Published on DriveThruCards (a print on demand website which sells decks of cards and other board game resources) by JSB Enterprises, an independent card game designer, the Pixie Cards are an extended Tarot deck, designed to serve as a set of polyhedral dice and a sword and sorcery plot beat generation tool, as well as a cartomancy divination tool.

The Pixie Cards use the original art of Pamela "Pixie" Colman Smith, whose designs are best known for featuring on the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck. Alongside Pixie's art, the border zones of the Pixie Deck feature the seven standard polyhedral dice values (d4, d6, d8, d10, d%, d12, and d20), an Elder Futhark rune, a Dungeons and Dragons alignment indicator (chaotic, lawful, good, evil, etc.), a suggested dungeon monster, a Zodiac astrological sign, and a few other odds and ends that are useful in tabletop gameplay. The Tarot meaning of the card is also printed directly below the image, eliminating any need to memorise.

There are eighty-four cards in the Pixie deck, divided into six suits rather than the traditional four. Every suit has two pip symbols, one layered upon the other. The red suits are Hearts (Cups), Diamonds (Pentacles or Coins), and Roses(Stars). The black suits are Spades (Swords), Clubs (Wands or Staves), and Shields (Crowns). Some editions of the deck come with an additional pair of cards, a red joker and a black joker, bundled in, bringing the total to 86 cards.

In the original structure of the Tarot, the Major Arcana are 22 cards kept separate from the 56 cards of the Minor Arcana. In the Pixie Deck, however, the Major Arcana are regular pip cards and face cards, dispersed throughout the two new suits. The Roses suit features the Hierophant and High Priestess as the King and Queen over all their pips, which are other religion-flavoured former Major Arcana. The Shields suit features the Emperor and Empress as the King and Queen over the thematically martial and governmental Arcana. Additionally, the Pages rank of Tarot is now called the Jacks, and the Knights rank is now called the Cavaliers.

At the time of this writeup, the 4th Edition of the Pixie Cards is undergoing its final proofreading, and is pending publication. The author has also created an extensive sourcebook and manual for ways to use the Pixie Deck, and it is currently available in digital format, but not as a printed and bound companion book.

This is a terribly anti-purist sentiment on my part, but I sincerely consider the Pixie Cards to be superior to the original structure of Tarot, provided one is not terribly obsessed with numerology as the core basis of their divination process. The six completely new cards the author adds to the deck, to fill out all the ranks, do contribute some pleasing and robust extra meanings which the original Tarot neglects somewhat, and I also think there is a merit in reducing the primacy of the Major Arcana, in modernity, and allowing them to dwell in a more balanced dynamic of ranks with the rest of the Minor Arcana. Every suit tells its own "genre" of story, and the arcana still act as "beats" or "events" or "encounters" in those stories, but now the types of stories being told are more diverse than the traditional idea The Fool's Journey. I regard this as a more compassionate and well-rounded understanding of the mysteries of life, than what we had to start with in traditional Tarot, and the addition of a mere six cards also does not especially undermine treating the Pixie Deck like a regular Tarot deck, if one truly wishes it.

For a less traditional and more stylised art style, the reader is also encouraged to give The Everdeck a look. It, too, encompasses the Tarot, while also extending beyond the traditional meanings. Both are lovely, both are recommended, and I have found both very enjoyable to use in story generation for homebrew tabletop roleplaying games.


Iron Noder 2024, 19/30