The Tarot of Vampyres

OctoberGwen

aurarcana said:
That silk bag came from MoonGypsy and it is a prized possession when it comes to bags. It looks perfect with the deck too! The Grails suit, which is green, is my favorite, so it seemed fitting.

Well, it's absolutely gorgeous, and I agree - it's beautiful with the deck.

I may have to invest in a rotary trimmer one of these days....
 

strings of life

OctoberGwen said:
Well, it's absolutely gorgeous, and I agree - it's beautiful with the deck.
:)

I'm off to read the book soon. I fell asleep last night and barely got through the first chapter. It looks like I'll need to take notes along the way since there is a lot of symbolism.
 

Alamaris

I can't believe I just bought this. :bugeyed: I'm not terribly interested in vampires, or gory-beautiful artwork, and the most I've read on the subject was a kid's abridged version of Dracula when I was ~7.

Ultimately what swayed me was hearing how intelligent the companion book was, as well as a couple of the card scans -- I really like how vague the gender is on a lot of the cards, primarily the Lovers, because I'm a sucker for any deck in which one of the two parties is of an ambiguous sex. Am I the only one who thinks the uppermost character in that card could possibly be a handsome woman?

Without having it in my hands yet, I can say that I have high hopes, despite how much this is a deck I NEVER thought I'd give a second look at. I don't mind that some of the cards allegedly look like celebrities, because I'm completely unfamiliar with any of the ones mentioned. As a Catholic BDSM practitioner (what a combination, I know :eek:), I'm thrilled to see elements of both weaving their way into the art of these cards. There are a lot of images I just patently do NOT like, such as the oft-mentioned Nine of Grails porn-woman, but it has such impossible dramatics that I'm reminded of Jacobean revenge tragedy -- not to mention reminding me of my dearest friend, who is a gothed-up haematophiliac, a mad poet, and a very skilled occultist.

It's ridiculous. It's over the top. It's smart. It's cheesy. I think I like it.
 

OctoberGwen

Alamaris said:
I can't believe I just bought this. :bugeyed:
.....
It's ridiculous. It's over the top. It's smart. It's cheesy. I think I like it.

:D

So many of us have had that very same reaction, I think. Can't wait to hear how you feel about the deck after you've got it in your hands!
 

Alamaris

My copy is here.

And let me tell you, that occultist friend of mine is getting a copy of this for his birthday, he just doesn't know it yet. It's so his thing.

But that's beside the point! My impressions...

Well, for starters, I put off opening the thing until the sun set, and lit a hoity toity cuban-tobacco-and-bergamot candle for extra cheese factor. I rolled my eyes like I usually do at Llewellyn's packaging, with the silly white box that is far too big for the cards and made of toilet paper besides (plus that little tear-off bit, what the hell is up with that?). The book came out first, and I'm impressed with the quality there -- no pages fell out when I riffled through it, clean and readable typesetting with no frou-frou fonts to go with the Vampyre theme.

As for the deck, WOW. That's both a sarcastic wow and a serious wow. First wow: the art is nice. Very nice. As a painter myself, I appreciate what the artist is doing here, and he does it very well. Second wow: hot damn this thing is cheesy. It's dripping with cheese. The first thing I thought of was, like I said in my last post, Elizabethan drama. You know how in those days, female roles were played by boy actors? And how in some plays, the boy actor would be playing a girl who had disguised herself as a boy? In one play there's even a boy playing a girl disguised as a boy playing a girl on a stage within the play. The vampires remind me of that, in two senses -- one, a lot of them are ambiguously gendered, so I keep thinking "hmm, this looks like a woman but might be a boy" or "this looks like a man but I'm pretty sure those hips belong to a girl". Secondly, they strike me as being very dramatic vampires in the sense that they're almost doubly unreal -- I think of them as vampires pretending to be humans who are playing vampires on stage. Layers and layers of metaphorical costuming, here. It offsets the cheese factor by appealing to my obsession with theatrical history. I had no problems with sticky cards, paint chips, or cardstock flaws. The little nudity displayed is quite tasteful.

