Dragaera

Dragaeran Projects - Dragaeran Tarot Deck

Gaertk at aol.com Gaertk at aol.com
Thu Nov 17 14:31:18 PST 2005

"Rion Bergquist" <carpovita at earthlink.net> writes:

> what you all think would be in a Dragaeran Tarot deck.

How do you play card games with major arcana?

Textev: _Teckla_, prologue, mention of the card "Mountain of 
Changes".

For minor arcana, we would want each House represented.  Which means 
lots of suits, each with only a couple cards (all having the same 
number of cards (say 3) would make things easier).  So we need a way 
to rank the suits; best would be cycle order, with whoever holds the 
Orb on top, and the previous House on bottom?  (There's some textev 
(_Jhereg_ I think) about judging the current power of a House by how 
close they are to getting the Orb).  So then we specify each card in 
each suit, for example, give each a ruler, craftsman, and peon.  So 
Dragon suit would have Warlord, [Battle] Wizard, and Soldier; Jhereg 
could have Mob Boss, Sorceress, and Enforcer.  (The Deck of Dragons 
in Steven Erikson's Malazan series is set up mostly like this (but 
it's only intended for use in fortune telling).)

For major arcana, you'd want the major gods, so Barlen, Verra, 
Nyssa, Trout, Trignawhatever for pre-Interregnum decks, Necromancer 
for post-.  You'll also want at least one of Cycle, Orb, and 
Emperor.  Hmm, let's combine the latter two: Cycle is natural order, 
inverted represents amorphia; Emperor is artificial order.  Have a 
Death card (showing Deathgate Falls), invert to represent 
reincarnation.  That's eight, so we need 9 more... toss in the rest 
of the gods I'm forgetting, plus cards for Jenoine, Serioli, and 
Easterners.  Oh, and that mountain card actually mentioned in the 
books (probably represents Sethra).

-- 
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gaertk at aol.com
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