Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [158]
In general, the tarot decks that exist today have changed little over the past five hundred years. The tarot deck includes the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana and the fifty-six cards of the Minor Arcana, or suit cards. The first twenty-two cards are known as trump cards, the word trump deriving from the Latin triumphi, or triumph. The word tarot comes from the sixteenth-century Italian term tarocchi, the plural of tarocco, which was used to refer to the Major Arcana cards and later to the entire deck. Arcana is a Latin word meaning mysterious or secret. Tarot is the French derivative of tarocchi, and it was this term for the cards that became popular in the English language.
Throughout the centuries, scholars have attempted to analyze the allegorical and mystical meanings of the tarot cards, particularly those of the Major Arcana. Beginning with the first card (numbered either 0 or 22), known as the Fool card, the deck also includes cards picturing the Magician, the Sun, the Moon, Death, the Hermit, the Hanged Man, the Lightning-Struck Tower, the Devil, and the World, among others.
A favorite theory concerning the allegorical meaning of the tarot is that the cards represent the Fool’s (man’s) journey through life. The Fool is generally represented as a youth walking heedlessly along the edge of a cliff. His eyes are on the sun; he is not watching where he is going and appears to be in imminent danger of falling. A small dog (man’s base, physical nature) barking at his feet appears to be either trying to warn the Fool away from the cliffs edge or drive him over. The people the Fool meets—such as the Magician, the Hermit—and the experiences he undergoes in his journey through life will provide him with the self-understanding he must acquire in older to complete his journey successfully.
Our fascination with the cards and our enjoyment of the games that were developed using them continues to this day. Most modern card games use a revised version of the tarot deck, retaining almost all the cards of the Minor Arana, or the suit cards, plus the joker, or the Fool card. Among the Minor Arcana are the court cards: kings, queens, knights, and pages, plus cards of each suit numbering from one (the ace) to ten. The suits of the early Minor Arcana were swords, cups, coins, and staves, now known as spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs.
The game of tarok—still popular in some places in Europe—is unusual in that it retains use of the cards of the Major Arcana as well as the Minor Arcana. It can be played by two or three players, although later rules include up to four players.
There are many different versions of the rules of tarok. The following comes from The Encyclopedia of the Tarot by Stuart Kaplan, and was the basis for the game played by our characters. It uses the seventy-eight card deck, the dealer deals three hands of twenty-five cards each, leaving three cards facedown on the table. The players sort their hands and the dealer discards his three most useless cards, exchanging them for the three on the table.
Points are scored before play begins. The twenty-two trump cards vary in value, and points scored are determined by which trump the players hold and how many. Players then score additional points by taking “tricks”—high cards taking low cards One hundred points wins the game.
The Fool card is the lowest card in the deck. It cannot take a card of any suit, but it may be played to any suit that is led. The fascinating aspect about the Fool card as far as we are concerned is that it may be substituted to protect a card of greater value. If, for example, a king of cups is led and the player following holds the queen of cups, that player may substitute the Fool in order to save his queen.
For those interested in learning more about the tarot cards or the game of tarok, the following are recommended reading:
The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume 1, by Stuart R. Kaplan, U.S. Games Systems, Inc., New