This custom deck of cards is inspired by Hanafuda cards and browsing the wikipedia page on astrological signs (mostly because I thought the symbols looked cool).
Like the poorly named "fantasy deck" this was mostly made for worldbuilding purposes, and I also have not used it at all.
Unlike that other deck, I'm putting this one on its own page because it can use some big tables to explain it. It's not designed to be simple to explain.
The deck is made of 12 suits of 4 cards each. Each suit represent one of the 12 western astrological signs: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.
Each suit has a corresponding season (Spring (warm/minor), Summer (warm/major), Autumn (cold/minor), or Winter (cold/major)), modality (Cardinal (offensive), Fixed (defensive), or Mutable (flexible)), and element (Fire, Earth, Air, or Water).
There are 4 types of cards: Scraps (or Blanks), Ribbons, Animals, and Numbers.
Every suit has 2 Scraps (except Virgo who has 3). They are essentialy the low ranked cards that represent nothing, like the ones in Hanafuda.
There are 10 Ribbons that come in 3 types: red, blue, and inscribed. Like in Hanafuda, there are 4 red, 3 blue, and 3 inscribed.
Animals represent an animal. There are 7 of them: Ram, Bull, Crab, Lion, Scorpion, Goat, and Fish. These could probably be swapped out for fantasy beasts if I ever get to it.
There are 6 numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. That's 0, 1, and the 1-digit prime numbers. I wanted to fill a hole in the non-scraps, like the Hikaris in Hanafuda, and that's the best I had.
Here how the various characteristics and cards are split among the suits.
| Sign | Season | Modality | Element | Scraps | Ribbon | Animal | Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aries ♈︎ | Spring | Cardinal | Fire | 2 | Inscribed | Ram | |
| Taurus ♉︎ | Spring | Fixed | Earth | 2 | Red | Bull | |
| Gemini ♊︎ | Spring | Mutable | Air | 2 | Red | 0 | |
| Cancer ♋︎ | Summer | Cardinal | Water | 2 | Blue | Crab | |
| Leo ♌︎ | Summer | Fixed | Fire | 2 | Red | Lion | |
| Virgo ♍︎ | Summer | Mutable | Earth | 3 | 1 | ||
| Libra ♎︎ | Autumn | Cardinal | Air | 2 | Blue | 2 | |
| Scorpio ♏︎ | Autumn | Fixed | Water | 2 | Blue | Scorpion | |
| Sagittarius ♐︎ | Autumn | Mutable | Fire | 2 | Red | 3 | |
| Capricorn ♑︎ | Winter | Cardinal | Earth | 2 | Goat | 5 | |
| Aquarius ♒︎ | Winter | Fixed | Air | 2 | Inscribed | 7 | |
| Pisces ♓︎ | Winter | Mutable | Water | 2 | Inscribed | Fish |
Beside because I thought the Hanafuda cards and the astrology symbols are cool, my main goal for that worldbuilding deck was for it to be esoteric and unintuitive.
The kind of deck you could not understand at first glance and that you don't really have a better way of remembering everything than just learning everything by heart.
It was meant to be the playing cards of some wizard town/society. The snobby elitist kind that would belittle you for not knowing exactly the content of the deck and tell you "even a toddler can do it".
And that would dismiss any critiscism you have because you "clearly aren't civilized enough" to "understand why their deck is the peak of everything" and that "that silly deck the peasants are playing with" is "worthless garbage" and "an insult to common sense".
Not very pleasent people, just writing that out makes me want to punch one in the face I'll admit. But I hope you see how that would fit with this deck (or at least its idea) and would reinforce the idea of their shitty attitude.
The other related idea would have been one wizard girl who love playing card games (including the "peasant" ones, she's not a stuck-up elitist snob), who struggles using the "simple" playing cards but is flawless at playing anything with this astromancy deck.
She has a non-wizard friend who also loves playing card games and is one of the few non-wizards to be good enough at playing with those cards (cause she wants to play with her friend).
I don't really know if I was going anywhere with that second idea when I thought about it. Could probably attach it to some thematic if this was actually part of a story. But as is, I haven't really thought more about it than what is written here.