"...Even rick and tree pass to rot,
And decay births Hovel of Cot…"
-Trad. Children's rhyme.
None of the Jacks are people, or even single discreet entitires as human minds would understand them. As such they are replete with contradictions and paradoxes, but none so contain their own anathema as the strange and tragic Jack O' Cot and Hovel. All living things seek shelter, Moonflight is itself a town after all, and that collective social need creates the Jack O' Cot from a love and need of all that is pure in hearth and home. But nothing of man is built to last, and the structures of the fae are spun from little more than wishes and moonbeams, built to fade with the dawn. The Jack O' Cot struggles against this entropy and decay, but not even the mighty Jacks of Moonflight can stem the turning of the tide, when the rot sets into the heart of home then the Jack O' Cot becomes Jack O' Hovel, embracing the squalor of all that remains. All need shelter, and when none of quality exists they must crowd into places foul and ill regarded, these ghettoes and back alleys are the kingdom of the Jack O' Hovel, a twisted and self hating thing of dark and decayed majesty.
Rick, cot and tree represent all that is pure in the home and countryside of a green and pleasant land. The hay-rick of farmland, cot of a safe home, and the fruiting tree of nature's bounty. The Jack O' Cot carries ancient symbols of each of these parts of a traditional settlement, the pitchfork of farm, a mason's trowel for the building of home and a beekeeper's hood representing the hive as traditionally a socially shared natural bounty.
The Jack O' Cot and Hovel is the lead 'tableaux' builder of Moonflight, placing cards that remain in play from round to round, generating useful effects time and again. They hand up the chance for power combos in return for the certainty of planning ahead and being able to build
exactly the effects they desire when they wish. After the 'turn' setting cards effectively removes them from the cycle of discard and return, making tableaux cards a dumping ground as glorious penthouses become depressing tower
blocks. Choosing which buildings to shore up just long enough to claim victory and which to allow to slide into the entropy of the discard stack is the secret to Cot and Hovel.