THE EMPRESS & EMPEROR – THE CARDS OF REUEL

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 Empress has always represented bounty and physical comfort but modern deck users will be surprised that it was historically represented by the figure of royalty on a throne. Today the card is not only represented by a grandmother hard at work cooking for the family – it is often named the Grandmother. Many still continue to use The Empress, though, feeling it works just fine.

If the Empress represents feminine power and bounty, the Emperor classically represents masculine power, the ability to rule by force, and bounty through nation-building. The figure used in contemporary Moira decks is one of the five tribes of wolfmen from the north renowned as savages. He is depicted on a throne, ruling over others wearing decorative golden armor, and even his ears are decorated with gold. He is not the architect, but the man who commands the architect. The transformation from savage to civilization.