I happened to notice the thread on the possibility of a Gloranthan Tarot and remembered a file I had written on an alternative Tarot for a non-Gloranthan gameworld of mine, and it occured to me that as a way of doing penance for my participation in the KoW thread (though I hope that thread continues, nyah hah hah) I might post it on the odd chance that it might prove useful. Part of the problem with the Tarot, of course, is that it sometimes varies from deck to deck, interpreter to interpreter (frex, the Lovers vs. the Lover, the nature of Temperance and the Judgement), so I spent a while culling stuff down and rearranging it until I came up with the following deck:
I. The Minstrel II. The Great Priestess III. The Empress IV. The Emperor V. The Great Priest VI. The Lovers VII. The Lover VIII. The Chariot IX. Justice X. The Fates XI. Strength XII. The Hanged Man XIII. Death XIV. The Year-Cycle XV. The Sphinx XVI. The Riven Tower XVII. The Stars XVIII. The Moon XIX. The Sun XX. Fecundity XXI. The World -- The Fool
I broke the file into two posts; each name in the Tarot is accompanied by a description of the ideals with which I had associated it, the magical powers over which it exerted influence, and a description of how the card is normally pictured. The names in paranthesis are alternative names for each of the Tarot cards. In the posts I think the Tarot is referred to as the "Imago", which is what I was calling it in that gameworld; I can't spend a lot of time going over it, so I suspect that there are probably a lot of references to that gameworld and its deities peppered throughout, but folks can probably easily guess at possible Gloranthan correspondences. I had also worked up a table comparing the Tarot to, I think, the Futhark runes, trying to get some God-Learner style match-ups, but I think that was on paper and not on the old hard-drive.
I'm not sure if this will be useful to anyone, but here it is.
Later,
Mark
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