22 Cards:
0 THE FOOL: TAKE CARE
EPIGRAPH: Dune:1 - p3:
BOON {GM KEY EVENT to PC in this event}
A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life of Muad'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Muad'Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place. --from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan.
RATIONALE: The epigraph gives us several admonishments to “take care” and to not be deceived. The Fool of tarot does not know how to take care, he is the essence of carelessness, folly, recklessness, and madness. It also gives us the setting of the desert. The epigraph opens with “A beginning”; an appropriate start for the first card, and for the Fool beginning his journey.
DRAWBACK {GM KEY EVENT to PC in this event}
IMAGE: A foolish, careless, and untested youth (possibly Siona) wanders out into the open desert without proper protection; face mask open and no head covering. They carry an open survival pack (Fremkit), but pay no heed to a wise jumping mouse nor to the dangers (a giant worm) breaching in the distance.
I THE MAGICIAN/JUGGLER: COMPANION-TEACHER
EPIGRAPH: Dune:4 - p28:
BOON {+2 to Kn Arcana { Mystic} until next event}
You have read that Muad'Dib had no playmates his own age on Caladan. The dangers were too great. But Muad'Dib did have wonderful companion-teachers. There was Gurney Halleck, the troubadour-warrior. You will sing some of Gurney's songs as you read along in this book. There was Thufir Hawat, the old Mentat Master of Assassins, who struck fear even into the heart of the Padishah Emperor. There were Duncan Idaho, the Swordmaster of the Ginaz; Dr. Wellington Yueh, a name black in treachery but bright in knowledge; the Lady Jessica, who guided her son in the Bene Gesserit Way, and--of course--the Duke Leto, whose qualities as a father have long been overlooked. --from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan.
RATIONALE: This epigraph lists several companion-teachers, but first and foremost is Gurney Halleck. The Magician card in tarot can represent a teacher, mentor, or skilled professional. And in older tarot traditions, the card was called “The Juggler”, a lowly slight-of-hand street performer. Gurney is a teacher, but also a skilled tactician, as well as a troubadour performer. He is introduced in the first book by dumping weapons onto a practice table not unlike the table seen on The Magician/Juggler card. The flower represents his dead sister.
DRAWBACK {-2 to Kn Arcana { Mystic} until next event}
IMAGE: The valorous Warmaster (Gurney) juggles his duties as court troubadour, trusted advisor, teacher, and companion. He plays his nine-string zithra over a table of implements representing the four minor suits and the four major factions. A daisy blooms below.
II THE POPESS/HIGH PRIESTESS: THE LADY/WISDOM
EPIGRAPH: Dune:7 - p47:
BOON {+2 to Kn religion until next event}
With the Lady Jessica and Arrakis, the Bene Gesserit system of sowing implant-legends through the Missionaria Protectiva came to its full fruition. The wisdom of seeding the known universe with a prophecy pattern for the protection of B.G. personnel has long been appreciated, but never have we seen a condition-ut-extremis with more ideal mating of person and preparation. The prophetic legends had taken on Arrakis even to the extent of adopted labels (including Reverend Mother, canto and respondu, and most of the Shari-a panoplia propheticus). And it is generally accepted now that the Lady Jessica's latent abilities were grossly underestimated. --from "Analysis: The Arrakeen Crisis" by the Princess Irulan [private circulation: B.G. file number AR-81088587]
RATIONALE: The card of the Popess or High Priestess represents Occult science and wisdom, secrecy and hidden motives, patience, fidelity, and purity: the spiritual Mother or Bride. No character in Dune fits this image better than the Lady Jessica, who is both mother of Paul and Alia, but also the spiritual mother of his Empire. As the highest Fremen Reverend Mother, she is truly a spiritual leader and holder of great mysteries. The epigraph concludes that she has been underestimated and is more powerful than anyone had previously imagined.
DRAWBACK {-2 to Kn religion until next event}
IMAGE: The Mother Goddess (Jessica) sits upon an ovoid pillar base surrounded by sand. She wears the black veils of a desert priestess and holds a water bag in her lap, covering her belly. Two motes swirl on the bag. She wears no jewelry, only a three-tiered tiara over her bronze hair, representing her station. Behind her, contrasting colored columns shaped like female faces recede into the past.
