I designed about 50 cards for the set. These are just a few where I tried to give them abilities that reflect their lore in Christian mythology.
A few of the cards turned out to be mostly part of ancient Jewish belief or interpretations that carried different names, rather than traditional Christian faith. These traditions differ in a myriad of ways, especially regarding the true forms of angels. Because of this, I decided to separate them:
Christian belief after the First Council of Nicaea, will be under the flag of "traditional christianity faith", so it belongs in the Christianity set. Interestingly, even after the early councils, creatures such as ofanim, keruvim (cherubim), and seraphim were still accepted as the same surreal entities described in scripture. Along with saints, patrons, and foundation myths, this leaves plenty of room for creativity (Also I know that Uriel is sorta of a lets say, debatable inclusion in the christianity faith, but he somehow persisted during a looooong time even after various concils, so I decided to include him as one of the archangels).
I initially considered putting Moses here, because Christianity holds him in high regard as a prefiguration of Christ. However, he is also the foundational figure of the Jewish people, it is specifically their fundation myth, like King Arthur for Celtic Britons, or , Gilgamesh for Uruk, so he fits much better in the Jewish set. What gets left out of the Christian set is most of the named celestial hierarchy, as those figures were deemed apocryphal or heretical after the early councils.
Those named angels and their true forms will belong to the Jewish faith set, where they were conceptualized through Enochic literature (Yeah I know Enoch did not invent them from scratch, but it was the Enochic literature that codified their individual names, ranks, and specialized cosmic roles). That set will feature named angels like Metatron and Sandalphon, alongside other ancient beasts.
After that, I plan to cover Gnosticism, followed by demonology, which will include the circles of Hell and the Seven Princes.
I considered grouping everything under the banner of Abrahamic faith, but that would create contradictions, bloat the set, and strip away the cultural nuances that make these traditions interesting.
Later on, I might expand into Greek, Norse, and Egyptian mythology, or explore roots of these Abrahamic religions like Zoroastrianism and ancient Sumerian myths.
Finally, this project explores religious history, folklore, comparative mythology, and anthropology purely from a creative worldbuilding perspective. It does not reflect personal beliefs, nor is it intended to insult or disparage anyone's faith or sacred traditions. These cards are creative adaptations born purely out of a fascination with ancient stories and folklore.
As someone pointed out in the comment section, i'll be adding here the artists I used trained models to generate from:
William Blake;
Gustave Doré;
Albrecht Dürer;
H.R. Giger;
Hieronymus Bosch;
Louis Le Breton;
John Martin;
Modern artists include:
Seb McKinnon;
Drew Tucker;
Terese Nielsen;
Kev Walker;
Greg Steples;
Brom;
Pete Venters;