Now that
Book of the Lost has been released, here's a topic to share wild theories about the Sixth World Tarot
What is it really?
Here's my own hypothesis:
Book of the Lost says that
[spoiler]
"the Arcana is a unified artifact from another age, the result of powerful magic not seen in even a fae’s long life. I was shown visions of the Tarot in other forms, from long ago: clay and gold tablets, scrolls, and engravings on skin. These items, when brought together, hold terrible power, the full extent of which even the Lady could—or would—not say."[/spoiler]
The parts I highlighted -- not to mention the actual title of the supplement -- made me think of a particular artifact from the Fourth Age...:
[spoiler]The Book of Scales.
For those unfamiliar with this artifact described in the supplement
Legends of Earthdawn, it's a full story of the Horrors as told by themselves (Verjigorm and at least four undisclosed others), engraved on the scales of a mad, tortured dragon. It's said it may offer the reader the means to defeat the Enemy for good, but this knowledge is so terrible and the book's power so dangerous when all parts are gathered the poor dragon, as a last effort before dying, scattered the "pages" across the metaplanes. At the time of Earthdawn, every scale is Horror-marked, but it's possible the passing centuries have freed the artifact from their taint, especially if several of the Horrors that created it have been slain since...
Of course there are some major differences as well: the Book of Scales doesn't have divinatory powers as far as we know, and the Sixth World Tarot, so far, doesn't seem utterly evil. But as Man-of-Many-Names repeats a lot in
Book of the Lost, magic changes and evolves with time. So who knows?[/spoiler]
Anyway, that's my theory for now, and one I might use in my games. What's yours?