Thanks! I got the charts for the Lensmaker from various sources online or from a clip art book I have. Plus I have a box of some very nice old-looking papers to print them on.
Goblin Moon / Hobgoblin Night Tarot
- Thread starter Teresa Edgerton
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- teresa edgerton
THE BANKRUPT
The figure here is Gottfried Jenk, approaching the dilapidated old building where he lives above his bookshop. Ever since his granddaughter left to live with the Vorders, he has been forced to run his own errands, even on such a bitter day as pictured here, though winter weather can be especially cruel to a man of his age and uncertain health.
But once Jenk had all the world before him. As a young man, the son of a wealthy Jarl, he lived in security and luxury, and as “a brilliant, bookish youth” the author of a series of “startling philosophic essays” his fame as a scholar was rapidly spreading throughout the capitals of Euterpe. But a hunger for even greater fame, along with an inheritance of occult books of dangerous provenance, took him down the wrong path and he ruined himself in an expensive, and ultimately failed, quest to compound the Stone Seramarias and the Elixir of Life. Yet it was not the pursuit itself that ruined him, but his own pride and the heedless and profligate way in which he threw himself into it—for the true alchemist knows that the art is one of self-discipline and self-knowledge, without which success will never be achieved and failure is inevitable.
After narrowly escaping debtors prison when a relative paid off Jenk’s most pressing debts and loaned him the money to open the bookshop, he lived for many years quietly and prudently, but as the story of Goblin Moon opens he is once again presented with temptation and in a particularly perilous form, and in ignoring the lessons of his past the cost of reckless behavior this time will far exceed the loss of money and reputation he suffered before.
This card symbolizes someone who has made dangerous or self-destructive mistakes in the past—and worse than that continues to make them, not having heeded the lessons they should have learned through hard experience. It is a card of obsession and reluctance to face facts when something they want very much appears to be offered, despite all warning signs that the prize is likely to cost them dearly. Most of all it is a card of one who refuses to see their own role in past disasters and continues to regard these as the result of bad luck, coincidence, etc. rather than acknowledging their own unrealistic expectations and lack of self knowledge as the common factor, a person who has been uncommonly good at rationalizing poor decisions. Depending on the other cards in the spread (especially those with related definitions) this could be unwise financial speculation, a gambling addiction, a pattern of abusive personal relationships, or any other area where the Querent or someone close to them has made the same disastrous mistakes more than once or twice.
This card may be taken as a warning that disaster is near, but since the danger is largely self-inflicted it is not too late to recognize the pattern which has brought this individual to grief before, and though strong inclination urges them to throw caution aside, there is yet time to recognize the warning signs, and either proceed more cautiously or not at all. Whether or not they will take the wiser path remains to be seen.
Reversed, the card indicates an individual who has finally come to terms with the mistakes of the past, and now stands on the brink of a better future. The hard work of acquiring self-knowledge and acknowledging their own role in past misfortunes is already done; all this is needed now is the strength of will to apply the lessons learned.
Copyright 2019 Teresa Edgerton
The figure here is Gottfried Jenk, approaching the dilapidated old building where he lives above his bookshop. Ever since his granddaughter left to live with the Vorders, he has been forced to run his own errands, even on such a bitter day as pictured here, though winter weather can be especially cruel to a man of his age and uncertain health.
But once Jenk had all the world before him. As a young man, the son of a wealthy Jarl, he lived in security and luxury, and as “a brilliant, bookish youth” the author of a series of “startling philosophic essays” his fame as a scholar was rapidly spreading throughout the capitals of Euterpe. But a hunger for even greater fame, along with an inheritance of occult books of dangerous provenance, took him down the wrong path and he ruined himself in an expensive, and ultimately failed, quest to compound the Stone Seramarias and the Elixir of Life. Yet it was not the pursuit itself that ruined him, but his own pride and the heedless and profligate way in which he threw himself into it—for the true alchemist knows that the art is one of self-discipline and self-knowledge, without which success will never be achieved and failure is inevitable.
