Video Game Tarot

[Dunatis2000]

Hello everybody,

I am currently working on trying to make myself a Tarot deck which uses characters or if necessary, situations or areas, from video games instead of the classic images they use for the Major and Minor Arcana. So far so good and I've got all but 27 cards decided but around this point I'm having a really hard time trying to find the right character to fit specific cards since it has to mean something to me. Looking up backstories of characters helps but it's hard to know where to start, so I will write out some basic descriptions and see if anyone has any ideas for me.

Major Arcana (Anything Goes)

Emperor - Control, a leader everyone wants to follow filled with energy and enthusiasm though this control can lead to being restless, bored or discontent

Heirophant - Works toward harmony and peace in a crisis, brings spiritual down to earth, can be wise and soothing or an unbending traditionalist

Chariot - A union of opposites made to work to a single goal striven toward with confidence, can also indicate new motivation or inspiration and a trip

Wheel of Fortune - Big change, luck and fortune. Abundance, happiness elevation or luck, almost always good fortune

Temperance - Moderation, but more importantly the merging of seemingly impossible opposites, often held apart only by belief

Sun - Glory, Gain, truth, pleasure, triumph, success. Representative of fully conscious decisions and discoveries rather than intuit ones as with Moon

World - Successful conclusion of a long quest accompanied by celebration and praise, you may now become a teacher as you are already an expert and might go on a long trip as well to explore the world

Cups - All these cards must come from an RPG

Ace - Welling of emotions for a new love, perhaps starting to have vivid dreams

Swords - All these cards must come from an action or adventure game (survival horror, platformer, stuff like that.)

4 - You've been stressed out and need to rest and recuperate. Clear your mind, body and soul with some relaxation.

6 - Leaving difficulties behind in order restore balance via a change of scenery. You may find a silent partner in your solutions or take a boat trip, but the answer is waiting on that other shore

Knight - Travel by Air. Too smart for their own good, very arguementative and a seeker of knowledge or information who also believes in freedom of information and speech.

Queen - Developing a speech, story debate or just spreading news. Very knowledgeable and informative but while she is a walking encyclopedia can often be cold and lack the emotional side of things. They may also seek to learn what they shouldn't know and spread it in an attempt to help.

King - Brainstorming, seeing more objevtively to find better solutions. Very logical and full of thought, but also very idealistic and unforgiving of those who may differ from his own very strict idealizations.

Pentacles - All these cards must come from Strategy or Puzzle type games

2 - Juggling one's life, you can't keep it up forever but help is on the way

3 - What you have worked towards is bringing in patronage which can lead to more work but is more stable and can also mean positive health results from exercise ot therapy

4 - With newfound wealth and status you worry about losing it and begin to hoard it and focus too much on the present. Relax and make the best of what you have while you have it and spread the wealth

9 - With your work complete, you are able to retreat into a private world of pleasure where you are able to attain all of those things you were unable to before

Knight - Travel by Foot. Materialistic and fearful of standing out. Wants to belong but also often too concerned with perfection in their goals which leads to a lot of solitude from fear of failure

Queen - Developing a business, altering a work situation or making an exercise or health plan. Practical outdoors woman who is financially successful. Very tasteful but can also put too much pressure on others to succeed while her pragmatism can also dim her creativity and others may feel unable to live up to her expectations

Wands - All of these must come from Fighting, racing or sports games, games with direct competition.

2 - There is a choice to be made about passions and where to invest your energies, trust your instincts.

3 - After investing one's passions, they are beginning to see some results and they are good. Might be thusly feeling a little proud

4 - What you have created has been solidly established and now you can take a moment to bask in your work and enjoy the rewards

5 - Competition and conflict. but you cannot avoid it and hope to come out ahead, you will have to dive right in and assess the situation to carve out your proper piece

8 - A lot of things are going to happen but you are able to handle all of it. Head out with confidence and change the world

10 - With power comes responsibility and now you are tired and no longer feeling creative. You need to delegate some of your burdens in order to find some more energy

Page - Message about a trip, career move or possibly something spiritual/philosophical. Kid who never stays still, always outside going to new and strange places. charismatic, fun-loving and loves being center of attention, but watch that he doesn't bully others

I'm leaving out the cards we've already decided on to avoid too much off-topic discussion but if people are interested I'll happily post the final deck choices once I get it done and if anyone cares enough to look at a more detailed description of the cards in question here's a link to a good site.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes this seriously and offers up some good suggestions.

