Some tarot decks promise comfort, their imagery offering the equivalent of a warm cup of tea and a reassuring hand. Mordant Arcana is not one of those decks. Born from the minds of Bogfolk, an international co-op of tabletop RPG makers led here by artist–author Strega Wolf Eden van den Berg, writer Tessa Winters, and editor Walton Wood, the project merges a 79-card tarot deck with a booklet of micro-fiction that lingers like a half-remembered dream.
The Bogfolk crew first came together over a shared love of Mörk Borg and a mutual frustration with existing publishing options in that space. “We want to make art, make rent, and help others do the same,” Strega says. That collaborative ethos fed directly into Mordant Arcana. The cards came first, drawn in stark black-and-white through a mix of photobashing and hand-rendered detail. “I wanted my art to always have a bite,” Strega adds. “These pieces started as emotional processing, then were fitted into the language of tarot.”
The seed for the project began with the cards. Strega had been creating a series of black-and-white illustrations as a form of emotional processing. “I want my art to always have a bite,” they explain. “A story to tell that reflects my inner emotions.” It was writer Tessa Winters who suggested pairing each card with a piece of micro-fiction, creating a companion booklet where 79 short texts, some only a breath long, reframed or deepened the card meanings.
The absence of color heightens the atmosphere, each card sitting in stark contrast between shadow and light. Tessa’s stories, meanwhile, are the product of both obsession and endurance, written and rewritten, often six or seven times, until they “made you chew on it.”
The name itself is a statement of intent. “Mordant” means sharply caustic, biting – a word that captures both the visual tone of the deck and the creative process behind it. Tessa wrote during what she calls “one of the most painful periods” of her life, and the micro-fictions reflect that rawness. “If you do nothing else,” she says, “we hope you feel something.”
It’s a philosophy that extends to how the deck can be used. While firmly rooted in tarot tradition, Mordant Arcana resists being a “classic deck of divination.” Strega sees it as equally suited to personal storytelling and tabletop adventures, which is why the set comes with MATT – the Mordant Arcana Tarot Tarot’s Dungeon Generator – a system for generating game dungeons on the fly. The crossover between divination and game design is no accident; Bogfolk’s origins are steeped in both.
The collaboration itself was clearly defined, Strega on art and layout, Tessa on writing, Walton Wood on editing, but not without moments of playful disagreement. The name MATT, for instance, was contested during editing but kept for its humor. And while the deck is rich with Rider-Waite echoes, it’s also a quiet rebellion against the endless reskins of that system. “We really wanted to create something special and in a league of its own,” says Strega. “We wanted these cards to be usable for more than just divination, games, storytelling, self-reflection – it all overlaps.”
The Kickstarter campaign is already close to its goal, a testament to the curiosity and trust of its backers. For Bogfolk, that trust is currency not just in funding, but in the willingness to engage with something that is at once beautiful and unsettling. Or, as Strega hopes, “a tad bit uncomfortable, to the point of it causing you to reflect on your own nature.”
Campaign: Mordant Arcana on Kickstarter
Creators: Bogfolk.com | Bogfolk on Bluesky
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