MetaBarons Tarot
Shade
Just so as to avoid sounding like a contrarian Hipster with my praises for decks like MetaBarons, Corto Maltese and even something like the Tarot of 1001 Nights, here is how I make use of them:
1. If I'm in a particular themed mood (in the MetaBarons case maybe I saw a particularly interesting Sci-Fi movie).
2. If I'm doing some sort of experimental Tarot reading technique where I don't want to fall too heavily into my RWS interpretation grooves. For example, when I get a Tarot meetup I host to do Mary Greer's Intel Circle technique (http://bit.ly/1KnxJfy) I want them to explore the cards as if they had not seen them before so I include in the pile of cards the Tarot of Metamorphosis, the Jolanda, The Corto Maltese, and one Rider Waite (for the participants who freeze up and need something familiar to relate to).
1. If I'm in a particular themed mood (in the MetaBarons case maybe I saw a particularly interesting Sci-Fi movie).
2. If I'm doing some sort of experimental Tarot reading technique where I don't want to fall too heavily into my RWS interpretation grooves. For example, when I get a Tarot meetup I host to do Mary Greer's Intel Circle technique (http://bit.ly/1KnxJfy) I want them to explore the cards as if they had not seen them before so I include in the pile of cards the Tarot of Metamorphosis, the Jolanda, The Corto Maltese, and one Rider Waite (for the participants who freeze up and need something familiar to relate to).
Laura Borealis
I haven't read Metabarons, but it's a graphic novel series by Jodorowsky. Which probably means it defies easy description. I did read his L'Incal (which is part of the same overarching story, and has a Metabaron character), and it had loads of references to tarot, Jungian concepts, alchemy and other metaphysical stuff. I'm just guessing, but Metabarons is probably much the same, so the territory may be familiar even without knowing the stories and characters.
GlitterNova
Lo Scarabeo's one-sentence description of the deck makes more sense knowing that ("The metaphysical science fiction saga thought and created by Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by Juan Gimenez finds her natural place among the Tarot Arcana.") That must be why they say it's finding its natural place in tarot. I'm glad to know there's some thought behind the choice of this source material.
How's their return policy? You could always just take it back if it's totally intelligible! (not before giving a review here, of course)
Le Fanu
Ok, So I bought it. First impressions; Nicely dated vintage style comic book. From another era. Sort of comic bladerunner style to this layman, 80s futurism, low boob count, which in a LoS deck counts for a lot. Quite male and dark.
The LWB makes no bones about it being part of a narrative of a series and you can tell from the definitions, you're sort of expected to know where these scenes come from and where they fit into a greater narrative. I don't have this knowledge but like some of the images for having a bit of a retro comic feel. There are definitely some WTF cards for the uninitiated.
What also springs out is that some cards look like amplified details of part of a strip and so lack sharpness and yet other cards - mostly courts - are incredibly rich and detailed and sharp, so there's a sort of discrepancy there..
It was a toss up between this and the Happy Tarot. They had both in stock. This is more 'me' I think. Dashing this off on my phone over lunch. No time for more. Any questions I can answer later.
The LWB makes no bones about it being part of a narrative of a series and you can tell from the definitions, you're sort of expected to know where these scenes come from and where they fit into a greater narrative. I don't have this knowledge but like some of the images for having a bit of a retro comic feel. There are definitely some WTF cards for the uninitiated.
What also springs out is that some cards look like amplified details of part of a strip and so lack sharpness and yet other cards - mostly courts - are incredibly rich and detailed and sharp, so there's a sort of discrepancy there..
It was a toss up between this and the Happy Tarot. They had both in stock. This is more 'me' I think. Dashing this off on my phone over lunch. No time for more. Any questions I can answer later.
Shade
Pulling from the Wikipedia page:
The Metabarons or The Saga of The Meta-Barons is a science fiction comic series relating the history of a dynasty of perfect warriors known as the Metabarons. The Metabarons series was written by creator Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by Argentinian artist Juan Giménez. The series, published by Humanoïdes Associés, is complete, the last volume having been released at the end of 2003.
The first appearance of a Metabaron (chronologically the last of the Metabarons) was May 1981 in the Incal comic book series. This was followed by a series of prequels that concerned this character's origin, presented as the narration of the android Tonto to the android Lothar, of his masters' achievements. The series takes place over the course of several generations, and chronicles the life of each of the five Metabarons. The stories depict a space opera reminiscent of Greek tragedy, and heavily influenced by Frank Herbert's Dune novels.
Mythology
Rituals
Every Metabaron is in his youth mutilated by his father so that his endurance to pain is tested, and receives a powerful mechanical body part as a replacement for the destroyed limb. In each generation, the son and heir must eventually face his father in a battle to the death. These battles have taken many forms, from hand-to-hand combat to space duels, and the succession is only achieved once the son succeeds in killing his father.
Bushitaka
The Bushitaka is the strict code of honor followed by the Metabarons; named after the Japanese bushido. It demands that the practitioners dedicate themselves to victory in all things at any cost, wherein the only alternative to victory is death, and even forsake their own family members in the pursuit of total victory.
Metabaronic weaponry
Each Metabaron draws upon an array of advanced weaponry. These include cybernetically-implanted lasers, nanotech nuclear warheads implanted in the body, swords which can disintegrate in bursts of flame, and advanced spaceships. Many of the Metabarons also exhibit powerful psychic abilities.