[Thylacine]

Hello everybody,

I am currently working on trying to make myself a Tarot deck which uses characters or if necessary, situations or areas, from video games instead of the classic images they use for the Major and Minor Arcana. So far so good and I've got all but 27 cards decided but around this point I'm having a really hard time trying to find the right character to fit specific cards since it has to mean something to me. Looking up backstories of characters helps but it's hard to know where to start, so I will write out some basic descriptions and see if anyone has any ideas for me.

Major Arcana (Anything Goes)

Temperance - Moderation, but more importantly the merging of seemingly impossible opposites, often held apart only by belief

Sun - Glory, Gain, truth, pleasure, triumph, success. Representative of fully conscious decisions and discoveries rather than intuit ones as with Moon

Wands (Competition Games)

Page - Message about a trip, career move or possibly something spiritual/philosophical. Kid who never stays still, always outside going to new and strange places. charismatic, fun-loving and loves being center of attention, but watch that he doesn't bully others

Sun - Amaterasu (Okami, multiple systems) - Obvious choice, since she is the sun god in this game.

Temperance - Soren (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn) - Spoilerish, but Soren comes to terms with being a "Branded" character. He is of two races, separated by a mutual dislike for each other. He is one of the more realistic characters who doesn't spout out ideals.

Page of Wands - Diddy Kong (various) - He stars in a racing game, and he is often a brash individual who fights for the right thing. Fits the description well.

I'll come back to this later. This is interesting.

[1337 1]

Sun - Amaterasu (Okami, multiple systems) - Obvious choice, since she is the sun god in this game.

Notion seconded; also has various other connotations as well as just Okami, so I'd say its a fairly good one.

Out of curiosity, any particular theme your going for here? I know Thylacine just suggested Diddy Kong, but next to Amaterasu, it might look a little out of place, depending on your current choices.

I'd personally be looking through some of the Kingdom Hearts characters, because you'll more than likely find more than a few there for your RPGs. Personally, I'd suggest Namine for Ace, but I won't be surprised if someone disagrees with me there. Also, the FFVII world has plenty of good characters, spanning a wide range.

Pentacles - Knight: amusingly, I thought of Mewt from FFTA (I know I haven't deviated from any square games yet, but meh). Not exactly what was described (he was actually more a mage type in the game), but better than my first idea for it (Javier from Advance Wars Dual Strike).

That's it for now, but my brain's pretty fried atm, but nonetheless, I'd be curious to see how these turn out

EDIT: Similarly to Diddy kong, perhaps Sonic?

[Dunatis2000]

Soren is a good choice and unless anything better comes along I'd say he's in, but as for Amaterasu, she doesn't really convey the meaning of the card from what I've read of her bio and in the plot of both the game and ancient Japanese myth, even if she is a sun god.

As far as either Diddy Kong or Sonic are concerned for Page of Wands, One thing I am trying to avoid are characters who make appearances in sports games just to sell a game, Diddy is from action games so I'd keep him in Swords as well as Sonic.

As far as theme is concerned, the only ones we're really concerned with are keeping a theme within the suits as is traditionally done in tarot, hence the game genres being attributed to the suits while the Major Arcana can be anything which really makes them far easier to do and so I'll be far pickier with them. I do hope to have as many different games as possible represented and to not reuse a character from any series for anything. So far we already have a lot from the Final Fantasy series given that they have so many well developed characters from over a dozen games, so I'm doing my best to avoid them if at all possible. Beyond that any and all suggestions are appreciated since they can give me ideas for other cards if nothing else.

[Darklink42]

Well, right off the bat, for knight of swords I'd use Altair from Assassian's creed. That description fits the character pretty well.

4 of pentacles could be Wario. He has been in puzzle games, but then most of his games were platformers so...

9 of pentacles could be Phoenix Wright. (You'd have to have played Apollo Justice to know what happened to him.) I won't spoil it here though, given that one of the other posters here is actually still playing it.

[RealFolkBlues]

First off, this idea is sweet.

