Tyldwick Tarot

PathWalker

So, mine arrived this morning, and here's a thread for folks to chat about their impressions of the deck as they start to arrive across the world, and celebrate a new creation.


They are cellophane wrapped inside the box, and I found mine in order, all there and in perfect condition. The gilding is lovely, and they don't smell too strongly.
There is no title card or LWB, but the creator has written a lot online about the pack that I guess I can live with that - I might go back and seek that out again though for a refresh.


The images are pretty much as they appear online - some of them have small details which make me take off my vari-focals and peer with the naked eye :)
Some are slightly darker in colourtone that I might have hoped, but overall I enjoy them and respect the artisit's vision.
There is not feeling of movement in the deck, the images are all tableau, and now I come to write about it, there are no human figures either. There are paintings, statues and so on, but no living people. I wouldn't like every deck I owned to be like this, but for this deck, I think it works. You are left to wander through the rooms and gardens, looking at what's left behind, making up your own mind about certain things, reading what you will into what you see.

Each suit does have a unifying colour theme, which was present on the web views but I hadn't really noticed; you do see it when you fan them in your hand. The card stock is whippy (I don't riffle shuffle EVER, so card stock doesn't really concern me, sorry).

As with every pack there are a couple of cards I don't personally like (4 of Swords here for me for example because it felt like a modern note in an older representation) but the 'feel' of the deck is coherent and I have certainly visited properties in Great Britian and in Italy which evoke this mood.

No idea how it will read - I need to drink coffee and feed the parrots before I get to that, but I would not have missed owning this one.

Pathwalker
 

Le Fanu

Maybe this thread isn't for me as I haven't received mine yet. I shll be ordering soon (though I have one reserved in my name from the pre-publication waiting list). Funny reading your commments and remembering how I have long yearned for a deck with no people in it. How interesting it will be reading with a mood, undistracted by people "doing" things.
 

ZKEI

Thank you for this review.

As it's printed by Carta Mundi, according to the information on his website, I've expect the card stock/coating would be really nice (compared with those Carta Mundi decks I have).

I've also got his email about the availability of the decks including the running number I reserved a few years ago. Unfortunately, it's not the number I really want. So, I guess I will wait for a while until such numbers are released.

:)
 

DaisyDragonfly

I received mine today as well, so I thought I'd add my first (pre-usage) impressions.

It's a sumptuous deck: the gilded edges, the weathered-effect. It looks like something found in a dusty trunk in a locked attic in an abandoned mansion in an overgrown forest. It's a deck that feels like it comes with its own story.

It's immensely evocative. Pathwalker said there's no movement in this deck, that it's all tableaux...well, yes, that's true. Each card is a snapshot. But I disagree there's no movement: each card has, for me, a sense of a movement that I've just missed, or a movement about to happen. It's a deck of ghosts - the most spectral deck I've ever seen - but where the ghosts have been and gone and you're left in the moment, wondering whether or not to blink, because if you do you'll miss them when they return. This spectral touches more than just your sense of sight, I'm finding: there are strange little sounds associated with each card, echoes of memories, the softest snatch of a distant memory, footsteps fading away. It's the simplicity of the images, I think, combined with the careful evocation of mood from the details and effects.

There are no people in this deck? I suppose not. There are statues and gargoyles that play the part of people. But this is a deck of the uncanny, so whilst no person appears on a card, there are mirrors aplenty. Some mirrors are clear, some are darkened, some are cracked. Each one of those mirrors appears to be waiting for you to glimpse something in them - a movement you weren't expecting - even if it's just yourself.

And the court cards? Well, there are portraits in those - I think. Or they're mirrors, too, but with the person behind the mirror staring out and seeing you.

That's the sense I get, all the way through. Am I looking at the cards or are the cards looking at me?

This isn't a deck for everybody. Some of the details are very hard to see. I need the titles to know which card I'm looking at. The court cards are similar-ish. It might be a difficult deck for anybody who is still learning tarot: it comes without any kind of LWB or accompanying text.

Having said that, this is a deck that will stimulate the intuition, I think, so if you're a reader who likes to go oracl-y on tarot, this deck will be a good one for you. It will also stimulate the imagination: there are a million stories to be told for each card. If you have wicked intuition (or a wicked imagination) then this will be a fascinating deck to have in your collection. Every tarot deck contains the whole world; the world of this deck is unsettling, each image glimpsed as a veil is lifted. It's quite beautiful. The stories you get out of it will almost certainly come from the darker shadows of your subconscious. Heh. It's a deck that matches the quote in my signature below...

The whole deck, in fact, reminds me of this, Dennis Severs House. A place, a very definite place, to lose yourself in.

All of these are first impressions; of course, the proof of the pudding is in the taste so, time to try a reading and see how the cards interact.
 

Calcifer

If I understand what I'm reading here, there is no actual "deck packaging"... like a box, right ? Just the cellophane wrap it comes in ? I'm just curious - I plan to bag it and box it (assuming that I even open it at all).... At the website, under "Technical Specs", it says that it comes in a "specially designed tuck-box" - but it doesn't sound like it here...

Oh, and thanks for the posts !!!

Thanks,
Michael
 

DaisyDragonfly

It comes in a box and the deck is cellophane wrapped within.
 

delizt

I haven't received mine yet, but I am enjoying all these first impressions!!
 

greatdane

Looking at scans and reading reviews

It sounds like this is a deck that most would see more as an oracle if not for titles on the cards? Could most tarot readers who don't do readings purely by intuition read each card and know what it is? I have only seen some, not all of the scans, and some I could guess the card, others not so much. It is very cohesive as a deck and has lovely images.
 

DaisyDragonfly

What's YOUR impression of the cardstock please, DaisyDragonfly?

Slick and whippy, I'd say. Feels like it'd be durable and would age nicely :)

Greatdane: I think you could, yes. Some cards are a little trickier to get than others - and I did need the titles to help me read and understand the cards the first time round - but by and large the cards are a simplified version of the RWS imagery. You do have to take on board the 'mood' of the card, though: for example, the 10 of Swords. It shows an ornate console table holding a small indistinct statuette: it appears to be a kneeling man, covered in a dark cloak. There's a leaf of paper to one side of the statue, an open straight razor to the other side. On the wall above the console is a smeared and bloody 10 swords design (the swords are curved in the TdM tradition): it looks like it has been wiped there by somebody's hand. It took me a minute or two to put the pieces together, but when I did I shivered. Really. So it's every bit as cruel as the regular 10 of swords image, but less obviously so. For nearly every card I could understand what the image had to do with the traditional RWS meaning.

In a funny sort of way, you could approach the cards forensically. CSI Tyldwick. Somebody has just been in this room and the clues to what they've been up to have been left behind. Use those clues - and the name of the card - to piece the story together.

It sounds like hard work, but the cards read beautifully when I tried them out yesterday. The images flowed neatly from one to another. Simple things - movement from inside to outside, whether windows are cracked, shaded or clear, whether cups have lids on or not, flowers flowering or rotting - all aid the reading. It is a minimalist take, though: mood, the few visual cues and card name work together.

(I'm quite taken by this deck. Can you tell? ;) Honestly, a great storytelling deck - which is, by the way, my reading style).