III THE EMPRESS: PRINCESS-DAUGHTER
EPIGRAPH: Dune:15 - p105:
BOON {+2 to Diplomacy rolls until next event}
My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand one day and I sensed in the ways my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides. I marked the strong resemblance between them--my father and this man in the portrait--both with thin, elegant faces and sharp features dominated by cold eyes. "Princess-daughter," my father said, "I would that you'd been older when it came time for this man to choose a woman." My father was 71 at the time and looking no older than the man in the portrait, and I was but 14, yet I remember deducing in that instant that my father secretly wished the Duke had been his son, and disliked the political necessities that made them enemies. --"In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan.
RATIONALE: The Empress card is creativity, seduction, desire, expression, youthful beauty, action, and marriage. She represents the physical and the exoteric compared to the Popess's spiritual and esoteric nature. She can also represent clandestine actions and a feminine violence, a character who knows what she wants and takes action to get it. Some interpretations note that while she is seductive, she has no children of her own. Putting this all together, there is no better character in Dune than the wife of the Emperor Paul herself, Princess Irulan. The author of Paul's history books, but also a conspirator in his downfall, she is both creative and dangerous. The epigraph describes a young lady who other people attempted to craft a future for, but who ultimately carved her own path.
DRAWBACK {+2 to Diplomacy rolls until next event}
IMAGE: A beautiful but haughty figure, the Princess and wife of the Prophet (Irulan) sits upon a crystal throne in blue finery within a palace. A blue hat rests on lovely blonde locks. She writes in a book displaying the (hawk) sigil with a stylus like a great Scepter.
IIII THE EMPEROR: THE DUKE
EPIGRAPH: Dune:11 - p77:
BOON {+2 to Kn Nobility until next event}
It is said that the Duke Leto blinded himself to the perils of Arrakis, that he walked heedlessly into the pit. Would it not be more likely to suggest he had lived so long in the presence of extreme danger he misjudged a change in its intensity? Or is it possible he deliberately sacrificed himself that his son might find a better life? All evidence indicates the Duke was a man not easily hoodwinked. --from "Muad'Dib: Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: The Emperor is the divine Father figure and master of Will. He is stoic, protective, authoritative, just, noble, unyielding and logical. The epigraph describes a man who is neither a coward, nor a fool who has made the ultimate sacrifice for his family. The Duke Leto's famous phrase, "Here I am and here I remain" really sums up the card.
DRAWBACK {-2 to Kn Nobility until next event}
IMAGE: The just, noble, stoic and brave Patriarch (Leto) broods on his stone throne pondering the probabilities of success. This popular man wears a sheathed sword, and beside him lay a discarded shield displaying his (hawk) sigil.
V THE POPE/HIEROPHANT: THE LEARNED
EPIGRAPH: Dune:9 - p65:
BOON {+2 to Kn Local until next event}
Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. --from "The Humanity of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan.
RATIONALE: The Pope is Religion compared to the Popess who is Spirituality. He represents the merger of Religion and Law. He is Righteousness and Salvation. He is considered the greatest Teacher of the cards... the Magician is a teacher, but the Pope is the Teacher. While the epigraph describes a young Paul as an avid learner, we can derive from this that the greatest teacher must by necessity also be the greatest learner.
DRAWBACK {-2 to Kn Local until next event}
IMAGE: The Prophet (Paul Muad’dib) stretches atop an emerald throne on a stepped-pyramid dias. He wears the golden robes and multi-tiered crown of his station, while making a sign of peaceable blessing with blue hands. Two sacred palms flank him as supplicants petition from below.
VI THE LOVERS/TWO PATHS: ABIDING LOVE
EPIGRAPH: Dune:6 - p41:
BOON {+2 to Sence motive rolls until next event}
How do we approach the study of Muad'Dib's father? A man of surpassing warmth and surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there--a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father? --from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: The Lovers card obviously deals with issues of love, romance, union, the trials of love, and marriage. But in some systems it is called "The Two Paths" representing choices, temptation, discipline, and careful decisions. The epigraph describes a man torn between Duty and Family, capable of both warmth and coldness. For this card I decided to illustrate the Duke as dutiful Joseph in a nativity scene with Madonna and child.
DRAWBACK {-2 to Sence motive rolls until next event}
IMAGE: An intimate scene of the Holy Family embracing one another with the surpassing warmth of abiding love. Under the watch of winged Destiny- who aims his bow at the infant child bound for Glory, the father is cloaked in the stark uniform of Duty, the mother in an opulent dress of Passion.
