Fictional Tarot Design

I'm also seeing stories told across different cards in different sets. One idea that I have goes like this:

Three of Iron (Thrall): A young woman is led away from a smoking village. Around her neck and wrists are clapped circles of iron, and she is being carried off as prize. Upright the card symbolizes the spoils of conflict, particularly influence over another. Reversed the card symbolizes much the same but as imposition by another upon the querent.
Five of Gold (Vice): The same young woman from the Three of Iron lies sprawled invitingly on a bed. Gold bands are fashioned around her wrists, ankles, and neck. She smokes opium from a hookah as she waits, staring blankly at the ceiling. Upright the card speaks of indulgence in pleasure, reversed it speaks of becoming trapped by one's own overindulgence in the same.

Things like that across the suits.

Death should be Daath or just 13.

>>18708397
>>18708575
No, this is shit.
Go to /omg/, get the link for the mega, and read a few books about the tarot. While you're at it, check out some books on hermeticism, gnosticism, and kabbalah, since you won't understand shit without it. Then, if you want to take a spin on it, the LHP folder has some interesting twists on it. Then, you may try again.
Fuck, the making of a tarot is seen as a magnum opus of ones magical work in most cases, since it proves that you know your shit. And you fucking don't.

>>18708587

I always see people presume Hermeticism as the key to tarot. Why are the Aryan/proto-Indian traditions never given outright consideration?

>Fuck, the making of a tarot is seen as a magnum opus of ones magical work in most cases
>magic as real

Good idea OP, and I think having stories told across different sets is an interesting one if implemented in the right way.

I think you're coming from a nice place making these but you shouldn't try to explain what you clearly have no idea what is.

>>18708645
I love a good tarot. I found one Cardcaptor Sakura tarot deck that was pretty awesome, way back. But that's beside the point. I hate seeing the tarot butchered in fiction.
>>18708644
Got any sources I should be aware of? I'm not into eastern mysticism, tbqh, so it's muddy waters for me.

>>18708644
Because the "classic" tarot only exists due to the Kaballah and Hermeticism. Its called the book of Hermes for that reason.
There are other means of doing what it does in other schools of thought, with the same efficacy, but searching for synchronicity between the two is an useless exercise.

>>18708683
No, here may be archetypes that are connected. I just won't speak out of my ass before doing some research.

File: badon taot.jpg (29KB, 291x400px) Image search: [Google]

29KB, 291x400px

>>18708397
>figure out how it works before I

File: heqet.jpg (35KB, 401x584px) Image search: [Google]

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>>18708397
Sounds fun, OP. I like what you did with the minor arcana. Maybe you could try to mix it up with modern knowledge as well as other stuff like alchemy, chakras, classical elements or astrology.

Be creative and don't hold your autism back.

>>18708664

Well, for one thing the suits, if they represent the material world, can be seen to represent the broad castes of orthodox belief in the region. I was going for:

Silver = Brahmin
Iron = Kshatriya
Gold = Vaishyas
Copper = Shudras

The suits themselves representing one's material lot in life with the major arcana describing higher principles than the worldly, yet with the suits themselves possessing an internal hierarchy based on their relative proximity to the metaphysical.

I always see "illiterate gypsies couldn't have knowledge of hermeticism", but that is an ignorant position. The gypsies came as a result of Indian diaspora during the Muslim invasion of the subcontinent, and they maintained an internal caste system including the high castes and the low. Scrolls containing documents such as the Vedas would be hard to carry, but a set of symbolic cards would not be. It is also, coincidentally, the high caste Brahmin equivalent who are the card readers, artists, and lore keepers among the gypsies.

>>18708683

There are thoughts that Christ studied in India for the first several decades of his life, and Gnosticism has a great resemblance to various forms of Orthodox and Unorthodox spiritual thought.

Let me expand upon the concept further with Orthodox and Unorthodox Vedic stories and the view of suffering as part of the material world. Start with four cards and a simple story across suits:

One of Silvers: A priest officiates over a young woman's marriage. He officiates the joining of the families, the signing over of a dowry, the securing of continuity, and the ties between two people of appropriate caste. What caste? Who knows, it isn't made apparent.

Three of Irons: As described above, the same young woman taken as a prize of war after the sacking of her village.

Five of Gold: As above, she is subject to being commodified like the opium that she is smoking and the silks that line the boudoir. Whether destined for a harem or a brothel, she is subject to suffering imposed by trade.

