The Deck Of Sixty

[janTesi]

I don't main Astrologian, but one of my major fascinations with the lore in FFXIV has been the Deck of Sixty. Having read that section in the Encyclopaedia Eorzea and some of the information about the deities and elements, I feel like there's a lot of potential for the deck of sixty as a legitimate system of divination (as legitimate as any other one anyway) as well as a useful deck for card games. I've also personally message LootCave to encourage them to produce a full deck, which they currently have no plans to do, but do not seem to have ruled out.

In terms of card games, there is plenty of information in the EE to produce a full deck and put together the games described (I feel like I should do more reading o tarocci for some of these to figure out how the majors works for that). Further, the only major stumbling blocks I see to using the full deck for divination is a lack of clear meanings for the numbered and court cards. My current line of thinking is that the pip cards would line up as elemental combinations based on the number and suit, the only remaining systemic question being which element to associate with each number. For the courts, I'm kind of at a loss. For tarot, the courts fill the role of elemental combinations, and the set of three courts per suit makes this especially challenging as everything is generally in sixes for this elemental system. Knave/Lord/Lady easily transition to Child/Man/Woman (ignoring the gender issues at play), so maybe these would line up with youthful, masculine, and feminine interpretations of each suit? Then a valid question becomes what masculine and feminine mean in the setting and whether this lines up with the passive/active dichotomy of the light/dark elements (yin/yang) in their representation in Taoism and Qaballah (or at least the occultist interpretation thereof). As I write this, I think that might actually work, though the rearrangement of the courts from the Tarot tradition makes me wonder if the masc/fem should be inverted from the occult traditions I'm familiar with.

Anybody else fascinated by this? I made a full deck out of labeled index cards and hope to build a functional system for divination out of this, but my first priority is not to contradict the canon lore in any way. I'd love more lore on this, and need to finish leveling AST.

[janTesi]

I suppose for those who haven't read the EE, it'd be worthwhile to give the outline of the full deck, as only the majors and two court cards have actually appeared in game:
The majors that appear are The Balance (Fire), The Ewer (Water), The Arrow (Wind), The Spear (Ice), The Spire (Lightning), and The Bole (Earth).
The minors are six suits, each with six numbered cards (1-6) and three court cards (Knave, Lord, Lady). The text explicitly states the Lady is the high card.
These suits are given a whole table of associations including elements, "faculties" (most likely to be relevant to divination), social class (also potentially useful, especially with courts), and even alternate names for each suit. The suits are crowns/wreaths (lightning), cups/hearts (water), Rings/pentacles (Earth), Knives/swords (Wind), Staves/batons (Fire), Irons/chains (Ice).

Also worth noting is that the EE describes upright cards as Astral and inverted ones as umbral, associating the majors with the gods of those elements depending on that alignment. As someone who does tarot, it's really cool to have such a clear delineation for inverted cards, as the tarot traditions are frequently murky on that topic.

More interesting tidbits I've noticed: In the elemental chart found both in game and in the EE with the star, the elements on the white triangle line up with the cards that give extra bonus to tank/melee as well as the suits that are black in traditional playing card, the black triangle being the opposite. This would imply to me that crowns is a red suit and chains a black one, assuming the deck doesn't either have a different color for each suit or introduce a third color, as many traditional playing card decks that have six suits do.

[janTesi]

Looking more closely at the black and white triangles and the conquering/submitting concepts mentioned about the elements in the EE, combined with the fact that Lady shares the same buff as Bole, Ewer, and Spire (elements that conquer, rather than submit), I'm inclined to read this as the feminine being the active element in Eorzean occultism. That it is the black triangle (and pointed up) may be taken as a statement about astral/umbral and light/dark, but I'm less confident about that.

So, for my personal interpretation, I decided that the pip cards should reflect the element of the suit as it interacts with each element, starting with itself then following each element in order of the nativities. For example: 1 of Knives is an overabundance of Wind/Cognition, 2 of Knives is Wind/Cognition creating Lightning/Dominion, 3 of Knives is Wind/Cognition submitted to by Fire/Volition, 4 of Knives is Wind/Cognition negating Earth/Possession (negating was just my go-to interaction for opposites), 5 of Knives is Wind/Cognition submitting to Ice/Contrition, 6 of Knives is Wind/Cognition created by Water/Emotion.

For the courts I'm currently leaning toward Knaves as youthful and neutral, Lords as masculine/passive, and Ladies as feminine/active. I'm still not sure how I feel about the feminine/masculine active/passive setup, might need to invert it or come up with something different entirely. Also, the social classes will likely play heavily into interpretation of the courts.

Also, based on the elemental descriptions for the months, I also worked out a equivocation for IRL astrology signs to Eorzean. Basically, based on where the solstice falls, I figure Saggitarius is the 6th umbral moon.

Update: I emailed Square-Enix about possibly writing a book about this, as I've already started writing one for personal use.

Update: And now I've read their unsolicited submissions policy and am aware that they do not want my book through any official channel. I get why a big company like this has a policy like that, but I wish I could at least pick the brain of whoever wrote up the deck lore. I guess the best I can do is keep posting about it. If Square-Enix wants my stuff they'll have to contact me in the unlikely case that anybody there hears about my book, which is pretty much finished, and is remotely interested. I just need to write the really obvious stuff (definitions for the majors, a couple spreads that aren't the ones in the EE) and take out headings for things that I can't really do anything with except to copy/paste the lore (ie, the history chapter that an official book would definitely need).

Yet another update: Posted a new thread for the first draft pdf here.

[Lusavari]

Pro-tip for the future: You can get around the word limit cap by posting and then going back and editing everything else into your post It's a weird system but it will be easier on you.

[janTesi]

Thank you! Think it's worth going back and fixing now?