After narrowly escaping debtors prison when a relative paid off Jenk’s most pressing debts and loaned him the money to open the bookshop, he lived for many years quietly and prudently, but as the story of Goblin Moon opens he is once again presented with temptation and in a particularly perilous form, and in ignoring the lessons of his past the cost of reckless behavior this time will far exceed the loss of money and reputation he suffered before.
This card symbolizes someone who has made dangerous or self-destructive mistakes in the past—and worse than that continues to make them, not having heeded the lessons they should have learned through hard experience. It is a card of obsession and reluctance to face facts when something they want very much appears to be offered, despite all warning signs that the prize is likely to cost them dearly. Most of all it is a card of one who refuses to see their own role in past disasters and continues to regard these as the result of bad luck, coincidence, etc. rather than acknowledging their own unrealistic expectations and lack of self knowledge as the common factor, a person who has been uncommonly good at rationalizing poor decisions. Depending on the other cards in the spread (especially those with related definitions) this could be unwise financial speculation, a gambling addiction, a pattern of abusive personal relationships, or any other area where the Querent or someone close to them has made the same disastrous mistakes more than once or twice.
This card may be taken as a warning that disaster is near, but since the danger is largely self-inflicted it is not too late to recognize the pattern which has brought this individual to grief before, and though strong inclination urges them to throw caution aside, there is yet time to recognize the warning signs, and either proceed more cautiously or not at all. Whether or not they will take the wiser path remains to be seen.
Reversed, the card indicates an individual who has finally come to terms with the mistakes of the past, and now stands on the brink of a better future. The hard work of acquiring self-knowledge and acknowledging their own role in past misfortunes is already done; all this is needed now is the strength of will to apply the lessons learned.
Copyright 2019 Teresa Edgerton
REVENGE
The gentleman with the swords is Francis, Lord Skelbrooke. He is known in Thornburg as a man of fashion, an Imbrian nobleman of gentle manner and exquisite courtesy, a poet who writes and publishes odes to his muse the Goddess of Hermeticism. As Sera Vorder puts it (not altogether meaning it) “Lord Skelbrooke is a poet … and what is more he is a visionary. To be one or the other is to be no more foolish than most young men, but the combination is one that any rational being must find intolerable.” But unknown to Sera and the rest of fashionable society, Skelbrooke has a harder, darker, and more lethal side.
After a series of catastrophic events some years earlier, involving black magic and the murder of several children, which nearly cost him his health and sanity, he emerged as man with one obsessive goal in life. Now he devotes himself to the pursuit of those who practice dark arts and corrupt innocence, and to bringing to justice those whom the law cannot touch. In order to do so, he makes use of a number of disguises and secret identities, but the price has been high, as sometimes the roles he plays threaten to take over and obliterate his true self. Worse, he is in peril of becoming as ruthless and lawless as those he hunts.
This card symbolizes the tipping point where an honest pursuit of justice for oneself or others is perilously close to being overwhelmed by the desire for revenge against those who have denied it. It is dangerous to confuse the two motives, especially in the heat of conflict. Beware of self-justifications like “the end justifies the means.” Those who adopt the tactics they deplore in those who stand against them can too easily become the very thing they condemn, perpetuating in their own persons practices they have labored to put an end to in others.
Whether this involves work, politics, domestic strife, or something else entirely, the Querent faces a difficult moral and/or ethical choice. It may seem like it will be possible to draw back and henceforth live up to one’s higher principles once this one goal is reached by whatever means necessary, but this card indicates that impatience to win a swift victory threatens to involve the Querent in a commitment to a path he or she would never truly wish to take, pressing them to take decisions later which would horrify them now.
The time to draw back is NOW, to choose principle over expediency, for it will only get harder and harder to do so as time passes and consequences accumulate.
On a more personal level, this card warns against being consumed by a role which is not true to oneself on the deepest level.
