Even two hundred years later, they still talk in Pulp City about that night of poker.  That was the night he became the Ace of Wraiths. His name is long forgotten, but the legend says that he was the greatest gambler of the day. He could bluff his way to a win with just a pair of deuces, and now he’s the oldest resident of Pulp City’s Crossroad Hills district.

It was his night; nobody could best him, until a stranger joined the game. His native blood did not match his white man’s clothing nor his Old World accent. Ace had met his match and his winning streak came to an end. The two played for hours until the momentum swung back to Ace in the gray hours just before dawn. Then it came down to one last hand. The stranger had no money but he laid his gun and card box on the table. At first glance, the gun appeared to be nothing special, but as Ace stared at it he saw its exquisite workmanship along with the ornate etching on the barrel. The same pattern was impressed on the solid silver box. The game was five card stud. The stranger took one card, Ace took three and drew aces over eights. He laid the cards down. The stranger sighed and looked Ace in the eyes. A smile came to his lips that grew into a laugh that chilled Ace’s soul. Then the stranger’s body collapsed into a pile of ashes. Ace flipped over the cards: six, seven, eight, nine, and the one eyed jack of spades.

The gambler didn’t realize what has happened until a wandering preacher on a pale horse, upon seeing the winnings, told him a story about a cursed gun and deck of cards which damn the owner with immortality and eternal torment. They can’t be given away, but the owner can try to outwit anybody into winning the trophies in a game of cards but thus condemning winner’s soul to an afterlife in hell.

Ace found he couldn’t die. A bullet or a knife or a hangman’s noose may take his breath and stop his heart, but he always was reborn on the following night at the nearest crossroads. A few arcanists that know of his curse whisper that his life on earth will come to an end, when every man and woman tricked by the cursed Deck of Souls is redeemed with a claimed life of an evil being. And these days there seems no end of evil souls to harvest. 

The powers of Ace of Wraiths rely on his artifacts. A skilled gunslinger and a cartomancer, Ace had two centuries to master the art of paying his toll with blood of evil men and women.