turn a mountain of lies, turn a card for my life
My tarot deck, right. It's Hitherby Dragons-based. Me and maybe two other people in the entire world (the overlap between those who are into tarot and those who are into Hitherby) will be interested in it, but I'm insanely excited about it. I actually bought a box of colored pencils and a pack of index cards, despite the fact that my skills as a visual artist peaked at age seven when I learned to draw grass with a bunch of individual blades instead of as a horizontal zigzag.
Here, I'll copy-paste my rough file on it so far:
The Major Arcana (Canon Entities)
The Fool - Jane
The Magician - Martin
The High Priestess - Maya
The Empress - Mrs. Schiff
The Emperor - Mr. Schiff
The Hierophant - The Olympians
The Lovers - Sid and Max
The Chariot - The Angel Four
Strength - Micah
The Hermit - Siddhartha
The Wheel - The Treasure Wheel / Wheel of Karma
Justice - Sebastian
The Hanged Man - Mylitta
Death - Belshazzar
Temperance - Mr. Kong
The Devil - the monster
The Tower - The Gibbelins' Tower / Sukaynah
The Star - Liril
The Moon - Mei Ming
The Sun - Iphigenia
Judgment - Ii Ma
The World - Ink Catherly
Lethal Magnet: The Suit of Swords, based on the legend series "House of Saints / Standing in the Storm" (Edmund's Hunger, A Motley Collection of Rogues, Vladimir's Dreams, Intermission at Edmund's Home, Vidar's Boot, Saturday Morning Special, A Practically Unsolvable Problem, Standing in the Storm, The Keepers' House, Their Lives Were Jewels, Calling to the Wolf, The Jaguars)
ace The Sorting Hat
2 Saul, the Saint of Hunger - (Saul, wearing red, a large and gaudy pin pinned to the center of his chest, sits on a stone seat. Vladimir stands behind him, holding the Sorting Hat on his head. Saul's half-open eyes have no irises or pupils and his smile bares pointed teeth. His hands are outstretched in a gesture of benediction. Peter and Bethany kneel on the ground on either side of him, horror-struck.)
3 Dwarven Reification (Edmund's Heart) - (An anatomically correct human heart sits on a low table. A wolf blows furiously on it, splintering the wooden wall built around it.)
4 One Shilling (No Alternative) - (In the lower half of the card, Edmund lies with his eyes closed on a couch in front of a makeshift wooden booth. Lucy sits inside the booth, her chin in her hands, staring down at Edmund, her smile showing pointed teeth. Above her a window is open; the view out the window, taking up the upper half of the card, shows a graveyard by night, with Sid in a pale hat sitting in lotus position at the center, his hands twisted together, surrounded by a circle of students in yellow hats.)
5 The Keepers' House
6 Vidar's Boot (The Launch)
7 The House of Metal
8 The House of Saints
9 Vladimir Dreams of the Wolf
10 The House of Torment
page - Emily
knight - The House of Hunger
queen - Lethal Magnet (The Alma Mater)
king - Mr. Domel
Modifications to the Formula: The Suit of Coins, based on the legend series "An Unclean Legacy" (starts here)
ace - Threshing the Gold
2 - Papa (The Blue Essentials)
3 - The White and Holy Path (Tomas)
4 - The Fingerbone (Francescu)
5 - Sophie and the Devil
6 - Twins (It's Just Physics)
7 - The Spinach Spider (Rachel Saraman)
8 - 100 Golden Eidolons
9 - Christine's Blindness
10 - Violet Cannot Marry
page - The Ninja (Elisabet)
knight - The Knight and His Chains (Manfred)
queen - Lady Yseult Gargamel
king - Montechristien Gargamel
I'd Make A Good Optimist: The Suit of Staves, based on the legends of Ink Catherly (The Tower, Ink in an Interlude, Ink in the Wrong Allegory, Ink and Illogic, Ink in Perspective, Unexplorable Places, Accidental Dispositions, It Means Something Good, The Lord of Suburbia, The Mirror Cracks, The LED)
ace The Tower to Hell (Ink sits on a stair in the middle of a narrow stone flight, a journal propped on her knees, writing with a thick wooden pencil. Her backpack sits next to her. The stairs below her are covered with butterflies. The stone wall by her head is stained. Above her, the tower ends and opens into a blue, cloud-dappled sky.)
