Indie Decks
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Deck Review: Figuratively Speaking Mermaid Tarot
Beneath its beauty, the Figuratively Speaking Mermaid Tarot is surprisingly sharp. Familiar archetypes are reimagined through marine life: anglerfish lanterns, siren songs, sunken treasure - creating metaphors that feel fresh yet deeply Tarot-literate. This is a deck that understands liminality, shadow, and desire, and isn’t afraid to let its waters run dark.
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Deck Review: The Magic Pantry Tarot
Beneath its playful surface, The Magic Pantry Tarot is smartly symbolic. Eggs, broth, mushrooms, and coffee map onto Tarot archetypes in ways that feel intuitive once you see them, though sometimes delightfully abstruse at first glance. Best suited to readers already familiar with Tarot, it rewards experience with wit, insight, and a lot of satisfying “aha” moments.
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Deck Review: Far-Out Tarot
This is a deck you don’t just read, you visit it. The Far-Out Tarot creates a sense of permission: to pause, to retreat, to be thoughtful rather than decisive. It won me over completely, offering Tarot as care, imagination, and psychological shelter - a place I genuinely want to return to again and again.
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Deck Review: The Ex-Lovers Tarot
This deck understands love as something that doesn’t simply switch off. The Ex-Lovers Tarot reframes heartbreak as part of the Fool’s journey, honouring connection, loss, and personal growth with warmth and clarity. Whimsical without being shallow, it invites compassion: for past selves, former lovers, and the imperfect ways we keep loving.
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Deck Review: Nigredo Tarot Deck
This is one of the most personal and emotionally resonant decks I own. The Nigredo Tarot doesn’t soften the work of shadow integration, but it approaches it with empathy and intelligence. Best suited to self-reflection rather than performance reading, it’s a deck that asks a lot - and gives just as much back.
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Deck Review: Figuratively Speaking Tarot
I’ve had the Figuratively Speaking Tarot by B. Miller for a while now, but Bee launching a Kickstarter campaign for her new deck, the Figuratively Speaking Mermaid Tarot, has prompted me to finally get round to doing a deep dive and a review! First things first: as is well documented on this blog, I have zero self-control when my weird little ADHD magpie brain decides it likes a deck and FIXATES <wallet releases muffled screams of pain in background>, so I bought LOADS of the booster packs for the Figuratively Speaking Tarot [FST], and then sorted out my ‘favourite 78’. So please don’t assume that every card I’ve selected below…
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Deck Review: The Alleyway Tarot
I own Publishing Goblin‘s first Kickstarter Tarot deck, The Alleyman’s Tarot, and, while it’s a bit unwieldy to work with, I still love it for reflection purposes, and for thinking about the ways different artists interpret the traditional card meanings. The guidebook is also a cracking read, as opposed to the normal fairly generic guff. So I didn’t hesitate in backing this new deck, The Alleyway Tarot, that follows the same principles as its predecessor. Each card in the deck is designed by a different artist, and the concept is that this is a ‘found’ deck, cobbled together with individual cards that ‘The Alleyman’ has magpied into his life over…
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Deck Review: Austin Osman Spare Tarot
One for the collectors and the Tarot-history enthusiasts is the Austin Osman Spare Tarot, which you can currently order via the publisher’s (Strange Attractor) website for £35. Being a skinflint Trying to control my Tarot addiction in a sensible manner, I only forked out for the deck when I backed the project on Kickstarter, so I didn’t get the accompanying book, Lost Envoy: The Tarot Deck of Austin Osman Spare, or the AOS Tarot Sourcebooks (How to Tell Fortunes by The Cards*, by Rapoza (1906), a key source for Spare’s Minor Arcana attributions, and The Tarot, by S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1888) from which he assigned his Major Arcana meanings). This…
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Currently On Kickstarter: The Out Of Hand Tarot (Pocket Edition)
Just a quick post to say that one of my favourite decks, the Out of Hand Tarot, is available again! You can back a pocket version of the deck on Kickstarter. You can read my (very effusive) review of the full-sized deck here. Sadly, after the artist and creator Jamie Sawyer finished the campaign for the original deck, and sold out all her stock, it was counterfeited. My review of the original deck is the *most* visited page on my website each month, which shows how popular the deck is! However, none of the money goes to Sawyer when people buy counterfeit copies of the deck, and this SUCKS. So,…
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Deck Review: Grounded Wisdom Tarot
Another Kickstarter-backed deck that recently arrived with me is the gorgeously detailed Grounded Wisdom Tarot. The deck was designed and drawn by Gabby Morris, who takes a “polymathic approach*” to their projects, blending art and design with nature and ecological futures. (*My little ADHD magpie brain perked up at this inspired phrasing! My new goal is owning my own scattergun approach to knowledge by calling it ‘polymathic’! 💪) Morris’ website is full of really cool stuff from her Master’s project and subsequent work – it’s kinda chemistry-meets-cooking-meets-conservation-meets art & design-meets-am dram, and is well worth checking out. The deck not only has lots of crossovers with my own myriad interests…
