I haven’t gone completely silent with my site, just trying to find some financial ventures to support this littler writing habit of mine.  During this I began messing around with AI to create some Maldene-inspired artwork; just a little something to exercise my creative side and transfer those visuals that have been long in my head out onto some place more generally viewable.  Some of these efforts then led to getting them animated, also by AI, and that led to a couple trailers that you may have seen.

Well, I generated a LOT more Maldene art than you’ll see in those trailers, then from there I started into some Cyberdawn and Inspector Flaatphut art; just enough of those latter two for their trailers.  My latest effort has been the Maldene tarot.  Yes, Maldene has its own tarot that actually comes up in the story sooner or later, specifically via a certain character who lies in the background for a bit.  I designed all the cards, written descriptions, the meanings of the cards depending on which edge is pointing up, and even how to lay them out and read them– not like the old Celtic cross, but more in the way of a hexagon for the simple reading, and three interlocked hexagons for the complex reading, which the positions of some cards influencing others they may be pointing to.  Normal Earth decks have two sections: the lesser and greater Arcana, however the Maldene deck has three:  Lesser, Greater, and High Arcana.  The High Arcana actually has only three cards– the Sun, the Moons, and the World; get one of these in your reading and you know something special is coming up.  Also, the Lesser Arcana has just three suits instead of four, each of which numbers up through 9, then with 6 court cards.  (And you may be noticing the number ‘3’ popping up a lot… read the first couple of novels to find out why that number has such significance.)

Did all this when I was about 21 and putting together the various elements of what would become Maldene.

And did I mention?  These cards are triangular shaped.  This means that each card has 3 faces; 3 different shades of meaning instead of the normal two.  Makes for quite the interesting read.  At any rate, being all out of book trailers to make, I decided to use AI to start getting the Maldene tarot cards drawn up.  About 75% of the way through right now, enough to start showing off a few.

The point of all this is a new series of articles I’ll be posting on Maldene.com, then echoing from there to my Facebook, Instagram, and wherever else.   I series whereby I display some of that Maldene inspired artwork, be it from characters, scenes, places, objects, or even some cards from the Maldene tarot.  Just a series of little snippets to get the appetite going.

Today we’ll start with three of the Tarot cards.

Greater Arcana #27: The Long Road

I picked The Long Road as the first card simply because for me it has been a long road indeed, and no sign of the destination nearing.  The blue sun in the picture?  Maldene has a blue star, so naturally…

High Arcana #1: The Sun

The Sun is one of the three High Arcana cards, and hence the most powerful; card in the deck.  It always portends a great Fate, though weather it be good, bad, or indifferent, depends on which corner is facing upwards.

This is one of the court cards for the suit of ‘Gai’, which is the Maldene equivalent to the Swords suit in the Lesser Arcana.  Each of the three suits has for court cards Page, Knight, Princess, Prince, Queen, and King.

Well, that’s it for now, but loads more yet to come.  I have compiled pictures from all across Maldene, from books you have yet to see, yet all of it just but a small fraction of what lies waiting to leap out of my mind (And much beyond what AI can yet handle).  So stay tuned, and I’ll see about making this a regular thing.