Some ideas;

Emperor-King of All Cosmos from Katamari

Hierophant-Krelian from Xenogears

Chariot-Epoch from Chrono Trigger, any of the airships

Temperance-Frozen Flame from Chrono Cross

Ace of Cups-Celes from FFVI

Queen of Swords-Jade from Beyond Good and Evil

5 of Wands-Fated Battle or Siegfried from Soul Calibur

8 of Wands-Link from Zelda (an adventure game, I know, but it fits the description pretty well)

10 of Wands-Ky Kiske from Guilty Gear

Page of Wands-Yunseong from Soul Calibur

[Stargem]

The Six of Swords: How about Naija from Aquaria? She travels a fair bit, is from an action game, and the changes in scenery is quite soothing at times. Oh, and she eventually gets a friend in Lee, who is often underwater.

The Two of Pentacles: Phoenix Wright, because he tends to juggle a lot of information and questions, sometimes getting help from SOMEWHERE. Not sure if it really counts as an puzzle game, though.

The Three of Pentacles: One of the main characters from Wonder Project J1 & J2. The player teaches these characters all kinds of things, often through example. Stuff like sports or eating. In a way, the player is the patron of these characters, and their responses are attempts at keeping that patronage.

The Five of Wands: Bomberman - you can't avoid being bombed unless you get knee-deep in it, while keeping your wits.

[Dhsu]

Four of Swords? The Four Swords? Haha, just a thought.

[Stargem]

Whoops. I messed up with that one, considering that Harvest Moon isn't a action game. Will remove it.

[Dunatis2000]

Well, Since adding this Thread yesterday I now have a definite Ace of Cups, Knight of Swords, Queen of Swords, 2 of Pentacles, 3 of Pentacles, 5 of Wands and Page of Wands. Also I have a good Temperance unless someone happens upon a better one. Most of the new ones I took from your suggestions and many from games I've never played but then did research on, but for a few I couldn't find any good plot information or character bios so I haven't included them yet.

3 guys that might work if I had a bit more information are the Frozen Flame from Chrono Cross, Ky Kiske from Guilty Gear and Krelian from Xenogears. They look like they all have potential but I couldn't find enough info on them to be sure. I've checked wiki already but if anyone has some good back story or information on them, especially if relevant to the card description, that would be great.

Otherwise The King of All Cosmos would work better if he was more a king and less of a God or creator. He's not exactly a well-respected leader of anything but a beloved leader that does weird things to alleviate boredom is definitely what I'm looking for and man, I can't believe I didn't think of Bomberman for the 5 of Wands. I even have him in a list underneath what I have of characters I want to add or that might fit well somewhere and he's pretty much exactly what we're going for.

Thanks so far for all of your help and once this is done I'll post results to start up some good old discussion while I slowly look for artwork for the deck.

[Thylacine]

Major Arcana (Anything Goes)

Wheel of Fortune - Big change, luck and fortune. Abundance, happiness elevation or luck, almost always good fortune

I have been meaning to ask: are you going to re-draw these characters, or will we have characters from different art styles in the same deck? Some of these may clash.

Wheel of Fortune - Kirby. Constantly changes, but always for the better. Upbeat character, and even round!

[Bleck]

every card should be mario in a different pose

[yangfeili]

There's a Yoshitaka Amano tarot out there which might be worth looking at. His artwork definitely seems well-suited for this sort of thing, so you might want to browse through some of his Final Fantasy illustrations.

[Stargem]

Well, I guess I can give a short description of Naija, Phoenix, and the Wonder Project J folks.

Naija: A young girl who lives in the ocean, she doesn't have a very clear memory of her origins, and on occaision wonders about herself. Eventually, she sets out to figure that out. Swimming throughout the ocean in search of answers, she eventually defeats a tortured and cannibalizing demi-god, swims in the sky, and goes deep within the abyss to enter the abandoned ruins of a sky city. She sees many things in her travels, all of them interesting to the eye. She eventually gets a friend and eventual husband in Lee, who is often silent but loving. They relate, because they both lost their true homes to a malicious yet lonely god.

Phoenix Wright: A defense attorney, he defends his clients to the bitter end. He often finds himself neck-deep in difficult cases, often saved from utter defeat due to some detail occasionally from unexpected quarters. Cases often have a time limit of some kind, that forces Phoenix to be a bit odd in his cases.

