So for a while now I've been toying around with the idea of a tarot card deck for the Church of the Broken God. I've finally gotten around to fleshing it out and like what I have thus far, but I could use some advice for suitably mystical / ominous options for the Major Arcana.
As a bit of background: like many aspects of CotBG I want to leave open to the reader both the possibility that this deck is something that actually belongs to the faith, and the possibility that it is something older that CotBG has co-opted. In other words, I'm trying to avoid any direct references to 882, 914, and so forth (with only one possible exception that I've mentioned at the end of the Major Arcana list; see below). I've also set 1-13 of the Major Arcana to parallel the structure of an unrelated magic system of mine for meta-headcanon purposes, so apologies if I'm a little weird about the cards in those slots. What I have so far is as follows:
Minor Arcana
Five suits- Bolts, Springs, Gears, Pipes, and Chains. Each suit has values 1 - 7 and three face cards. I'm undecided on what the face cards should be- I'm leaning towards Lady, Knight, and King, but I'm open to more thematic possibilities.
Major Arcana
I'm aiming for 25 in total. Unless otherwise marked, I am not trying to make analogs to the "real" Tarot arcana. I am, however, trying to make small sets of thematically linked arcana, which I have annotated below:
(analogous to the Fool, for obvious reasons)
0. Flesh
(Set referencing basic metalworking. 1-4 also loosely follow the classical elements, eg wind-earth-fire-water)
1. The Bellows
2. Anvil
3. Crucible
4. Oil
5. The Maker
(Set of alternating detriments and augmentations.)
6. Rust
7. The Gilded
8. Resonance (or some other flaw / destruction concept?)
9. Alloy (or some other augmentation)
10. The Rotor (fan? something relating to travel / movement?) (EDIT: Conveyer?)
11. Lodestone
12. The Pendulum
13. Automaton
(YOUR HELP NEEDED HERE)
24. The Engine (possibly changed to The Broken by CotBG if we assume that the set has been co-opted)
Other possibilities I am toying with:
- The Scales
- Mainspring
- Tinker
- Machinist
- (could probably use a few more professions/roles as well)
- The Smokestacks (The Boiler? The Furnace?)
And that's it so far. So, ideas?