VII THE CHARIOT: THE WAY
EPIGRAPH: Dune:13 - p97:
BOON {+2 on Survival checks to know direction until next event}
On that first day when Muad'Dib rode through the streets of Arrakeen with his family, some of the people along the way recalled the legends and the prophecy and they ventured to shout: "Mahdi!" But their shout was more a question than a statement, for as yet they could only hope he was the one foretold as the Lisan al-Gaib, the Voice from the Outer World. Their attention was focused, too, on the mother, because they had heard she was a Bene Gesserit and it was obvious to them that she was like the other Lisan al-Gaib. --from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: The image of Paul in the parade in Arrakeen clearly evokes the image of The Chariot in a victory parade. Leto and Jessica represent Politics and Religion as in the quote:
DRAWBACK {-2 on Survival checks to know direction until next event}
When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.
IMAGE: The triumphal Holy Family ride headlong through dusty streets astride a racing groundcar. The father wrapped in white diplomatic attire, and the mother in sanctified black veils both steer, while the young master in his grandfather’s armor waves just as the fluttering familial pennants of Victory along the way.
VIII JUSTICE/BALANCE: PRICE OF VIOLENCE
EPIGRAPH: Dune:17 - p146:
BOON {+2 on Acrobatics checks until next event}
"There is no escape–we pay for the violence of our ancestors." --from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan.
RATIONALE: The tarot card depicts Justice as the victory of Law over chaos. The sword she holds is Reason cutting through nonsense or poor arguments, or the cutting away of the unnecessary. Unlike some images of Justice, she is not blindfolded, but staring at us in challenge. In some traditions this card is known as "The Balance" representing equilibrium, moderation, and action and reaction.
DRAWBACK {-2 on Acrobatics checks until next event}
The epigraph alludes to the idea of ancestral fault, or generational sin, "the sins of the father revisited upon the sons"... a major theme of Dune. It is most obviously present in the Curse of the House of Atreus, aka the Atreides Curse, but also in the feud between Atreides and Harkonnen, as well as the idea of Abomination, and in the folly that is the Kwisatz Haderach breeding program. The idea of ancestral sin is a kind of karmic justice. I have chosen the moment when Reverend Mother Giaus Helen Mohiam administers the Gom Jabbar test to Paul to represent these ideas for two reasons: Most obviously because she represents the idea of judgement: filtering between logical humans and violent animals with finality. But also because this moment is the fulcrum point, the tipping point where the the Price of all of these ancestral sins: the Atreides curse, the Atreides/Harkonnen feud, the Kwisatz Haderach breeding program, are all about to come to fruition.
IMAGE: Her Reverence– that ancient crone, that ancient fount of wisdom, (Reverend Mother Mohiam) ensconced in robes of black spider’s lace, the unadorned square upon her mantle, brandishes her implements of Justice and Brutal Necessity– the high-handed poisoned Needle and the Box of Pain.
VIIII THE HERMIT/TIME: ENLIGHTENMENT
EPIGRAPH: Dune:14 - p102:
BOON {+2 Survival checks until next event}
"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh." --from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan.
RATIONALE: The epigraph discusses the kind of wisdom or enlightenment gained by the knowledge of Mortality. The Hermit card can hold either the lamp of enlightenment, or the hourglass of Father Time, a symbol of mortality, a reminder that all things must die. While the epigraph specifically refers to Paul and his father the Duke Leto, we can also extend it to Chani and her father Liet. The Hermit card is also sometimes said to represent treason, corruption, or deception... traits that also apply to Leit Kynes. Some versions of the card show a serpent at his feet, which I have replaced with a sandtrout... foreshadowing his death.
DRAWBACK {-2 Survival checks until next event}
IMAGE: One of the brotherhood of the learned, the self-reliant Scientist (Kynes) steps timorously over white sands in long robes. He is armed with the blades of his two masters, Prudence and Truth. Like an ancient genius, he holds aloft a great seed and carries the pole and ring, implements of his planteological pilgrimage. A glowing light hovers above his sandy head enlightening the path, whilst a thirsty creature (sandtrout) emerges from the sand near his feet.
X THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE: TO REPEAT
EPIGRAPH: Dune:12 - p82:
BOON {+10’ to range Attacks until next event}
Over the exit of the Arrakeen landing field, crudely carved as though with a poor instrument, there was an inscription that Muad'Dib was to repeat many times. He saw it that first night on Arrakis, having been brought to the ducal command post to participate in his father's first full staff conference. The words of the inscription were a plea to those leaving Arrakis, but they fell with dark import on the eyes of a boy who had just escaped a close brush with death. They said: "O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers." --from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan.