Reversed, the Querent has just drawn him- or herself back from an ethical quagmire, apparently at some sacrifice. However, whatever the immediate cost, that choice will prove in the long run to be the right one.
Copyright 2019 Teresa Edgerton
The gentleman with the swords is Francis, Lord Skelbrooke. He is known in Thornburg as a man of fashion, an Imbrian nobleman of gentle manner and exquisite courtesy, a poet who writes and publishes odes to his muse the Goddess of Hermeticism. As Sera Vorder puts it (not altogether meaning it) “Lord Skelbrooke is a poet … and what is more he is a visionary. To be one or the other is to be no more foolish than most young men, but the combination is one that any rational being must find intolerable.” But unknown to Sera and the rest of fashionable society, Skelbrooke has a harder, darker, and more lethal side.
After a series of catastrophic events some years earlier, involving black magic and the murder of several children, which nearly cost him his health and sanity, he emerged as man with one obsessive goal in life. Now he devotes himself to the pursuit of those who practice dark arts and corrupt innocence, and to bringing to justice those whom the law cannot touch. In order to do so, he makes use of a number of disguises and secret identities, but the price has been high, as sometimes the roles he plays threaten to take over and obliterate his true self. Worse, he is in peril of becoming as ruthless and lawless as those he hunts.
This card symbolizes the tipping point where an honest pursuit of justice for oneself or others is perilously close to being overwhelmed by the desire for revenge against those who have denied it. It is dangerous to confuse the two motives, especially in the heat of conflict. Beware of self-justifications like “the end justifies the means.” Those who adopt the tactics they deplore in those who stand against them can too easily become the very thing they condemn, perpetuating in their own persons practices they have labored to put an end to in others.
Whether this involves work, politics, domestic strife, or something else entirely, the Querent faces a difficult moral and/or ethical choice. It may seem like it will be possible to draw back and henceforth live up to one’s higher principles once this one goal is reached by whatever means necessary, but this card indicates that impatience to win a swift victory threatens to involve the Querent in a commitment to a path he or she would never truly wish to take, pressing them to take decisions later which would horrify them now.
The time to draw back is NOW, to choose principle over expediency, for it will only get harder and harder to do so as time passes and consequences accumulate.
On a more personal level, this card warns against being consumed by a role which is not true to oneself on the deepest level.
Reversed, the Querent has just drawn him- or herself back from an ethical quagmire, apparently at some sacrifice. However, whatever the immediate cost, that choice will prove in the long run to be the right one.
Copyright 2019 Teresa Edgerton
One new card this week.
THE SECRET ORDER
The figures represented here are initiates of The Knights of Mezztopholeez, a secret brotherhood established in Thornburg and active during the events of Goblin Moon. They were rich men, and powerful—believing themselves secure from prosecution even should they be discovered—who emulated ancient fertility rituals (or their own inventions meant to resemble them) of the bloodiest kind, in order to alleviate the tedium of their privileged lives and in the hope of increasing their worldly power.
They had “a lurid history of black magic and bloodshed—a history far more terrible than the people of Thornburg guessed, because the Chief Constable and his immediate predecessors, partly to prevent a panic, partly to prevent a public outcry against their own inability to unmask the Knights and bring them to justice, had veiled their deeds in a dark shroud of secrecy. Yet word leaked out, and rumors about these nobly born rascals and their activities were rife.” Dressed in elaborate robes, masks, and the great wigs of the previous century they performed their rites. “So secret was the brotherhood that members never met but when they were masked, and each man's identity (at least in theory) was known only to three others: the Grand Master and his two original sponsors. Each new member was recruited by abduction, led hoodwinked into the altar chamber, and offered the choice: join or die. Most joined, for the brotherhood chose its initiates carefully.”
Should this card appear in a spread do not panic, for it is highly unlikely that it portends anything nearly so dramatic and dangerous. It does, however, contain a warning. The Querent, or someone very close to them, is being courted—as yet only with hints and insinuations—by an exclusive and secretive group: a clique, a quasi-professional or political organization, a club, religious cult, or any other collective which considers itself elite and above the rules that others must follow.
