- Caticorn Tarot Deck and Guidebook box set
- By Pamela Chen, author, and Delphine Dion, illustrator
- Published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc
- Internet price for Deck and Guidebook Box Set: UK £21.19 / US $24.01
- UK and US Release Dates July 2024
- ISBN-10 1646711971
- ISBN-13 978-1646711970
- Reviewed by Jason C Dean
Caticorn Tarot by Pamela Chen is a stunning deck and guidebook. My immediate impression when I saw the deck was that it is ‘SO CUTE’! I was really rapt to explore this deck, the art and the guidebook. As the blurb on the back of the box says these cats live in the forest of the “unicorn realm”. They are called ‘Caticorns’ because, like unicorns, they have cute little horns on their forehead. I was fascinated by how Pamela Chen had created this Tolkien-like fantasy otherworld where these Caticorn’s live their mystical adventures. Cats and fantasy aside, it is a Tarot deck through and through. It follows all the basic tarot conventions and does not have extra cards. I found that beyond the whimsical, cute, and paw-someness of all the caticorns, the deck can be easily used for serious divinatory and shadow work readings.
The Caticorn Tarot deck comes in a beautifully presented sturdy box. On the cover is The High Priestess of the Major Arcana, a purple-coloured tabby between two pomegranate trees illuminated by the moon with her paw on a crystal ball. The box lid is the type that snuggly fits and slides over the lower, slightly smaller box that contains the deck. When opened, it reveals the lovely back of the cards, showing seven white caticorns leaping in a repeated pattern over a concentric rainbow. This creates a lovely effect not too dissimilar to a kaleidoscope.
The artist Delphine Dion has delivered a fabulous collection of art to us in this deck! The Cats are depicted in a variety of natural and fantasy colours: orange, brown, grey, tabby, saddle shapes, Siamese, plus pinks, purples and a two tone. Other animals live in this fantasy forest realm too: mice, insects, birds, rabbits, fish, a cow, a salamander, and horses appear in various imagery throughout the deck. A lion also makes a cameo appearance on a single card. Can you guess which one? Ha! There isn’t one card where I didn’t like the artwork; all the cards are wonderfully rendered, and I feel that Delphine has brought out all the cats’ little personalities and quirky traits that we identify and love in our own cats.
The Major Arcana cards conform to the regular RWS Tarot sequence, and there are lots of fun, easy-to-get cat depictions in the images. The Wheel of Fortune is a big exercise wheel where a lilac point Siamese tabby is jogging happily on the inner rim. The eight segments of the wheel have ‘cat important’ signs of fish, ball of wool, mice, bird, etc. In The Devil, the sinister one cleverly turns up as a menacing caticorn shadow, looming over two mice caught gorging on cheese in a trap!
The Court Cards tend to follow the traditional Court card hierarchy, personalities, and attributes. The imagery easily identifies which royals are what with some amusing variations i.e. The Queen of Wands has a mouse familiar, and all the Knights are riding carousel horses! However, one of the horses has a mermaid tail!
The numbered Minors all contain loverly artwork where the images of the cats in their Tarot scenes show very amusing versions of the cards, which are easily understood and applied. I found myself smiling and laughing at how the cats were displayed in the cards. I liked how the coins in the Pentacles all have cat paw prints embossed, and the wands are all teaser toys. There are rainbows throughout the imagery, too, in the sky as one might expect, but also on a tail or two, the glint on all the swords, and in The Star, a rainbow that looks like Thor’s bridge to Asgard.
The Caticorn Tarot deck is accompanied by a lovely and useful guidebook. On it’s cover the Hanged Man is illustrated by a striped caticorn looking upside down climbing around a tree branch! The 84 pages of guidebook descriptions and instruction are well-written, constructed and thought out. Chapter One is devoted to giving people new to Tarot a simple step-by-step ‘how to read tarot cards’. The lesson is short, bubbly and fun! Then, in Chapter 2, we see three ‘fur-bulous’ spreads and how to apply them. As you might expect by the decks name, there are no humans in this deck, and so the legacy conventions of ‘she’ and ‘he’ are used for King and Queen. Whereas, the Knights and Pages are called ‘he’ and ‘her’ variously depending on which suit you are looking at, and the use appears to be evenly divided. ‘They’ is used only as plural as in The Lovers, and in its ‘lower case’ connected card, the Two of Cups, plus other cards too. The Moon is the only card where a gender prefix is not used. Actually, the celestial image of the moon in The Moon reminds me of how the sun is shown in the Telly Tubbies children show, but a caticorn version at night. Ha! The description lengths of all the cards are treated equally, including upright and reversed “meow-ssages”. Overall it is a handy, short, concise, and entertaining guidebook.
I thoroughly enjoyed exploring Pamela Chen’s Caticorn Tarot. As whimsical and fun as this deck is, I can see that considerable thought has been put into the design. This attention to the ‘Tarot’ in the deck ensures it can be used to explore one’s own deeper path and get a lot of pleasure in doing so. I feel this deck could be a great addition to any cat owner’s life or a gift to a cat owner friend who is interested in Tarot but doesn’t quite know where to start, or a cat lover who can’t own them because of allergies. It would also be purr-fect for a young person wanting to explore Tarot in a friendly, fun way. Yes, I highly recommend the Caticorn Tarot; there are laughs and smiles all around in this charming deck, with the ability to do some mystical exploration too. The Caticorn Tarot is a really lovely deck and would be a fun addition to any home’s library.
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