THE TAROT HAS AWAKENED…
…And nothing will ever be the same again.
The Tarot, a mystical divination deck of cards, has appeared in the Sixth World as a powerful artifact. It works its will on anyone who finds one of its magical cards, from runners surviving on the street to corp executives battling in the boardroom. And not just people’s lives will be changed, for the Awakened Tarot deck is more than just a formidable magic item, it has an agenda all its own, and will seek to use those it comes in contact with to set its plans in motion…
Drawing Destiny is the latest original Shadowrun anthology, featuring twenty-three original stories about this brand-new artifact introduced into the game universe. Featuring stories from Michael A. Stackpole, Jennifer Brozek, Chris A. Jackson, Lucy A. Snyder, Aaron Rosenberg, R.L. King, Russell Zimmerman, Monica Valentinelli, Josh Vogt, and Jason M. Hardy, and 14 more authors, these stories reveal how the Awakened Tarot will impact the Sixth World for better, and sometimes, for much worse...

Yeah, that's pretty much all I can assume, they had the guy on contract to do some huge number of art pieces for planned work and that planned work canceled so they made the tarot deck.

The above, though, is a braided novel that appears to be treating that tarot deck as an in-world magical artifact implied to be sentient which boggles my goddamn mind.

Reading it as is, and it's like World of Shadows. Some of the stories continue ones from World of Shadows (Dia de los Muertes), some are entertaining (the Stackpole story, at least for me), some are so-so, and some are plainly bizarre (Dragonbound, or, to quote: What in the nine hells just happened?). The ties to the Tarot mostly are pretty vague; it seems to be "pick a card and spin a story around the artwork". Dia de los Muertes, for instance, features a killer looking like the one on 404 (cringe). The others seem vaguely like that, though Dragonbound (again: what the fuck?) has no relation to an S-K boardroom meeting either.

As for the Tarot itself? Seems like a collectors item. The artwork is okay, some are good, some aren't, all of it is Chernik's fetish-heavy digital stuff with the occasional wacky proportions. I have no use for Tarot cards myself, but if the deck works for you, I guess it is as good as any other Tarot deck.

I hope that this is one of those things that they try, and then let disappear in the mists of time -- rather than dragging it into the metaplot for ages to come.

The first time the Tarot played a role in a Shadowrun setting was in 1989's Into the Shadows anthology, Turtle in the Tower, by Ken St. Andre. But those were (awakened, but paper, and 1970s vintage) cards back then.

Maybe they managed to go Wireless and get an upgrade.

It automatically reorganises your schedule to fit the predictions of a tarot reading.

Tarot is too accessible. They should have bought a bunch of scapular bones from a slaughterhouse, had the artwork painted on those, and the sold the bones via mail order and made everyone learn prehistoric scapular divination traditions.