Pino & Josette: Both created by the aged and kind docter Gepetto, these two robots possess the J Circuit. It enables them to grow and have human emotions. Bordering human and robot, Pino and Josette are often troubled by racism against robots that the humans hold. When first placed into the care of the Watcher, they are not very well developed in any way. Dr. Gepetto has entrusted both of them to the Watcher, asking the Watcher make them more human and to be 'good' in some sense. So with the Patronage of the Watcher, both Pino and Josette eventually encounter the people who ultimately becomes their respective enemies.

I am going to place links here to the pictures of each character I talked about, so here you go.

Naija

http://bit-blot.com/images/featured-0004.jpg

Josette

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/n64/image/199321.html?box=14024

Pino

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/image/562916.html?box=15817

Phoenix Wright

http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/image/925589.html?box=83763

[Dunatis2000]

As far as artwork is concerned, I have no desire to sell or distribute the actual deck, though I will tell people what's in it, and I'm not going to make a bunch of commissions either. I'm going to go with existing artwork and screen caps from the games even though I might get some fancy artwork for one and then 16-bit screen shots for another. Clashing isn't much of a concern, and since there's no distribution, copyright isn't an issue. As long as it means something to me so that I can read it properly I'm happy.

Kirby, how could I miss that... And we're keeping Phoenix Wright on hold for now since he fits 2 cards, we can use him to fill one once we get the other.

[Dunatis2000]

One thing I should probably have written is actual descriptions of the kind of character I'm looking for for the remaining cards, so I guess better late then never?

Any games

Heirophant - Wise character who is probably a priest, at least some old school hippie type who is trying to calm everyone down and make peace.

Chariot - The idea of the chariot is someone controlling opposing forces and guiding them towards a single goal, so most likely an artifact of power, preferably made up of opposites, but vehicles are also very good here, although the idea of a union of opposites is important.

Sun - Some sort of smart person who has managed to vanquish all of their foes with some sort of ingenious tactical maneuvers and attain great glory.

World - Someone who at the end of the game, goes on to become either a teacher or simply travel the world going on to other challenges.

Action/ Adventure Games

4 of Swords - Pretty much anyone who goes to a resort or on a vacation, probably gets into more trouble at the resort, but they were trying to take a holiday.

6 of Swords - Someone who cannot succeed at their quest without going off to some random place (preferably an island) to either train or find some item of power. especially good if some random NPC helps them in this.

King of Swords - Probably a villain. Some sort of really smart guy who is in control of huge groups but is also way too full of himself and tends to kill those who disagree, so a huge dictator pretty much.

Strategy/Puzzle Games

4 of Pentacles - Someone who gets a whole lot of resources early to mid game that it is a good idea to start using right away because if you don't enemies will catch up or time will run out by the time you do.

9 of Pentacles - Someone who when you beat the game, goes off and lives in luxury, I'm talking resorts, castles and/or beaches and relaxation.

Knight of Pentacles - A loner, preferably a wandering one, who has crazy huge goals but doesn't tend to achieve them or gives up midway through.

Queen of Pentacles - Some chick who lives out in the woods and trains people but is a tough trainer.

Games with direct competition, Fighting, Racing, Sports

2 of Wands - Someone who has to or had to choose between 2 professions.

3 of Wands - Someone who is trying something new and is starting to succeed and kick ass.

4 of Wands - Someone who is trying something new and won some sort of championship or contest, something bigger than in the 3 of Wands.

8 of Wands - Someone who is swarmed by a huge amount of things at some point but makes it through.

10 of Wands - A ruler who really shouldn't be involved with the competition because they have a country to rule and servants to do stuff for them, but there they are, investing most of their day in the field kicking people's asses.

Hopefully that is descriptive enough to help people out a whole lot. Really I probably should have done it earlier.

[The Damned]

Someone beat you to it, bu more game-specific.

http://www.japanator.com/elephant/post.phtml?pk=8389

This is sort of what you're going for, but with different series, right?

[Dunatis2000]

Actually I'm going for characters whose personalities or stories can be represented by the meanings of the cards, that deck uses classical imagery, if that, just with pokemon thrown in, the pokemon themselves have little if anything to do with the meaning of the cards.

