Thanks for sharing!
I'm really excited for these two. There's something about the three of us all coming together on these particular two festivals that has brought out a lot of great ideas for the artwork and storytelling.
It's actually a much tougher research prospect - little is known about Anglo Saxon mythology as it was stamped out by the Romans and the catholic church, and making parallels with Norse mythology which is absolutely likely to be almost identical is very risky for two reasons. One, it's simply a different region and just considering differences between Welsh, Irish and Scots Celtic mythology you have to believe that the Scandinavians had some important differences.
Secondly, even with everything we know about Norse mythology it comes primarily from two sources, both of which were Christian writers and as such have a certain bias towards certain aspects of the mythology.
One of the gods included, for example, has no parallel in Norse mythology and only one mention of him exists. But the fact that his worship was explicitly forbidden in this church text alongside Woden (Odin) and Tiw (Tyr) suggests that Saxneat was revered highly by the Anglo Saxons... and yet we know literally nothing else about him.
The same goes for Frige, Woden's consort, from who we get the day of the week Friday. We DO know that her Norse counterpart has a rich and interesting mythology. But we cannot simply say 'they are the same'. And so we know. nothing else of her.
This also means that it's impossible to add Loki to the Anglo Saxon pantheon, despite his importance in Norse stories, as there is no trace of him having been known on the British Isles.
So it's all been good fun, plus Yule and Ostara are very much like Christmas and Easter, and the symbolism and traditions have remained very similar or the same. And who doesn't love Christmas and Easter eggs??
EDIT Oh! And this will be the campaign where we start to see designs for the collector's boxes.
They won't be available until he final campaign, but we will share some designs. and get feedback soon.
We have two options as requested - a wooden box with a transparent lid which allows you to see the decks lined up inside with their spine artwork, alongside a more wallet-friendly but no less luxury creation with Boschiero and Newton which will also have a transparent lid.
Very excited about these, here is how the side design is likely to look. (This is part-photo-park-mockup so ignore where the design doesn't link up perfectly)
@playingcardophile
