The Dreary Omens are almost here.
I’ve just finished writing the guide (which will be included as a download with the deck, as well as being available by a small separate purchase), and I don’t blame you if you’re feeling confused! I recorded my feelings about Tarot Guidebooks in no uncertain terms in a prior post on this very blog. Now here I go (again) contradicting myself.
The difference is that The Dreary Omens isn’t a tarot deck. It’s an oracle with a very specific history and methodology. As I edited the text, I discovered that the guidebook isn't superfluous supplementary material. In many ways, it completes the deck.
Creating the text forced me to ask each card “What are you doing here?” The answers have been more than just vague card meanings. First I discovered a backstory for the booklet’s existence: it turns out to have been written by Havelock Pryce, Dreary, Maine’s resident Cryptozoologist and founder of the Dreary Cryptozoological Society. Second, Pryce did his research and uncovered swaths of Dreary lore that give the cards surprisingly pointed meanings.Threshold isn't just a spooky locked door. Hunger doesn't merely mean wanting something. Arrival doesn't promise that you've arrived where you meant to go. Dread explicitly refuses to insist that you confront what frightens you. These distinctions actually make the deck more coherent, not less.
Pryce’s notes are much more than fifty-two little motivational self-help pep-talks. They constitute an eccentric field guide in which the divinatory meanings arise from Dreary's folklore, history and inhabitants. Sometimes Pryce explains the meaning; sometimes a poem does it; sometimes an anecdote does; in most cases, the card meanings are precise and aim for the jugular.
The booklet will arrive looking exactly as Pryce designed, assembled and distributed it in 1998 via his DCS website. It’s as eccentric and unusual as the deck — not merely an oracle deck: but a doorway into the strange and sometimes frightening world of Dreary itself. Available separately, the Field Guide will also include printable Dreary Cryptozoological Society membership materials.
The Dreary Omens is arriving in September 2026.
Leave a comment