All the card games I’ve shared on this site at this point were games I speculated to have actually exist during the medieval times. I don’t think they really existed, but I did want to know what combat-oriented card games similar to Magic: the Gathering could have been like if they were originally made in the medieval times, around the time playing cards and tarot cards were introduced to Europe in almost exactly the same form they exist in now. Even though Tarot Combat II is based on a tarot deck, the cards greatly resemble cards from “collectible card games.” The cards all feature colorful artwork and tell you what the card does on it.
The main reason I decided to create this website is precisely so that I could share Tarot Combat II with the world, and one reason that I decided to share that game with the world is because I was able to find medieval artwork for it that’s now in the public domain in the USA. This is only possible now that museums, universities, and libraries are sharing high resolution medieval artwork. A lot of the artwork used for this game were from illustrated medieval manuscripts that can be found on those websites. The illustrations found in medieval manuscripts are called “miniatures.” I thought this artwork would be more appropriate for cards because they were literally painted by hand and tended to be quite small. They tend to be simpler than other paintings from the time period. Continue reading
Fantasy Cards 