Not long after playing cards appeared in Europe, around the 1400’s and 1500’s, they began to be used for fortune telling and divination. The tarot deck of playing cards especially became widely used for this purpose.

There were theories that the practice originated in ancient Egypt and the mysteries of Isis. The French priest Antoine Court de Gébelin even asserted that the name Tarot came from the Egyptian words "Tar" (road) and "Ro" (king), and translated to ”The Royal Road of Life”.

Other authors took this further and connected its usage with the Romani people and asserted that they were in fact “travelling Egyptians”. The mistaken belief that the Romani are originally of Egyptian origin is the etymology of the exonym “Gypsy”.

Campaign: “Curse of Strahd”, Dungeons & Dragons
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Curse of Strahd 04: Cartomancy