Amber cover
tarot

Amber

Fantasy RPG tarot based on Zelazny's Amber series with exquisite muted watercolors.

by Florence Magnin · Descartes

fantasyrpgfrenchmuted-colorsblended
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The Canon's read

Tarot Canon's own assessment, written for this catalog.

Roger Zelazny's Amber novels gave French publisher Descartes the source material for a licensed fantasy tarot, and Florence Magnin built the deck's structure on the Marseille pattern rather than inventing a new system from scratch. The archive's reviewer states a preference plainly, taken with the artwork on sight and praising the blended, muted greens and blues before the excerpt cuts off. That immediacy of reaction is worth noting on a catalog that otherwise deals mostly in structure and history rather than pure visual appeal. Marseille structure underneath a licensed fantasy skin is an unusual combination. Most tie-in decks abandon the traditional pip-card system for setting-specific imagery throughout, so keeping Marseille's bones intact while re-dressing the surface suggests a design team more interested in tarot as a system than in the license alone. Zelazny's readers are the obvious audience, but Marseille traditionalists curious about a themed reskin belong here too, provided they don't mind fantasy characters standing in for the usual court cards.

From the archive

An excerpt from a review at the Aeclectic Tarot archive, in the original reviewer's voice.

The Amber Tarot is a French-published RPG (role playing game) deck, based upon a fantasy series by Roger Zelazny. I loved its artwork as soon as I opened the box. The quality of the exquisitely blended, muted, greens, blues and...

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