ARTICLE
A game to explore the secrets of the being, in solitaire or with another person.
With the graphic cooperation of Eliot Baum and Viv Tanner, it was made by Causa Creations, an Austrian independent game company founded in 2014 in Vienna.
The company thinks on games as entertainment and also as meaningful and enriching experiences connecting us, defying perceptions and bringing insights about the world around us. Sefirot's narrative is based on esoteric tales, mystic stories and the Judaic Kabbalah. It is said that some sages and priestesses were cast out of their homelands by the wrath of the orthodoxies, and were established on an ancient island placed between nebulas and reefs off the Arabian coast, around 1562. Sages and priestesses founded there the Dioscoria island, a place that became their refuge where they developed a society favouring empathy, playfulness and prowess of the mind. To celebrate it, they used to share a pastime: Sefirot.
Sefirot is that ancient game allowing a playful activity, as well as fortune-telling and meditation. A Tarot deck is the central piece of the pack, which offers a new discourse for Tarot communities. It includes 78 cards to spread in a two-side board (single or two players) and combine according to rules and personal choices, while exploring and understanding the divine, in oneself as well as in the partner.
The deck has been designed beyond Marseille or Rider-Waite-Smith conventions and orthodox criteria. Of a very meticulous and detailed artisan elaboration, illustrations guide players to discover the occult in constellations and symbologies, deepening into additional layers of meaning inside of decorative elements. A very careful elaboration also offers a long-term and high quality product, in attention to environmental sustainability.
Personal choices
Whatever the use of Sefirot, it can be played as a solitary game or with another person (to cooperate or compete). Depending on the chosen version, players use one side or the other of the board.
use the scrollbar to visualize cards
Players choose those major arcana to be placed on the board's free spaces. Those cards will have to be "solved" for divine knowledge to be revealed.
For players to define where to place them, they have to know the spaces and also keep in mind the main purpose of the game: exploring, fortune-telling, competing, cooperating?
Each player also takes minor cards one by one or gathered as a group, for combining them with a major card or in between two of them (creating like a "bridge"). Combinations are meant to solve major ones by placing minors upon them, or in the space between them (if it's about a bridge).
To define those minors to be gathered, the major one to combine with, and the one to be solved, players must keep in mind cards' numeric values.
Basic actions
filling
Spaces on the board (sefirah and spheres) are filled with major cards. If they are all filled, cards remain in the player's hand.
absorbing
A major card can absorb one or more minors (the ones the player has grouped) only if the sum of the values of the latter ones equals or is lesser to its number.
"solving" by pairing
When the value of a major card equals the sum of values of the minors that it absorbed, the major card is considered to be solved.
Following the same logic, for solving bridges, the total value of the minors in between the major ones has to equal the sum of values of the major ones connected by the bridge (which must not have minors upon them).
In any case, if the sum absorbed is lesser, then an unsolved value remains until another minor card is placed upon the major one (or the bridge). Like before, the value of the latter must equal the value of the major (or the total value of majors in the bridge).
Allegories
The sum of values is what allows moving cards and combine them across different spaces, sometimes because of the game's rules, sometimes because of the players' choices, or both.
Used as a divinatory practice or to explore oneself or a relationship, the game itself is something to be observed as it is played: when choosing rows and columns to be filled on the board, when combining cards to solve or build bridges, when transferring cards from one space to another, in personal speculations, when reading the areas where the own cards are connected to those of the other player. All of these elements are referring to allegories about divination, self-exploration or the personal relationship of players.
Versions
know yourself
To reach higher knowledge, you must first know yourself. As you strive for knowledge, you explore your relationship with the divine realm.
It's the version to play in solitaire, on a board inspired by the sephira, the 10 emanations of consciousness or force of creative life by which divine patterns are revealed to humankind.
On the board, players climb The Tree of Life from the base to the upper part, in 3 columns representing body, mind and soul, meeting destiny's challenges as the duality of growth and decadence is overcome.
Aside The Tree, there're four Grace Fields represented by rings of angel wings: they're optional spaces available when rules force to move minor cards from The Plane of Matter (lower part of The Tree) to The Heavens (upper part), but it happens that they cannot be placed there because their values exceed those of the major ones already emplaced in there.
lover's discourse
Knowing your own soul provides insight into divine patterns, and likewise, understanding divine patterns provides insight into your soul. By sharing the pursuit of higher knowledge and discovering each other’s divine patterns, two partners gain a better understanding of each other, and of the divine.
It's the two-players version, for cooperating, building a shared existence and negotiating the implications to each player. It's played on the Celestial Field board, where there are 13 spaces to fill between the Sun and Moon, the luminaries emplaced in the extremes.
Players also occupy those opposite places on the board, one closer to the Sun and the other one closer to the Moon, with the chance to place minor cards upon the major ones of the other player!
Luminaries can also be combined in the centre of the board (Solstice), a move that in this version means cooperation and good communication.
warring planets
The prowess of the mind is the highest good. Wisdom can be accumulated by the gleeful activity of play. What better way to train the mind than in joyful competition? A play for the stars…a battle of the wits.
It's another two-players version, for competing and battling for the stars. It's played on the same Celestial Field board although it is about taking spaces away. The player who fills more areas and solves more cards has a higher score and wins. A player can also win if didn't lose during the game (that is, that was able to make a move according to the rules, not being trapped).
Both players also compete for the areas next to major cards: if minor ones are emplaced in there (in that case they're called Guards), the major ones cannot be placed in there, so they remain unsolved and players don't score!
More curiosities
Other rules and options add more variances to the game. For instance, in the solitaire version, The Fool can only be solved if emplaced in Da'at space although absorbs several minor ones because has a value of 40! This card can also be played as a late-game bonus.
In the two players' versions, the Sun and Moon in Solstices have also special values when they match minor cards. And the game can even be more customized by changing some of the values to absorb and / or annul, as it happens in the solitaire version for experts, when the Grace Fields are not available. Anyway, some constants remain in all versions:
- what is placed on the board cannot be removed;
- what is solved does not admit other cards upon it anymore;
- if rules force to transfer minor cards but there's no major ones placed in the transference spaces, the minors are discarded;
- if rules force to transfer minor cards but the majors cannot absorb them (because they exceed their values) and also the alternative spaces are not available (as when the Grace Fields are already occupied or the version doesn't include them), then the game ends! This is a bad prediction if Sefirot is being used as a divinatory practice.
Orders
Causa Creations has taken ahead a first fundraising campaign in Kickstarter during March / April 2021. Follow this link to see the levels it offers on demand: walls and pdf's, 78 cards in a sliding box, a two-sided board, a book with rules, an art book displaying all cards and game (with almost 120 pp, 11.57" x 8.18"), pins, figurines, impressions with cards motives (with or without signing, 5.78" × 8.26") and a wooden box handmade by Budapest's box makers. You can also add complements to customize your pack even more by including sets of impressions, altar cloths, more decks and additional boards.
Other options and updates await to be offered on demand!: stickers, bookmarkers, adorns and golden borders (in boxes, cards and books), hard-covers, illustrated stories, additional impressions, deluxe boxes, new cards and a fourth version to play! Meanwhile, watch an introduction in English language including Spanish subtitles, from Vanillery Garden channel:
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