Combining Theme and Mechanics

I usually make story-based games. This is the first one that I've made where the story had to be told with just the cards. I injected a small amount of story in to the set up section of the rules. There, I establish that there are good, evil and neutral gods, depicted by their arrow color, that they are at odds with each other, and human's survival (the four resources of health, shelter, peace, and plenty) is collateral damage. Thematically, the Gods are divided in to the different alignments by the humans point of view, based how they influence human's survival.

 Art would bring great depth to theme and world building, but for now I rely on the name of each card and its combination of powers and/or the resources.

Here are some examples:

Swords:  The god of swords is seen as an Evil god, since the weapons are used to destroy life and cause a decline in Peace.

Growth: This card adds to each resource.  The title of Growth can easily explain an increase in plenty and health.  Emotional/personal/relationship growth can attribute to an increase in Peace. Shelter increases by the growth of trees and flora. Evil has a mirror opposite, Entropy, which removes from each resource. 

Chaos: Much like the Fate and Luck cards, Chaos only has the Reverse or Double powers. In rare circumstances, a player can benefit from every side of the card, but like the names indicate, they are all related to chance and can result in some interesting plays. Chaos is unpredictable, but doesn't necessarily always have a negative outcome. 

Creating the individual cards to serve the greater theme was a lot of fun, and I was really excited when one of my friends talked about a specific card combo after the game had ended and we had put the cards away.  He remembered the name it its powers, which indicated that the connection between the name and powers made sense, and it created a memorable god.