Culdcept (カルドセプト, Karudoseputo) is a series of turn-based strategy video games developed by OmiyaSoft.
It revolves around virtual board game-like gameplay in which the player traverses a map and uses magical, tablet-like "cards" to defeat their opponents by forcing them to land on specific spaces and pay a toll, similar to Monopoly.
In the game's lore, people who are able to manipulate these cards, fragments of Culdcept, an eponymous all-powerful book of creation, are known as Cepters.
The game became known for an advertising campaign featuring a businesslike female character named Cepko Culd (カルド・セプ子), played by actress Aya Shibata, who explained the game's rules and characters, but was seen as an unusual Nintendo "sex symbol" due to her erotic-sounding voice.
The manga is about an apprentice Cepter named Najaran (with her worrywart talking staff, Goligan) who helps save the Culdcept, the book which the goddess Culdra had kept all the cards in until the War of the Gods.
The manga was adapted by Shinya Kaneko and serialized in Japan by Kodansha in Magazine Z, and collected in six bound volumes.
A recurring character is Goligan, a talking cane with the head of a man who serves as Culdra's messenger in seeking out Cepters to fulfill their destinies.
[5] The gameplay of the Culdcept series is often described as a hybrid of Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly, in which players take turns traversing a game board filled with squares of varying elements or effects.
[1][2] Mike Fahey of Kotaku called the gameplay's emphasis on luck "frustrating and humiliating, but also kind of exhilarating".