D&D Tarot Card Puzzle – The Witching Hour Tarot Card Puzzle Solution

Today we are going to take a look at a Tarot Card Puzzle that is presented in the indie horror game The Witching Hour. This is a fantastic game created by Vincent Lade (@VincentLade) and can be found on Steam. Our purpose of this article, however, is two fold. If you are playing the game and struggling with the answer then we will have this answered for you shortly. If you are here because you are a fan of Dungeons and Dragons and are looking for a tarot card puzzle to use in your D&D game, we will discuss that as well.

In this article we will cover:

• A Walkthrough for solving the Witching Hour Tarot Card Puzzle
• Adjust the puzzle slightly to accommodate a Major Arcana Tarot deck
• Discuss how to use tarot card puzzles in D&D

The Witching Hour Puzzle

I first encountered this puzzle watching my favorite playthrough YouTuber, CJUGames, encounter this in his demo video and again in part 2 of his Witching Hour playthrough. While I didn’t give it any thought at the time. Shortly after, my friend Immortal Origins sent me a deck of the major arcane tarot cards from Die Hard Games and asked me to create a puzzle video using the cards. For those of you that are new here, I have a YouTube channel that focuses on using puzzles and traps in Dungeons and Dragons.

Of course, as soon as the request for a tarot puzzle was made, I immediately thought of the Witching Hour. So, let’s take a look and see what we have. In the game, there is a wooden board that has the outline of six tarot cards and where they should be placed. There are two rows of three cards each.

The cards to the right of the tarot reading board are:

• The Hanged Man
• The Nine Swords
• The Devil
• The Lovers
• The Fool
• Death

And finally, in order to solve this puzzle in a written article, I will refer to the positions on the tarot reading board by numbers. The top row, from left to right will be 1, 2, and 3. The bottom row, from left to right, will be 4, 5, and 6.

After finding the tarot reading board and the tarot cards, explore around the rest of the room. You should be able to find a piece of paper nearby on a shelf with a riddle on it. The riddle reads as follows:

The beast sits in a corner of this long forgotten land (devil)
one strolls furthest and above him with fragility in hand (fool)

Neither above or below the two a soul swings bare (hanging man)
galloping up high a dark omen can’t help but stare (death on a horse)

A soul pained in thoughts, lays furthest from the pale (nine swords)
While two souls between darkness await bells and veil (lovers)

Tarot Card Puzzle Solution

Let’s take this tarot card riddle line by line.

Line 1: The beast sits in a corner of this long forgotten land
The Beast, is also known as The Devil. Sitting in a corner, means that the Devil card will be in one of four positions. 1, 3, 4, or 6.

Line 2: one strolls furthest and above him, fragility in hand
The Fool is a vagabond. A person who wanders from place to place without a home or job. We can incinuate that the word “strolls” pertains to this. Deciphering “fragility in hand” is a bit tougher. Fragility could mean lack of emotional strength or vulnerability. This could be interpreted as “foolishness” or “susceptible to deception”, both of which are possible indicators of The Fool. Regardless, the Fool tarot card is furthest and above The Devil.

The Devil can now only be in the bottom row. Position 4 or 6.
The Fool can only be in the top row. Position 1 or 3.

Line 3: Neither above or below the two, a soul swings bare
“a soul swings bare” refers to The Hanged Man, swinging from a rope. Neither above or below the two refers to The Fool and The Devil. The Hanged Man can’t be above or below them, so it must be in the middle and should occupy either position 2 or 5 on the tarot board.

Line 4: galloping up high a dark omen can’t help but stare
“Galloping” clues us in on a horse, and dark omen can mean death. So this line is definitely referring to the Death tarot card. The “galloping up high”, indicates that Death will be in the top row. “Can’t help but stare” could mean that the image on the card itself is looking to the right. If this is a factor as well, then Death can only be in position 1 or 2.

Line 5: A soul pained in thoughts, lays furthest from the pale
A Soul pained in thoughts. This was a tough one to figure out. After searching for the answer online, I was able to determine that this should be the Nine of Swords. Nightmares, fear, worry, anxiety, and depression are all interpretations of the Nine of Swords. “Furthest from the Pale” means that the Nine of Swords will be furthest away from another card, putting it into a corner. The word “Pale” refers to a pale horse, which is a representation of Death, who rides a white horse.

With this information, four of are card slots are now determined. Death will be in the 1 spot (upper left) and Nine of Swords will be furthest away in the number 6 spot (bottom right). The Devil will be in 4 spot (lower left) with the Fool furthest and above in the 3 spot (upper right)

Line 6: While two souls between darkness await bells and veil
“Bells and Veil” could be a wedding indicating The Lovers tarot card. Darkness is represented by The Devil and Nine Swords, so The Lovers will be in the 5 position (bottom middle).

Our final card, The Hanged Man, will be in the number 2 position (upper middle) and our puzzle is solved.

How to use Tarot Card Puzzle in D&D

If you are playing the Witching Hour, I hope this walkthrough helps you with this portion of the game. For those of you that would like to use this puzzle in a TTRPG like Pathfinder or Dungeons & Dragons®, I believe we can make this an easy transition.

Rather than a door puzzle or as a tool to unlock something, I feel that a tarot card puzzle would make for a splendid magic item. This wondrous item would be an ornate box that contains the six tarot cards required to solve the puzzle and a rolled up canvas mat. The mat has an outline of where six cards can be placed to produce the magical effect. A note accompanies the magic item with the riddle or clue as discussed here.

Dungeons & Dragons Tarot Card Puzzle

Once the puzzle is solved, the magic item can be used once per day. What is the magical effect? Well, that is up to you as the game master. Perhaps it gives a daily boon like Mage Armor or perhaps a luck point (like the Lucky feat). This is up to you and how you want the magic item to be used in your game. Let me know what you decide in the comment section below.

Major Arcana Tarot Cards

A Tarot deck is made up of 78 cards. The first 22 cards, numbered 0-21, are the Major Arcana cards. In tarot readings the Major Arcana cards can represent long-term situations where as the remaining cards, or Minor Arcana, can give advice on what is happening in your daily life. But, of course for our puzzle this is neither here-nor-there. The reality of the matter is that there are a lot of tarot decks that only contain the 22 Major Arcana cards. This includes the deck that I have from Die Hard Games.

If you are wanting to use the Witching Hour puzzle in your table top role playing game or Dungeons and Dragons®, using only the Major Arcana cards, we can make some adjustments to make that happen.

First, we must replace the 9 Swords with another card. With the help of my Discord friends, we decided that The Tower is a suitable replacement.

Taking line 5 of our clues we can replace this:

As we know, The Lovers should be in between darkness that was once represented by The Devil and Nine Swords. Since we refer to The Tower as a “dark castle”, we can fulfill the requirements of The Lovers being between the Devil and The Tower. In tarot readings, The Tower represents destruction and could come up if everything in your life feels like its crumbling with no way to stop it. A dark place to be.

Here is our adjusted tarot clue for use with the Major Arcana cards

The beast sits in a corner of this long forgotten land (devil)
one strolls furthest and above him with fragility in hand (fool)

Neither above or below the two a soul swings bare (hanging man)
galloping up high a dark omen can’t help but stare (death on a horse)

A dark castle in the distance, crumbles furthest from the pale (the tower)
While two souls between darkness await bells and veil (lovers)

So that’s all I have for you today. Did this article help you with The Witching Hour Indie Horror game as a walk through or were you here for how to use Tarot Cards in Dungeons & Dragons®. Do you want to see more Tarot Card puzzles?

Let me know in the comment section below.

On to the Next!
—wallydm