Lucky 11/11, or 11/11 if you type the date that way. Hope you remembered to make a wish! You’ll need it if you happen upon the item in today’s NaNoWriMo with a TTRPG Twist. This works best with games that incorporate tarot decks in them, but can be modified for just about any TTRPG. Any tarot works, but if you’re so inclined I would suggest breaking out your favorite tarot deck from a small business or indie artist (or picking up a new one for such an occasion).

Ominous Arcana

Your adventuring party is winding down from their most recent, most perilous adventure yet, when a stranger appears, bestows a gift upon them, and flees quickly. They don’t merely leave – they flee. The gift has been set down quickly and as if it could bite or claw or harm in some way.

Upon investigation, the party discovers an ornate box within layers of cloth. Within that box is a tarot deck. The backs of the card are an elaborate series of geometric shapes intersecting in curious ways, some of which accentuated with foil inlays.

It becomes apparent quickly the tarot deck cannot be explored except on its own terms. The deck, when shuffled, only showcases the back of the cards no matter how it is oriented. Until one day, surprising the party, a card can be drawn. It features one of the major arcana, but it’s numbered incorrectly. Should the party try to shuffle this back into the deck and draw another they find themselves having pulled the same card (again and again).

The next day the party awakes to discover the next card in sequence—the number of the major arcana mismatched with the card itself—drawn. It quickly apparent that the deck is counting down to something, but to what is a mystery. Can your party learn the meaning of the arcana as they present so as to learn the path this mysterious deck has set them on before it’s too late? And what awaits the party as the final card?

GM Tips and Tools

Again: this is a great chance to break out a tarot deck you love (especially if you’re playing an in-person game)!

There’s loads of room for what order you’d like to have the major arcana in. A few examples: you could lead to The Tower to signify a major catastrophe resulting in serious upheaval of the current state of things. Death could signify a major change—in the party, in the world, etc. Or you could go with off-the-beaten-path interpretations of the major arcana. The limits are your imagination (and the rigidity or flexibility of the table with regards to tarot, obviously).

This doesn’t necessarily have to be a countdown to a bad thing—it can just as easily be a shift towards good or simply just the cards counting down to change.

See what fate the cards have in store for your players, take care, and as always good luck and godspeed!