Dev Insights: Harnessing Our Inner Eris with the Deck of Whispers

Season of the Witch has brought some of our favorite characters to the forefront once more and introduced us to Eris’s startling new form; but those aren’t the only new experiences to come with the latest Season. Also making its debut is the Deck of Whispers, a magical set of divine Minor and Major Arcana Cards that Guardians collect when formulating their perfect strategy against dark forces.

A game within a game, the Deck of Whispers adds light deck-building elements to Destiny 2, offering a new way to tailor how we take the fight to the enemy. Inspired by arcane tools like tarot and oracle cards, as well as runes, we have Senior Narrative Designer Hazel Monforton here to dive a little deeper into this new feature. Whether you’re enjoying the new deck purely for its practical purposes, or you’re getting your inner magical Guardian on with all its inspirations, here’s a deeper dive into Season of the Witch’s Deck of Whispers.

“Speaking for myself,” Hazel tells me, “I’ve personally wanted a Destiny-themed tarot deck way before I ever joined the Narrative team. I think a story as rich as Destiny’s can draw from a lot of thematic and artistic symbolism rooted in the more mystical side of the game’s world. Because of that, creating a unique set of cards was something we were very excited about, and we knew that players would share that enthusiasm and be very keen to see more of this in the Destiny-verse.”

As someone who grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, surrounded by so many people that devoted themselves to mysticism, the Deck of Whispers and the themes of Season of the Witch delighted me on a deeply personal level. The best part? I wasn’t alone! Through the development process, I was fortunate enough to learn more about the wonderful folks who make each new Season a reality and about what inspires them.

It’s no secret that the world of Destiny draws from numerous inspirations from all over the world, especially with themes centering around the arcane—we have literal space magic—and even real-world events. Needless to say, diving a little deeper into these aspects is exciting. With how detailed the deck itself is, what was the process like of making something like this a reality? According to Hazel, the inspiration came quite naturally.

“As soon as I heard we were doing a deck-building system I immediately made a list of possible card names and themes from which the other designers could draw. That ideation process felt natural and exciting. Once we had the basis to go off on, we narrowed it down to twelve cards and began to focus on what each of those cards represented and how they could convey a multitude of meanings to players. I worked closely with the Art team as they created the beautiful card faces, and I also worked with the team behind the gameplay elements to make sure the card themes aligned with the various perks and buffs they bestowed.”

Hazel continues, “Another thing is that the Minor Arcana, which are little rewards and upgrades, each have a suit. There are Tablets, Crystals, Swords, and Worms, each crafted to offer something unique. I’m genuinely looking forward to when players acquire the King of Tablets and other such cards, the main reason being that we drew on a lot of earlier Hive lore. I enjoyed it a lot, and I knew the lore-minded members of the community were also going to enjoy diving deeper.”

With the Deck of Whispers, there are a lot of terms like Minor Arcana that will come up. Let’s go over a few more:

First, we have the Opaque Cards, these allow players to unlock Minor Arcana and Major Arcana cards at the Lectern of Divination that can be found via a special portal in the H.E.L.M. Players can use Major Arcana to build a buff-tastic deck that can be utilized in the Season of the Witch activities: Savathûn’s Spire and Altars of Summoning. To get Major Arcana cards, players need to complete a sort of mini-quest. Then, once they have enough cards (five at minimum) to build a deck, they will draw a random card, which activates its corresponding buff, at the start of each encounter in a Seasonal activity.

Of course, the existence of Major Arcana implies the existence of Minor Arcana. These cards also derive from Opaque Cards and offer players more traditional Seasonal effects like more Witch’s Key drops, more Seasonal engrams, and Witchcrafting—which ensures that the first Seasonal weapon that is focused will drop with Deepsight Resonant. How much players want to build their perks around the cards is up to them, but Hazel recommends randomizing your deck to work with weapons and builds that you might not typically use. That, and Blades. When in doubt, go Blades.

I was excited to learn that, like myself, Hazel also has her own personal collection of various tarot decks in real life, and she dabbles in doing readings for herself from time to time. That being said, she has her own unique relationship with these types of cards, and that relationship lent itself to the creative process in a beautiful way. According to Hazel, “I don’t see tarot as necessarily divinatory as some do. For me, they help to focus on and consider different aspects of any given situation. They help me recontextualize questions that I may be asking myself. On a personal level, I’d like to think that Eris views the Deck of Whispers in a similar way; they’re a tool for focus and contemplation, regardless of personal views on where that source of power comes from.”

She adds, “The Deck of Whispers cards are associated with chapters of Sororicide, the eighth Book of Sorrow. When a player acquires a card, they are granted another chapter in this lore book. Eris describes the text as an almost transcendental unveiling of herself, Savathûn, and Xivu Arath. The chapters are their inner thoughts, presented as monologues, that have been manifested and transcribed by the cards. It’s Hive magic but drawn directly from the shapes the cards represent.”

She continues, adding, “As such, the themes of the cards are aligned with the themes of each chapter, and each chapter has its own inspiration, either from established lore from Shadowkeep and the original Books of Sorrow or even areas of my own doctoral research. The most obvious is the lore for Blades, which is titled Mimesis. My PhD focused on mimetic desire and the work of French theologian René Girard, who wrote about the formation of human desire. I saw a lot of parallels between his theories and Xivu Arath’s motivations and understanding of the Sword Logic.”

When inspiration hits, sometimes it hits perfectly. But when turning this idea into a reality, Hazel admits that the process wasn’t without its own challenges. “The most difficult thing, hands down, was coordination. The cards had to be presented in numerical order and were assigned Roman numerals, as if they were a real-world tarot deck. You might not think it, but that came with quite a few challenges! But we like challenges—they push us to go further—so we aligned the art, gameplay, and narrative elements in a way that made sense cohesively, which meant each team’s trust in one another was vital, and communication was key. Thinking back on that process, I’m very proud of what we were able to create, and I’m so proud of each team for their grace, understanding, and guidance.”

That grace, understanding, and guidance definitely paid off. As a player myself, I know I’m far from alone in enjoying what the Deck of Whispers has to offer. Seeing familiar characters in an entirely new light—looking at you, Eris—and being a part of that journey with them has been a ride so far, and there’s even more on the way. That being said, the deck isn’t the only thing players should be paying attention to. The Narrative team had a blast when paying special attention to Xivu Arath’s throne world. “I loved defining the look of her throne world in chapter seven of Sororicide, called Deathless,” says Hazel. “We’d glimpsed it before in other areas of lore, but here we're being guided through it by Xivu Arath herself, and it’s this Hellraiser, Cronenberg landscape that she’s very proud of and thinks is very beautiful. The idea that the Hive god of war has a throne world where everything is alive, especially things that should be dead, was very delightful to me.” As a Xivu Arath fan myself, that “very delightful” feeling is very much felt! Which brings us to arguably the coolest part of the Deck of Whispers: it’s real!

If you’re looking to beef up that Destiny 2 collection and are intrigued by the Deck of Whispers and how it ties into the wider scheme of things in a world full of Guardians, then hoo boy, do we have some good news for you! You can buy your own nifty deck right here through the Bungie Store. Get your Eris on or simply add to your collection—the choice is yours. One thing is for certain though: this deck looks magical.

It’s always a fun time to show a little more behind the scenes, whether tech-wise, store-wise, or just exploring further the world of audio. Now that we’re coming to a close, get on out of here and go enjoy the Season! Tell Eris we said hi.

“I should go,”

<3 Hippy