Tarot Wagon

A workshop for a deck about food, death, and the small mass of every meal.
○ ready

The Warbook

Everything we have decided, in one place. Locked decisions are sealed. Open questions remain open until they don't.

The Form

78-card tarot deck (provisional — see Open Questions for the 56-card alternative). Every card is a diptych. Left panel: what is. Right panel: what becomes. Hinge: the question. The reader's eye does the work. The book teaches the form once and then trusts.

The Four Wagons

Wands
The Vegetable Wagon
Diptych: Ingredient / Cooked
Element: Fire — transformation
Patron: Adriaen van Utrecht
Palette: warm amber, ember, copper
Swords
The Fish Wagon
Diptych: Whole / Cut
Element: Air — revelation
Patron: Willem Kalf
Palette: bone white, blade silver, cool blues
Cups
The Bread & Wine Wagon
Diptych: Plated / Eaten
Element: Water — communion
Patron: Pieter Claesz
Palette: candlelight, wine-dark, soft chaos
Pentacles
The Meat Wagon
Diptych: Living / Dead
Element: Earth — reckoning
Patron: Frans Snyders
Palette: deep red, earth, fur, bone

The Voice

The hearth. The woman who has been doing this a long time and is not squeamish. First person where it serves, third person where it serves. Reverent without being precious. Honest without being graphic for graphic's sake.

Patron writers in spirit

M.F.K. Fisher · Patience Gray · Edna Lewis · Robert Farrar Capon

The Lore (one paragraph)

Every meal is a small mass. Something dies so something lives. Something is taken apart so something can be made. The kitchen is the oldest temple. The hands know what the mind has forgotten. This deck is a record of how humans have always behaved around food, regardless of what they call it.

The Positioning

Cottage gore. Cottagecore with the knife in it. Not a witch deck. Not a trad deck. The honest version both audiences are actually hungry for. The Victorian death picnic. The Edwardian cemetery lunch. Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe with a deck on the blanket.

The Temperature Grammar

Each of the four seasonal decks operates under a temperature signature.

Summer
cold food, cold drinks
Congruent. Easy abundance.
Autumn ✦
warm food, cold drinks
Crossover. The body leaving summer. The launch deck.
Winter
warm food, warm drinks
Congruent. Deep communion.
Spring
cold food, warm drinks
Crossover. The body leaving winter.

The Kit (Four Components)

  • Wool blanket — deep red or undyed cream, large for two seated, embroidered wagon in one corner
  • Cast iron cauldron — three-legged, lidded, wagon mark embossed on lid
  • Two hand-blown wine glasses — cordial-sized, heavy base, thin lip (one paired component)
  • The deck — 78 cards in a velvet bag (deep red or purple), slim guidebook tucked alongside

Suggested accompaniments (reader provides)

Wine. Dried flowers. Candle.

The Six-Line Ritual

Spread the blanket.
Set out the flowers.
Pour two glasses, one for you and one for what you are consulting.
Place the cauldron in the center.
Draw your cards into the cauldron.
Read what you drew.

Production & Cadence

First run

400 units total. 40 founder's editions, 360 standard editions.

Cadence

Quarterly. Four decks per year, one per season. Autumn ships first.

Pricing (multiples of forty)

  • Founder's Edition Kit — $400
  • Standard Kit — $200
  • Quarterly Subscription — $40
  • Single Deck Refill — $80

Open Questions

  • Final deck title (candidates: The Raw and the Cooked · Cottage Gore · The Knowing Hand · Bone and Butter · What the Kitchen Knows)
  • 78 cards (with Major Arcana) vs 56 cards (pure four-suit, no Majors) — the four-discipline argues for 56
  • Glutton vs Late Night Kitchen — rhyming concepts, one needs to merge or sharpen
  • Faster vs Hermit's Meal — refusal vs attention; needs visual differentiation
  • Cauldron sourcing — small US foundry vs overseas with custom embossing
  • Blanket sourcing — small mill vs custom weave
  • Glass sourcing — US glassblower vs hand-blown import
  • Non-alcoholic accompaniment — what bottle, shippable in all 50 states
  • Founder's edition — included in first run or held for second run

Working Notes (your scratchpad)

Style Bibles

One per seasonal deck. Each bible holds the visual rules that keep the deck cohesive. Autumn is in production; the others wait their turn.

