Eve

I've been wanting to write up some notes on all the decks I have for a while. I quite like collecting tarot card decks, and I wanted to make a little catalog of them. Also, I mostly use tarot cards for solo ttrpgs, not for readings, so I thought that would put a fun spin on how I think about them.

I've also included an image of the guidebook used for each. In every case I've tried to use the easiest to access book, so where there's a pamphlet inset with the deck, I've used that as the reference. I'll make note of where this isn't the case.

I’ve recommended a solo rpg to go with each game. Sometimes I’ve chosen ones that are explicitly designed to be played with the tarot, but sometimes I’ll recommend ones that just call for playing cards. You can adapt these to tarot decks by removing the major arcana, and playing cups as hearts, diamonds as wands, clubs as pentacles and spades as swords. If the game also calls for jokers, add back a major arcana for every joker required.

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1. Thoth tarot deck

Created by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris, art by Frieda Harris
This was my first ever tarot deck, inherited from my step-father when I was a teen. The actual deck is basically unusable these days, because one card got dog bitten, and a couple others have been warped and faded from exposure to sunlight. So they stand out in the deck when drawing. But I have a lot of affection for the cards anyway.

Notes:

• this deck is very easily accessible, but print quality probably varies a good bit. Worth reading reviews and finding a decent printing.
• the suit names for this deck are wands, cups, swords and pentacles.
  -this is the biggest deck I own, which means that the art is clear and easy to read and can have lots of interesting details. Conversely, it's hard to lay out big spreads with them.
• the energy of this deck is horny af. It was partially designed by Aleister Crowley, and it shows. This sometimes feels exciting and rebellious, and sometimes feels like a slightly lecherous older man standing by your shoulder and leering.
• the art is absolutely gorgeous. It's always exciting to look at and the characters are full of personality, especially the court cards.
• the guidebook is tarot: mirror of the soul, which was written for this deck specifically, but doesn't necessarily come with it, you might have to buy it separately. It's good long explanations of the symbols as well as questions to prompt reflection.
• the cards have a lot of explicit symbolism in them, which can be a handy set of references for solo rpgs, and they're at like, a oblique angle to the regular raider-waite deck, so they can make for a fun shake up if you use that one a lot.
• I don't think you can really talk about this deck without talking about Crowley, since he was such a wanker, but at least half the deck is Frieda Harris's creation, and while I don't think I have much evidence to assert that she was a better person than him, I think she at least contributed enough to make the deck interesting

In terms of using this deck for solo rpgs, I think it best suits ones that are either a bit darker and edgier, or very mystical. I'd think a game like Anamnesis (by Samantha Leigh/Blinking Birch Games, found here: https://blinkingbirchgames.itch.io/anamnesis) pairs really well with this deck, since the thoth tarot gives you both characters and symbols to help elaborate on your answers to the questions.

2. Little Monsters Tarot

Book by Olivia Ephraim Pepper, art by Peony Coin Archer
I got this deck in a kickstarter, and it was the start of me planning to collect tarot cards more seriously.

Notes:
-these cards are very small and neat. Easy to shuffle and to lay out, and they have nice rounded edges. A good travel deck.
The suit names for this deck are wands, cups, coins and arrows
-the art for this deck is subtle and elusive. Because it's black and white, and because it's in many ways quite simple, without a lot of additional symbolism, the meaning can feel a bit loose. It's also got a very gentle feel, like each card is a little woodland creature peeking out from under a bush at you.
-by contrast the guidebook is ferocious and cutting. It doesn't hold back at all, and gives very challenging paragraphs that really push you. It's probably the book that feels most like talking to a really good therapist, one who forces you to interrogate your perceptions and challenge your assumptions. (I mean all of this in a deeply complimentary way, to be clear. I think this book is by far the most incisive and insightful of any of the ones I own, although sometimes it can also feel very dictated, like it doesn’t leave quite as much room for your own interpretation)

• There's some slight smudging on my copy of these cards, and compared to some of the other decks I own I think the quality of the print is a little lower, but it's never affected my engagement with the cards.

If I were ever inclined to do a reading, I think this is the deck I'd turn to, and I think it's similarly useful for solo rpgs with a more autobiographical bent, the ones that are also tools for self reflection rather than fiction writing. For this deck, I recommend trying something like Galatea by S. Kaiya J. (here: https://mirror-lock.itch.io/galatea)

3. Star Spinner Tarot

Art, design and writing by Trungles
I've been a fan of Trungles' artwork for ages, but it was when I read about the gimmick of this deck that I knew I had to add it to my collection. Gimmick is probably the wrong word, it sounds cheap, and I think the choice made here is the opposite of that, a beautiful enrichment of the tarot.

Notes:
-The box this comes in is sleek and neat, but sturdy. The cards are a little bigger than regular playing cards, and they shuffle easily and smoothly.

