Popular titles from across the entertainment sphere seem increasingly interested in adapting their story to the tarot card platform. This year alone saw tarot and oracle decks emerge from pop culture icons such as Ghostbusters, CW Supernatural, Magic the Gathering and Beetlejuice, to name a few. Now, Blizzard is joining their ranks with its first Official World of Warcraft Tarot Deck and Guidebook. With everyone dipping their toes into this unique water, I thought it might be interesting to find out what makes tarot a compelling medium for storytelling and how exactly one becomes the divining voice of Blizzard’s prize title? According to Ian Flynn, author of the guidebook which accompanies the official World of Warcraft Tarot, it all started with a cookbook.
“I’ve been working with the Sonic brand, in some shape or form, for about 20 years now and, recently, Insight Editions, who publishes a lot of tarot decks and a number of other things, was coordinating with Sega to do a Sonic themed cookbook,” Flynn recalls. “My name came up, and we worked together on that.” The cookbook, published in October of 2023, pairs Flynn with Victoria Rosenthal, known originally for her food blog, Pixelated Provisions, which recreates video game consumables in real life and has since translated into countless other similarly themed cookbooks. Working with Rosenthal and Insight Editions was an overall positive experience, says Flynn, which led to other opportunities – like the Official Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy Rose’s Fortune Card Deck, which also released earlier this year and served as his introduction to tarot guidebook penmanship. “They asked if I’d like to be involved with that, and I said yes because it has a greater connection to the Sonic universe, believe it or not, and we got deep into the weeds there and that was another lovely process.”
Having proven to the editors at Insight Editions that he was capable of navigating tarot within a licensed title context, they then asked if Flynn knew anything about World of Warcraft. “I still remember playing Warcraft III and their Wikis, and so I said: What do you need?” While Flynn does not consider himself an expert in World of Warcraft lore, he was familiar enough with the subject to know where to start. The process of creation, he says, always varies from project to project, licensor to licensor, and this was no different. “I did my research initially and put together a couple pitches on how I thought we could format it,” Flynn says, recalling the original document he wrote to serve as a surface level concept for matching different tarot suits to aspects of Azeroth and determining what, or who, would feature on the major arcana cards. Unfortunately, we’ll never know what Flynn’s original concepts would have looked like in print. “Blizzard came back with a list saying: No, do this instead.”
Despite receiving the overall outline of which tarot cards would be paired with which characters, those were just the starting parameters. Composing the guide’s introduction, card descriptions and the included spreads was left up to Flynn. Recalling the process, he shares, “I had to do my research on all of it and compare that to what the standard interpretation of the tarot are and see where it lined up to define why it makes sense for this character or icon to represent this particular tarot.” Beyond finding those layers of justification, Flynn was also determined to ensure that both Warcraft and tarot card enthusiasts could resonate with those choices so that each card held meaning for both types of people.
He adds, “Part of it, too, was finding a way to describe the cards that hasn’t been said a hundred times before. You want to have the correct messaging in it, but you don't want it to sound like every other guide.” Flynn notes that officially licensed projects, like the World of Warcraft Tarot, need to maintain their relevance to the source. “Because, otherwise, you could slap anything on top of it.” He says, “I wanted it to have meaning…So, it doesn’t just feel like a biproduct of two things we slid together…That’s a challenge,” he admits, “especially when sometimes you have to work on broader concepts or…just try to connect two completely unrelated objects. There's some mental gymnastics there.” He laughs. “Call it clever word play. That's better.”
That particular part of the challenge is also part of the fun, adds Flynn, who has tragically yet to hold the physical culmination of his work in his own two hands. (“We’re having a postal strike up here, so everything in the mail is delayed.”) Looking forward, despite having been involved in two tarot card projects in 2024, Flynn says, “Right now, I don’t have anything on my plate, but I’ve got a good working relationship with Insight Editions…there might be another one in the future.” For now, those interested in keeping up with his other projects or posing questions of their own about his experience as a writer, Flynn says there’s a podcast for that.
“The podcast is BumbleKast. It’s a Q and A show where folks can ask me just about anything. I use it to kind of give insight into the process and into the various licenses I’ve worked on over the years.” He adds, “Everything else…I don’t know if I can publicly talk about it yet, but stuff IS coming.” For now, updates and upcoming projects and releases are posted to his website, BumbleKing.com.
Let us know how you feel about the Official World of Warcraft Tarot Deck and Guidebook in a comment below!