StarTarot
The Fool’s Journey
A tarot card game where every card’s meaning is its power. Learn tarot by playing.
You are the Fool — card zero, pure potential. Walk the 21 Major Arcana from the Magician to the World. Each move is a spread: the position gives a card its role, the suit gives it an element, the pattern of the spread multiplies it all.
How to play
Turn
You hold five cards. Put up to one card in each position and press “Reveal”. The numbers on the positions show in advance what the spread will do. Once per turn you can redraw cards.
Positions
You start with three positions: Past, Present, Future. After each guardian of the row you choose one more: Challenge, Foundation or Outcome. The new position joins the same spread row, and one more card from your hand goes there.
Past Ward The card’s power becomes Ward against the enemy’s attack this turn.
Present Strike Hits the enemy right away.
Future Next turn At the start of your next turn, half its power strikes and half shields.
Challenge Crosses the Present Does not act on its own: it adds its power to the card in the Present. Every suit gives its gift here.
Foundation Fortify The card’s power becomes Fortify: protection that is not lost after the turn, but halves each turn.
Outcome Culmination Strikes for half its power plus a quarter for each suit in the spread.
Suits
In its home position a suit adds a gift: another 40% of the card’s power.
Wands Burn burns the enemy each turn. Home: Present, Challenge
Cups Heal heals you. Home: Future, Challenge
Swords Edge strikes past guard. Home: Present, Challenge
Pentacles Fortify fortifies you and brings a coin. Home: Past, Challenge, Foundation
Readings
Multiplier = 1 + the bonuses of readings, kings and arcana; it boosts the strike, ward and gifts of the whole spread. Echo (+0.5) and Tradition (+1) make ×2.5.
Echo +0.5 Two cards of one number, such as 6 and 6.
Double echo +1 Two pairs, such as 3, 3 and 8, 8.
Triad +1.5 Three cards of one number.
Quartet +3 Four cards of one number.
Path +1 Three numbers in a row, left to right, such as 4, 5, 6 or 6, 5, 4.
Long path +1.5 Four or more numbers in a row.
Element +1 Three or more cards of one suit and no other suit in the spread.
Four elements +1.5 All four suits in the spread.
Court +0.5 Two or more court cards.
Fate +1 Two or more Major Arcana.
Strong moves
- Check the enemy’s next move first: cover its attack with the Past, no more than needed, and put the rest into the strike.
- Send each suit home: there the card adds its gift.
- The multiplier boosts the whole spread, and patterns stack: 7, 8, 9 of one suit make a Path and an Element, ×3.
- Fill every position: cards left in your hand are simply discarded.
- Against guard: Swords strike past it, and so does the burn of Wands.
- Redraw to finish a pattern: swap the cards that fit nowhere.
- Let weak cards go at the Merchant: in a thin deck the strong ones come more often.
Cards
A pip card’s power is its number. In patterns the court cards continue the count: Page 11, Knight 12, Queen 13, King 14.
Ace Power: 1 Its power is 1, but an ace’s suit gift is strong (as from a ten) and works in any position.
Page Power: 4 Next turn you draw 1 more card.
Knight Power: 6 Acts twice: in its own position and once more as if in the next one to the right. In the last position it acts twice in its own.
Queen Power: 7 Her suit’s gift works anywhere and is doubled.
King Power: 8 Spread multiplier +0.5.
Major Arcana Instead of power, an effect of its own. Select the card to read it.
Enemy
Above the enemy is its next move; the number is its damage. Tap an icon to see what it means. Shadows are court cards, trials are Major Arcana, and each trial’s rule is written under its card.
Symbols
- Strike. Damage. The guard of whoever is hit takes it first.
- Ward. Takes damage in place of your life. Gone at the start of your next turn.
- Fortify. Takes damage once your Ward runs out. It stays between turns, but halves at the start of each of your turns.
- Edge. Damage that goes past the enemy’s guard.
- Burn. The number is the damage the burning side takes at the end of each enemy turn; Ward and guard do not stop fire. Then the number halves.
- Heal. Restores life, up to the maximum.
- Coins. Spent at the Merchant.
- Guard. Takes your strikes in place of the enemy’s life. Gone at the start of its turn. Edge and Burn go past it.
- Strength. Every enemy attack hits harder by this amount.
- Weak. Your strikes deal a quarter less.
- Frail. Your Ward and Fortify are a quarter less.
- Curse. Shuffles a curse card into your deck until the fight ends. It takes a place in your hand; put it in the spread to get rid of it.
- Steal coins
- Shatter protection. Breaks your ward and fortify.
- Hidden intention
- Tamed. The enemy’s next attack is halved.
- Mirage. The next attack strikes the enemy itself.
Reversed cards
On the full path some cards come upside down: in the Past such a card strikes, in the Present it protects. The Sun sets every card of its spread upright.
Elemental dignities
Opens once you reach the third row of the path.
Neighbouring cards affect each other. Wands clash with Cups, Swords with Pentacles: such a card loses 30% of its power. Any other suit beside it makes its suit gift ×1.35. Cards of one suit are rewarded by readings, not by neighbours.
Quintessence
Opens after your first win on the full journey.
Add up the power of the minor cards in the spread and reduce the sum to one digit: 19 → 1 + 9 = 10 → 1. The Major Arcanum with that number adds its voice to the move — plan the sum, not only the cards.
- I The Magician: Strike
- II The High Priestess: Ward
- III The Empress: Coins
- IV The Emperor: Fortify
- V The Hierophant: Multiplier
- VI The Lovers: Strike + Ward
- VII The Chariot: Edge
- VIII Strength: Burn
- IX The Hermit: +1 card next turn
Between fights
After a fight, take a card into your deck or skip it. A trial you win adds its arcanum to your deck. At the Merchant you can buy a card, let a weak one go and bless one (+3 power); at a Rest, recover or bless a card.