• the suit names for this deck are wands, chalices, coins and swords.
• The art for these cards is lovely, with soft lines, lots of curves, and a pleasing restricted palette. All of it fits with how gentle these cards are. There's lots of inspiration from classic folklore artists like Ivan Bilibin or Edmund Dulac, and also from classical paintings. The devil on the devil card is reminiscent of Michelangelo's interpretation in all the best ways.
• this is a very soft and gentle deck, and also a very queer deck, but without ever falling into cute simplicity. It has moments of yearning, and sorrow, and blatant desire, but it's always very tender.
• the guidebook gives simple and direct summaries of the cards' meanings, without delving too much into the art or other notes behind them. It's very straightforward advice.
• So, the special thing about this deck is that it has four copies of the lovers. A pair with a man and a woman, a pair with two women, a pair with two men, and a pair that stand apart, representing asexual or platonic love. you can shuffle all four in, or choose whichever one suits the querent best. All the poses are different, but all of them are gorgeous.
• I do think some of the suits in this deck were given more love than others. The chalices, in particular, use the cards to retell the little mermaid, which is such a brilliant choice, none of the others really live up it. Wands uses fairy imagery, coins has rabbits, and swords is based on the traditional raider waite imagery. I would have loved to see the other suits get the same treatment as chalices, but alas.

I think this deck plays perfectly off solo rpgs that sit in that folklore/fairytale/romance space, especially ones that are cute and cosy. Though in general any game you play with these will be softened by their gentle character, so you can always use it to tone down a game that you're worried will get too dark. I'd recommend trying this deck with a game like The Tea Shelf, by K-Ramstack (found here: https://k-ramstack.itch.io/the-tea-shelf)

4. Crow Tarot

Art, design and writing by MJ Cullinane
This deck was recommended to me by a coworker at an old job. Of all the decks I own, it's the one that's clicked with me the least, but it's hard to pin down why. I don't think it's a poorly designed deck by any means, it just doesn't quite resonate the way others do.

Notes:

• the print quality is very high. The cards come in a nice solid box, and they're beautifully slippy and easy to shuffle. They glide through your hands.
• the four suits are cups, wands, swords and pentacles
• The art has an odd quality. Looking at it in 2023, it has an effect that reminds me strangly of large model generated art artifacts, though this deck was handpainted long before "AI" became a thing. The colour palette is strong and consistent, and the cards have a nice aged effect on them. I think the composition of the cards is less strong than other decks I own, though
• I think I find the crows a bit visually impenetrable. They're posed doing all kinds of things, but they're always animals, and there's something kind of distancing about that. The deck is designed to reflect the playfulness and mystery of crows, but it ends up feeling kind of mushy to me, like I can't properly grasp what it's trying to say.
• the guidebook pictured is the inset one that comes with the box, and I do like the way it's written. It starts with keywords and an interpretation of the card visuals, then moves on to advice/direction. There's also a separate printed book that contains much more information, and honestly you could almost use that in place of the deck, because it's where the things I find interesting about the work are most obvious. You could play by flipping through it to random pages and get a pretty good result.

As I said, this is a deck I don't really vibe with, but if you were going to use it for solo rpgs, I'd recommend it for fiction about quests or journeys, something high fantasy that's situated in nature and takes you on a trip through a world. Maybe it would work well for The Lonesome Cartographer, by Wren the Forrester (found here: https://wren-the-forrester.itch.io/the-lonesome-cartographer).

5. Botanical Tarot

Art, Writing and Design by Kevin Jay Stanton
This is another kickstarter deck, which I felt immediately charmed by when I saw how different it was to anything else I owned. Physically, I only backed the simple version of the deck, with a small inset booklet, but I also got access to the digital version of the larger and longer compendium, which I think I would recommend picking up.

Notes:

• These cards are shorter than the crow or starspinner tarots, but wider, more square in shape. They feel very smooth and soft, and they’re a bit thicker than the previous two, which makes them slightly harder to shuffle. That said, they still slip through the fingers quickly and easily. They have gilt edging, which has started to fade slightly at the corners after a year or two of use, but is mostly still holding strong.
• the suits are cups, swords, coins and wands
• The art for these cards is so striking and interesting. Each card has a plant, a detailed and vivid drawing of which is the core image of the card, set against a black background. The suits have images of their namesakes from history, so coins have old coins on them, swords have old swords, etc. The court cards all have different historical crowns. It’s all extremely beautiful to look at.
• Kind of like the crow tarot, the art is such a wide swing that it can be hard to interpret when you’re looking at the card alone, but I mind it less here because the images are so beautiful. I feel like they draw you in with a mystery that’s answered by looking up the booklet. And then that pushes you on to think more deeply about the drawings.
• There’s almost no text on the cards, just a number and a tiny drawing of the suit, or a letter and a tiny drawing for the court cards. And then for the major arcana, each one has its own unique symbol. Some are guessable, like the inverted pentagram for the devil, but others you’ll have to flip through the booklet to find unless you use the deck super regularly.
• the guidebook is simple and straightforward, a useful reference when you’re in the middle of a reading, though it’s quite small and dense, so sometimes the text can be hard to read. And it’s printed on very thin, flimsy paper, so you have to be careful with it. Again, I do recommend getting at least a digital copy of the compendium, because that has a lot more info that really helps to clarify the cards.

