Death
Dying, Being Dead, Shuffling Off the Mortal Coil, Kicking The Bucket, Croaking, Passing, Being No Longer With Us, Literally Any Change At All
I don’t actually think that this card requires too much in the way of a detailed interpretive lens.
One of the grifts of tarot readers everywhere is their claim that Death doesn’t have to mean “actual physical death at the end of a life” but it can mean any kind of transition: the death of the status quo in favor of a New Thing.
The reason for this, however, is to give the tarot readers an out: if they flip this card and their mark gasps and goes “my uncle Brandon just died!” then the cards seem spooky and magical and omniscient. If they look at it with the blank look of someone who doesn’t understand how it could possibly be relevant to their lives, then it is time to cook: this card just means literally any kind of change.
In my expert1 opinion, this is a load of horseshit. This card could not be any clearer in its intended interpretation. Death comes for all of us2. There’s a king lying in his wake, and this priest is begging for mercy, but we all know that’s not going to work: this black-clad conquistador riding a pale horse doesn’t discriminate, negotiate, or even communicate.
This is a force that is inevitable, unstoppable, and eternal. The best we can do is keep it at bay, for a little while longer.
Friends & Foes
The Priest and Undertaker have made death a large part of their business and must often walk a difficult tightrope between solemn, caring, and professional around folks who are at the lowest point of their lives.
The Extremely Rare Good Necromancer has honestly found a pretty groundbreaking new method of automating away farm labor and they think they could usher in a new age of prosperity and peace if people could just get over the “ick” factor of using skeletons productively3.
The Lich leans on one of our most long-lived fiction tropes: to attempt to live eternally is, on the face of it, evil and unnatural4. In order to live eternally, The Lich has to do something absolutely monstrous: their eternity must be bought and paid for in blood and horror5.
The Grief Overflowing has allowed their grief over a lost loved one to consume and destroy them. If it seems remotely possible to get their lost one back they’ll take it regardless of any collateral damage — if not, they’ll sink into destructive nihilism and take anybody they can with them.
Hooks
Healing, both natural and magical, has stopped functioning: a stubbed toe will last weeks and even the young are becoming frail. Something is draining life itself from the land.
Locations
The Shallow, Unmarked Graves Outside of Town are where folks are buried when nobody wants any fanfare around their departure.
The Ghost Ship is packed to the rafters with hard-working skeletons6. It’s not clear where this ship is going or why.
Bonetown and The Bone Zone have been removed from this section because I am just now being informed that it is actually some kind of double entendre7.
The Whispering Tomb is very, very quiet. So quiet, in fact, that people walking its halls often hear just the gentlest whispers. Many are driven mad.
The Plague Temple is constructed in the hollowed out corpse of a leviathan, its rotting, fleshy walls propped up with bone and sinew. The congregants here each promised their service in exchange for a cure for their loved one, but the work just spreads more pestilence.
Treasures
The Pearl-White Chessboard Pendant is heavy and awkward to carry around, but it allows for something that most people will never get: a chance. Just one game, with the highest stakes of them all.
Names
Raven, Crow, Rose, Maurice, White, Gray, Poppy, Anastasia, Rena, Morrigan, Cypress, Thane, Dirge, Requiem, Sharon8