2 The Imago (Martin and Jane stand at the top of the Gibbelins' Tower, staring at a large cocoon that hangs unsupported in the air in front of a round glass covered in a web of cracks. Images from the card "The Savage Jungle Queen" can be vaguely seen in the shards of the cracked glass. Jane is poking nervously at the cocoon.)
3 Misconceptions Regarding Her Nature and Destiny
4 The Mirror Cracks
5 Gorgosauruses
6 "Then I'll Never Have Time To Explore"
7 Popping Invisible Demons
8 The Omega Computer
9 The Murderous Wand of the Queen
10 Incompatible Precepts Catherly
page The Explorer
knight The Destroyer
queen The Savage Jungle Queen
king The Lord of Suburbia
Scrape. Scrape. Crunch.: The Suit of Cups, based on the legends of Jane and Martin
ace An Old Sock / An Old Stocking (Jane and Martin on a dusty stage. Jane stands at the left of the card with her hands on her hips amid an array of gingerbread men robed in white, red and gold. She holds one gingerbread man in her left hand and appears to be consulting a large book which she holds open with her right. Martin sits at the right, with his back to Jane, amid an array of Lego soldiers, holding one of them in his left hand and looking back over his shoulder at Jane with a quizzical expression.)
2 Countdown to Annihilation (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) (Iphigenia and Charles stand facing each other, hands clasped, smiling, under a spreading apple tree labeled "Apples of Knowledge: DO NOT EAT." The Snavering Lavelwod is twined around a branch of the tree, leaning its head towards Iphigenia's ear. )
3 Careful Attention to Calendars / Jane's Terrifying Story of Near-Halloween Horror (Martin, Jane and Iffy sit on a picnic blanket outdoors. Jane is eating a pickle, Iffy is eating bread and cheese, Martin is wearing his goggles and gesturing with both hands while he talks. The Pope falls headfirst through the sky behind them.)
4 Dumping Glue on a Log / Two Great Tastes (Half the card is taken up by a large circle inside which Siddhartha sits under a tree in lotus position. Before him on the grass lie: a curvaceous woman clad in some diaphanous scraps, a flaming rock surrounded by fallen flower petals, and a red-and-white striped ball. This circle floats above the lower half of the card, where Jane stands on the far left, Martin on the far right, with Amanda in the middle, her cynicism goggles half on and half off, peering over the tops of them up at the circle. Jane and Martin are both looking up at the circle as well, one from either side. Jane has both hands outstretched towards it. Martin has one hand stretched towards it and is hiding a pair of thumbscrews behind his back with the other.)
5 Stomping / Sweeping Day (Jane stands in the wreckage of a miniature city, staring into her cupped hands, her lips slightly parted. Light shines up from her hands and is reflected on her face. Sid, miniature in the miniature city, is staring up at her, his hand shading his eyes, holding a broom in his free hand.)
6 Jane's Father / Its Second Stage (In a room similar to the room he occupies in the Magician card, Martin hands Jane a green object that could be a test tube or a pickle. Jane reaches for it, a big smile on her face. In the background, the shadows of a family are silhouetted against the ground, as if they are sitting somewhere to the left of where the card ends.)
7 Scanning Things / Classifying Things (Jane sits on the sand by the ocean, looking up at a sky in which hang seven entities, all roughly equal in size: a seagull, a burning chariot drawn by flaming horses, a siggort [as described in "Scanning Things"], a wogly [as described in "Scanning Things"], a red ribbon tied into a bow, Martin leaning against an invisible wall, and a cloud. The real Martin sits beside and slightly behind her, his hand raised, looking at the red ribbon tied to one of his fingers.)
