Lord and Lady of Crowns Lore

[Kisekii]

Anyone know the story behind the two new cards? They don't seem to fit in with the Twelve imagery (at least so far as I can tell) and from what I remember the AST class quests didn't go into much detail regarding them or minor arcana in general.


Can anyone tell me anything more about the lore behind the two new cards? I'd love to know more about them!

[Kyran-Varlsen]

Are they for Astrologians or Triple Triad?

[Kisekii]

Astrologians.

[Belhi]

According to the Lore book, the cards that Astrologians use are actually a Deck of Sixty cards. Basically, as I understand it, the Spire, Spear, Bole, Balance, Arrow and Ewer are like a cards suit. They represent the heavens and as such are what is primarily used in divination. So basically a card would be like a six of spires. In addition to that each card will have either a numbering from 1-6 or be a face card being The Knave, The Lord and The Lady. These are the Minor Arcana and represent the people.

Fundamentally it seems Astrologian's decks are much like a normal deck of cards used for gambling and the Deck of Sixty is used in card games.

I could be wrong on that. I am not that familiar with card decks. That is kind of how I understood the explanation.

[Leric]

Spire, Spear, Bole, Balance, Arrow, and Ewer are Major Arcana cards, while the Lord and Lady of Crowns are Minor Arcana court (or face) cards of the crowns suit. In real world tarot there is the major arcana (the fool, the empress, the devil, the reaper, et cetera), and then the minor arcana which are divided into suits (wands/rods, swords, pentacles/discs, cups). Each suit has number cards, say, the one of discs, the three of cups, and so on, as well as court cards (prince/king, queen, knight/prince, page or princess, et cetera), the same as a regular deck of playing cards (three of hearts, five of diamonds, king of spades, et cetera). We are simply seeing a small fraction of the astrologian's in-game deck.

[JepMZ]

In real life, tarots are also playing cards later retconned by British guy 400 years after the card's invention. The non-english countries, aka, the rest of Europe still play tarot games and are unaware of this english corruption. " major arcana" was always called Trump cards, and were added by non-english speaking Italian nobles when playing cards got introduced to Italy from the south. So tarot became invented at that point and coexist with poker cards at the same time

Here in FF14, Eorzea is specifically a tool for the arcane from the get-go. It has,7 suits, the major arcan suit, and the 6 suits of the minor arcan. Each of those contain 1-6 pipcards, a knave, a king , and then finally the queen. We knew the existence of Royal cards due to the hilarious dialogue of the job quest guy for Loyal Road

[JepMZ]

Who knows what the other 5 could be. Crowns may mean Koji Fox has the repurposed class system association of the card suits in mind based from Europe. Both poker cards and tarots used the cups, swords, wands, coin suits when it got localized for European consumption. Over the years, they like associating the suits to the different classes: swords is for the nobles who rule everyone and the soldiers who serve them, hearts are the clergy, diamonds are the merchant class, and clubs is incorrectly associated with peasants. I say incorrectly because the original 4 suits introduced to Europe is swords, cups, coins and POLO STICKS. They are used for playing Polo on horseback, an incredibly prestigious sport from Persia known in Egypt and middle East played by egyptian royalty, commanders , powerful soldiers, and such. But since it\\'s unknown to Europe, they localized and replaced it with wands. It is unfortunate it got associated with the complete opposite of high classiness.

[JepMZ]

But yeah, It's possible they using Crown suit to reflect the noble part of the class system, or just eluding to one of the four suits from real world. Going by that logic, I could guess the other 3 suits might be eluding to clergy(ishgard or perhaps Gridania), merchants(Ul'dah obviously) , and the common folk.(Maybe wheat for farming).

Or another theory I have is that each suit represent the six city states along with their associated element. Not sure about crown since there's nobles in half of them. Limo Limsa wind, Ala Migho thunder, Ul'dah fire, Gridania earth, Ishgard ice, and Sharlayan water (shells?)

[Mimilu]

Pretty much what Leric said: The six card we use are the Major Arcana, while the Lord and Lady are two of the three court cards and are part of the Minor Arcana. Crowns are one of the suits.
There are six suits in total, each pertaining an element and Major Arcana: Crowns, Cups, Rings, Knives, Staves, and Irons. Each suit has 6 pip cards (Ace to 6) and 3 Court Cards (Knaves, Lords, and Ladies).
Usually, only the six Major Arcana are used for divination.

Edit, adding more lore about the Minor Arcana suits:

Crowns: Alternatively known as Wreaths. Faculty: Domination. Class: Nobility. Element: Lightning. Major Arcana: The Spire.
Cups: Alternatively know as Hearts. Faculty: Emotion. Class: Clergy. Element: Water. Arcana: The Ewer.
Rings: Alternatively know as Pentacles. Faculty: Possession. Class: Merchants. Element: Earth. Major Arcana: The Bole.
Knives: Alternatively know as Swords. Faculty: Cognition. Class: Military. Element: wind. Major Arcana: The Arrow.
Staves: Alternatively know as Batons. Faculty: Volition. Class: Smallfolk. Element: Fire. Major Arcana: The Balance.
Irons: Alternatively know as Chains. Faculty: Contrition. Class: Prisoners. Element: Ice. Major Arcana: The Spear.

[JepMZ]

♤♡◇♧ The last part is the actual answer to your question!!♤♡◇♧
Sorry had to butcher my post into four posts. Here\\'s the last bits

I hope the coin suit is a garaunteed future suit. Mostly because the playing cards were invented by ChinaAnd the very first card suits were different units of currency and thus the oldest and most reoccurring surviving card suit maintained throughout it\\'s journey from the silky road

As for your actual original question. There seems to always be Monarchs(Queen or Hydaelyn), their Consort (King or Liouionx, Milphinia) and their Sentinel that serve under their name(Knaves or Scions, archons or you) in all the 6 astral and Umbral era\\'s. The Loyalty cards could also represent people in divinations. But the presence of face cards is mostly a legacy decision to translate traditional playing cards into the eorzean world. (I believe the first face cards in the history of cards is the King card and the Vizier card from Iran)