I like the Thothiness of it, how the book doesn't use canned RWS meanings like most themed decks, and especially how the book and the deck make sense together (which should be obvious, given how the artist wrote the book, but I've read some pretty awful companion volumes by deck creators). However, this is not a deck I'd use in any sort of professional situation. Storytelling, sure; readings for myself or for close friends, definitely -- it doesn't strike me as simply an art deck, it IS readable -- but I would never bring this to a reading for a stranger.

I have some minor quibbles. The art is one of them; a couple of the cards don't seem to express quite the same level of skill as the rest, mostly in the hand/wrist area, and the Nine of Grails hits all my WTF meters for anatomy and composition (and also because it's tasteless, but surprisingly, it's the only card in the deck that made me want to yell). My other quibble is that some of the cards just plain don't make sense on first glance -- The Star springs to mind from when I was flipping through. Yes, The Star often features a woman pouring water into a pond or some such object, but the vampire Star is just dripping blood from her goblets willy-nilly. The book does explain the image fairly well, but I like my cards to make sense at first glance. (This is either my professional artist brain talking, or I'm just picky. I'm not sure. Maybe both.)

Of course, my inner teenage gothy-girl, who insists on wearing corsets every day, and cutting herself artistically, and smoking marijuana out of a skull hookah -- she loves it, precisely because it's ridiculous and absurd.

It's not a deck I'd recommend for someone who's super-serious about tarot, for sure! But it's a good solid set despite how corny it appears.
 

HuskyChariot

Got my copy of this a couple of weeks ago and because I was so enamoured with my Gaian I didn't pay much attention to it... then a few days ago I began reading the Phantasmagoria and was blown away by its depth and intelligence, I was also shocked at the intuitive nature of my first reading. I love the Kith and Kin chapter, it will definitely add another dimension to readings in that I have now identified 9 cards that reflect different facets of my journey.

I won't go in to too much more detail about the art etc. as I would say that has been covered in previous posts and reviews, but I did feel the need to post in order to encourage anyone who may be on the fence about this deck, due to a certain hyped up franchise, to reconsider.

I see the current unmentionable hyped up vampire franchise as simply the latest, albeit lolly flavoured, chapter in a tradition that has a far deeper history. Thankfully I read Bram Stoker when I was 12 years old and Anne Rice at 14 years (highly recommend Anne Rice to anyone with a remote interest in vampires), so I can put the current craze in context. I then avoided the current franchise out of pure principle and out of respect to Bram and Anne. Then, despite my better judgement, actually enjoyed the movies and books - yes, you read right :laugh: I also have my own ideas on why they are so popular.

So I guess my point is... don't let some bubblegum tween craze make you miss out on an intelligent deck that has a lot to offer.... that would mean the tweenies have won right?
 

Rovay

I saw it and actually it seemed a bit interesting to me, definitely loved the artwork, but it lacked Rider-waite styles too much for my taste, so I ended up taking Dark Angels instead, of which I am very happy. Also I do not think vampyres would be taken seriously here considering how disappointed and disliking people here were of the Twilight movie.
 

WolfyJames

The Tarot of Vampyres is based on the Thoth, not the Rider-Waite, so of course anyone expecting a Rider-Waite clone will be disappointed.
 

OctoberGwen

What is it with this deck? I've bought and traded it twice now. When I have it, I enjoy it briefly and then inevitably think, "Why do I have this in my house?" After it's been gone for a while, I get a sudden inexplicable craving for it again.

Sounds just like my relationship with Cheez Doodles. :rolleyes:
 

Aerin

WolfyJames said:
The Tarot of Vampyres is based on the Thoth, not the Rider-Waite, so of course anyone expecting a Rider-Waite clone will be disappointed.

It is very readable though, being pictorial. So as long as you don't feel the need to rely on memorised meanings that you expect to fit you will be fine.

(Speaking as a mainly RWS derived deck reader.)

Is it really, really Thoth??? (To someone who knows Thoth well, I don't.)