8 The Girl and the Rat (Jane sits on her bed, facing front, her back to the open window, holding a rat in her hands. Out the window it is night. By the moon's light we can see a man playing a flute, his back to us, walking towards a distant mountain range. Behind him run eight children, laughing and happy. There are tears on Jane's face. The rat's teeth are in her finger, and blood is running down her hand.)
9 Lucky Charms: The Remembering People / The Broader Context of Her Personal Reality) (Jane sits on her blocky pink one-seater sofa, facing front and looking up and to the left. Her legs stick straight out in front of her and her feet are bare, so her toes are in the extreme foreground. She holds a bowl of Lucky Charms and has the spoon halfway to her mouth. She is looking up at the remembering person [who is as described in "The Remembering People"] with frank interest.)
10 No Innards, No Problem / The Rainbow Wolves (Jane hovers in midair, her eyes closed, surrounded by rainbows and seven wolves, who blur into a psychedelic rainbow swirl in vivid colors. The wolves are as described in "The Rainbow Wolves." Jane wears a sparkly rainbow outfit in paler pastel shades; she is surrounded by a cloud of white stars or sparkles. She holds a sparkly wand in her hand with a dark vine growing around it.)
page Chasing Away The Blues (Jane sits at her desk, holding a blue [as described in the legend] in her hand, which is struggling furiously to get away. She is looking over her shoulder as if speaking to someone not pictured.)
knight The Awa (Jane stands behind the awa [as described], examining the sparkly trail of goodness that it is leaving behind it. The awa is walking forward without looking back at her. In the background, a cab driver sits behind the wheel of his parked cab, examining a yellow smiley face button with a bemused expression.)
queen Jane Confronts the Problem of Martin (Jane stands on the left, facing right, towards Martin, speaking urgently and gesturing towards something to the left of the card's border. Martin stands to her right, also facing right, away from Jane, his arms crossed, looking intently at something to the right of the card's border, and wearing his cynicism goggles.)
king No Actual Bears Were Harmed / Bankers Do It With Interest (Jane stands at a door, which has been opened enough for a disheveled man to look through it and down at her. She holds up a piece of paper, talking urgently. The man is frowning.)
Here, I'll copy-paste my rough file on it so far:
The Major Arcana (Canon Entities)
The Fool - Jane
The Magician - Martin
The High Priestess - Maya
The Empress - Mrs. Schiff
The Emperor - Mr. Schiff
The Hierophant - The Olympians
The Lovers - Sid and Max
The Chariot - The Angel Four
Strength - Micah
The Hermit - Siddhartha
The Wheel - The Treasure Wheel / Wheel of Karma
Justice - Sebastian
The Hanged Man - Mylitta
Death - Belshazzar
Temperance - Mr. Kong
The Devil - the monster
The Tower - The Gibbelins' Tower / Sukaynah
The Star - Liril
The Moon - Mei Ming
The Sun - Iphigenia
Judgment - Ii Ma
The World - Ink Catherly
Lethal Magnet: The Suit of Swords, based on the legend series "House of Saints / Standing in the Storm" (Edmund's Hunger, A Motley Collection of Rogues, Vladimir's Dreams, Intermission at Edmund's Home, Vidar's Boot, Saturday Morning Special, A Practically Unsolvable Problem, Standing in the Storm, The Keepers' House, Their Lives Were Jewels, Calling to the Wolf, The Jaguars)
ace The Sorting Hat
2 Saul, the Saint of Hunger - (Saul, wearing red, a large and gaudy pin pinned to the center of his chest, sits on a stone seat. Vladimir stands behind him, holding the Sorting Hat on his head. Saul's half-open eyes have no irises or pupils and his smile bares pointed teeth. His hands are outstretched in a gesture of benediction. Peter and Bethany kneel on the ground on either side of him, horror-struck.)
3 Dwarven Reification (Edmund's Heart) - (An anatomically correct human heart sits on a low table. A wolf blows furiously on it, splintering the wooden wall built around it.)
