Slavic Tarot is Sold Out for Good

I posted about this on Instagram a while back as my stock of Slavic Tarot decks was dwindling and then, alas, exhausted, but I figured I should probably talk a bit more about its creation process and why I ultimately discontinued printing it here, for those who are curious or have been pressing me to make another printing.

I’ll begin with why I stopped, which I guess is beginning with the ending: printing costs have skyrocketed. They are absolutely bonkers high right now. As a result, I would have to double my price per deck, and no one is going to drop $100 on a tarot deck no matter how much they like the art or the concept. It’s simply not happening. So I can’t financially justify printing another set, because I will not recoup those expenses, and I certainly won’t recoup them fast enough for it to be remotely worthwhile. The companies who provide that printing service have minimum order requirements, which have been steadily increasing since the first round I printed (which was only 100 decks). Next printing was 150, and that third and final printing I ran was 250 decks. Last I checked, minimal printing order was 500 now, and I simply can’t do that. It’d cost me thousands of dollars. So anyway, unless you want to kickstart fund a printing, I’m out. Sorry.

Why I created the Slavic Tarot in the first place: I wanted a tarot deck based on Slavic mythology and folklore, and the only ones available at the time used stolen art ripped straight off of classic Russian paintings and Afanas’ev’s illustrations. Eff that. So I decided to make my own. Cue six years of research and planning and then finally writing and illustrating, I had a full 78-card deck with major and minor arcana that followed the basic Ryder-Waite arc but with a Slavic flare. I used deities from Slavic paganism (Perun, Mokosh, Svarog, the Zarya, etc) and folkloric figures (Ilya Muromets, Ivan the Fool, Vasilisa the Beautiful, the Firebird, etc) for the major arcana. For the minor arcana, I decided to incorporate my own preference for elemental associations (swords are fiery to me, not wands; don't @ me) and then threw in cycles of folklore and seasonal associations as well for each suit. So they move wands (spring, air) to coins (summer, earth) to swords (fall, fire) to cups (winter, water).

I finished illustrating and did the first round of printing—which was not without flaw and the occasional typo in the Little White Book—while I was still working on my MA in Slavic Languages & Literatures. Yes, ‘literatures,’ plural. Don’t ask me; I didn’t name the degree. Anyway, I was a lowly grad student with a minimal social following and little involvement in the wider Pagan community beyond the occasional festival attendance. I’d been more involved when I was stationed at Fort Hood and Fort Bliss (especially at Bliss, where I served as the Distinctive Faith Group Leader of the Open Circle until I deployed and could no longer lead it), but during grad school? Nope. Lost touch. Thus, I was absolutely FLOORED with how quickly that first printing sold out. Somehow, word of mouth had my tarot decks flying off the proverbial shelves of my Etsy store, and I sold out of those first 100 decks in less than six months. As an indie artist with a teensie following and an advertising budget of precisely $0? Color me shocked, for real.

After their initial release, I gave a few interviews, went on a podcast, was asked to contribute a chapter on Slavic Folk practices to an edited anthology (which I did, and was published by Llewellyn in 2023, go check it out here), and reviews of the deck appeared on several well-known Pagan blogs. Also, entirely unexpected. Over the course of a few months, I became if not exactly a household name in the larger Pagan community, someone who rubbed elbows with those who were. It was wild. My brief fame, such as it was, has since fallen off, so I’m back to flying under the radar as an indie artist/musician/writer/folklorist/mom/grumpy veteran. But every once in a while, I do still get spontaneously recognized as, "hey aren't you that lady who made that Slavic Tarot deck?" and it makes my day every time.

Over the past twoish years, sales of that third printing dropped off significantly. I went from selling multiple decks a week, to multiple decks a month, to one deck a month, to sometimes going a few months without any sales. Everyone who wanted a Slavic Tarot deck already had one; Etsy was burying legitimate artists in favor of drop-shippers and knock offs (don't get me started); several copycat decks based on my original deck popped up (you know you’ve made it when a shady company in Pakistan is printing knockoffs of your work, and because they’re international, you have no copyright recourse). There are also several other legitimately original Slavic-based tarot decks that arose in the years since I first designed mine, so the niche market I unexpectedly found is no longer so niche.

I’ve received several requests over the years to create a companion deck or an oracle deck or something similar, which I may do one day, but for the foreseeable future—if you’ll forgive the pun—it’s not in the cards. I have neither the time, the inspiration, nor the expendable cash to get them printed...hence why I discontinued the original Slavic Tarot in the first place. I’m not ruling it out entirely, but if I ever do design another deck, it will be several years from now before I even start (so probably a decade before you could buy it).

In the meantime, while the decks themselves are gone, I still have much of the original art I used to illustrate that deck. I’ve sold a few of them, but I have most of the originals left and available for sale on my Etsy, and right here in the shop section of my website. I don’t have all of the Minor Arcana illustrations listed because each listing costs me money to maintain, but reach out if there’s one you want and it’s not listed. I probably have it.

All for now! I’ll be back on Thursday with the first installment of my Slavic Warrior Women series, which will cover a brief(ish) introduction to the research I did for my doctoral dissertation, Amazons, Shieldmaidens, and Daring Polianitsy: Slavic Warrior Women in Medieval Literature and Folklore.