Eight of Copper: The same woman, now too worn and weary to be of value in a harem or a brothel, now toils carrying trade goods to the market for sale.

But there is a way to look at them outside of the lenses of social castes, because in an Unorthodox view such as that of Buddhism one does not have to cycle through many reincarnations through the Karmic cycle in order to escape from suffering. You can imagine that the young woman is a weary worker first, then sold into slavery, then taken as a prize of war, and THEN married, finding a happy ending. Such interpretations would run contrary to the Orthodox interpretation of the cards, and so the order of their appearance is significant.

>>18708776

Perhaps I should have described that as descending vs ascending. Also for that I think that I shall be using the Ace of Silver, Two of Iron, Three of Gold, and Five of Copper. Those mathematically fit together better.

>>18708776
>One of Silvers: A priest officiates over a young woman's marriage. He officiates the joining of the families, the signing over of a dowry, the securing of continuity, and the ties between two people of appropriate caste. What caste? Who knows, it isn't made apparent.
Now tell me, what's the symbolism in this one? How does this correspond to the heroes journey? What is the dominant color? What does the scene smell like?

And for the love of god, don't call it tarot. Call it Punjabi MtG or Yu-gyp-po.

>>18708813

The symbolism I am still working out, but most likely it is directly related to overarching unity and accord. Marriage is simultaneously religious, political, financial, and pragmatic as an arrangement, and it symbolically weaves many into two and two into one, and from the one weaves out many other things.

It would be both a beginning and end of a journey, it's more of a "next chapter" kind of thing.

Colors depend. The priest would have to have something silver, I'll have to research marriage ceremonies, or perhaps I will dress the priest himself in a silver robe.

Smells like a wedding festival.

>And for the love of god, don't call it tarot. Call it Punjabi MtG or Yu-gyp-po.

Such Western Orthodox, much Occident.

>>18708829
That's the problem right there. You have major arcana symbols in a minor arcana card. Marriage is, as you said, a life-ending event. And you have too much actors in it. The priest has too much power, and is the focal point (which shouldn't be true in a wedding ceremony) and should be isolated probably, if it were to function as a 1 of something. But then, how would you present two silvers?

>>18708881

Does the priest have too much power? Or is he merely clothed in the power that the ceremony provides him with? The priest himself is not silver, merely his vestment.

His caste, however, endows him with the singular power to interpret and to officiate such ceremony...

>>18708881
>>18708897

Perhaps clothing him in saffron and having the clasped hands of the bride and groom be the source of the silver is better. Or perhaps it would be better for some single, ritual object to be silver... now I have to go and study wedding rituals for commonality.

>>18708897
Yes he does. You gave him all that power by dressing him in silver and calling the card 1 of silver. He dominates a scene where it is not natural.

>>18708912

Some wedding ceremonies involve fire. The priest can be a background figure, while the fire is silver and the groom takes the bride's hands at the altar. The fire would be the central symbol in that case rather than the priest.

>>18708923
It could, but fire is more commonly associated with gold than with silver.

>>18708935

In this instance, if fire is the spark of the divine and the priest tends to fire, then it would be closer to silver. Gold, in this instance, would be closer to a base abstraction, necessary for living but dirty in its material roots.

Perhaps some other symbol. Maybe something to symbolize a dowry, or perhaps something else.

>>18708961
I'm sorry, I just can't wrap my mind over the whole silver>gold bit. It just doesn't work for me.
And you really shouldn't listen to me (other than the whole not calling the thing a tarot) because it's your world, you are its god and creator, and I have no place in it.

>>18708981

Yes, but you make a convenient sounding board.

In Hindu weddings the Agni is the officiant of the wedding while the priests and elders are more or less just the organizers.

Silver > gold works for me in large part because at one point silver was more valuable than gold, and gold is malleable while silver is solid by comparison.

>>18708995
>and gold is malleable while silver is solid by comparison.
In the same vein, you argue that oak is more valuable than cherry or beech because of the exact same property. Ask any carpenter what's more valuable, and they'll tell you it's cherry.

>>18709031

Right. But from there comes unorthodoxy: all of my proposed suits are metals pulled out of the earth, shaped with fire, used to hold water, and to make music with air. It is society that assigns them a value according to custom, craft, barter, and battle.

>>18709047
>custom
Gold.
>craft
Silver. Because you said silver was more solid than gold, which would make silversmiths more skilled artisans
>barter
Copper
>and battle
Iron.
Did I do good?

>>18709070

According to your own schema of thought I'm sure.