4 One Shilling (No Alternative) - (In the lower half of the card, Edmund lies with his eyes closed on a couch in front of a makeshift wooden booth. Lucy sits inside the booth, her chin in her hands, staring down at Edmund, her smile showing pointed teeth. Above her a window is open; the view out the window, taking up the upper half of the card, shows a graveyard by night, with Sid in a pale hat sitting in lotus position at the center, his hands twisted together, surrounded by a circle of students in yellow hats.)
5 The Keepers' House
6 Vidar's Boot (The Launch)
7 The House of Metal
8 The House of Saints
9 Vladimir Dreams of the Wolf
10 The House of Torment
page - Emily
knight - The House of Hunger
queen - Lethal Magnet (The Alma Mater)
king - Mr. Domel
Modifications to the Formula: The Suit of Coins, based on the legend series "An Unclean Legacy" (starts here)
ace - Threshing the Gold
2 - Papa (The Blue Essentials)
3 - The White and Holy Path (Tomas)
4 - The Fingerbone (Francescu)
5 - Sophie and the Devil
6 - Twins (It's Just Physics)
7 - The Spinach Spider (Rachel Saraman)
8 - 100 Golden Eidolons
9 - Christine's Blindness
10 - Violet Cannot Marry
page - The Ninja (Elisabet)
knight - The Knight and His Chains (Manfred)
queen - Lady Yseult Gargamel
king - Montechristien Gargamel
I'd Make A Good Optimist: The Suit of Staves, based on the legends of Ink Catherly (The Tower, Ink in an Interlude, Ink in the Wrong Allegory, Ink and Illogic, Ink in Perspective, Unexplorable Places, Accidental Dispositions, It Means Something Good, The Lord of Suburbia, The Mirror Cracks, The LED)
ace The Tower to Hell (Ink sits on a stair in the middle of a narrow stone flight, a journal propped on her knees, writing with a thick wooden pencil. Her backpack sits next to her. The stairs below her are covered with butterflies. The stone wall by her head is stained. Above her, the tower ends and opens into a blue, cloud-dappled sky.)
2 The Imago (Martin and Jane stand at the top of the Gibbelins' Tower, staring at a large cocoon that hangs unsupported in the air in front of a round glass covered in a web of cracks. Images from the card "The Savage Jungle Queen" can be vaguely seen in the shards of the cracked glass. Jane is poking nervously at the cocoon.)
3 Misconceptions Regarding Her Nature and Destiny
4 The Mirror Cracks
5 Gorgosauruses
6 "Then I'll Never Have Time To Explore"
7 Popping Invisible Demons
8 The Omega Computer
9 The Murderous Wand of the Queen
10 Incompatible Precepts Catherly
page The Explorer
knight The Destroyer
queen The Savage Jungle Queen
king The Lord of Suburbia
Scrape. Scrape. Crunch.: The Suit of Cups, based on the legends of Jane and Martin
ace An Old Sock / An Old Stocking (Jane and Martin on a dusty stage. Jane stands at the left of the card with her hands on her hips amid an array of gingerbread men robed in white, red and gold. She holds one gingerbread man in her left hand and appears to be consulting a large book which she holds open with her right. Martin sits at the right, with his back to Jane, amid an array of Lego soldiers, holding one of them in his left hand and looking back over his shoulder at Jane with a quizzical expression.)
2 Countdown to Annihilation (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) (Iphigenia and Charles stand facing each other, hands clasped, smiling, under a spreading apple tree labeled "Apples of Knowledge: DO NOT EAT." The Snavering Lavelwod is twined around a branch of the tree, leaning its head towards Iphigenia's ear. )
3 Careful Attention to Calendars / Jane's Terrifying Story of Near-Halloween Horror (Martin, Jane and Iffy sit on a picnic blanket outdoors. Jane is eating a pickle, Iffy is eating bread and cheese, Martin is wearing his goggles and gesturing with both hands while he talks. The Pope falls headfirst through the sky behind them.)