Autumn — The Cottage Gore Deck

Warm food, cold drinks. The slaughter, the harvest, the larder. The body leaving summer.

Master Prompt Template

Diptych in the style of a Dutch Golden Age still life, oil on canvas, chiaroscuro candlelight from a single warm light source, deep shadows, museum quality, painterly, 17th century, memento mori register. Left panel: [LEFT CONTENT]. Right panel: [RIGHT CONTENT]. Ornate dark walnut frame around both panels with a vertical hinge down the center. 7:12 aspect ratio tarot card composition.

Suit-Specific Tokens

Wands · Vegetable Wagon

warm amber and ember tones, copper cookware, the heat of a working hearth, in the style of Adriaen van Utrecht

Swords · Fish Wagon

cool tones, polished steel, bone white, the wet glisten of a fresh cut surface, in the style of Willem Kalf

Cups · Bread & Wine Wagon

candlelit table, wine glasses, soft warm chaos, the aftermath of a meal, in the style of Pieter Claesz

Pentacles · Meat Wagon

game pieces, hanging fowl, fur and feather, earthen palette, deep reds and browns, in the style of Frans Snyders

Major Arcana add-on

figural composition, a single human figure in the scene, more devotional register, in the manner of Vermeer for the domestic interiors

Mood Anchors (paste reference image URLs here as you collect)

Voice Notes for Autumn

Winter — Coming

Warm food, warm drinks. The deep larder. Broth. Fasting. Bread and salt. Preservation. The fire kept low.

Style bible to be developed after the Autumn deck is produced.

Spring — Coming

Cold food, warm drinks. Sprouting. Lambing. Eggs. The first greens. The return of the wagons.

Style bible to be developed.

Summer — Coming

Cold food, cold drinks. Abundance. Preserving. Drying. The garden at full tilt. Festival meals.

Style bible to be developed.

The Deck

Every card. Click to edit prompt, paste a generated image, set status, take notes.

0 cards total 0 final 0 generated 0 prompted 0 concept
Suit
concept prompted generated approved final
Drawing the deck from the cauldron...

Prompt Library

The cheat codes. Use these freely. Add your own discoveries as you find them.

Power Words — pull the model toward the canon

painterly oil paint baroque chiaroscuro tenebrism memento mori vanitas 17th century museum quality National Gallery Mauritshuis Rijksmuseum Dutch Golden Age Flemish single warm light source deep shadows

Poison Words — never use

cozy sweet charming whimsical magical cute adorable soft pastel bright cheerful farmhouse chic rustic

Patron Painters & Why They Matter

Adriaen van Utrecht (1599–1652)

Antwerp still life. Kitchen interiors, the moment of preparation. Warm, busy, full of cooking materials. Use for: Wands, the transformation suit.

Willem Kalf (1619–1693)

Dutch still life. Cut fruit, half-peeled lemons, oysters in shells. The painter of interiors revealed by violence — gentle violence, but violence. Use for: Swords, the knife suit.

Pieter Claesz (1597–1660)

The ontbijtje — small breakfast — bread, oysters, wine, often half-eaten. The genre of the meal interrupted, in progress, almost done. Use for: Cups, the vessel suit.

Frans Snyders (1579–1657)

The painter of the larder. Hares, deer, pheasants, fish. Hunting tradition rendered as still life. The patron saint of cottage gore. Use for: Pentacles, the body suit.

Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675)

Domestic interiors with women working in soft light. Use for: Major Arcana figural cards.

Clara Peeters (c. 1594–c. 1657)

Often-overlooked Flemish woman painter. Pioneered the larder still life. Worth invoking when a card needs the woman's eye specifically.

Card Backs — Five Wagons

  • The Meat Wagon (Pentacles) — heavy dark wood, hooks visible, side of something in shadow, deep reds. The Instagram card.
  • The Vegetable Wagon (Wands) — lighter wagon, faded paint, baskets of onions, cabbages, root vegetables, herbs in bunches
  • The Fish Wagon (Swords) — ice melting, fish in rows, fishmonger with knife at belt, silvers and cool blues
  • The Bread & Wine Wagon (Cups) — warm bread visible, jugs of wine, cheese in cloth, soft warm tones
  • The Empty Wagon at the Crossroads (Majors) — wagon stopped, horse waiting, road forking, driver not yet visible

Your Discovered Tokens

Add prompt fragments that worked unexpectedly well. The warbook grows.