The Elden Ring Tarot Deck: Fate in the Lands Between

I never expected to find glimpses of the Greater Will in a deck of cards, yet here I am, a Tarnished who has wandered the Lands Between for four years, still discovering new ways to peer into its tangled fate. It’s 2026, and the fires of the Erdtree are still reflected in countless fan works, from symphonic metal albums to hand-stitched Ranni dolls. Nothing, however, has ever stopped me quite like the Elden Ring Major Arcana Tarot deck created by a brilliant artist known as u/Art-Zuron. When I first scrolled past that Reddit gallery, I felt as though I had stumbled onto a hidden divine tower in Liurnia—mystical, detailed, and humming with meaning. The entire Major Arcana had been reimagined through the lens of FromSoftware’s shattered world, and every card seemed to pulse with both glory and sorrow.

I’ve spent many quiet hours at the Roundtable Hold studying these twenty-two cards. The deck does not try to include every demigod or NPC— after all, there are only so many Major Arcana slots— but what it achieves is a sublime distillation of the game’s core archetypes. Malenia, Goddess of Rot, appears as Strength, and the image is in equal measures terrifying and tender. In her upright depiction, she stands serene, prosthetic arm resting on her sword’s pommel like a dancer before the first step; the inverted aspect shows her unfurling those enormous scarlet wings, rot blooming from her eyes, a reminder that Strength reversed can mean internal decay. It’s exactly this duality that makes the deck so powerful. Every card contains two states, mirroring the way a Tarot reading can speak of both the light and shadow of a soul.

Ranni the Witch claims her rightful place as The Moon. The card is the one I keep returning to, perhaps because I chose the Age of Stars ending in my third playthrough and have never looked back. Against a deep cerulean background, Ranni’s four arms are outstretched, a ghostly image of herself superimposed like a lunar halo. Her doll-like face betrays only the faintest smile, while the reversed version shows her spectral form dissipating into a sea of stars, a sign of illusions unraveling. Holding this card feels like eavesdropping on a private conversation with fate. The artist, u/Art-Zuron, somehow infused each illustration with both the power of the character and the melancholy that sits at the heart of all FromSoftware stories.

Starscourge Radahn embodies The Star with a majesty that makes me recall that festival under the scarlet sky. On the card, he rides his scrawny steed Leonard across a meteor-strewn sky, gravity magic swirling around him like purple auroras. The reversed meaning shows him crashing to earth, his great rune scarred and dim, whispering of thwarted ambition and misguided hope. Meanwhile, the Erdtree itself blazes as The Tower. Tower cards are about upheaval, sudden realization, and the crumbling of old structures— what better representation than the golden tree that burns as we trespass into Farum Azula? In its reversed form, the Erdtree’s roots lie exposed and cracked, Sap dripping like tears, an image that still haunts my dreams.

I couldn’t resist performing a small reading for myself using this deck. I shuffled the cards with charcoal-stained fingers and drew three. First came The Moon upright—Ranni—guiding me to trust my intuition on a long-postponed quest. Next, Strength reversed—Malenia— warning me against inner corruption and the toxicity of my own ambition. Finally, The Tower upright appeared: the Erdtree burning bright. Change was coming, and I needed to accept it. Even now, the memory of that reading sends a shiver down my Tarnished spine.

The online discussion around the deck was just as compelling as the art. Fellow Redditors debated which figures might fill the remaining Arcana if one were to craft an alternative version. One commenter suggested the enigmatic Gold Mask as The Sun, a perfect fit for a character who radiates unflinching clarity and divine logic, while another proposed Astel, Naturalborn of the Void, for The Star, highlighting the cosmic horror lurking beneath the Lands Between. Others pushed for Gowry as The Hermit—a schemer who deliberately isolates himself in a shack—and the Loathsome Dung Eater as The Hanged Man, suspended in his own defilement between the living and the dead. None of these made it into u/Art-Zuron’s official deck, but that’s the beauty of a canvas this large: the community keeps painting new connections. I personally hold that the missing cards are already present in the characters we most fear and love, waiting for another artist to give them form.

What elevates this Tarot deck beyond a mere fan project is the way it makes the lore feel even more personal. Every Tarnished has their own journey, their own set of values, and when I look at The Moon I don’t just see Ranni—I see my own choice to abandon the Golden Order. When I glimpse The Star, I remember the heart-pounding moment I first engaged Radahn as part of a multi-player festival, arrows raining down like judgment. The deck becomes a mirror, not just a tribute. And because it’s 2026, with the massive Shadow of the Erdtree expansion having deepened the lore even further, these cards now hold multiple layers of meaning. I imagine a new card for The Chariot featuring a spectral Torrent galloping through the Realm of Shadow, or perhaps The High Priestess embodied by St. Trina, that ethereal twin presence. The possibilities stretch on like the infinite fields of the Siofra River.

Fortunately, this deck isn’t an artifact locked away in a dusty archive. You can still view the gallery online and let your imagination wander. Whether you’re a seasoned Finger Maiden or a fresh, unguided Tarnished, seeing the Major Arcana filtered through the Lands Between will leave you pondering your own rune. Some may call it blasphemy to mix fantasy with divination— the Two Fingers would definitely disapprove— but for me, it’s simply another way the community keeps the flame alive. Elden Ring has sold tens of millions of copies since 2022, but numbers alone don’t explain this kind of devotion. It’s projects like u/Art-Zuron’s Tarot that remind me why I still put my foolish ambitions to rest every night and wake up ready to cross the fog once more.