The Tarot of Vampyres

An hour into my Monday morning and Llewellyn customer service has already emailed me twice! They have been very courteous and professional, and offered to replace the Lord of Skulls.

I am very impressed.

I have my deck. I too am very impressed. I'm surprised; I expected not to like it. I thought it would be more of the sameish.

Now that my mood has improved, I'm enjoying it more. I just laid out my cards for my daily reading, whilst out on the deck, enjoying the beautiful autumn afternoon.

The Lord of Skulls arrived today -- and WOW. I'm happier than ever that I insisted on having it. What a gorgeous card.

So I've had my Tarot of Vampyres for about a week now and I am enjoying it immensely. I started delving into the book a little bit more. I find Daniels' writing concise and clear. He is very articulate about the imagery that he chose for each card. The Astrological associations are helpful as is his section on the Quabbalah. For a deck companion book, I think the book is very well done. It touches on a variety of Tarot topics but doesn't delve too deeply into any of them, which is usually what a companion book does--it provides an overview. I like how he discusses the artwork of each and every card and offers some suggested shadow meanings.

The cards are lushly illustrated. I've warmed up to the artwork.

Some favorite cards:

The Sun, 10 of Grails, Justice, 9 of Pentacles...

I took this deck with me when I went to dinner at my daughter's today. I figured what better way to try it out than just to dive right in reading for other people. Up till now I haven't had the time to pay a whole lot of attention to it.

I was quite surprised that I got some pretty good readings with it. I wouldn't suggest it as a beginner's deck by any far stretch but for someone with a solid background in Tarot, it's a joy to read with because it's not the same old, same old. Beautiful art work, gorgeous images and colors----I love the old Vargas style pin-up art and that's what this reminds me of, so it's like having a handful of Vargas erotica to read with. Actually, not Vargas as much as Olivia (Berardini--was that her last name?). Anyway---yummy! Just my cup of tea! I'm going to have to take this one out a lot more often.

I've ordered this deck and hope to have it by the end of the week. I'm not going to try to match or compare it to another system (Thoth vs RW) because I believe it was created with Daniel's own idea of what Tarot means to him and even though there is a comprehensive book that explains that, this deck would serve more benefit as a tool for Tarot rather than just another resuscitation of someone elses system.

the decks not bad in my honest opinion i love the back of the deck with the rose and thorns very beautiful and is amongst my favourite backing, only a handful of the cards really spoke to me, it was too goth, the conpanion book was a good read and makes me call this deck the 'phantasmagoria deck' instead of 'vampyre' deck it truly fits the phantasmagoria feel, i really loved the book. the vampires was kinda off putting but the art is absolutely amazing, i got the deck when i first saw it on amazon, then around october i saw it displayd at barnes and noble as a novolty gift... nuff said... but i do like the deck as a whole a good addition to my collection

Ordered this one too because of the beautiful images online and the fact that I love vampires for some reason. I hope to receive it this week.

I finally got this deck this week and it's such a beautiful deck. My mother and I both gushed over the art, the beautiful laces, the beautiful vampires, all the details. The Prince of Grails was our handsomest vampire and we kind of wished we could date him. It's a dark deck with a black border yet it's filled with beautiful colors, it seems every suit has its main color: orange for Wands (Scepters), green for Cups (Grails), yellow for Swords (Knives) and blue for Pentacles (Skulls). I think the artist mixes well scary and sexy for the vampires which is a must for me. The scenes are beautiful and the males are gorgeous. I took a look in the book and it seems the artist knows a lot about tarot and his deck is not a collage of his art like for the Gothic by Vargo, which makes the deck usable. I'm definitively going to read the book entirely. I think the deck has become my favorite vampire deck, it's Romantic (as in Romantic Period), passionate, lush. I just wish I could move there permanently.

I just want to mention I do not consider the Bohemian Gothic as a vampire tarot deck but as a gothic deck which is different, the gothic universe is much wider than just vampires.

I don't understand why people against the deck keeps referencing to Twilight. I read and like the books Twilight but the vampires in it are not the same at all as the ones in this deck. In Twilight, vampires have no fangs, they can walk during the day unaffected (but they sparkle), there is no blood, the sex only shows up in the fourth book and it's not much, and more importantly, the story happens during our modern day. The vampires in the Tarot of Vampyres remind more of Anne Rice with her luscious world and descriptions of past vampires in her books, except that there is no sex in Anne Rice's books while here it is present all over the place.

My sole disappointment I have from the deck is that no bag came with the box.

The words that come to my mind about the deck: roses, velvet, decadent chocolate, laces, luscious, red wine.