Thomas Paine card art from Lost Chapters (Quartz, Character) — Card art: Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine: Quartz Character

Thomas Paine was an English-born writer whose pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776, made a plain-spoken case for American independence and against rule by kings. His series The American Crisis kept up morale during the war, and his later books Rights of Man and The Age of Reason made him famous and controversial on both sides of the Atlantic.

Cost: 2 crystals
Type: Character · Founder
Power / Health: 1 / 2
Color: Quartz (Founders & Revolution)
Rarity: Uncommon
Set: Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)

On play: your characters get +1/+0 this turn. Draw a card.

Literary firebrand whose Common Sense was uncommonly inflammatory to those with crowns.

Real history

The real history

Thomas Paine was born in Norfolk, England, in 1737. He learned his father's trade as an apprentice and later worked as a customs officer and a schoolteacher. In London he met Benjamin Franklin, who helped him travel to Pennsylvania in 1774. Paine nearly died of typhoid fever on the crossing, then found work as a writer and editor for the Pennsylvania Magazine.

Common Sense appeared in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, without the author's name on it. In plain, forceful language it attacked not only British policy but the whole idea of monarchy, and it called for an independent American republic. It became one of the best-selling works in colonial America, and people read it aloud in streets and taverns for those who could not read.

Late in 1776, with the Continental Army losing ground, Paine began The American Crisis, a series of pamphlets that ran until 1783. Washington had the first one read to his troops before the attack on Trenton. It opens with the famous line "These are the times that try men's souls."

In the 1790s Paine's Rights of Man defended the French Revolution. France made him an honorary citizen, and he served in its National Convention. He opposed executing King Louis XVI, was imprisoned during the radical Jacobin period, and was freed with help from the American minister James Monroe. His Age of Reason criticized organized religion, and it cost him many admirers.

Paine returned to the United States in 1802 at President Jefferson's invitation. He died in New York City on June 8, 1809, and only a handful of people came to his funeral.

Sources

Thomas Paine, American Battlefield Trust
Thomas Paine: The original publishing viral superstar, National Constitution Center
Thomas Paine's Attitudes Toward Religion Impacted His Legacy, Author Says, National Archives

Checked against these sources on October 2, 2026. Spot a mistake? Report an error. How we check facts.

Game lore (invented)

In the game's story

In the game's invented story, Thomas Paine writes a pamphlet within a week of arriving in Marginalia, arguing that the arrivals and the Marginalians are natural allies against the Echoes, the rifts and the Blank. It sells out in Dogear Crossing in a day and starts a pamphlet war with the Closed Book. He and Queen Clarise argue about monarchy every time they meet, and both seem to enjoy it.

In Lost Chapters' frame story, history's heroes fall into an invented world called Marginalia. That story is fiction; the history on this page is real.

How the card plays

Thomas Paine costs 2 crystals and is a 1/2 Quartz Founder. When he enters play, all of your characters get +1/+0 for the rest of the turn, and you draw a card. He is a cheap way to make a round of charges hit harder while replacing himself in your hand.

Play him in your main phase before you charge, not after, so the extra power counts. He is at his best on a wide field, where three or four attackers each gaining a point adds up fast.

He pairs well with Paul Revere: play Paine first, then Revere, and Revere's on-play Swift lets Paine charge too. John Hancock draws a card when you control another Founder, which Paine provides, and National Convention makes your Founders cost 1 less.

Playable in decks led by George Washington, and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Quartz.
In the Washington starter deck (1 copy). Deck code: LC2-BhoCgAKBAYIBgwGEAYUBhgKHAYgBiQGKAYsBjAKNAY4BjwGQAZEBkgGTAZQBlQGWAZcBmAGZAZoCmwGcAZ0BngGfAaABoQFBjA
A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.

Questions about Paine

When was Common Sense published?

Common Sense was published in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, with no author's name on it. It argued that the colonies should break from Britain and form a republic, about six months before the Declaration of Independence.

Did Washington's soldiers read Thomas Paine?

Yes. Before the attack on Trenton in late December 1776, Washington had the first American Crisis pamphlet read to the Continental Army to lift its spirits.

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