The Dynasty
The story of the Metabarons begins on an isolated world, Marmola, on which a small tribe, ruled by Berard of Castaka, export huge blocks of marble. In addition, the planet is the native location of a blue, jelly-like substance, called epiphyte, whose properties defy gravity. The existence of the substance has been a sacred secret of the Castakas for many generations, until its revelation to save the life of Othon von Salza, the son-in-law of Baron Berard. Soon after the revelation of the epiphyte, the planet's orbit becomes a battlefield, with the treacherous Imperial Black Endoguard as the victors. At the end of the war, Othon and his son Bari are the only survivors of the Castaka tribe. The Imperial couple, rulers of the known galaxy, are astonished by the achievement of Othon and reward him; and Othon shows them where the epiphyte was hidden in exchange for a percentage of the new market for anti-G Technology, a new planet to which their palace would be transferred, and a gift for his son intended to restore the joy lost with his crippled legs. The emperor gives him a horse, an extinct species revived by genetic manipulation; but pirates steal the horse. Othon kills them in retaliation, but accidentally kills his son, and is castrated by an attacker. Othon thereafter invests a large part of his fortune in the development of the first 'metabaronic' weapons and begins the tradition of cybernetic implants; and later becomes a mercenary of extraordinary skill and power. By the destruction of 100,000 pirate vessels, he and his descendants receive the title of Metabaron, and the Imperial couple promise a gift. Later, a woman named Honorata offers that she can bear Othon a child if he places a drop of his blood in her uterus. With this done, two of Othon's servants try to commit suicide, taking the pregnant Honorata with them; but Othon injects a potion of epiphyte into Honorata. This deprives his son, Aghnar von Salza, of weight; wherefore Othon lets Honorata train Aghnar by herself. When Aghnar is seven years old, he defeats a machine set against him by his father; whereupon Othon continues his training. Honorata then confesses she was ordered to give birth to a hermaphrodite instead of a son, by the priestesses of Shabda-Oud. For her disobedience, the Shabda-Oud attempt her destruction. Othon, to assure his son's ability to avenge her, orders Aghnar to fight him to the death, and Aghnar seizes the title of Metabaron for himself.
The sole human in a hostile world, Aghnar befriends a single primatoid, and becomes its tribe's messiah. He then seizes a Shabda-Oud cetacyborg battleship with which to carry out his vengeance; but is distracted by the Cetacyborg's crew's original objective: to capture Princess Oda, to use her for the sisterhood's breeding experiments. After a telepathic confrontation with the sisterhood, Oda suffers debilitating injuries; whereupon Honorata, kept alive by her own mental powers, transfers her own soul to Oda, who thereafter bears Aghnar a son. Disgusted by his incest, Aghnar attempts to kill his son, whom Oda/Honorata gives a cybernetic head to replace his own, for which he is called Steelhead. Steelhead later kills his parents. At his claim to the title of Metabaron, the Princess Doña Vicenta argues that his offspring must be unworthy of the title. Therefore Steelhead assumes the disembodied head of Zaran Krleza, the last poet in the galaxy. United in body and head (but somehow maintaining individual personas), Steelhead and Zaran become Melmoth, which declares Doña Vicenta as the object of his affections, and resurrects her father, along with a rare, titanic tree (both destroyed by Steelhead himself). Doña Vicente consents to the match; but but the clone of her father attempts to take her by force, whereupon Vicenta gives him her eyes. Mollified, he permits Melmoth and Doña Vicenta to marry; but Melmoth discovers that Tonto, his robotic servant, has replaced her eyes by cybernetic sensors, and shuns her. Eventually, he reverts to the form and character of Steelhead, and takes care of his bride. When unable to preserve both of Vicenta's twin children alive, Steelhead removes the male twin's brain and implant it in the female child, and trains the androgynous Aghora would be trained as a warrior, who eventually faces his/her father in single combat to become Metabaron. To conceive an heir, he/she extracts the male cells from his/her own brain and implants them in his/her womb, thereby creating a male clone: later the Nameless Metabaron who reigns in Incal.
In the last chapter of the saga (Sans-Nom, le dernier Méta-Baron), Lothar, the faithful android to whom Tonto is relating the Metabaronic lore in the frame narration, is identified as Steelhead himself, kept alive by his conversion to a robotic existence. Recovering his personality, but not his full memories, after a brief confrontation in which he gives Nameless the iconic scarring in his eyebrow, he allies himself with a vampiric creature to enact his vengeance upon his descendant. Ultimately, he repents; whereupon Nameless has himself sterilized, and remains in self-pity until the Spirit of the Castaka family, embodied by the mark on his chest, prompts Nameless to become a force for good, protecting life whenever he can. With this new mission, the Metabaron becomes the unstoppable mercenary featured in the Incal.
GlitterNova
That's very helpful, Shade!
Le Fanu, will you be able to possibly provide pictures of some cards?
Le Fanu, will you be able to possibly provide pictures of some cards?
Le Fanu
Yes, thank you Shade. That is helpful to have to here in the thread.
A quick selection of favourites taken with my phone which - to my knowledge - haven't been reproduced elsewhere. You can figure out what they depict yourselves...
Now it's my turn to oblige.
A quick selection of favourites taken with my phone which - to my knowledge - haven't been reproduced elsewhere. You can figure out what they depict yourselves...
Attachments
The Happy Squirrel
Those images are quite stunning.....
seedcake
I'm on the fence with this deck. I really want to own one which is sc-fi themed. I was not able to buy UFO Tarot 'cause I still don't feel it'll fit me. Artwork for MetaBarons looks stunning, I like what I've read in wiki... so I want to check the source material. I'm not a fan of Jodorowsky, but I want to check more of his films and read his book on Tarot. We'll see how it goes with me. I need more time.
