The Deck of Dragons are, in a manner of speaking, this world's version of tarot cards - they are used in fortune-telling, divination etc. Each card refers to an Ascendant or God, and is aspected in some way (Life, Death, Dark, Shadow, etc). The cards change depending on who is in ascension, events across the world and so on. A reading is carried out for a number of reasons, by a number of people - those with the real talent to read the cards are few and far between, usually sorcerers or priests. A wealthy merchant might do it to see how the impending siege will affect his trade, or a traveller might want an intimation of what events he may encounter in his journey.
Does that help?
If you look here it might give you a bit of an idea.
Bear in mind, some of the ascendants in this list you either don't or shouldn't know about! But just to give you an idea of how it works...sort of...
Just wanna say guys, I'm sorry I seem to be taking ages to post - the past few weeks have been a bit manic for me but I'm doing my best to at least post something significant once a week!
Weekends are busy for me too, only a few hours in front a computer during the evenings. But I do something find time for quick OOC posts from my mobile phone.