Holy Grail icon. Covenant: These are a combination of an Artifact and a good Enhancement and may be used as either (but not both at once). Older Covenants have two icons within their icon box, an open Bible icon on the left and a Holy Gail icon on the right, and newer Covenants have two icon boxes, one for the Enhancement and one for the Artifact. Curse: These are similar to Covenant cards, but instead are a combination of an Artifact and an evil Enhancement. Curses have the same icon boxes as Covenants but with a snake icon instead of a Holy Grail icon. City: These cards can be played as either a Site or a Fortress, and have both icons within their icon boxes. Brigades Each Character, Enhancement, Site, Covenant and Curse card belongs to one or more brigades, indicated by the color of their icon box. An Enhancement of a given brigade may only be used by a Character of the same brigade. The colors of the good brigades are Blue, Clay, Gold, Green, Purple, Teal, Red, Silver and White, and the colors of the evil brigades are Black, Brown, Crimson, Gray, Orange, Pale Green and Yellow. A card with a rainbow icon box belongs to all brigades of the corresponding good or evil alignment. Distribution The first release of Redemption was in 1995 as a set of 2 starter decks (50-card decks A and B, now out of print) and a set of Limited Edition cards, followed by an Unlimited Edition reprinting. The game was developed by releasing expansion sets and other starter decks, including, in order of release: - Out of print In August 1996, Cactus offered 750 complete sets of all published Redemption cards at about $150 a piece. Artwork Several artists have contributed, including Mike Bennett, Jeff Haynie, Michael Carroll and Mark Poole. Some artwork has been taken from other Christian products and from classical artwork. Former art director Doug Gray also made many of the images for the cards himself. History and Popularity Soon after Magic: The Gathering introduced the idea of a collectible card game (CCG), Rob Anderson realized that the Bible would be a "wonderful source for this type of game". Redemption was soon designed and has since grown to be the top selling Christian CCG. Additionally, recent (as of this writing) final releases of several long-running trading card games, including