THE MAGI AND THE DIVINER – THE CARDS OF REUEL

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An earlier version of this article was published on Tumblr in September 2023.

In the decades after the Godsfall the survivors began building new civilizations and with those came artifacts from the before times that people adapted for the new world. One of those was the Tarot deck, essentially the well-known Rider Waite Tarot deck. In time it became known as a Fate or Moira deck and the original cards transformed as people looked at the world in new ways. Each entry in this series describes one or more cards. 

The Magician is a classic symbol of invention, intelligence and creativity here represented by a cell of arcanists working together including a central figure with a slyly included third arm representing passing mortal limitations. It also implies the use of magic, which is a contentious topic in the world after the Departing as it caused both tragedy and salvation.

In places where magic is distrusted, the card is often replaced with one of Reuel to emphasize the positive connotation of the card. The card as it is presented here is how it is commonly presented in the Loch Lands, where magic is not only respected as a prestigious career, but also self-regulated by the Congress of Staves. Under their restrictions, arcanists have prospered and often work in groups to monitor each other and expand their craft.

The Diviner. In old-world decks, the fifth card of the major arcana was a religious figure who represented different worlds and a path to knowledge. In the Moira deck, no such gatekeeping exists and the figure is replaced with a young man with magical training who can access vast knowledge and learn through his own labors with no need of gods or divine figures, Not that any exist after the Godfall.

Leto Armitage was born in America under a set of circumstances that prophesied that he would one day unite the lost tribes and return the Ever Summer. Somewhere around twelve, he realized he had been left unsupervised and binged too many Arthurian movies in his formative years and that he was just another kid who accidentally got an education while reading above his age level.

By the time he turned old enough to get a passport, he started finding excuses to travel determined to find out what culture, food and women there were to experience. After learning to grill in Oaxaca, do kinbaku in Japan, and being banned from several former Soviet block countries, he returned home to settle down and see what damage he could do locally.

After working jobs including being a short order cook, bodyguarding strippers and professionally doing reader’s advisory for erotica he realized the most reasonable path forward was to become a writer. Today he lives with cats, dogs, and humans who seem to like him despite actually knowing him. He prefers to sit on his back deck, listening to the birds and Barry the Bumblebear bee, while he writes cozy, uplit romance and raunchy erotica.