Tarot Decks
The Wild Unknown Tarot
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The Wild Unknown Tarot was hand drawn and self published by artist Kim Krans in 2012 before HarperElixir issued an official seventy eight card keepsake box set edition with guidebook in 2016. It keeps the traditional Major and Minor Arcana structure while replacing the historical human courts and scenes with animals and natural forms rendered in a spare, hand inked line style.
Facts
Deck
Cards in the Deck Pip CardsNon-scenic pips: the suit sign in geometric arrangement 1 Reviewers describe the minors as a pip-style approach, suit symbol repeated by number in the deck's nature art, explicitly not RWS-style narrative scenes. Trump NumberingJustice VIII, Strength XI (Marseille and Continental order) 1 Confirmed on a tarot-forum thread and benebellwen.com's review naming this deck specifically: Key 8 is Justice, Key 11 is Strength, the older Marseille order. Attributions
TraditionRider Waite Smith derived: the Aeclectic Tarot deck database records its Major Arcana as carrying no renamed or reordered cards, keeping traditional numbering, reworked into a nature and animal based visual language with court cards renamed Daughter, Son, Mother and Father. 2 Cult
Attributes and IconographySpare, hand inked black and white line drawings of animals, plants and celestial forms. 1 Identity
Publication Year Origins
Creator / Originator Method
How the Cards Are ReadRead upright and reversed, following the standard Major and Minor Arcana structure rendered through animal and natural imagery in place of the historical human figures. 1 Learn More
From a Hand Drawn Deck to a Keepsake Box Set
The Wild Unknown Tarot was hand drawn and self published by artist Kim Krans in 2012 before HarperElixir issued an official seventy eight card keepsake box set edition with guidebook in 2016. It keeps the traditional Major and Minor Arcana structure and the Marseille and Continental trump order, Justice at eight and Strength at eleven, while replacing the historical deck's human courts and scenes with animals and natural forms, rendered throughout in a spare, hand inked black and white line style rather than the full colour illustration most decks in this catalogue use.
Its minor arcana cards carry the suit sign in a geometric arrangement rather than an illustrated scene or a printed title, a non scenic treatment it shares only with The Urban Tarot's astrological titles and the Golden Dawn Tarot's own attributions among the decks in this catalogue, though The Wild Unknown's geometric suit signs are visually distinct from either. Krans's four year path from an independently hand drawn deck to an official publisher's box set mirrors Patch Tarot's own move from shifting self published editions to a single unified trade release, two decks that reached a wide readership only after their creators' independent editions had already proven demand.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Authored By
Reworked By
The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit's own description states it was published as a companion to Kim Krans's earlier Wild Unknown Tarot.
The Wild Unknown Archetypes's own description states it departs from the structure of Kim Krans's earlier Wild Unknown Tarot.
Sources
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