Occult Killings and Tarot Cards ...

[Taren Nighteyes]

Good plot device, the Tarot Killer.

Perhaps a mage (or priest!) designed a set of Tarot cards (major arcana mind you) and needed to empower them with one final component - the soul of a being who represented the card. (e.g. fool)

What do the cards do once empowered? Do the PCs attempt to catch/kill a killer, only to discover a larger overall goal?

A court mage would have access to many different kinds of people, and knowledge of their personality to decide whether they "fit the card". He could even target one of the PCs towards the culmination of the adventure. Or he could be acting as a proxy for the king and hire the adventurers to solve the murders, or/and he could be an expert on Tarot cards and act as an advisor!


Anyhow, an idea at least.

Taren Nighteyes

 

[Angelsboi]

Since its Ravenloft ...

Maybe someone working for Azalin in Darkon or the Haz guy in Hazlan?

Or maybe the Vistani in Invidia?

The Tattoos can be the same size of the person who has the tattoo or smaller.

so ... lemme get this straight.

Perhaps a mage (or priest!) designed a set of Tarot cards (major arcana mind you) and needed to empower them with one final component - the soul of a being who represented the card. (e.g. fool)

Like this idea. But why? I am stumped with this.

What do the cards do once empowered? Do the PCs attempt to catch/kill a killer, only to discover a larger overall goal?

Maybe a perverted deck of many things? Maybe a summoners deck of cards he uses to summon things.

A court mage would have access to many different kinds of people, and knowledge of their personality to decide whether they "fit the card". He could even target one of the PCs towards the culmination of the adventure. Or he could be acting as a proxy for the king and hire the adventurers to solve the murders, or/and he could be an expert on Tarot cards and act as an advisor!

Neat idea. But id have to stretch this out. Its in Ravenloft.

 

[Mik]

Brainstorming off Pielorinho's idea; perhaps the people who are turning up dead were used by a being or group of great power to perform a truly immense reading. The group got its reading, but now needs to 'assemble the deck' once again to move to the next phase.

It is entirely possible that there were eight or nine (not a reader, so I don't know how many cards are involved in the more complex readings) unusual deaths on one night, all precipitated by the victims being unwitting representations of the major arcana. Lay them out on a map and you get a rough representation of the Great Circle or the Double Cross or *whatever* one of the more complex readings is laid out as.

The original human cards were killed by fate - their 'card' turned up on that night, so to speak. Some may have died in accidents, others in murders (a collapsed tower falls on one, a judge killed by an escaped prisoner out for revenge, etc). Each one has a small welt on their body that *resembles or symbolizes* the major arcana card they represent.

Now, however, the individual or group is rounding up the magical energies that were bonded to the human tarot cards' souls.

This could become more pressing to the PCs if some or all of them show welts representing a card... Empress for a druid, Magician or Heirophant for a mage, reversed Lovers for someone who has lost a loved one or is fueled by thoughts of revenge. If possible, tying it to the PCs personality or backstory may be more visceral than relying on class; such as a character who has been 'through the fire' representing the Temperance card.

[edit additions]

Going a little further with this - perhaps the tarot tattoos are invisible except to the others who bear one and the reader who cast them. If the tattoos are spirits or creatures that latch on to others, the death of the bearer counts as a 'turn' of that card. Once the cards are turned, the spirit returns to the reader.

I'm not familiar with Ravenloft, but this 'spirit deck' may be a way of not only getting a reading that is highly detailed and accurate, but of influencing the subsequent outcome.

Perhaps by personally dealing with certain cards that you would rather have had turn up for a favorable reading, the reader can replace unfavorable ones. If the Fool turned up in a bad location, gather up the spirit, find the human bearer of the Sun card, rip the original card from them, place the Fool on them. Presto-change-o, the reading now has the substitution, and the reading is altered.

[end edit]

Anyone want to run with or away from this?
=Mik

 

[Angelsboi]

not meaning to sound harsh but ill choose run away.

Im not too keen on a huge reading and 22 people, who dont know each other, suddenly start dropping dead like flies.

I prefer that someone 'knows' of these people or knows them personally and is using them for some ... unknown purpose.

Example. The Fool. The hamlet everyone is starting out in, has a burgomeister and his teenaged son. The burgomeister is corrupt but his son doesnt know whats going on and still at the very begiining of his life. Thus, innocent.

He is found dead, neck snapped, along with his white dog, Peatrie.

 

[Mik]

Not harsh at all - brainstorming is about sorting good ideas out of junk

Perhaps your killer has a deck that needs souls bound to it - ripped either from individuals who embody the face of the card or who perish in a manner reflecting the card.

Going back to the crazed alchemist idea and spiritual journey that Talaysen brought up along with Taren's post, perhaps your killer is attempting to attain a higher state of being, but isn't willing to go through the normal channels. Instead, he/she/it has discovered the deck. After each of the first 21 cards is completed, the souls used to power it will flow into the killer, lifting them to become The World; enlightnened, perhaps divine.

Fool: an innocent youth, as you mention
Magus, Magician, or Juggler: a troubadour, trickster, or gambler
Empress: a mother, or a death during childbirth
Emperor: a father figure

... and so on...

Once a victim is killed, their soul is ripped away, and the image on the face of the card is burned into their skin. The face of the card becomes a living image of their tortured soul... Your killer may or may not like to look at these during leisure time.

Alternatively, you may need to "mark" a victim by touching them with the card, leaving a painless mark on them somewhere out of sight. Once the marking is done, the killer leaves the area and a malevolent force or creature takes care of the stalking and killing.

The verses for the Pythagorean Tarot may offer some ideas, also.

 

[Angelsboi]

Maybe Hazlik or Azalin have hired this 'person' to 'research' the effects of Divinity in the Core.

And this person discovers that Azalin or Hazlik wants to leave Ravenloft and he figures that this is his only way out ... Maybe if he completes this he will get his own domain ...

Ideas?

 

[Florin]

I'm not real familiar with Ravenloft, but Ravenloft is designed to be very hard to get out of, right? Well, what if this spirit deck will give the bearer a way to escape Ravenloft? Or if by doing a reading with it, it'll tell him where/when/how to find an artifact of great power?

 

[ranix65]

This is sounding a bit like Red Dragon(that's a compliment) that whole book was about how the killer was using his killings to advance to a higher point of existence, to 'become' The Dragon. I like it, it sounds really cool.

 

[Pielorinho]

Another idea: what if the sage, trying to reach enlightenment, is himself being manipulated? Perhaps an earlier sage, seeking immortality, divided himself into the symbols of the major arcana, devising a ritual by which he could be recombined into a whole being. Due to some sort of mishap, the first sage's cards were squirreled away somewhere, and they've only now been found. The first sage has implanted a bit of his soul in each of the murder victims; at a given point, they'll come back as undead under his control and complete the ritual that will summon him back as an Ascended being. The second sage, who thinks he'll be the ascending one, is due for a shock.

Daniel

 

[Angelsboi]

well i kinda like my idea about the sage working for someone who wants out of Ravenloft (but who) and then trying to double cross the person who hired him to do this (what does a simple man have to gain from all of this)