Quick Specs
- Format: Boxed tarot deck with guidebook
- Deck Style: Rider-Waite-Smith style
- Card Count: 78 cards
- Author: Sasha Graham
- Illustrator: Abigail Larson
- Brand: Llewellyn Publications
- ISBN: 9780738775128
- Box Size: 5.00 x 6.56 x 2.16 inches
Inside The Vampire’s Tale Tarot
The Vampire’s Tale Tarot reads like a gothic fairy tale told one card at a time. As you work with it, you take on the role of Octavia, a half-human, half-vampire hybrid, and each card becomes an otherworldly vision of wisdom drawn from her story. The deck’s themes are personal immortality, hidden dreams and desire, which gives it a nocturnal, sensual mood. Sasha Graham wrote it. She has authored more than ten books and tarot kits, including 365 Tarot Spreads and a complete book on the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, so the framework underneath the story is familiar ground for her. Abigail Larson, the artist behind Graham’s earlier Dark Wood Tarot, illustrated every card in a dark-fantasy style built from traditional and digital media. Together they’ve made a tarot with a protagonist. When you shuffle and draw, you meet each card the way Octavia would, one vision after another, and the story gives a longer spread a throughline. A reading can feel like a chapter, which suits you if you think in narrative and like to follow a thread to its end.
Larson’s art carries the deck, and the box art shows how it translates to the cards. Every card has a dark, mottled edge around a thin red border, with a numeral at the top and a black name plate at the foot. The Fool, numbered 0, shows a woman in a pale gown with a staff over her shoulder, a wolfish dog at her side, a bat overhead and a full moon behind her. The Empress, numbered 3, sits in a cream gown against a red sky while a man kneels beside her and a small red winged creature crouches below. The Magician, numbered 1, stands behind a table carrying a Latin inscription, with shelves of glassware at her back and a pentagram drawn in red on the floor. The numbering and names match what Rider-Waite-Smith readers expect, so the Major and Minor Arcana keep their familiar shape while the scenes become vampire gothic. That balance is the appeal of an RWS-style deck: the framework stays steady, and the artist supplies the world. Here the world is moonlit, with bone-colored gowns and deep reds standing out against shadow.
Practical Ritual Applications
A deck built around a story suits slow, evening readings. Draw a single card at night and journal on what it shows about something you’ve kept hidden. A three-card spread of past, present and future follows one situation as it unfolds, and a longer spread gives the guidebook more to say. Reversed cards belong in these readings, so read them where they land. If you’re building a reference shelf, my tarot and divination books pair well with this deck, since the Rider-Waite-Smith structure is the one most tarot books teach. Keep the deck for the dark half of the year, or for any night when you want a gothic voice in the room, and let the story carry you through a full reading.
How to Read with The Vampire’s Tale Tarot
Here is a simple way to begin your first reading with this deck.
- Meet the Deck Before You Ask a Question
Go through the cards face up once, slowly, before you read with them. Notice the numerals at the top, the names on the black plates, and how each scene follows the Rider-Waite-Smith layout you may already know. Then open the guidebook to the entries for a few cards that catch your eye. Spending an evening this way gives the deck a familiar feel and makes your first real reading smoother.
- Shuffle, Cut, and Draw with Reversals Included
Shuffle the way you normally do, then cut the deck in half, turn one half 180 degrees, and shuffle again so that some cards land reversed without you choosing which. Hold your question in mind, then draw one card for a quick answer or three for a fuller picture. Lay each card down in the orientation it arrives. A card that turns up reversed is part of the reading, so keep it exactly as it fell.
- Read the Image First, Then the Guidebook
Look at each card for a full minute before you check anything. Note who is in the scene, what the light is doing, and which detail pulls at you. Then read the guidebook entry and compare it with what you saw. Where the two agree, you have your answer. Where they differ, write both lines in your journal and revisit them in a week.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I stock The Vampire’s Tale Tarot because it keeps the tarot intact beneath a single, committed theme. When I choose themed decks, I look for a framework that stays usable and art that brings something new to it, and this deck does both: the Major and Minor Arcana keep their roles, so what you’ve learned from other books and spreads still applies. If your taste runs gothic and you like a deck with a protagonist, this one is made for you. It sits comfortably beside the classics in my tarot decks collection as the one you pick up when you want the story as well as the symbols.
Frequently Asked Questions
They're separate decks by the same creative pair. Sasha Graham created the Dark Wood Tarot and Abigail Larson illustrated it, and both are 78-card Rider-Waite-Smith-style decks. The Dark Wood Tarot is built around a dark forest and the shadow self, while The Vampire's Tale Tarot follows Octavia, a half-human, half-vampire hybrid. One reviewer says the two share a dark fairytale space and a similar look, and neither deck requires the other.
It can be. One reviewer found it accessible to beginners as well as fun for experienced readers. The deck follows the Rider-Waite-Smith system, the structure most tarot books and courses teach, so general references apply to its cards. The same reviewer wished for larger cards, since the detailed artwork can be hard to make out at the printed size.
The boxed kit includes a full-color guidebook of 212 pages along with the 78 cards, so you can start reading without a separate book. A reviewer calls the guidebook's quality fantastic and notes that its card entries follow a consistent format, which makes it easy to compare cards as you learn the deck.
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