RATIONALE: The image on tarot cards is the Wheel of "Fortuna", the Roman goddess. It is both the wheel of the Zodiac (and thus the fortunes the signs represent) and a wheel that she spins as a kind of game of chance with people’s lives. Cosmic roulette. The wheel can bring the mighty down low, and the meek up high. It is a reminder that even kings and emperors fall. The Dune epigraph reminds us that the wealth of the Empire is built upon ignoring the suffering of those who maintain that wealth. That inscription from the landing field exit is a counterpoint to the favorite maxim of the Faufreluches; “Business makes progress. Fortune passes everywhere!” As we have already established… fortune can be both wealth and ruin. Both the epigraph and the image of the Wheel of Fortune remind me of the Buddhist/Hindu concept of the Wheel of Samsara… the endless cycle of existence, suffering, karma and reincarnation. In that case, the goal of Enlightenment is to break the cycle of Samsara.
DRAWBACK {-10’ to range Attacks until next event}
IMAGE: An inscription in the semi-circular exitway of a dusty landing-field reminds us of how Fortunes can change– a thing written in salt. To one side a rabbit cowers and digs, to the other a desert fox leaps, both trapped in the endless cycle of Fate. An aircraft like a winged scarab rises over the arch, and the jets cast its shadow onto the ground completing the circle, even as it attempts to escape the cycle.
XI STRENGTH/FORCE: TIME OF TRIAL
EPIGRAPH: Dune:10 - p69:
BOON {+2 DMG to Unarmed Attacks until next event}
What had the Lady Jessica to sustain her in her time of trial? Think you carefully on this Bene Gesserit proverb and perhaps you will see: "Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain." --from "Muad'Dib: Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan.
RATIONALE: This epigraph describes the qualities of Fortitude and Perseverance, both types of Strength commonly associated with this tarot card. It also describes a mountain like the one which appears in the distance of the Waite Rider Smith Strength card. The ultimate Trial of Jessica is obviously the spice ordeal. And the Sayyadina drowning the stunted worm to obtain the Water of Life and oversee the ritual will need strength as well.
DRAWBACK {-2 DMG to Unarmed Attacks until next event}
IMAGE: Before a distant steep mountain peak– a young woman of surprising strength wrestles two great black beasties (worms) enbowed– sparkling violet bile oozing from their mouths into a basin. A master of animals– she is sustained in these trials by Fortitude and Perseverance.
XII THE HANGED MAN/TRAITOR: THE BETRAYAL
EPIGRAPH: Dune:5 - p37:
BOON {+2 Douge Bonus AC Vs traps until next event}
YUEH (yu'e), Wellington (weling-tun), Stdrd 10,082-10,191; medical doctor of the Suk School (grd Stdrd 10,112); md: Wanna Marcus, B.G. (Stdrd 10,092-10,186?); chiefly noted as betrayer of Duke Leto Atreides. (Cf: Bibliography, Appendix VII [Imperial conditioning] and Betrayal, The.) --from "Dictionary of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: In older tarot traditions, the Hanged Man is sometimes known as “The Traitor”. Supposedly traitors in medieval Italy were hung from one foot, from the beam of a gallows; as depicted in tarot cards. From Epigraph 4 we get this about him: “Dr. Wellington Yueh, a name black in treachery but bright in knowledge”.
DRAWBACK {-2 Douge Bonus AC Vs traps until next event}
IMAGE: The treacherous traitor (Dr. Yueh) with purple lips, hangs inverted by one foot from the Tripod of Executions. From his pocket drops a small book of knowledge, a token of his devotion to causes he deems worthy of Betrayal.
XIII DEATH: A MILLION DEATHS
EPIGRAPH: Dune:8 - p57:
BOON {+2 to saves Vs poison effects until next event}
"Yueh! Yueh! Yueh!" goes the refrain. "A million deaths were not enough for Yueh!" --from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: The tarot card image of Death is typically of a skeletal figure with a scythe, tilling a field of human remains. Often a hand is seen rising in the field. It represents transformation, change, revolution, and the promise of life after death. For this image I have chosen a dessicated hand like the one The Prophet carries around in his pocket. Could this be the hand of Dr. Yueh? The hand that delivered Paul at birth, the hand that delivered Leto to his doom, and the hand that delivered Paul and Jessica to the desert? Poetically, this card follows his appearance as The Traitor in the previous card. I am equating this card to the Desolate Sand card mentioned in Dune Messiah.
