I don't know about the bulk of this site's readers, or Tarot fanciers for that matter, but I have been a fan of the weird imagery and storytelling of H.P. Lovecraft for a goodly part of my life.

Decks have been done on literary themes before (the Lord of the Rings and Alice in Wonderland decks spring to mind), but I honestly never expected to see a Lovecraft deck until now.

This is a full 78-card deck, with Major and Minor Arcana revamped to fit the Mythos. The four Minor Arcana suits are now Artifacts (Wands-- now items that could affect a person), Sites (Pentacles-- strange places), Tomes (Swords-- books of probably dangerous knowledge) and Man (Cups-- people important to Lovecraft stories). The Major Arcana are completely reordered (the first card, Nodens, is supposed to represent The Sun), and the correspondence between Lovecraftian entities and traditional Tarot symbolism is often lost on me (Shoggoths for The Lovers?!). The cards do not have reversed meanings.
 
Happily, there is a booklet that tries to explain all this, and even gives a layout-- a sort of modified Celtic Cross that can only be described as a Pentagram. Actually, while the card meanings often deviate wildly from traditional Tarot meanings, they do fit rather nicely with the image of the card as brought up in Lovecraft's stories; for instance, the Site card of The Whateley Farmhouse is described as a 'place of rebirth'... which, for those of you who've read _The Dunwich Horror_ is not  completely out of line.

Now on to the cards themselves. They're really *huge*, measuring 4-1/4" x 5-1/2", and would be quite difficult for many people to riffle-shuffle. The stock is quite thin, and perhaps prone to creasing (I have a promotional card from the shop I bought the cards from, and it did get stepped on or something, resulting in a nasty crease). The coating is also very odd,  glossy-feeling on the face of the cards but almost grainy on the backs; sometimes I think the fronts will get scratched when the cards are stacked.

The artwork is all done in shades of deep blue-green, with the letters in a slightly darker color of same on the border (sometimes a bit tricky to read). Hutchinson's artwork shows a remarkable range of styles, from photorealistic (The Shining Trapezohedron), to Giger-like (The Shoggoth), to even something sort of whimisical (Erich Zann).

As a deck to read from... I don't know; I'm not sure if it would be enlightening to those who do personal readings, and any clients who know even a little about Lovecraft would probably be put off! For collectors, especially fans of Lovecraft, I recommend it highly just for the strength of the art.

Ten of the cards can be previewed at D.L. Hutchinson's own site, which may be easier than trying to make sure there's room here on Wicce's site for good scans of these cards!
 
Lovecraft Tarot by by David Wynn and D.L. Hutchinson
Guest review by Brandi Weed, copyright 1999; used with permission