Decks w/ connected/distinct "world" and characters?

[JankaV]

I have never ever been drawn to fantasy decks, but after looking at a blog post featuring the Sacred Isle Tarot, the idea of the cards being in a story really appealed to me. I mean, I kind of do that anyway with my RWS but the Sacred Isle ones jumped out as really cohesive...

What other decks strike you this way? Like you could imagine the cards as a movie or a real world with stories?

 

[kimtsan]

I have never ever been drawn to fantasy decks, but after looking at a blog post featuring the Sacred Isle Tarot, the idea of the cards being in a story really appealed to me. I mean, I kind of do that anyway with my RWS but the Sacred Isle ones jumped out as really cohesive...

What other decks strike you this way? Like you could imagine the cards as a movie or a real world with stories?

Universal Fantasy Tarot! I love it because it's highly story oriented and it draws on many literary tropes and archetypes from the fantasy genre. I know every tarot card essentially caries a story with them, but the Universal Fantasy Tarot has great "story scenes" embedded in each card. You can really look at the way "perspective" is established in each card. Other than some of the more abstract cards such as the Aces or the Wheel of Fortune, every one of them looks like a scene from a movie or a storybook.

Kim

 

[nisaba]

Now that you mention it, that's what makes a good deck to me - I never connected the dots before. I have forty-five or fifty decks like that, with consistent inner worlds. That seems to be what I value in a deck.

 

[feynrir]

I thought of two decks right away

Tarot of the Hidden Realm and Tarot of the Silicon Dawn. Fantasy and science fiction, respectively.

Each is highly developed and cohesive...the Tarot of the Hidden Realm being a bit moreso, in a sense. Tarot of the Silicon Dawn is a bit too all over the place and spunky. Regardless, each seems, to me, very much of a solid theme which each character as a detail of their respective universe.

 

[Le Fanu]

I've often said this before. Those decks that manage to create a complete inner world, a complete universe unto themselves can be quite wonderful. It makes for a very curious reading experience.

Navigators Tarot of the Mystic SEA is - of course - my favourite in this vein. Sort of futuristic animation (if it were a film).

I think the Tarot of the Cat People tries to do this too. Very much a world unto itself but - I have to confess - I read the book and it really seemed to be taking it too far. It's a very fine line between "wow this is such a coherent little microcosm of a universe" and "this is just silly". It can end up being a world where you think "who cares?" I don't know what the secret ingredient is which really pulls you in.

 

[Kristyjnh]

Tarot of the Princesses. Each card features a woman from history, myth, or fairytale and the meaning of the card is tied to their story. It's so deep I'm finding it interesting to get to know. I haven't actually read with it yet because I feel like I need to learn their stories before I can really use it.

 

[nisaba]

My list:

African Tarot
Anna K
Aquarian
Arthurian,
Australian Contemporary Dreamtime Tarot
Bacchus,
Baroque Bohemian Cats,
Black Cats Tarot
Bonefire
Bosch,
Botticelli
Brueghel,
Celtic (Courtney Davis)
Tarot of the Celtic Fairies
Cephalopod Tarot
Cloisters
da Vinci Enigma,
Etruscan
Everyman Tarot
Everyman colourised majors-only
Fairytale (MRP),
Fantastic Menagerie
Grail,
Granny Jones,
Haindl,
Halloween
Herbal,
Hermetic Tarot
the Hobbit
Hudes,
I Tarocchi di Valentina Visconti per il Palio d'Asti
Ironwing Majors Only
Kilted Rubber Chicken
KissaTarot
Klimt,
Lebanese
Legend-Arthurian,
Liber T,
Lukumi,
Medieval Cat Tarot
Mediaeval Scapini,
Mythic,
Necronomicon Tarot
Nefertari
Neuzeit,
New Orleans Voodoo Tarot
Tarot Noir
Nova
Quantum
Roots of Asia
Rumi Tarot,
Russian Tarot of St Petersburg (d)
7th World Tarot
Science Tarot
Servants of the Light
Shakespearian
Sheridan-Douglas,
Stained glass
Steampunk (Matthews)
Tarocchi Streghe
Thoth
Thousand and One Nights
Tarocchi Veneziani
Whispering Tarot
Wild Unknown
Wildwood Tarot
William Blake

 

[FLizarraga]

Also (in no particular order):

Greenwood
Druidcraft
Tyldwick (it's just one big abandoned mansion, like the castle of the Beast in Cocteau's movie)
Bohemian Gothic (AKA Tales from the Crypt)
Vampyres
Vampire (Place)
Gothic (Vargo)
Mystic Faerie
Paris (collage deck)
Winged Spirit
Shadowscapes
Bosch

 

[FLizarraga]

Navigators Tarot of the Mystic SEA is - of course - my favourite in this vein. Sort of futuristic animation (if it were a film).

YES. Wonderful, and so underrated.

I think the Tarot of the Cat People tries to do this too. Very much a world unto itself but - I have to confess - I read the book and it really seemed to be taking it too far. It's a very fine line between "wow this is such a coherent little microcosm of a universe" and "this is just silly". It can end up being a world where you think "who cares?" I don't know what the secret ingredient is which really pulls you in.

Another big YES. After scratching my head (vigorously), I decided to ignore the book and just read the deck by itself.

I did get Andre Norton's Mark of the Cat, which is inspired by it, but I highly doubt that it will influence the way I use the deck. I do love Andre Norton, though --also underrated.

 

[JOdel]

The cards being "in the story"? *A* story? *Any* story? A *specific* story? Their *own* story -- or somebody *else's* story?

I'm pretty sure that one or other of these definitions would cover various themed decks, like the ones based on various literatry properties. Alice in Wonderland being a popular one, or the Sherlock Holmes deck that's been featured on the home page for a while.

And of course there are fan decks (I did one of those myself) where the characters on the cards are linking back to the external source, even when the cards themselves are straightforward Rider-Waite archtypes. The external associations are intended pretty much as commentary on the situations of the characters in the external source, but is that even what you mean?