DRAWBACK {-2 to saves Vs poison effects until next event}
IMAGE: A dessicated twisted hand missing the ring finger rises from a dune against a foreboding sky like a cultic Icon from antiquity. A bone and a skull are half-buried in the Desolate Sand below.
XIIII TEMPERANCE/ART: IN TENSION
EPIGRAPH: Dune:3 - p21:
BOON {+2 to saves Vs Mind effects until next event}
Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: "The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness." --from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan.
RATIONALE: This epigraph describes Alia at a balance point between purity and profanity, between temperance and temptation. She is in a state of tension and restraint, just as in the tarot card Temperance. This card is also known as "Art" and can represent the skills of an alchemist in transmuting metals. In this capacity, Alia transmutes the deadly poisonous sandworm bile into the harmless narcotic of the tao orgy. She is also constantly balancing her own self against the voices within to try to prevent Abomination. The image on tarot cards is traditionally a "spirit" or angel with wings. I am hiding her wings in the shape of two arched windows as foreshadowing to her eventual demise.
DRAWBACK {-2 to saves Vs Mind effects until next event}
IMAGE: The Saint (Alia) stands on her balcony in braids and yellow robes. She pours the transmuted blue-violet Catalyst from a silver chalice into a golden one containing the Water of Life. She wears a fish symbol as well as a curved knife. The arches of two stained-glass windows behind her resemble folded wings.
XV THE DEVIL: MORTAL ENEMY
EPIGRAPH: Dune:2 - p13:
BOON {+2 to saves Vs death affects until next event}
To attempt an understanding of Muad'Dib without understanding his mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be. --from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: The Devil of tarot represents his role as the Great Tempter, the Prince of Lies. Passions, taboos, darkness, obscene wealth, pride, and obsession. No character in Dune better represents these ideas than the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, a man who had completely succumbed to temptation, consumed by his own appetites, obsessed with sadistic pleasures, and who was constantly plotting deceptions and intrigues. Gurney compares him to one of the Beasts of the Orange Catholic Bible, "And I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea . . . and upon his heads the name of blasphemy." There is also a very nice symmetry in having the Baron paired with Alia. In the book, we are introduced to the Baron gloating behind a jeweled globe of Arrakis.
DRAWBACK {-2 to saves Vs death affects until next event}
IMAGE: A Blasphemous figure (Baron Harkonnen) in gemstone studded robes, floats on suspensors, swinging a mace. Two captives; one a woman covered in Bene Gesserit robes, the other an almost naked slave boy are bound by vines (krimskell fibers) to a pedestal supporting the bejeweled globe of a planet (Arrakis). He is protected by a glowing pentagonal shield.
XVI THE TOWER/HOUSE OF GOD: CITADEL EPIGRAPH: Dune:22 - p187:
O Seas of Caladan, O people of Duke Leto-- Citadel of Leto fallen, Fallen forever… --from "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
BOON {+2 to Gather information rolls until next event}
RATIONALE: The imagein the epigraph of a falling Citadel has obvious parallels with the image on The Tower card. In Tarot de Marseilles the card is sometimes known as The House of God, and indeed the Atreides citadel on Caladan was the literal house where Paul Muad’dib was born and grew up, but it also represents the fall of his familial House; his royal heritage and peerage.
DRAWBACK {-2 to Gather information rolls until next event}
IMAGE: The Ancestral Palace (Castle Caladan) is struck by energy beams from above. People fall with the stones and embers. Below, a raging river floods its banks.
XVII THE STAR/HOPE: A METEOR
EPIGRAPH: Dune:21 - p175:
There is a legend that the instant the Duke Leto Atreides died a meteor streaked across the skies above his ancestral palace on Caladan. --the Princess Irulan: "Introduction to A Child's History of Muad'Dib"
BOON {+2 to Heal until next event}
RATIONALE: The meteor over Caladan is a sign of hope tinged with deep sorrow. The Star tarot card is also sometimes known as Hope… but not just any hope, the hope experienced after great pain, loss and sorrow. It is the glimmer of brightness after the dark downfall of The Tower. The meteor over fallen Castle Caladan is a perfect parallel to The Star following The Tower. And Chani is Paul’s ‘desert spring’, his hope after the fall of his House and the death of his father. Likewise, Paul is Chani’s hope after the death of her father.
DRAWBACK {-2 to Heal until next event}
IMAGE: A bright Meteor streaks across the sky over the ruins of a stone palace. A desert bride (Chani) in lavish blue-green robes and water rings kneels at the shore of a calm sea with water bags. An owl watches in a flowering garden.
