Book of Shadows 2 - So Below deck

I love the cardstock on the first deck. Slightly glossy, thickish, not at all like usual LoS cardstock (which I also like but which is definitely different). My main problem with the 2nd deck is that I don't like the art - so different from the first deck - so not seamless there either. Too cartoonish.

The first deck has some wonderful, dark images. I keep digging it out thinking yes I will use it but then it looks too much like 78 Courts. Not an easy deck but oh how I love the atmosphere of the Death card...

So Below CS

Le Fanu said:

I love the cardstock on the first deck. Slightly glossy, thickish, not at all like usual LoS cardstock (which I also like but which is definitely different). My main problem with the 2nd deck is that I don't like the art - so different from the first deck - so not seamless there either. Too cartoonish.

The first deck has some wonderful, dark images. I keep digging it out thinking yes I will use it but then it looks too much like 78 Courts. Not an easy deck but oh how I love the atmosphere of the Death card...

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I don't mind the contrast in theme, as this add to the ways of using them together, but yes the art is rather too cartoonish and 'T Shirt'... (I have a thing about T shirts on Tarot decks, it's just not right somehow. I like real shirts, with buttons and preferable long cuffs... anyway, moving on...), I am assuming there is no So Below deck with the same lovely card stock as the As Above - what a shame. I was hoping there would be, this ruins the aesthetics of the two being a set in my eyes.

Le Fanu said:

I'm genuinely contemporary in other aspects of my life. I don't need it in tarot.

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This is a *good* line!

I just have the "As Above" deck. I don't have the kit - I don't buy kits or deck-and-book sets unless I don't have an option. I find there's not a lot to learn any more from most companion-books. So the empty compartment is not going to drive me spare.

I'm finding that generally the deck works for me, too, but the contemporary thing is bothering me slightly more as I get older. It's not timeless. I mean, we now see heavy computer monitors in 1980s TV shows as terribly dated when they were meant to create an ultra-modern hi-tech look: I expect to feel the same way about the laptop in the deck in a decade or so, and I expect to use *all* my decks for a minimum of twenty years more!

I like the deck. I don't regret buying it. But nothing in it makes me hunger to rush out and get the So Below deck.

I'd love to see some more images of the decks.

They'll be probably low down the wishlist, but it's a really interesting idea. I quite like contemporary stuff sometimes (not always) though I see the point about it dating. But on the other hand, I do get a bit tired of women in floaty v-necked dresses. (Someone please make a deck in consultation with a historical reenactor?)

The above-below concept has me quite fascinated.