the urnash tarot

My printer tossed me a comp he did of all the cards arranged as a poster; I played with the idea a little and got this. I'm probably going to be doing a limited edition of it, once we nail down the layout.

It's also worth that this poster experiments with a different name than "The Urnash Tarot", which has always been a placeholder name. "The Silicon Dawn Tarot" coyly references my major references (Mathers and Crowley), while also proclaiming it an artifact of the information age. In a few decades I'm quite sure that "silicon" will seem quaint, as modern chip processes are really pushing the edge of what you can do with that material; that, too, is part of the appeal. I'm not totally sure it's the right name yet; I'll have to brainstorm once I finish the King of Wands and the High Priest.

That is quite a beautiful poster. Wish more decks were available in this format.

Thanks for sharing.

King of Wands

Yeah, it's kind of surprising that you can't get posters of decks, given that an uncut sheet of the cards pretty much is a poster. Tradition, I suppose. It could be that nobody really buys 'em when the deck's available, too. On the other hand, a multi-artist card deck I was involved in was offering uncut sheets, and I think a pretty decent amount got sold.

Egypt Urnash said:

King of Wands

Click to expand...

King Wands or King Pentacles?

Wands!

I've swapped the elemental associations of Wands and Pentacles, so a lot of the symbology is also swapped. The kinds of people you expect to see as the Pents court show up as the Wands court, and vice-versa.

Oddly enough, it's mostly on the Wands that people notice this change; I don't think I've really gotten anyone saying 'this Pent reminds me a lot of the corresponding Wand'.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of the elemental switch. When I first saw the King I thought Pentacles, especially with all the green in the card. But now that I know you've switched the elements, it makes all the sense in the world.

Thanks,
Rodney

5. The High Priest

This deck is now DONE!

Well, there's still three 99s, the two extra Fools, the Narrator/Storyteller/Querent (its name is still in flux), and maybe the (VOID) court. But the traditional 78 cards I'll be showing at a gallery at the end of the month are done.

Oh yes, I should also mention that the Aeclectic community was a lot of help in finally getting a handle on the High Priest; I had something like ten tabs open to threads here as I was putting him together.

Hello EU.

Congrats on finishing!
(Or at least on reaching the 78 card standard milestone! )

It's nice to see such an original, well thought out bit of work, completed to such a high artistic standard.

Bravo!

And good luck with the exhibition.
I hope it all goes smoothly.

Best,
OnePotato

X. History (title and identifier subject to change)

In some ways, this is the other side of Fate. It's a reminder that you're the one tying yourself up in a story; you're the one defining your past and dictating your future. Change the story and you change your fate. Stories have power.

There's also some space-warping imagery going on. How much of the universe exists because we, as conscious beings, observe it? Are we just knots of space-time, twisted up into an interesting shape by self-observation?

Originally its number was '?' but that felt too smarmy. 'X' has the dual nature of being a very common variable (how often did we all have to solve for X in math classes?), and being the Roman numeral corresponding to Fate!

And thanks, Potato! The main standard I've been holding to is my own; there were a few cards where I was tempted to just hack something out to get it DONE - but I'd have known they weren't up to snuff, and it probably would've shown to other people, too. It's gone pretty smoothly so far; I think this project has a ton of inertia by this point that'll just smash through any little barriers to getting the show together.