The Querent, or the individual being approached, should consider well what the secrecy surrounding this group is meant to hide, distance him- or herself as much as possible, and not allow things to reach the point where membership is actually offered—for to get that close and then retreat would create resentment and perhaps retaliation, yet to be brought into the group would ultimately be a source of great regret.
Indeed this card warns against all actions which must be disguised, or associations which require a high degree of secrecy. If it appears in the same spread as the Revenge card, the message is re-enforced. Honesty, hard work, and adherence to principle are the way ahead; this is no time to be tempted by glittering promises.
Reversed, this card suggests an invitation is coming from a genuinely charitable or socially-responsible organization, whose members share the Querent’s own goals. To join or not will be entirely the Querent’s choice, but they can trust that no ill-consequences will result from either alternative. However, to join may prove to be the better choice.
Copyright 2019 Teresa Edgerton
THE SECRET ORDER
The figures represented here are initiates of The Knights of Mezztopholeez, a secret brotherhood established in Thornburg and active during the events of Goblin Moon. They were rich men, and powerful—believing themselves secure from prosecution even should they be discovered—who emulated ancient fertility rituals (or their own inventions meant to resemble them) of the bloodiest kind, in order to alleviate the tedium of their privileged lives and in the hope of increasing their worldly power.
They had “a lurid history of black magic and bloodshed—a history far more terrible than the people of Thornburg guessed, because the Chief Constable and his immediate predecessors, partly to prevent a panic, partly to prevent a public outcry against their own inability to unmask the Knights and bring them to justice, had veiled their deeds in a dark shroud of secrecy. Yet word leaked out, and rumors about these nobly born rascals and their activities were rife.” Dressed in elaborate robes, masks, and the great wigs of the previous century they performed their rites. “So secret was the brotherhood that members never met but when they were masked, and each man's identity (at least in theory) was known only to three others: the Grand Master and his two original sponsors. Each new member was recruited by abduction, led hoodwinked into the altar chamber, and offered the choice: join or die. Most joined, for the brotherhood chose its initiates carefully.”
Should this card appear in a spread do not panic, for it is highly unlikely that it portends anything nearly so dramatic and dangerous. It does, however, contain a warning. The Querent, or someone very close to them, is being courted—as yet only with hints and insinuations—by an exclusive and secretive group: a clique, a quasi-professional or political organization, a club, religious cult, or any other collective which considers itself elite and above the rules that others must follow.
The Querent, or the individual being approached, should consider well what the secrecy surrounding this group is meant to hide, distance him- or herself as much as possible, and not allow things to reach the point where membership is actually offered—for to get that close and then retreat would create resentment and perhaps retaliation, yet to be brought into the group would ultimately be a source of great regret.
Indeed this card warns against all actions which must be disguised, or associations which require a high degree of secrecy. If it appears in the same spread as the Revenge card, the message is re-enforced. Honesty, hard work, and adherence to principle are the way ahead; this is no time to be tempted by glittering promises.
Reversed, this card suggests an invitation is coming from a genuinely charitable or socially-responsible organization, whose members share the Querent’s own goals. To join or not will be entirely the Querent’s choice, but they can trust that no ill-consequences will result from either alternative. However, to join may prove to be the better choice.
Copyright 2019 Teresa Edgerton
And after more than a month with no new cards produced, today I have four.
COURT CARDS GLASS—KING, QUEEN, PRINCE, PRINCESS
Glass is brittle and can be easily shattered, but it does not rust and it does not weather—minus a sharp blow or a fall, it can endure for centuries, its beauty unmarred. Those who identify with this suit may appear fragile, but they have hidden stores of endurance. They are sensitive and sometimes a bit otherworldly, but nevertheless are very much alive to the currents and undercurrents of this world, too.