4 Dumping Glue on a Log / Two Great Tastes (Half the card is taken up by a large circle inside which Siddhartha sits under a tree in lotus position. Before him on the grass lie: a curvaceous woman clad in some diaphanous scraps, a flaming rock surrounded by fallen flower petals, and a red-and-white striped ball. This circle floats above the lower half of the card, where Jane stands on the far left, Martin on the far right, with Amanda in the middle, her cynicism goggles half on and half off, peering over the tops of them up at the circle. Jane and Martin are both looking up at the circle as well, one from either side. Jane has both hands outstretched towards it. Martin has one hand stretched towards it and is hiding a pair of thumbscrews behind his back with the other.)
5 Stomping / Sweeping Day (Jane stands in the wreckage of a miniature city, staring into her cupped hands, her lips slightly parted. Light shines up from her hands and is reflected on her face. Sid, miniature in the miniature city, is staring up at her, his hand shading his eyes, holding a broom in his free hand.)
6 Jane's Father / Its Second Stage (In a room similar to the room he occupies in the Magician card, Martin hands Jane a green object that could be a test tube or a pickle. Jane reaches for it, a big smile on her face. In the background, the shadows of a family are silhouetted against the ground, as if they are sitting somewhere to the left of where the card ends.)
7 Scanning Things / Classifying Things (Jane sits on the sand by the ocean, looking up at a sky in which hang seven entities, all roughly equal in size: a seagull, a burning chariot drawn by flaming horses, a siggort [as described in "Scanning Things"], a wogly [as described in "Scanning Things"], a red ribbon tied into a bow, Martin leaning against an invisible wall, and a cloud. The real Martin sits beside and slightly behind her, his hand raised, looking at the red ribbon tied to one of his fingers.)
8 The Girl and the Rat (Jane sits on her bed, facing front, her back to the open window, holding a rat in her hands. Out the window it is night. By the moon's light we can see a man playing a flute, his back to us, walking towards a distant mountain range. Behind him run eight children, laughing and happy. There are tears on Jane's face. The rat's teeth are in her finger, and blood is running down her hand.)
9 Lucky Charms: The Remembering People / The Broader Context of Her Personal Reality) (Jane sits on her blocky pink one-seater sofa, facing front and looking up and to the left. Her legs stick straight out in front of her and her feet are bare, so her toes are in the extreme foreground. She holds a bowl of Lucky Charms and has the spoon halfway to her mouth. She is looking up at the remembering person [who is as described in "The Remembering People"] with frank interest.)
10 No Innards, No Problem / The Rainbow Wolves (Jane hovers in midair, her eyes closed, surrounded by rainbows and seven wolves, who blur into a psychedelic rainbow swirl in vivid colors. The wolves are as described in "The Rainbow Wolves." Jane wears a sparkly rainbow outfit in paler pastel shades; she is surrounded by a cloud of white stars or sparkles. She holds a sparkly wand in her hand with a dark vine growing around it.)
page Chasing Away The Blues (Jane sits at her desk, holding a blue [as described in the legend] in her hand, which is struggling furiously to get away. She is looking over her shoulder as if speaking to someone not pictured.)
knight The Awa (Jane stands behind the awa [as described], examining the sparkly trail of goodness that it is leaving behind it. The awa is walking forward without looking back at her. In the background, a cab driver sits behind the wheel of his parked cab, examining a yellow smiley face button with a bemused expression.)
queen Jane Confronts the Problem of Martin (Jane stands on the left, facing right, towards Martin, speaking urgently and gesturing towards something to the left of the card's border. Martin stands to her right, also facing right, away from Jane, his arms crossed, looking intently at something to the right of the card's border, and wearing his cynicism goggles.)
king No Actual Bears Were Harmed / Bankers Do It With Interest (Jane stands at a door, which has been opened enough for a disheveled man to look through it and down at her. She holds up a piece of paper, talking urgently. The man is frowning.)