Tarot Cards: For fun and profit

[Sieg Reyu]

Soooooooo, I got a wild hair the other day, as I am wont to do, and decided to buy a deck of tarot cards from some reason. My justification is that I am going to work it into a D&D campaign where a fortune teller becomes a recurring character. But honestly, I think I've always wanted to own one, just for funsies I guess. I think part of what convinced me to buy them was rewatching the Crapshots and just being very curious about the cards and what they actually meant.

I've started reading a book on the subject as well. 78 Degrees of Wisom, by Rachel Pollack. Going in, I was expecting a bunch of melodramatic mysticism, but I was got off guard by how much philosophy has gone into it. It's actually turning out to be an interesting read.

Anybody else ever dabbled in Tarot or had a Tarot reading?

[Rikadyn]

yes

[Darkobra]

My mum did. Fortune teller told her that I'd be rich, I'd be successful and I'd travel the entire world.

Now that last part is how I KNOW it's not true! I hate even leaving my ROOM! I don't even want to go downstairs to reheat yesterday's pizza because it's too much of a journey!

[Amake]

Dabbled? I led the development of this special tarot deck for nerds!


Only the major arcana, sadly. But the point is, don't underestimate the value of making your own tarot, out of archetypes that matter to you. Grant Morrison goes into the topic in his book Pop Magic if you're curious.

[Sieg Reyu]

Based on what I've read so far, it seems a much more appropriate 0 would have been The Newb instead of Food.

But man, if I had ridiculous amounts of money, I would totally love to commission some art for a deck made out of D&D/Tabletop RPG characters I've made over the year. I've got more than enough for the major arcana. Though I doubt I could fill the minor arcana with unique characters. Though a One Piece one sounds fun, too.

[Amake]

"0: The Food is the beginning of the nerd's journey through the Internet, the one remnant of the physical world we take with us." Also, puns. :3

See we were trying to come up with our own mythologies and symbologies for the cards to represent rather than just paint over Crowley's common tarot with nerdy terms. Though it may be hard to tell. It turns out those universal symbols are hard to get away from.

But as to the money issue, it depends on how much you want the deck to look good and/or have original art. There's nothing stopping you drawing some pictures yourself.

[Sieg Reyu]

My terrible artistic abilities stop me.

[Rikadyn]

I can't read for myself, because no matter how hard I try I can't seperate myself from myself, to be able to clearly determine the meanings in my cards, my own wants influence the reading which makes it usually worthless to read for myself.