Glass is a material of special significance to our story, from the vessels of the alchemist, to the potion bottles of the apothecary, to the Guild of the Glassmakers itself.
In the world of Goblin Moon, the Glassmaker’s Guild originated among the craftsmen who created the beautiful stained glass windows in the churches and great cathedrals built in centuries past, and from the first their work was immersed in the symbolism of the windows and the more esoteric rituals of religion. (Thus, each court card includes a stained glass window.) They were craftsmen, but they were also mystics and sometimes white magicians. Later, as the organization expanded to include glassworkers of all kinds, the Guild was divided into two parts: that part devoted solely to the various crafts, and the speculative branch which became increasingly intellectual and mystical, preserving ancient knowledge and ceremonies. Those who shared these interests, many not affiliated with the trade at all—began to sue for admittance to the speculative branch, and those found worthy were admitted. Among the craftsmen, even the most humble bottle maker or mirror glazier might be admitted to these mysteries, if found of worthy character and superior understanding.
Since glassmaking is a craft of special appeal to the wichtel, dwarves and gnomes have long taken their place in both branches of the guild, and often rise to high positions within it, as for instance Mr. Owlfeather (purveyor of fine glass and ceramics), Master Ule (bottlemaker), and Mr. Jonas (lenses and scientific instruments). Outwardly, the Guild is best known for philanthropy and public-spirited works, but those who enter the speculative branch swear oaths the substance of which would astound the public if they but knew.
Thus, those identified with the court cards of this suit incline to the mystical, religious, and/or intellectual side of life. Many are admired for their brilliance, though some are so reclusive and inward-thinking the fullness of their gifts may be known only to their intimates. Those who achieve wealth spend great sums in philanthropy; those who don’t may serve the public good in other ways.
Copyright 2019 Teresa Edgerton
COURT CARDS GLASS—KING, QUEEN, PRINCE, PRINCESS
Glass is brittle and can be easily shattered, but it does not rust and it does not weather—minus a sharp blow or a fall, it can endure for centuries, its beauty unmarred. Those who identify with this suit may appear fragile, but they have hidden stores of endurance. They are sensitive and sometimes a bit otherworldly, but nevertheless are very much alive to the currents and undercurrents of this world, too.
Glass is a material of special significance to our story, from the vessels of the alchemist, to the potion bottles of the apothecary, to the Guild of the Glassmakers itself.
In the world of Goblin Moon, the Glassmaker’s Guild originated among the craftsmen who created the beautiful stained glass windows in the churches and great cathedrals built in centuries past, and from the first their work was immersed in the symbolism of the windows and the more esoteric rituals of religion. (Thus, each court card includes a stained glass window.) They were craftsmen, but they were also mystics and sometimes white magicians. Later, as the organization expanded to include glassworkers of all kinds, the Guild was divided into two parts: that part devoted solely to the various crafts, and the speculative branch which became increasingly intellectual and mystical, preserving ancient knowledge and ceremonies. Those who shared these interests, many not affiliated with the trade at all—began to sue for admittance to the speculative branch, and those found worthy were admitted. Among the craftsmen, even the most humble bottle maker or mirror glazier might be admitted to these mysteries, if found of worthy character and superior understanding.
Since glassmaking is a craft of special appeal to the wichtel, dwarves and gnomes have long taken their place in both branches of the guild, and often rise to high positions within it, as for instance Mr. Owlfeather (purveyor of fine glass and ceramics), Master Ule (bottlemaker), and Mr. Jonas (lenses and scientific instruments). Outwardly, the Guild is best known for philanthropy and public-spirited works, but those who enter the speculative branch swear oaths the substance of which would astound the public if they but knew.
Thus, those identified with the court cards of this suit incline to the mystical, religious, and/or intellectual side of life. Many are admired for their brilliance, though some are so reclusive and inward-thinking the fullness of their gifts may be known only to their intimates. Those who achieve wealth spend great sums in philanthropy; those who don’t may serve the public good in other ways.
Copyright 2019 Teresa Edgerton
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