Horan and Kachi are fictional characters, inspired by a real Korean folk-painting tradition. Your chart is calculated in code; the words are written with AI (Claude). For entertainment and self-reflection.
Meet the staff
호란 · ホラン · the tiger · he/him
I’m on your side. Your excuse isn’t.
까치 · カチ · the magpie · she/her
Officially a pest. Culturally a herald.
Coming later · not open yet
Tarot, drawn in Korean folk-painting style and read by a magpie. Tarot itself is a European tradition; our cards borrow Korean folktales, customs and festivals for their pictures, and their tall shape is inspired by 투전 (tujeon) cards. Horan reads what you’re built like. Kachi reads what’s on the step.
Nothing to buy yet. No draw credits, ever: each spread will be paid once and drawn at random.
True stories we borrowed
Each card is sourced. The characters are ours; these stories aren’t.
A tiger and a magpie in a pine tree, often called jakhodo: a signature theme of late-Joseon folk painting, pasted up to keep off harm and invite good news. The goofy tiger and dignified magpie are often read as a joke on the powerful.
Source: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, 작호도The theme is traced to a Chinese pun: a leopard and a magpie, read as “announcing joy” (報喜). Korean painters swapped the leopard for a tiger, sometimes a spotted one.
Sources: Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, 까치호랑이 · Korea Times, 2025At New Year, pictures of tigers, roosters, dogs and lions went up on doors and walls to ward off harm. Paper shops sold them to ordinary households.
Source: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, 세화“When a magpie calls in the morning, a welcome guest is coming.” Magpies were treated as auspicious birds.
Source: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, 까치On Chilseok, the seventh night of the seventh lunar month, crows and magpies make a bridge so the Weaver and the Herdsman can meet. Folk belief says the magpies come back bald from carrying stones.
Source: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, 까치A folktale told nationwide: a tiger hears a mother quiet her crying child with a dried persimmon, and decides the persimmon must be scarier than he is.
Source: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, 호랑이와 곶감Writing a living person’s name in red is widely avoided in Korea; its origins are only theories. Red also protects: talismans are drawn in cinnabar, and red-bean porridge goes by the gate at the winter solstice.
Sources: National Folk Museum webzine · 부적 · 동지 팥죽Since 2000, Korea’s environment ministry has listed magpies as harmful wildlife, for orchard damage and power cuts from nests on utility poles. Many cities still keep the magpie as their symbol bird.
Source: K-공감 (government weekly)투전 were long, narrow strips of oiled paper used for a card game from the Joseon era, and banned more than once for gambling. We borrow the shape only; they were never fortune cards.
Source: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, 투전Joseon’s astronomy office had a division for fate and date selection (명과학). In 1445 the State Council proposed attaching ten young blind practitioners to it, with instructors.
Source: Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, Sejong 27History, not our method.King Jungjong ordered the office’s staff to read the eight characters of four candidates chosen in the palace. The entry records the order, not the outcome.
Source: Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, Jungjong 10History, not our method.The office asked to drop the saju manual from its exam because it was a book for reading fortunes, not for choosing days. The king agreed.
Source: Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, Jeongjo 21History, not our method.What we made up
Facts · how the room actually works
What we don’t draw
The tiger also appears in paintings of the mountain spirit, which hang in temple shrines and are part of living worship today. Shamans, talismans and Buddhist imagery belong to the people who practice them. So Horan’s room has none of them: no mountain spirit, no shaman, no charm, no temple. Just a desk, a ledger, a lamp and a red pen.
