Darkana Tarot

The Darkana Tarot^[1] is a post-modern grunge tarot deck that was designed and illustrated by artist Janden Hale. The deck was self-published in 2012 via a successful Kickstarter campaign, making almost 300% of its original goal of $2000; it was heavily influenced by the art of Banksy,^[2] and is widely known for its departure from the traditional tarot.^[3][4] The deck has won several awards and has been voted as being in the top 50 essential tarot decks.

Architecture

The deck contains 79 cards, instead of the traditional 78. Hale added an additional Major Arcana card as number 23, "The Badass". It still contains the other standard 22 Major Arcana cards, with two distinct differences: Strength was changed to Fortitude and Judgement was changed to Prudence The changes in names for these two cards was done to reflect the symbolism of the four Cardinal Virtues (fortitude, justice, temperance, prudence), all of which appear in most standard decks as strength, justice, temperance, and judgement.

The remainder of the deck consists of four suits of Minor Arcana: Swords, Wands, Cups, and Pentacles.

In Other Media

• The Darkana deck was the subject of a collection of themed short stories on Thunderdome Magazine from June–July 2012.^[5]
• Several cards from the deck are prominently featured in the movie Sweet Leaf, directed by Julian Grant.

Awards

The Darkana tarot deck won the 2012 Pecto Award for Outstanding First Work of an Illustrator.^[6] and won the Tarosophists Award for best self-published tarot deck of 2012.^[7] The deck has also been voted as one of the "Top 50 Essential Tarot Decks" by a group of over 13,000 people.^[8]

References