A good example from cards that are already chosen is the Devil card in my deck which will be Death from Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. Although most people would think "Hey Death makes a good Death", the death card actually rarely has to do with actual death, it more accurately symbolizes change or transformation, while the Devil card represents malicious manipulation. Death in Castlevania CoD manipulates you and another guy into fighting to the death in order to resurrect castle Dracula and provide him with a host body for possession. That kind of symbolism is what I'm looking for, but thanks for the link, I have a huge Pokemon/tarot nerd friend who loved it.

[Stargem]

The Four of Pentacles: Spy VS Spy would be a fairly good wager. In those games, the goal was to find and take documents for yourself, all the while setting up traps for killing the other player. However, the slower you are at setting up good traps and achieving the objective, the worse off you are. Therefore, your resources is the rooms and time you have available for trapping. This could also be a Four of Wands, since there are only two spies, competing against each other for what are presumably things that dictate the fate of nations.

Spy VS Spy videogame (wikipedia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_vs._Spy_(computer_game)

Spy VS Spy mini-cartoon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aItxPzqHNw0&feature=related

10 of Wands: Bowser, if he doesn't already have a card. Having been present in the Super Smash Brother games, not to mention a ruler...well, he certainly could have sent Kamek to do his work, not to mention the other minions.

3 of Wands: Dan Hibiki, founder of the Strongest style to defeat Sagat. After supposedly doing so, he went on to promoting his teachings, with some success. Considered to be the weakest Street Fighter character in canon and gameplay. Potentially the ultimate insult to another player in skilled hands, he isn't the sort of character a person would normally use in a real fight.

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb306/shinlord/UpStart/DanHibiki.jpg

Sun: Hakurou was the leader of a rebel resistance and eventually became the emperor, defeating nearly all of his enemies. Eventually obtains godhood, achieving the goal of saving his friends by merging with his other half.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a198/akuma2002/hakuoro2.png

King of Swords: The Transcendent One, of Planescape Torment. He commands a army of shadows, he is basically the Nameless One's mortality given form. He resents the Nameless One, lashing out at the Nameless One whenever he can. Possessing considerable power, he controls a portion of the Plane of Shadows, called the Fortress of Regrets. A king by any other name.

[Goosemeister]

King of Swords - Probably a villain. Some sort of really smart guy who is in control of huge groups but is also way too full of himself and tends to kill those who disagree, so a huge dictator pretty much.

I pretty much don't follow tarot cards and that sort of thing at all, but judging by your description, I think that Lord Galcian from Skies of Arcadia might fit, although there may be better that people come up with. Still, Skies of Arcadia is more of an RPG than an Action/Adventure game, so maybe it's not what you're looking for.

Still, in case it interests you, I'll link you to Skies of Arcadia's Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skies_of_Arcadia

[Dunatis2000]

It's been a few weeks without any activity but I still have some hope to finish this off here at some point. Thanks to the help I've gotten so far from you guys (I made another similar thread at a tarot site and it's almost as though they have no idea that the images should symbolize the meaning of the card. I mean they are supposed to be interested in tarot right?) I have only 5 left now and I'll repost them to see if anyone can come up with something.

Any Game Character

Chariot - Merging of 2 opposites in order to drive towards a goal with confidence. Can also represent new motivation or inspiration.

World - Successful conclusion of a long quest accompanied by celebration and triumph. Now as an expert you may move on to teach or simply go on a long trip now that your work is done.

Action Game Characters

King of Swords - Brainstorming. Logical and full of thought but can often be overzealous and unforgiving to those who differ in ideals.

Strategy or Puzzle Games Characters (Yeah, I know that's tricky...)

Knight of Pentacles - A perfectionist who tends to not get all that much done out of fear of failure, also tends to try not to stand out too much, kinda timid.

Queen of Pentacles - Practical outdoors woman who can put too much stress on others to try and live up to her standards. Can represent making a new business plan or exercise plan. (I hope to find any chick who you go off to meet in order to gain any new ability or train in some way. Probably from a tactics-style game or turn based military game.)

Once We get these 5 done I can post all my cards and order out for some card stock and work on getting my deck made. Thanks again for all of the help.