There are some legendary games that have been ported from console to console to console. “Street Fighter II” was in the arcades, the Super Nintendo, the Genesis, the Switch, home computers, the Game Boy, the Game Boy Advance…the list goes on. “The Elder Scrolls: V” shares that distinction having originally appeared on the PC, PlayStation 3, and XBox 360 in 2011. Since then its basically been everywhere. You can’t throw a copy without it hitting some other version in the knee. And now it’s coming to tarot cards.
Well, perhaps it’s more appropriate to say the “Skyrim” theming is coming to the tarot as characters and the relevant lore from the game is being represented through the cards and the Arcana. Tori Schafer, author of the accompanying guidebook, also worked on “Elder Scrolls Online.” So it’s probably safe to say the mythology is in good hands. Fantasy settings like the land of Tamriel tend to be good match-ups for the tarot, like the recent D&D deck.
Insight Editions is publishing the deck in two forms- a standard and limited edition deck. Both of them contain a full 78-card deck, and 128 page guide booklet to assist with understanding the cards and assisting with basic readings. The limited edition deck expands upon this with a variant version of the box and the inclusion of 6 gold foil cards. Only 2000 copies of this deck are going to be printed, so if you consider that a “feature” of the deck, you’ve got that to look forward to as well.
Video games and tarot do have a long history of compatibility. There’s an old NES game called, “Taboo: The Sixth Sense,” which is basically just a tarot reading simulator. The arcana themselves have found their way into games in other ways. The Major Arcana are all represented by NPC’s in the “Persona” games while the Minor Arcana have been represented in post battle item pick-ups. The various monster bosses throughout the “House of the Dead” games are named after the Major Arcana, and they’re also used for magic spells in “Ogre Battle.” Can’t really say they’ve been a part of the “Elder Scrolls” series before this, but it’ll be fun to see that universe crossover into the real life tarot.
The decks are currently on presale through Amazon, and directly through the Insight Edition’s website. They’ll officially be released July 26th, 2022.
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