The Mighty Hunters Spell Cards are designed to make the player aware of what we might call real magic. It’s not about conjuring objects out of thin air or doing anything that isn’t physically possible. Magic was a “technology” – the root of the word gives the clue, for a “magus” is an adept, or an innitiate into secret knowledge. So, Magic was an aspect of the pseudo-science of real ancient Mystery School religions that underpinned social hierarchy and order.
The basic Spell Cards set that comes with the Mighty Hunters board game are enough to play the game with, but an additional number of cards can be bought separately to make up a full set that incorporates a tarot deck.
Minor Arcana
If you look at the top of a typical Spell Card (one that shows a single planet), you will see a number of symbols in the architrave at the top of the card. The presence of a card suit symbol (club, heart, diamond, or a spade) tells you that this card is part of the Minor Arcana. The tarot suit is the one that usually corresponds to the respective card suit: the pentacle, sword, cup, and wand; and each suit relates to a type of planet, Venus, Mercury, Moon and Sun.
Another symbol on the card tells you the rank of the card in the suit; there are the self-explanatory numbers of one to ten, and then there are four others: the Venus symbol represents the Page of the suit, the Mercury symbol represents the Knight, the Moon symbol represents the Queen, and the Sun symbol represents the King. This data is summarised in the table below.
Mighty Hunters Spell Cards have three additional “tarot” suits that correspond to the three planets not yet mentioned. Mars is the lightning bolt (representing the acquisition of knowledge), Jupiter is the key (representing the means to access a store of plenty), and Saturn is the scythe (representing regeneration). These don’t have Queen or King cards to suit the design of the game, but nevertheless if you want to, you can incorporate these cards into tarot configurations by transferring onto them relevant planetary qualities from the standard cards.
Major Arcana
The Major Arcana cards in Mighty Hunters Spell Cards don’t have a suit. They are numbered in Roman numerals I to XXI, and also numbered zero (0). The number links that card to a traditional Major Arcana. The following is a list of the associations:
Saturn 0: The Fool
Mercury I: The Magician
Moon II: The High Priestess
Venus III: The Empress
Sun + Mars IV: The Emperor
Venus V: The Hierophant
Mercury VI: The Lovers
Moon VII: The Chariot
Sun VIII: Strength
Mercury + Mars IX: The Hermit
Jupiter X: The Wheel of Fortune
Mars XI: Justice
Jupiter XII: The Hanged Man
Mars XIII: Death
Jupiter XIV: Temperance
Saturn XV: The Devil
Mars XVI: The Tower
Saturn XVII: The Star
Jupiter XVIII: The Moon
Sun XIX: The Sun
Mars XX: Judgement
Saturn XI: The World
In appointing the Major Arcana to a card, we tried to fit them to the planet that had the most suitable characteristics, even if it seems unintuitive. For instance, Jupiter is the planet associated with Major Arcana card 18, the Moon.
With the Spell Cards linked to the tarot arcana, it means that during the game when you play spells, you are actually conjuring alchemical magic.
Mighty Hunters (Original)
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