XVIII THE MOON: WITH DREAMS
EPIGRAPH: Dune:18 - p158
BOON {+2 to escape artist until next event}
Do you wrestle with dreams? Do you contend with shadows? Do you move in a kind of sleep? Time has slipped away. Your life is stolen. You tarried with trifles, Victim of your folly. --Dirge for Jamis on the Funeral Plain, from "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: The Moon card in tarot represents the moon and its cycles, but also the night, the realm of dreams, intuition, attraction, as well as deceptions and delusions. We see all of those alluded to the epigraph. I've kept the imagery of the card traditional to the tarot except for the bat and the coffee pot which alludes to Jamis's funeral.
DRAWBACK {-2 to escape artist until next event}
IMAGE: Two moons hang in the night sky over a qanat. The larger one shines silver like a coin embossed with the image of a human fist, while the smaller one glows dusky red with the image of a mouse. A predator fish surfaces from rippling water. Two steep cliffs rise on either side, one with a window, the other with steps. A ceilago bat calls out near a silver coffee pot with an emerald knob.
XVIIII THE SUN: GREATNESS
EPIGRAPH: Dune:16 - p126:
BOON {-2 Luck Bonus to one skill until the next event, Player to apply}
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man. --from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: The Sun card is happiness, optimism, success and mastery. In other words: greatness. And the greatest of all creatures is the giant sandworm of Arrakis! I am equating this card to the Great Worm card from Dune Messiah. This card also reminds us of the transitory nature of those things… just as the sun rises, it must also set…. only to rise again. In Marseilles tarot cards, below the sun two youths dance in a circle and the card is said to represent marriage.
DARWBACK {-2 Luck Bonus to one skill until the next event, GM to apply}
IMAGE: A Great Worm rises like a stone wall under a radiant solar disk. Twins in desert robes (possibly Leto II and Ghanima) smile and dance in a circle around a single solar ray like a May Pole.
XX JUDGEMENT: THE ATTITUDE OF THE KNIFE
EPIGRAPH: Dune:20 - p172:
BOON {+2 to COUP DE GRÂCE attempts until next event}
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife--chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here." --from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: We have already established that blades can represent judgement and a cutting intellect. But this epigraph also shows us that they also represent finality and the resolution of outcomes. The image of the tarot card Judgement is that of Final Judgement, The Day of Judgement, the end-of-the-world when the dead rise from their graves at the trumpeting of the angels in the clouds, before they are Judged by God. The most obvious parallel in Dune are the end-of-the-world scenarios of Kralizec, "the Typhoon Struggle" which appears to be Herbert's version of Armageddon, "the War in Heaven"... and Arafel "the Cloud Darkness of Holy Judgement" which is clearly his Day of Judgement. Children of Dune mentions both Arafel and the City of Tombs, and this passage from the epigraph on p320 ties Kralizec to the "knife-edged approach":
Drawback {-2 to COUP DE GRÂCE attempts until next event}
... They say: 'We know there is no summa of all attainable knowledge; that is the preserve of God. But whatever men can learn, men can contain.' Out of this knife-edged approach to the universe they carve a fantastic belief in signs and omens and in their own destiny. This is an origin of their Kralizec legend: the war at the end of the universe." --Bene Gesserit Private Reports/folio 800881.
IMAGE: A typhoon spiral (Kralizec) of ships emerge from dark clouds (Arafel) over the City of Tombs (Thatta). A chorus of the dead cry out.
XXI THE WORLD/UNIVERSE: A PSYCHIC SCIENCE
EPIGRAPH: Dune:19 - p162:
BOON {+2 to Kn Eng until the next event}
There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles. --from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
RATIONALE: The World card represents completion, accomplishment, the end of a cycle, or travel. The epigraph quote is a prescription for both the coming Jihad, and for Leto II’s reign. The Kwisatz Haderach(es) bring this completion. And the term translates literally as "the shortening of the Way". The imagery of my card recalls the inner chorus, the time nexus, the nets of prescience, the alam al mithal, the Bene Gesserit breeding program, and the ecological transformation of Arrakis.
DRAWBACK {+2 to Kn Eng until the next event}
IMAGE: The face of the sibyl, the Kwisatz Haderach, composed of many faces, all with the blue within blue eyes. Patterns of male and female faces recede in both directions. A green planet with a patch of desert (Rakis) forms the third eye between a mandorla shape within the faces. Nets sweep across the rivers of Time. A hawk, griffon, lion, and worm reside in each corner representing the four planets and the four factions.
