China Mieville has a great horror story about "hidden suits" that spontaneously appear, and then disappear, in high stakes card games. Usually they bring small and great disasters. There are "forfeits" that will have to be paid:
The second time I saw a hidden suit was in Manchester. (…)
We all looked at the young woman. Her eyes were wide. She looked at me. The back of her card looked the same as all the others. I didn’t feel drunk any more. ‘Show, I said. She lowered it face up. Its background was dark flat grey. The design was of two rows of four links of metal picked out in white. She swallowed. She said, ‘Eight of Chains.’
Someone went to bar the door. ‘What now?’ her opponent said. He was terrified. ‘I don’t know what happens. ‘None of us do, I said. (…)
The guy looking with the rulebook raised her hand. … He started to read. “Old Maid: Rules for Hidden Suits.” It’s the what of Chains?’ (…)
‘I only saw one other, Belinda told me once, carefully. ‘The Nine of Teeth. But just for an instant. (…)
No matter how proper you are, there are questions you'll end up hearing asked, or asking. What bird is it flying above the Detective of Scissors? Where’s the missing link on the Nine of Chains? Why does the Ace of Ivy grow on bones? You might feel you know these cards, whether you’ve seen them or not. ‘We all end up getting to know certain cards pretty well, I guess, Belinda said to me once. ‘One way or another.’ You might have a favourite.
The third time was Lublin. We were playing Bourré in a deconsecrated church. I'd faced two of my opponents before, and had had a fist-fight with one. Belinda and I were taking turns: she stood behind me with her hand on my shoulder. She could see my cards but no one else’s.
I picked up my hand. Five cards. One of them I'd never seen before. One two three four blue smokestacks, protruding into blue sky, gushing stylised clouds of blue smoke.
I showed nothing. Belinda’s hand twitched. I wasn’t afraid anyone noticed but to me it was as if she screamed, ‘Oh my God!’
I went into my memory for whatever I had about the Four of Chimneys. What it would do in combination with my other cards. I weighed up possibilities. (…)