The classic inclusion of a card based mini-game. My suggestion is pretty specific because my bed was very warm this morning and I didn’t want to get out of it.
The Game
The game idea is similar to the card game in FFIX.
The cards are hexagonal tiles (6 sides) played on a board with hexagon spaces (You know, so the tiles fit). There’s more spaces on the boards than tiles can be played in. (Think a checkerboard, but with hexagons). Each tile is based on a creature that exists in orbus, with 2-5 arrows facing towards the sides. Each tile is different with some sides with arrows and some sides blank. Each side with an arrow also has a point value. So an arbitrary tile might be a Redtail, with 4 arrows facing various sides. Each side has a different value, such as 3, 5, 4, and 3.
Players take turns placing down a single tile on the board, each player has 5 tiles of their choice in their ‘deck’. When a player places a tile against an opposing tile, a few things can happen. If the placed tile has an arrow facing the opposing tile, it will attempt to flip that tile to it’s side. If the opposing tile has no arrow on that side, it will be flipped. If it has an arrow, the tiles will clash and the side with the higher point value will win. If the sides are tied, neither tile is flipped. So if you place a tile with side of arbitrary number 9 going against a tile with a side of 10, your own tile will be flipped. If the placed tile has no arrow facing the opposing tile, nothing happens, even if that opposing tile has an arrow facing the placed tile (only placed tiles can initiate a change).
If a tile is flipped through clashing, it will also flip every opposing tile it has an arrow facing regardless of values. This can create a chain effect, allowing for some pretty interesting strategy choices.
The player with the most tiles on their side (lets say of their color) at the end of the match, wins.
Collecting Tiles
My personal recommendation would be to have monsters drop tiles as part of their loot. Then requiring the player to trade up for higher rarities of tiles to certain NPCS. Such as having an NPC that will trade you a specific rare tile for a set of specific common tiles. This would help get people out and grinding without having quests that say things like “Kill X number of Y”. Then you can make it fancier by having another NPC trading an even better tile for a specific set of rare tiles. Rare tiles wouldn’t be collected from mobs directly. Rare tiles might have higher values on their sides, but might have less sides with arrows or something to balance it out.