under their control. A port with a 10 of Hearts, for example, would be controlled by the Hearts Guild. Because of this, each player can only place cards of the same group as the card on the port, using the same example, a player could only place a heart card when docked at the 10 of hearts port. Players also have the option to double their points at the end of the game if they make an exclusivity deal with a type of cards, but can only use cards of that type. Example; the player can only use heart cards, meaning they can only place heart cards at fewer ports, but with the chance of a higher payout. These players also get reduced the same number of points as are taken when playing a Jack card if the Jack takes a card of the same type.

History

Trade Circle was created by seafaring merchants as a simple and easy to understand card game. The rules are kept intentionally simple so that those who don't speak much of the same languages can still use their understanding of trading to play. During the time of it's creation, a full deck of playing cards would have been a luxury item for a sailor to have. Most used small tiles with hand drawn marks to represent their worth. This is why it's believed the choice of 25 cards was so that one sailor could split their deck evenly between two players. The origins of Trade Circle are thought to be from the Girzzian merchant era, when it was played between merchants well on the sea and at ports. It's largely thought to have been made by Grizzian, and the port towns of Grizzian claim it was their ancestors, though no one knows where it was made, and none of the rules are specific to any one kingdom.

Components and tools

To play Trade Circle, you need a deck of cards and tokens to represents ports. Some players use stylized chips, well others use whatever they find laying at their feet at the time. Most commonly rocks.