Maskelyne
I found this is my mailbox this (Saturday) evening, after having impulsively violated the tarot budget Wednesday evening. Just unpacking the box was an entertainment. Before coming to the bubble-wrapped deck, there was the author (M. M. Meleen)'s business card, with a miniature of The Universe card on the back. Taped to the inside of the cover was a baggie containing the "bonus significator" card, with my name in heiroglyphics on the face. But the real bonus here is the back of the card, which is a print of the card back of such quality it's almost like a watercolor. I think I'm going to frame it.
The tuck box bears the Death card on the cover, and, wonderfully, opens from the front. Under the deck is a very meaty LWB The pages are un-numbered and I didn't count, but each major gets a page, aces and faces a half-page each, small cards about three and a half pages per suit, plus six pages of introduction and "the Rosetta Stone Spread", appropriately for a stone 3x3.
The cards have black borders, with numbers at the top and titles at the bottom. The titles follow the Thoth pattern. I liked the black borders immediately. On a black cloth, the cards look like borderless pictures, with their names and numbers floating next to them. The artwork is true to the symbology of the Thoth, but also expresses a distinctive personal vision of the deck. The coloring is visually and conceptually brilliant. The computer screen is inadequate to convey the full scale of the palette.
I started dealing cards off the top of the deck, the Ten of Disks. The pip cards, like the Thoth's, are un-figured but use color, geometry, and the character of the pips to convey meaning. The Five of Disks, Worry, has as disks dial faces, shoring a clock approaching quitting time, a gauge in the danger zone, a tach in the red zone, a fuel gauge approaching E, and a compass. The five are arranged in the Thoth's inverted pentagram on a steampunkish wooden (?) panel with a yellow toggle switch in the lower right. It's a multitasking catastrophe that nicely conveys what the instability of the five does on the material plane.
I haven't tried reading with it yet but just on the artwork and thought this one's a winner.
I'm going back to it now.
The tuck box bears the Death card on the cover, and, wonderfully, opens from the front. Under the deck is a very meaty LWB The pages are un-numbered and I didn't count, but each major gets a page, aces and faces a half-page each, small cards about three and a half pages per suit, plus six pages of introduction and "the Rosetta Stone Spread", appropriately for a stone 3x3.
The cards have black borders, with numbers at the top and titles at the bottom. The titles follow the Thoth pattern. I liked the black borders immediately. On a black cloth, the cards look like borderless pictures, with their names and numbers floating next to them. The artwork is true to the symbology of the Thoth, but also expresses a distinctive personal vision of the deck. The coloring is visually and conceptually brilliant. The computer screen is inadequate to convey the full scale of the palette.
I started dealing cards off the top of the deck, the Ten of Disks. The pip cards, like the Thoth's, are un-figured but use color, geometry, and the character of the pips to convey meaning. The Five of Disks, Worry, has as disks dial faces, shoring a clock approaching quitting time, a gauge in the danger zone, a tach in the red zone, a fuel gauge approaching E, and a compass. The five are arranged in the Thoth's inverted pentagram on a steampunkish wooden (?) panel with a yellow toggle switch in the lower right. It's a multitasking catastrophe that nicely conveys what the instability of the five does on the material plane.
I haven't tried reading with it yet but just on the artwork and thought this one's a winner.
I'm going back to it now.
!