Tarot & Gypsies

From: Nick Fortune <nxf_at_uniplex.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 13:08:01 GMT


I've been toying with the idea of a Gloranthan Tarot for a while now, although not from the specific angle of a heroquesting aid. Some thoughts:

The main difficulty lies in the elements and it goes far beyond the addition of darkness. In the RW Tarot, each suit of the minor arcarna has an elemental association, which symbolises a well understood psychological idea.

	Wands	Air	Intellectual
	Cups	Water	Emotional 
	Swords	Fire	Aggressive
	Coins	Earth	Sensual

The trouble here is what association to give darkness as an element that does not overlap with the existing areas. Then you need a symbol for the the suit. Then there are the problems of Lunes, f'rinstance, to say nothing of the modified elements like Cold and Light. Our deck is getting too big, and too wooly.

A more Gloranthan way to approach the problem is to used the paired power runes to define the suits of the minor arcarna. Thus we have a suit representing Truth - which reverses to reveal illusion. A suit for Life (and Death) and so on. Probably we'd find a divided card with two pictures (one upside down) to illustrate both meanings. A lot slicker would be to pick a scene that had both meanings or possibilities implicit in the situation. For the scenes themselves, I would draw the minor arcarna from the events of Time and leave the Godtime for the major arcarna, in keeping with its greater significance.

For the major arcarna, I would suggest sticking closely to the existing Tarot and using Gloranthan symbolism. The RW Tarot has been in use for a long time and whatever your opinions about divination, it is pretty damn good at symbollically representing a wide range of situations, concepts and the like.

What else? The numbering of the suits could use the same basic numerology as the RW tarot. (Can't remember off the top of my head, but can post it later if anyone wants). The court cards - use of heroes or possibly gods here would be nice, though there are advangatges to having the cards remain anonymous, since it makes them easier to bind to people in a reading. Again, if you go for the named courts, you'll need two figures per card according to which polarity is dominant when the card is placed.


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