Archive for the ‘Tarot’ Category

Anders Sandberg’s Genesis Game

BY: Mark

When Anders Sandberg isn’t busy contemplating the transhumanist future, he’s coming up with clever ways to create role-playing mechanisms. In this case, Genesis: A Game Of History Creation. Using a deck of Crowley Thoth tarot cards, a couple of creatively-minded kids, and a couple of ten-sided dice (because it’s not an RPG system if you don’t have funny-sided dice), you can quickly lay out a series of world-building scenarios based on play interaction with the Thoth cards.

It’s one of those systems that takes about three minutes to explain, and over a lifetime, you’ll probably not work through every thread possible with the cards. Mainly, it starts with a single event and/or individual, and each player proceeds to lay down a card, adding to the “and this happened next!” scenario generation. Each tarot suit is mapped to a specific facet of world-building, and each card has its only spin on that facet based on the card’s own meaning. About the use of the Crowley deck, Anders says: “[The game] can be run using other decks of course, but often the images are less helpful and the meanings more psychological. Knowing the symbolism and meanings of the cards makes the game far more entertaining and flexible, but just looking at the images can give inspiration.”

It’s all about making the world based on autonomic suggestions from the cards.

Anders’ site has a lengthy walkthrough of game play, which demonstrates evocatively the wealth of possibilities available to febrile imaginations.

The Dodal Tarot

BY: Mark

Jean-Claude Florney has recently finished his restorating/re-editing of Jean Dodal’s seminal tarot deck. You can purchase them here. An interview with Enrique Enriquez about the deck and the process of restoring them can be read here.

The Dodal deck (c. 1701) is one of the few complete examples of the Tarot of Marseille that is still extant, and time has not been kind to the colors of the cards. The Marseille design has been traumatized severly over the years (including versions that invert the color schemes and reduce the palette to a few tones). Florney’s passion over the last decade plus has been to recreate these decks in their original glory and to make them available for the tarot enthusiast.

The interview contains some fascinating discussions about the variances between cards in the existing Dodal decks that Florney had access to during his restoration process.

I’m partial to the Noblet myself, but it might be fun to have a copy of the Dodal on hand as well.

Erik Davis and Rider-Waite-Smith

BY: Mark

We have much love for Erik Davis around here, and not just because he introduced us to the idea of being an “occulture critic” (in his 33 1/3 monograph on Led Zeppelin IV). You can look at his work and what Mark Pilkington is doing with Strange Attractor, and pretty much see the model we’re working from.

However, the reason we dig Erik Davis today is the revelation of his new column at Hilobrow.com called “Pop Arcana.” The first entry details the contributions of Pamela Colman Smith to that most iconic of tarot decks, the Rider-Waite. Go, and read about “The Comic Book of Thoth.”

[via our tarot-lovin' pal, El Dragón, who wages the good fight for organics at Fair Food Fight]