Heretical Fates Deck Review

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​Deck: Heretical Fates
Creator/Artist: Allan Amato, Danika XIX
Publisher: Holy Crow Press
​Purchased: 2021

This has been a controversial deck in more ways than one. The Heretical fates Tarot deck was a kickstarter that I backed a long time ago and it seemed like it was never going to turn up. Eventually (after nearly two years) it has, however, in a different format to what was initially advertised. 

It's a photography art deck with naked people, well mostly naked that is. The censors from the country the deck was printed in have allowed the female forms to be naked but applied their rules to the men, so they have been covered. It works in some cards but in some it doesn't. But it's still the kind of deck you need to choose your audience carefully with. 

I understand that the creators may be well known in other areas of the media but as I am unaware of their other work, I approached this deck from a tarot perspective. You might be wondering what is the point of having a deck with nearly naked people on there? Well I found that like any tarot deck, you read the images. And if those images happen to be bodies, then you read the bodies.

That might seem a bit weird but if you think about it, we read bodies every day. In newspapers and magazines, on TV and in your own mirror, we look at people and read so much from their bodies and body language. So why not have a tarot deck that works with that energy? 

From a quality point of view there are a few outstanding niggles. The deck I have has a few cards that are not the same size as the others. They're large cards, more oracle size and therefore can be more difficult to shuffle. The companion book had to be purchased separately but there is a little guide book in the box. 

The photography is great and there is a good range of body diversity. It has mirror finish gold edging and comes in a two piece box and is a usable deck with a niche audience. If you like the images you can see here (I've tried to  avoid any explicit nudity just in case you're sensitive to that kind of thing) you can check the deck out on Kickstarter or purchase via Etsy or direct from the creators website www.allanamato.work