A quick word on the author and artist before we start; Casey Gilly is a huge fandom nerd, and she's written the books for some of my favourite fandom decks including one of my very favourites, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and working with Tomás Hijo on The Lord of the Rings. Tomás, meanwhile, has done LotR as well as the Labyrinth deck, the sister to this one as they're both Jim Henson productions. This is all my long winded way to say this is basically my perfect team for a deck.
For the two of you living under a rock who don't know this movie (that's unfair of me, this is a cult movie so it's actually pretty unknown) The Dark Crystal is Jim Henson's least Jim Henson like movie. Set in a fantasy world, it's entirely acted by puppets and is far darker than most of his fare. It's absolutely beautiful and you should definitely check it out if you get the chance.
This is produced in standard fashion for S&S/Titan; the cards are standard tarot size, sitting in a well in a box a little larger than they are. One things that caught my eye here is the embossed symbol on the lid, visible only at certain angles and thus invisible in all the publicity photos, so it was a wonderful surprise when I opened my box! The inside of the well has an illustration from one of the cards, while the sides of both inner and outer box are decorated with images like, but not directly drawn from, the card artwork. The inner box particularly has the look of cave paintings about it, which fits beautifully with the theme of the deck!
(Side note; as with many S&S/Titan decks, the cards have a tendency to cling when they're first unpacked, which can make shuffling difficult. I've spent probably three hours all in all now shuffling and dealing them, and they're almost perfectly loosened up now, so as long as you're willing to put in a little bit of time it won't be an issue.)
The back features this wonderful (reversible!) symbol:
As with all Tomás' decks (that I have seen) this is a pip deck, so the Minors have numbers of their suit item on them rather than being fully illustrated. We'll get back to that in a minute; first, the Little White Book.
It's a fairly standard S&S/Titan LWB: Casey talks a little about the movie and how it relates to the deck, gives a few tips for getting to know it, and then we're into the cards, Majors first. The Majors each get two pages, one with an image of the card and one with the meaning; the Minors, arranged Court first, get one page each, so a smaller image and less detailed meanings. Reversals are included. Courts are mostly situations, not people.
After the cards there are three spreads developed specifically for the deck; I've tried one of them and found it a lot of fun!
Now, the cards. In what I've come to think of as standard Tomás style, they have a creamy background that looks like parchment, and his very recognisable art style. Here we have my only complaint about the deck, and it's something that won't matter to everyone; in an effort to people all the cards, Casey and Tomás have turned to the Netflix series The Age of Resistence for some of the characters. I haven't seen the show and so the comparisons and descriptions are meaningless to me. However, like the Labyrinth deck, it would be very difficult to populate the whole deck using just the characters from the movie, so it's not something I worried much about. In a beautiful touch, the cards are mostly coloured in earth tones which makes the occasional pop of purple really stand out - they're gorgeous!
Here are a few images of the Majors:
The Minors, as noted before, are Pips, and as often happens with fandom decks they've been renamed to suit the theme. Wands are Shards, Swords are Stones, Pentacles are Gems and Cups are Vials. This took a little getting used to...for some reason the Swords were the hardest!...but once you get one or two the others will follow on quickly. A lot of work has gone into these Minors; I especially love the vaguely Celtic scrollwork on the Stones and Vials, but they're all amazing.
A few Minor images:
I'm always hesitant to recommend Pip decks for complete beginners; my first deck was an old fashioned Pip and it put me off Tarot for more than a year, until a kind friend helped me find an illustrated deck instead. Likewise, although the Majors are very similar to the standard, I think they might put off a complete newbie. However, if you already know Tarot, or love the Dark Crystal and want some beautiful art related to it, this is absolutely your deck.
I mentioned above that I tried one of the spreads for a friend. She was concerned about a new job and how it would work out. The spread had seven cards; five of her randomly dealt cards were Pentacles! This is a pretty straightforward deck, but it doesn't sugar coat things; it just gives the readings and it's up to us how we deal with them.
This is a fabulous deck I'm really enjoying and I'm so grateful that I got to try it out.
The Dark Crystal Tarot publishes on the 22nd of August, 2023. I was gifted a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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