Fortunes of theRoad
The concept
Four faces of a life
A fortune-teller’s deck and an abundance object, handed out by a driver on the road. The four suits are not decoration — they are a cosmology. Each one is a face of a human life, and each card in it is a person: fifty-two voices in the suits, two more standing outside them.
The house style is antique intaglio — engraved banknote line-work on warm cream, the black suits struck in money-green and the red suits in red, the way currency is printed rather than the way playing cards usually are. There are no filler cards. Every card is a person, and every person brought a sentence worth carrying.
Each card is a masterpiece.The standard, set on day one
Hearts
what you love — the spirit
Love deeply.
Spades
what you dare — the will
Dare greatly.
Clubs
what you dream — imagination and reason
Dream widely.
Diamonds
what fortune brings — and how you hold it
Hold fortune lightly.
The grammar
What every card carries
Top banner
The card’s Latin motto — one heraldic line, cut to the quote beneath it.
The field
A portrait for the courts. An allegory for the Aces. For the numerals, a pip field engraved into a scene, with the speaker in cameo at the lower left — the same person-logic, at citizen scale.
Bottom ribbon
The words themselves, and whose they are.
Corner indices
Rank and pip, top-left and bottom-right, as on any deck you have ever held.
The serial
FR 000NN and a suit letter, once, upper right. Fifty-two serials, and no two cards carry the same one.
The ranks
The ranks walk a road
Every rank has a role, keyed to the deck’s own metaphor. A card’s position expresses what its saying does — it is not a ranking of the people.
The law of the Tens
The last mile-marker of every suit bends inward. The road’s final step is always a turn — and it began as a coincidence across the four Tens before it became a rule of the deck.
- ♥10♥the treasure that turns out to be the heart
- ♠10♠the darkest card in the deck, broken by one light
- ♣10♣the grain of sand that holds a world
- ♦10♦the luck that turns out to have been character
The crowns
A sentence hides in the crowns
Read in the order of the cosmology — love, will, dream, fortune — the Aces and the Kings already speak. Nothing was added to make this happen. The lines simply hold their seats.
Across the four Aces — how to set out
- ♥A♥Vos estis lux mundiYou are the light of the world.
- ♠A♠Vir bonus estoBe a good man.
- ♣A♣Stuporem emeTrade your cleverness for wonder.
- ♦A♦Fortuna vitreaFortune is glass.
Shine. Be good. Choose wonder. Hold luck lightly.
Across the four Kings — what you find
- ♥K♥Regnum Dei intra vosThe kingdom of God is within you.
- ♠K♠Nulli odium, omnibus caritasMalice toward none; charity for all.
- ♣K♣Somnia sumusWe are such stuff as dreams.
- ♦K♦Cui satis, divesWhoever has enough is rich.
Look within. Love all. We are dreams. Enough is the only wealth.
The deck opens at the Aces telling you how to set out, and closes at the Kings telling you what you will find — the same four voices, as young principle and as mature embodiment.
The plates
Fifty-four cards
Every card, at full resolution. Touch any plate to open it.
Hearts
Christ Consciousness
what you love
The spirit. Thirteen cards of Christ’s own words, with the Evangelist who carries each saying standing at the corner of it — the winged man for Matthew, the lion for Mark, the eagle for John.
FR 00040–00052 H
Love deeply.
Spades
The Great Leaders
what you dare
The will. Thirteen people who did the frightening thing — a philosopher-emperor at the spring of it, a rail-splitter at the end, and between them the long argument that courage is a practice.
FR 00027–00039 S
Dare greatly.
Clubs
Poets & Philosophers
what you dream
Imagination and reason. The suit opens by telling you to trade your cleverness for wonder, and closes with a man who kept an 8 mm camera where a sceptre should be.
FR 00001–00013 C
Dream widely.
Diamonds
Fortune & Abundance
what fortune brings
Luck on one side, the wisdom of enough on the other. Fortune is glass at the Ace; by the King the richest man is whoever stopped wanting more.
FR 00014–00026 D
Hold fortune lightly.
The Jokers
Outside the journey
Two share certificates rather than two clowns. They stand outside the four suits and outside the road — allegories, not portraits, and no real face belongs to either of them. Par value, in both cases: one fortune.
The calling card
The card the deck was built around
The house motto is worn in the open, so the whole deck rests on the turning of luck. Some things on these cards are meant to be looked at twice.