The Fire Emblem fandom has not only created a beautiful set of fanart, but also will donate the proceeds of Emblem Arcana to charity.
If you’ve been to a con or even browsed social media for approximately 30 seconds, you’ve probably come across artists providing their own take on their favorite show, game, or book. If you’ve gone to sites like Redbubble or Society6, you’ve almost certainly seen artists selling their art as stickers, prints, and more. But sometimes, a fandom comes together to produce art for a good cause: charity. The Fire Emblem fandom’s done just that with the Emblem Arcana, put together by the Fire Emblem Compendium Community. (Full disclosure: Yours truly purchased a deck.)
It’s a full tarot deck, with each card drawn by a different artist. While that means that there’s no consistent style — you can get cards like the Nine of Wands and the Two of Swords in the same spread — it does also mean that you’re exposed to a ton of different artists you may want to support in the future. The accompanying booklet does include a listing of each artist as well as explanations for each card.
Besides that, however, it’s clear that there was a lot of thought put into the characters chosen to represent the cards. For example, Alm and Celica of Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia feature on The Emperor and Empress cards; they actually end Shadows of Valentia as effectively emperor and empress of what becomes Valm by the time of Fire Emblem Awakening, which takes place a millennium later.
However, the proceeds of this aren’t going to the Compendium itself. Rather, according to the FAQ, profits will go to CURE Childhood Cancer. In terms of the Fire Emblem fandom perhaps finally breaking into the FanSided Fandom 250, the Emblem Arcana has to be a strong point in its favor not only for the passion clearly put into every aspect of this deck, but also the fansmanship apparant in doing good with the proceeds of the deck.
Those who preordered the decks have received them in recent days. While a second run is not possible per the Compendium, yours truly has been told “very limited stock” may be available at some point via a Twitter DM from Compendium staff.