A deck of 46 cards with a Keyword/ Phrase across the top inspired by lyrics (also included on the card) from the catalogue of Romanovsky & Phillips, and Ron Romanovsky‘s solo career.
As with most ‘Oracle Decks‘ published these days, this is not a fortune-telling deck but a collection of prompts for personal reflection, with both affirmations and ‘shadow aspects’ to consider. Many of the phrases are pretty typical of Oracle decks, but a few will be more familiar to folks in, or familiar with, gay male/queer cultures. At the same time, the combination of quoted lyrics with the Key Word/ Phrase on each card make unnecessary an additional Guidebook.
Available now, printed on demand, at TheGameCrafter.com. As their name indicates, they produce table top board games as well as decks of cards. Their website auto-generates a 30 Day production estimate but my recent order arrived in 18 days.
Highlights of the Creation Process:
I served as the Creator and Editor of this deck, with the blessing of Ron Romanovsky, who controls the relevant copyrights. We exchanged a few drafts of song lyrics and keywords. He’s not particularly interested in Divination, so relied on my experience. Knowing from the outset that this is a ’boutique deck’ with a very small target market, offering it on a Print on Demand basis from The Gamecrafter.com was a ‘no-brainer’.
The hexagon card was selected as a subliminal reminder that this Lyrical Oracle Deck has been designed for queer folx; we who see the world from a slightly different angle. This size card meant that pricing is per ‘sheet of 12’ so a total of 48 cards was selected. One is the Title Card (with copyright notice on the reverse) and another has a brief introduction to R&P.
That left 46 cards for lyrics and keywords/ phrases. There’s a complete list of them at the bottom of this page.
Then the selections with the most, and the fewest, characters were used to decide on the layout and what size of font to use.
This led to the creation of a multi-layered template as shown here. The red line is the trim line, while the dotted blue represents the safety margin. The purple bar on which the key words/ phrases appear in white extends across the width of the file- well past the trim line.
Printing and die cutting card stock is automated and requires a 1/8″ allowance for shift.
Deck packaging options for this card size is limited at our Print On Demand partner- it is a ’boutique’ size so to speak. The obvious choice was their Tuck Box designed to hold 48 cards. Laying out the production file using their template is pretty straight-forward. The artwork is based on the main design element of their website.
I didn’t keep precise track of the hours, as this is part of my Family of Lovers passion project to preserve and promote the musical and political impact of R&P.
Below are 2 pictures of cards and one showing the Key Words/ Phrases in the deck. Each image links to a full-size version.
All lyrics ©copyright Ron Romanovsky or Paul Phillips or Romanovsky & Phillips. Used under license. All rights reserved.