A Comparison Between Three Kipper Decks

Three of the most common Kipper decks: The Wahrsage Kipperkarten (x 2), The Salish, The Ciro Marchetti Fin de Siecle

“Original” Wahrsage Kipperkarten with original 1890 directions, English version

Before we begin getting into card meanings, I just want to take a look at some of the most common Kipper decks you’ll see around, particularly in light of some of the ‘issues’ around directionality we raised in the Introduction to Kipper, should you care to use them (and no, you don’t have to). As you may have guessed, I’m absolutely NOT a believer in One True Ways (TM) of reading; nonetheless, the illustrations in these decks can be helpful and add additional nuance to your stories, so hopefully, this’ll help you make your mind up on which way you want to go in terms of designs, decks and your own approach to this issue.

Missed the overview of the Kipper deck? Check it out here:

Deck 1: The “Original” (and “Original Original”) Wahrsage Kipperkarten

As a reminder, when the original Kipper deck was printed in the late 19th century, the images used were as per the image at the top. For some reason, when the cards were reprinted later, in the 1920s, many of them (the Military Man excepted) were transposed, as in the usual “Original” cards you’ll get below. See it? These are mine and are the version by Hildegard Leiding.

“Original” Wahrsage Kipperkarten with 1920s directions, German & current Leiding version

Do The Images/Directions Used Matter?

As we’ll see when we look more in depth at the card meanings and how they might work in a big reading like the Grand Tableau, you can use the images and the directions of what is going on within them to add extra facets to your readings. For example, the most common one is to treat the cards ahead of where your main character is facing as their future, and the cards behind them as their past. But there are others too.