WAYFARER

Your Wayfarer cards can be used in many ways.

Here are some ideas we’ve had. We’d love to hear about yours!

Lay them in a row to create a new poem and visual story every time.
Spark your creativity. Pull a random card and use it as a prompt for a short story, poem or artwork.
Reveal you daily oracle by laying one or three cards down. What do they tell you?
Use as teaching aides. For example, explore story structure by choosing three random cards and using them the explore the beginning, middle and end of a story.
Shuffle two sets together and play matching pairs!
Create your own Wayfarer illustrations or poems on the reverse side.

Review by Ashleigh Meikle of Wayfarer, on The Book Muse blog:

As a storyteller and writer, I am always interested in seeing different writing prompts and ways to trigger a story idea. The latest thing I have tried is the Wayfarer cards from Pardalote Press, which are magical and inventive and can be used in many ways, but I have used them to try and create stories and poems, or to stimulate something in a current story. Each card has a delightful fantasy image, created by Lorena Carrington, and accompanied by short prompts that Sophie wrote – I have tried a few and come up with some things that could work for anything, and am hoping that I can use some to piece together other bits of writing, as they might suit what I am working on.

I loved the combination of the visual aspect and the words – they have so many possibilities, such as the all is transformed card, which has a manor house below a cloudy sky with chimneys puffing smoke into the sky – a story using this prompt could be about a physical transformation – the house or a person, or a different kind of transformation – something within somebody. Another card that I enjoyed playing with was the magical tasks await card with two girls silhouetted against a grey sky, surrounded my dead trees as they stand on a bridge made of sticks. This is one that I think will be used a lot – it can be used to inspire a short story, a novel, or a scene in a novel about a specific magical quest within the story. It’s one where ideas fire and ping all the time.

The In the world beyond worlds card, which has a castle within a rock floating in the sky with a waterfall tumbling down into a lake below suggests a portal to another world, travelling into a land of myth, magic, and other wondrous possibilities, and it is one that I played with a couple of times, to try a few different things and see what I could come up with. I came up with two very different things – one that felt like a poem of sorts, and something more along the lines of a story or the start of a story. Another one I enjoyed playing with was the kindness and courage count more than the strength of arms, which has a silhouetted image of a girl atop a rock by the sea, and it is another one that could be used for stories about different kind of strengths such as intellectual strength, and the way our minds can be so powerful, or the different ways people use their strengths, and what makes us unique – in both fiction and non-fiction, for a personal essay.

Finally, another card that I really liked and can’t wait to try is the follow the guide card with a centaur under a leafy tree in a field. I think this card will lend itself really well to a fantasy story, literally with a centaur guide perhaps, because often in fantasy, centaurs act as a guide of some sort for some part of the quest the hero is on. As with the other cards, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. I only have one set, but for my purposes, that is enough, as they will work nicely with my other story prompt items and writing sources to craft a story or piece or writing using them. They’re the kind of thing that can be used by all ages as well, and used to help nourish our imaginations at whatever age we are. I had a lot of fun with these cards and took my time exploring them a bit before writing the review. A great source for writers, I really encourage writers to get them and use them.