When I think of Assassin, I think of the name's origin, as it is described in a book, I'm reading (Tschingis Chan und sein Erbe) "Hashashin" - "hash eater", it is a fanatic sect in many castles in the Elburs Mountains, founded by the old man Hassan Ibn Ssabach. He seeks strong and young men who then get intoxicated with hash and other drugs and then in their hash dreams, they are brought into a beautiful garden with exotic plants and all good things, and there will be women singing, dancing, playing the lute. Then after tasting a bit of paradise, he will be brought back, right where his dreams started and after this, he will talk about having seen the paradise as it is written of in the book of Qur'an, which will be given to those who die while doing their master's biddings. After this experience, they are called "Fedawi" - "one sacrificing his life" and they are used for various targets: a sultan on his feast, a victorious general on his parade, a senior official, who gets too influential, they all die to a dagger, the preferred weapon of the Assassins. In contrast to popular belief, it was not the intention of the Fedawi to remain unseen or hidden in any kind, after their dirty work was done, instead they greet the arrow that ends their lives and with the cry "We are the sacrificial animals of our Lord!" they will die.
So my take on this subject will have some themes mixed in them:
- the obvious killing theme
- the "promised paradise" theme
- the might and dread theme
- suicide / seeking death theme
Assassin
$5 Action - Attack
+1 Action
+1 Card
+$2
Each other player reveals cards until he reveals a victory or action card, trashes the card and discards the rest. Then he may gain a card costing $1 less or $1 more than the trashed card of his choice.
_________
While this is in play, when you play an Attack, trash Assassin.
This card with just the first three lines is nothing but crazy: an always activated Conspirator! But with the bottom line penalty that prevents chaining of Assassins in some way (you may chain them once, but afterwards, they are already in heaven, i.e. the trash).
The attack part of the card is somewhat weird, to say the least. Only targets Victory cards. Turns Duchies into Gold (or a $4), Province into Platin (only when available). It targets his score directly with the risk of giving his Deck fuel to start over again. I'm not very convinced of the attack part, I just wanted to make a card with the bottom line as a drawback. What do you think?
edit:
Thinking about it, this card may be too bad for the game: Trashing all the victory cards. [Maybe changing the bottom line into any Action, will help.]
edit2: I changed it to target victory or action cards (whichever comes first) like jamespotter suggested. Then we can rebalance the bottom line to Attack again.