I think this is a great deck for games that have a deep historical touch, or that invoke a kind of ritual atmosphere, and obviously it’s great for anything that has plants in it, but I also think you can use it more generally to inflect games with a tone of solemnity and strangeness. I think this would play great against I shall not spare myself this journey, by Cave of Monsters Games (found here: https://cave-of-monsters-games.itch.io/i-shall-not) or NeoCrystal Elegy by A Yolland (found here: https://ayolland.itch.io/neocrystal-elegy)

6. Corrupted Tarot

Created by Wyrmwood, this deck features art from over 70 people
This is… another crowdfunded deck. Damn Eve, you buy a lot of these… And this is another one where I thought the core concept was really strong and unique, so I went for it.

Notes:

• This deck is medium sized, about the same as the Starspinner Tarot, and the cards feel very soft to the touch. They shuffle relatively well, although they sometimes stick together slightly. They have nice silver gilt on the edges. For art reasons, I really wish this deck was bigger, but I’ll get to that in a sec. Of all my decks, I think this one makes the most pleasing sound when shuffled, a whooshing noise that’s very attractive.
• The suits are swords, cups, pentacles and wands
• Because this deck has so many artists, the art is relatively inconsistent. I think it does an okay job of using the dark backgrounds to pull it all together, but compared to the single author decks, it’s undeniably fragmented. Whether this is a negative or not will depend on your own preferences. There are a few cards I don’t love, but overall the energy of it really works for me.
• The concept of this deck is that the art depicts the reversed meanings rather than the upright ones. The cards are all meant to have dark, tragic, spooky and sinister energy. I think that it generally does a really good and fun job of this, without straying into depictions of evil/villainy that rely on tired tropes.
• In spite of that premise, this deck feels very empowering and energetic. It has a lot to say about facing down your own demons, picking yourself up and starting over. And also about embracing the dark and powerful sides of yourself.
• The inset guidebook is actually excellent, it tells you who every artist is, gives links to their socials (maybe not as useful if twitter fully goes down, lol, but I hugely appreciate the effort) and talks about how and why they chose the images they did, on top of what the card means. It’s so efficient in such a small amount of space.
• It’s honestly funny to compare this to the little monsters tarot, which has such lovely and delicate art but genuinely bites a lot harder when it describes some of the cards, versus this one which is so theoretically spooky but actually quite friendly and kind

Like, obviously this deck works amazingly for any kind of rpg with soulslike energy, both because it has the dark exterior and because the actual message is about keeping going in the face of adversity. But in general I think you can use this deck wherever you want to ratchet up tension and add a spooky undercurrent to the story you’re telling. I’d recommend trying it with Where Crimson Flowers Bloom by Mitchell Daily (found here: https://mitchelldaily.itch.io/crimsonflowers)

7. Literary Tarot

Published by the Brink Literary Project
My most recent deck, at least for now. This was part of a big charity project run by a non profit called the Brink Literary Foundation, and I was curious enough about the concept and the images to back it.

Notes:

• The concept of this deck is that each card has been paired with a novel. They got a lot of famous writers to contribute cards, which as a gimmick is a bit tiresome, but I don’t think it ends up taking too much away from the deck. And some of the choices are genuinely interesting.
• These cards are a bit bigger than the Corrupted Tarot, and a bit thicker, though not as thick as the Botanical Tarot. For some reason, they’re by far the hardest of my decks to shuffle, very sticky and heavy in the hand. That can be a bit annoying, and it means you have to shimmy back and forth to get them all in place, which is causing the gilt edges to wear off faster than it has on other decks.
• The suits for this are very gimmicky, they’re quills (swords), ink (wands), light (cups) and parchment (coins). My problem with this is the same as for the Botanical Tarot, which is that using shorthands or alternate names means you have to double check everything unless you use them super consistently.
• This is like the Corrupted Tarot, where the art is done by multiple people, but this one had a more assertive art director, and so all the cards have a consistent colour palette, and the artists styles are within a similar range, so the deck looks very unified.
• Some of the card choices are a little weird, and some I like better than others. The most striking one was the Cold Equations as the reference for Temperance. I think that really shifts the meaning of the card from being about healing and serene balance to being a kind of merciless rational calculation. Which is certainly a new take, so I’m not complaining.
• Like some of the other decks, this has two guidebooks, a little inset one and a bigger extra book that you can buy separately. In this case, I don’t think you need to rush out and buy the bigger book. It’s a nice treat, with stories about how the cards ended up being assigned to stories, and there are some cool extras that show the process of designing the art for the different cards, but you’ll do just fine with the simple guidebook imo.
  Because this deck uses stories for each card, I think it’s great for games where you’re developing a story. If you’re using a solo rpg to design something for a bigger group game, or to explore characters that you want to write about in a novel/short story/whatever, then having this deck can give you a cool range of literary references to think about and try out. I’d recommend trying this deck with a solo rpg like The Last Noita by Yuri Runnel (found here: https://yurir.itch.io/the-last-noita) or Little Shepherd, Little Spy by PsychHound (found here: https://psychhound.itch.io/little-shepherd-little-spy )

This ended up being so much longer than I expected! If you made it this far, thank you for reading the whole thing <3