Welcome to the home of The Sinking Wasteland Tarot!
This started out with a rough idea of a tarot deck set in a ruined and dying world, with a kind of gothy western sci-fi vibe. I originally intended to just use some repeated symbols for the minor arcana but, once I had finished up with all of the majors, I found that I wanted to keep drawing in this setting. So here it is, the entire deck featuring seventy-eight unique illustrations in my oddpocalyptic little setting.
You can browse cards, get a few simple readings done, look up rules for a fun card battle game. If you decide you like the work here, you can follow the shop page to support me and keep these things coming along.
You've probably seen a tv show or movie where a vaguely spiritual-looking person has drawn a dramatic card like Death or The Devil. Those two are examples of the Major Arcana(and no, they're not as dire or bad to draw as they are depicted in popular culture). There are also all of the Minor Arcana that make up the rest of the tarot. Each of these has associated symbolism and meanings behind them, and taken together they make up the entire seventy-eight cards in a tarot deck.
You might be more familiar with the Minor Arcana from any deck of playing cards you've used before. They've changed a bit over time but those playing cards formed out of the Tarot. You'll see the familiar ace through ten here, as well as the royalty cards. A couple of things aren't the same, though. The suits aren't diamonds, spades, clubs, and hearts but rather the older references like coins(I've gone with pentacles for this deck), swords, rods, and cups. The royalty also have both pages and knights in them rather than just the jack.
Anyway, you'll likely see a lot of similarities and you could easily play any given card game with a tarot deck, just remove the Major Arcana!
Handily featured under the "cards" link in the navbar at the top, you'll be taken to a page full of thumbnails of each of the cards, arranged by major/minors and then suits. You can navigate through them one by one using arrows on the card page, or go back and select only cards you're interested in from the main cards page. Each of the individual pages features an image and an associated quote that fits my mental image of the card themes, as well as a brief description on the meaning of the card in both the upright and inverted positions.
I personally like to think of the Tarot as less of a ritual that sees future events, and more of a vague bit of association that is meant to get you to examine themes in your life to be aware of. You can laugh and shrug it off and just get a couple of kicks out of it, or try to be introspective and investigate the themes each card brings out that may line up with emotions, people, events, etc in your life.
Regardless, I'm not a gatekeeper to something that should be open to all, so I won't tell you how to interpret your readings. Take it as jokingly or seriously as you like, I don't think there's a wrong way to read your cards! Think of my interpretations of each card on the readings as a rough guide, you can fill in the details using your own life.
Yes! I've even come up with rules for my own card game that draws on the themes of the Tarot for its rule set. There are all kinds of games you can play with Tarot cards, and as I mentioned earlier, the cards can be used for any card game you'd play with a standard set of playing cards as well. But, if you'd like to check out the rules for my custom card game, find them on the Fool's Arcana link on the navbar.
You can grab all kinds of occult goodies from my Etsy shop, or if you decide you want to contact or commission me, you can email me, check out my daily tarot draws and works in progress on Instagram, or just message me on Twitter.
Finally, thanks for checking out The Sinking Wasteland Tarot!