For example these were for a Wyrmling Blue Dragon in the other setting:
Focus: The Hero
Past: The Swashbuckler, Reversed
Present: The Beast
Future: The Philanthropist
Outcome: The Prison, Reversed
Beginnings: The Necromancer, Reversed
The Far Past: The Master of Stars, Reversed
The Near Past: The Spirit, Reversed
Future 1: The Marionette, Reversed
Future 2: The Diviner
Future 3: The Raven
Now whilst I understand what the cards mean in isolation, I'm having trouble interpreting the meanings in combination.
NB: Normally, I'd use the Swashbuckler in the reversed position as the focus card for a dragon but given the planned storyline the Hero fits this particular character better.
For instance, you draw the Diviner and instantly go DOH! simply because there aren't any diviner in the adventure you had planned.
What you should do, prior to using the cards (and assuming your adventure is already planned and not open to "suggestions" via the cards), is take each card and think hard about how to link it to the adventure. It need not be obvious but there needs to be a link, whether it's to the PC, the NPC, the past or the future. That way, when you draw the cards during the game, you'll already know what to say. You'll just have to juggle a bit with the order in which they are drawn.
For instance, using the example above, you could say:
"The Veil of Time parts before my eyes, making it easier to see the future"
It doesn't mean anything. It didn't spoil any info. It didn't give the PC any advantage. BUT what it did was sound cool, especially when told by a vistani reading the cards. Heck, you can even pretend that the cards that follow wouldn't have revealed as much if you hadn't drawn that one first!
Sometimes it can even give you ideas you wouldn't have had otherwise. I had to come up with a whole new NPC to explain a card that didn't make sense.I agree with Mortpierre. Don't just use the official meaning of the cards. Make it fit however you can. Seize on extraneous objects in the pictures if you have to. Use the Air/Fire/Water/Earth symbolism of the suits. The numbers as symbols, the suit symbols, whatever you have to. (Also, I like to limit it to the basic cross to make things easy, but that's just me.)
I think we'd need a bit more info about your campaign to do a full reading from the above, but that should get you thinking...
You don't stack the deck to set up the reading you want the players to hear? Interesting.
When the players in my game got a reading a few months ago, I organized the deck only so that a couple of elements from the past or present were set up ahead of time. I let the future cards play out as they may! And it was great -- it really opened up several great subplots that I wouldn't have considered on my own, but which suited the campaign perfectly. I recommend trying it.
Not to get off subject, but where can I get a set of cards appropriate for a Tarokka reading?
At this point, eBay is probably your best bet, though I remember someone doing up a "Tarokka Barovia" in the style of crude medieval woodcuts (can't seem to find a download point for it, unfortunately).
At this point, eBay is probably your best bet, though I remember someone doing up a "Tarokka Barovia" in the style of crude medieval woodcuts (can't seem to find a download point for it, unfortunately).
Well, ...
http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Mausoleum/Taroka.zip
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On the topic, I used a tarokka twice IIRC.
Once the deck was stacked, but the players never realized it, even if they were suspicious I would stack it (sleight of hand in action!), and the other it wasn't.
Looking at the cards while planning it, I had written a few general ideas that could go in all direction, but still had a similar line direction. Many esoteric words and concept were added to the sheet. I often used the set of cards name (star, glyph, etc.) as a tendency for the reading.
So I used these general notes to taylor the reading whith the drawn cards. It was fun and I used the results to put more emphasis on a NPC that was supposed to be minor before the reading was done.
Also, as other have said in this thread, the players do not the exact meaning of a card, so you can twist it any way you want
Joël
Notably, a Google search for "Tarokka Barovia" doesn't bring up the FoS site.
AH? *checks the site*
Oh, there is a typo, Tarokka is written Tarroka. We'll ask Socko to fix this...
Joël
The Philanphrophist - The character is to be the recipient of an act of charity. This introduces them to the party. - "A generous ally will send a gift for which they ask nothing"
The Prison: A break with the Evil views of chromatic dragons - although I'm having trouble wording this in a suitable manner.
The Marionette: Green dragons are distributing treasure maps in a bid to lure adventures over for lunch. "Beware the Duped one, as he is an agent of what you were before."
The Diviner: Devils are active in a desert kingdom but only once every 700 years "Preperation will be the key to success on this road"
The Raven: Unbeknownst to them, my dragon is laired in a desecreted shrine to a fertility godess. "Potential allies are closer to home than you may imagine."
The Swashbuckler: "This is fairly obvious, in the reversed position it represents greed but surely it can also represent the natural hoarding instincts of dragons"
For the others, the problem isn't so much coming up with a meaning that fits the story as coming up with what the Vistani character would say - especially anything to link the cards together. And just so we're clear, at this point I'm just stacking the deck and haven't actually done the reading. Each of the cards has been chosen based on the meaning given in the ArtHaus Tarokka box.
Now apart from what I've said here, I'm using several of the earlier edition downloads, most notably a ZIP file filled with maps (which is where I got the Green Dragons, Devil run Desert Kingdom and Fertility Temple ideas from - Drakens Der, Signs of the Times and Head Games in that folder respectivly).
The only other things of note in the setting to date are:
An anti-magic field contaning a scroll of every spell that's not subject to spell resistants from the PHB and Spell Compendium plus several rust monsters and other thematically appropriate encounters (usually traps that fit with the type of scrolls)
A Wizard's Guild which is run as an Ogliarchy and where I intend the PCs become members.
A petrified wizard who will become unpetrified before the PCs are sent on the delivery mission by the person represented as the Philanphropist.
A temple to the elven god.
A guild of necromancers as necromancy is legal with consent of corpse prior to death.
Four liches who've abdicated the local throne so they could be more secretive in their unlife. Some evil gnomish merchants.
A local delicacy that includes a potion of Inflict Light Wounds in the recipe
The central plot being that several spells has been lost for centuries and the characters have been hired to find them (3/4 are in the aformentioned anti-magic field, the rest are probably best dealt with as if they hadn't exsisted)
And finally a plot where the players have to recover the queen's personal copies of the manuscripts for all the books she's written.
Also I've banned all alignments more than one step away from Chaotic Good for PCs, but allowed for NPCs and changed the colour of fire to green.
Anything else you need to know?