#mighty tarot

[essekknits]

Okay so my brainrot is too ambitious, so I’m having Ideas for a whole Mighty Nein major arcana. I am basing the characters for each card, as well as the way they’re drawn, on the meaning of the cards and sometimes also on art from different tarot decks I’ve encountered.

Here are the ideas so far:

- The Fool: Essek on the edge of a cliff with a beacon.

- The Magician: Caleb with a beacon in a raised hand and a flame in a lowered hand, reminiscent of “I am no friend to the empire”

- The Hight Priestess: Jester’s face, with Arty’s hands covering her eyes

- The Empress: Marion, standing at the top of the stairs. Maybe with Bluud’s shadow around her

- The Emperor: The Gentleman, sitting behind his desk with an empty vial.

- The Hierophant: Caduceus and Fjord sitting cross-legged together and meditating

- The Lovers: Marion and the Gentleman, standing side by side and looking from the balcony at the sea

- The Chariot: Fjord, kneeling with Star Razor in hand, a large eye behind him, maybe rising from the sea like the sun

- Strength: Yasha looking down, holding a flower in a barren wasteland

- The hermit: Caduceus, meditating in the grove. He’s looking very gaunt and unhealthy. Maybe soaked to the bone.

- Wheel of Fortune: Molly/Lucien, split in half. One half is holding up a hand with an eye. The other is holding a coin.

- Justice: Beau, in a fighting stance.

- The Hanged Man: Astrid and Eadwulf, hand in hand, with nooses around their necks

- Death: Nott looking down into a puddle, seeing Veth

- Temperance: Beau sitting on the rock at sea in Nicodranas, meditating

- The Devil: Trent and the trio. His face is shadowed other than his grin, and in his hands he holds three chains. The chains connect to three figures, young Bren, Astrid and Eadwulf. There are collars around their necks. Maybe reference to the fairy tale

- The Tower: Cognouza, with nine glowing eyes surrounding it.

- The Star: Essek in Vurmas. Instead of his mantle, there’s furs on his shoulders. He’s standing with his back to us, looking over the snow. The North Star shines above.

- The Moon: Caleb in the sanatorium. His head is lowered and we don’t see his face. Maybe in a straight jacket. In the window above him there is a full moon.

- The Sun: a childlike drawing of a small elven boy with red curly hair, holding hands with a small blue tiefling child. There’s a tear mark on the paper.

- Judgement: Veth, holding Nott’s mask in her hand and looking down at it.

- The World: Kingsley in the crows nest, looking out at the ocean.

What do you all think? Do you have any different ideas? Suggestions? I know a bit about tarot, and nothing at all about drawing, but I’m really hoping this will be an interesting journey!

I am going to tag my posts relating to this project as mighty tarot

[essekknits]

The Fool

UPRIGHT: Innocence, freedom, originality, adventure, travel, foolishness, carelessness, idealism, youth, spontaneity, lack of commitment, new beginnings

REVERSED: Recklessness, carelessness, negligence, stupidity, distraction, apathy, irrationality, lack of fun, hope or faith

I feel like Essek is a great character to position as The Fool. He has this duality about him. The fool is about taking a leap of faith. He is younger, he is new, he is embarking on an adventure. He doesn’t know his place.

The Fool reversed is Essek, stealing and giving away the beacons to the Assembly. He is trapped, repressed, a man with no faith stifled by a rigid, religious society. He takes a reckless risk, puts his trust in people he shouldn’t essentially as a way of lashing out against the powers that hold him, the powers he himself is part of and helps perpetuate. He is careless and apathetic toward the lives that might be lost because of his actions.

The Fool upright, in contrast, is Essek post campaign, post Mighty Nein, on the run. He is disconnected from the powers that stifled him, and from the influence they gave him. He is standing at a cliff’s edge, ready to embark on a new adventure, a new beginning, with no commitment to anything but his heart. He breaks the mould. Essek is a brilliant wizard, original and experimental and inventive. While he is by no means innocent, there is an innocence to his attempt to start anew.

So… yeah. This is the first card in what I hope will end up being the entire major arcana. I am tagging this project as “mighty tarot”, the rest of my ideas for cards are under that tag. I hope you enjoyed it!