Written by Avery Woodbury
Dice divination can be traced back to ancient China and Greece. The shape of dice used most by the ancient ancestors was called dodecahedra, or 12-sided dice. When rolled, two dodecahedra have 78 possible outcomes. There are 78 cards in traditional tarot, and therefor an assigned tarot card can be given to each role. Using dice for divination is the equivalent to answering questions with one card drawn and then recycling the card back into the deck for further questions. Seldom Dreams constructed this correspondence chart based off of the Thoth tarot system.
Major Arcana
Minor Arcana
Wands
Cups
Four: 4,7
Swords
Pentacles
Court Cards
How Was This Made?
This system was created with patterns in mind with few rule breaks. To read a role, you start with the lowest number. That means a 12,1 is also a 1,12.
For roles with lowest values of 1 and 9-12 are the major arcana. The fool, being a unique card within the Major arcana is given 12,12. The Magician starts the major arcana with 1,1, and this system continues until the hanged man at 1,12. This is an easy pattern to recognize because for the magician until the hanged man it is numerical order.
The Death card is given 9,9 (card number 13) due to the number 9 in numerology and the Death card having similar meanings. This continues until the blasted tower (card number 16) at 9,12
The Star is 10,10, is dreams and manifestations and is very well fitted the numerology of 10, 10. the moon 10,11, the journey, and the Sun 10,12 is the completion. The universe is given 11,11 to represent the portal to the Fool. Aeon is given 11,12 Showing that in between space of the Universe and the Fool, 12,12.
The Minor arcana were constructed with the ace cards to be double numbers. 3,3 for Wands, 4,4 for cups, 5,5 for swords, and 6,6 for disks. The system is easy to convert because the following cards in the suites are in numerical order. For Cups, swords, and disks, the 7s are used to fill in the missing cards; second digits 7-12 fill in 10 in cups, 9 and 10 in swords, and 8,9, and 10 in disks in numerical order from cups to disks.
The Court Cards follow a pattern except for the Prince of Swords and the Prince of Disks. The queen of wands starts with 2,2 because even numbers are feminine and she’s the first mother in the Wand, Cup, Sword, and Disk order. Her daughter the princess is given the next even, 2,4. The Knight is given the first odd 2,3 and his son the prince is given 2,5. The following rule is applied until swords where an exception has to be made and the prince of swords is given the last extra combination of 8,9, and the prince of disks is given 8,8. The other Disks court cards follow the same pattern but with the remainder of the first digit 8 roles.