Depending on the game, the Fool may act as the top trump or may be played to avoid following suit. In addition, and unlike standard packs, the tarot also has a separate 21-card trump suit and a single card known as the Fool. Each suit has 14 cards: ten pip cards numbering from one (or Ace) to ten and four face cards: King, Queen, Knight, and Jack/Knave/Page. Like the common playing cards, tarot has four suits which vary by region: French suits are used in western, central and eastern Europe, Latin suits in southern Europe.

However, some older patterns, such as the Tarot de Marseille, originally intended for playing card games, are occasionally used for cartomancy. Thus there are two distinct types of tarot pack in circulation today: those used for card games and those used for divination. In the late 18th century, French occultists made elaborate, but unsubstantiated, claims about their history and meaning, leading to the emergence of custom decks for use in divination via tarot card reading and cartomancy. From their Italian roots, tarot playing cards spread to most of Europe evolving into a family of games that includes German Grosstarok and modern games such as French Tarot and Austrian Königrufen. The tarot ( / ˈ t ær oʊ/, first known as trionfi and later as tarocchi or tarocks) is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini.

Card player with Austrian tarot cards ( Industrie und Glück pattern) Trumps of the Tarot de Marseilles, a standard 18th-century playing card pack, later also used for divination For other uses, see Tarot (disambiguation).

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