I have had multiple requests for this deck to be reviewed on my page, and I looked forward to this new deck-and-book set from Llewellyn's with anticipation.  However, I find it a bit lacking.  The artwork is good, and the underlying system which is defined in the accompanying book, but it just seems to fall short of the mark somehow.

A lot of the cards seem redundant in their imagery.  There are more pictures of faces in rocks and faces in trees and faces in streams than I can count.  Well, I could probably sit and count them, but I didn't bother.  A lot of the morphs don't seem to make much sense to what the meaning of the card is supposed to be.

Some of the cards, however, are quite intuitive, so I suspect for a lot of people, this would be a very good system.  Perhaps I just don't have an affinity for the new age shamanism thing.

There are some additional cards in the Major Arcana, and the rest of the trumps have been renamed to more appropriately fit the new system.  For example, the Fool is now Initiation, The Hierophant is now Knowledge, Death is Rebirth.  The new cards added are The Double, The Journey, The Dreamer, and Oneness.

The Minor Arcana place more emphasis on the element the suit corresponds to than the actual suit title, although both are present.  On each card there is a keyword at the bottom with the number, and the top of the card bears the suit name and the elemental correspondence.  Court cards have been renamed to become the Goddess, God, Warrior and Seeker of each respective element.

The deck is standard size and shuffles easily.  One thing I disliked is the color of the borders and card backs, which are a dark navy blue and seem in my opinion to kind of clash with the spectrum of soft colors used in the pictures.  I would have preferred to see them use a charcoal grey color instead, or a soft brown or green.  The blue is flat and cheap-looking, as well.

The other thing is something all of Llewellyn's deck-and-book sets have as a problem, which is that there is nothing to hold the cards in except the cardboard package insert which goes under the book in the box.  Since the books are always beautifully done works, I prefer to put them in my bookcase with my other books rather than leave them in their box, and then this leaves a problem as to what to hold the cards in.  The insert also does not have a bottom, just a hole, so often the bottom cards in the deck slide around under the insert and you have to fish them out.  In about a year when Llewellyn's begins marketing this deck as an individual item for sale, they will come in small boxes and I wish they would have the small boxes inside the sets now.

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Review Copyright 1998 by Gina M. Pace