We’ve got another incredibly exciting update to share with you all today: the first look at some of our game’s artwork!
We’re absolutely thrilled to announce that talented Brazilian artist Joana Fraga will be working as the lead artist on the Divination RPG deck and book project. Joana has a phenomenal surrealist fine art style that is perfectly matched to the universe of Div. She’s also a kind and funny human and has been an absolute delight to work with these past few weeks as we establish the first look into our visuals!
Central to the game, of course, is the eight playable Aspects—the eight major arcana cards that represent the character classes or playbooks available to players.
If you’re new to Divination, here’s a five-second primer: four players share control of a single Hero, with each playing one Aspect of that Hero. Players trade off taking Control of the Hero and roleplaying with NPCs in the outer world, but they also roleplay the Hero’s internal conversations between themselves.
So while some artwork in Divination’s final deck and book will depict the “real” world of the Apparent and some will depict the magical world of the Esoteric, the Aspects are something different entirely. In one sense, they are part of the Esoteric. But they are the truest look into the Esoteric we get throughout our deck.
They’re not Artists performing the Art. They ARE the Art.
And so, Joana’s surrealist style is most fully unleashed on these eight cards, these denizens of the mind.
Now, we know you’ve been dying to see some artwork for this game, so please keep in mind that the eight pieces we’re sharing a peek of today are all still works-in-progress. They’re all in various stages of completion, with one close to final, one still needing a round of revision, and the rest somewhere in between. In some cases, you’ll even see some of Joana’s undersketches peeking through, hinting at details yet to come.
So without further ado, we present… THE EIGHT ASPECTS!
Again, for those less familiar with the game: in order from left to right, top row first, we’ve got The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Hermit, and The Hanged One.
As you can imagine, some cards will have their own sections in our core book because of their role in the game. Each Aspect card will have a section on playing that Aspect, for example. For this reason, we’re having Joana design these key images so they fit in the dimensions of a tarot card but also extend to become a full-page illustration that allows us to see even more of the artwork!
Here are the cards in their card-only version:
And here they are in their full page versions, with the publishing markings and other design tools from above removed:
