Katina Card Groups

What are the Katina card groups?

The Katina card groups are the ten families of the 65-card Katina deck, each gathering cards of one kind, so that a card’s family already says whether it shows a person, a force, a stance or an everyday situation. Where tarot organises its cards by arcana, suit and number, Katina organises them by character. Learning the groups is like learning the cast list before reading the play.

Group	Cards	How it is read
Special cards (2)	Attart, Valide	the deck’s two keystone cards: inherited knowledge and intuition; the elders and the weight of family
Guide card (1)	the Dervish	wisdom, simplicity, a voice worth listening to
Spirit cards (4)	Ishafan, Bedes, Ariman, Selena	inner forces: thought in motion, the flow of feeling, desire and will, what works beneath the surface
Element cards (4)	the Ebony Wheel, the Ruby of Fire, the Emerald of the Waters, the Great Diamond	cycles and slow time, treasured passion, healing feeling, clarity and lasting value
Horse cards (4)	Zara, Hesse, Kalif, Munzur	ways of moving: setting out, following the heart, standing one’s ground, the long road
Lady cards (4)	Dastar, Mida, Selçuksassa, Tattaret	types of women and their qualities
Lord cards (4)	Gamhat, Aral, Saah, Sunit	types of men and their qualities
Sultan cards (4)	Adhamdeva, Parsadra, Urmiaa, Assyranta	types of women and their qualities, like the ladies
Ruler cards (4)	Dare, Eprahhat, Tagral, Turan	stances: in a storm, in tender love, in the use of power, in strategy
Symbol cards (34)	see the list below	everyday images: situations, signs and turns of events

The person cards, in Larisa’s own descriptions:

• Dastar: clever and self-assured, a woman who leads with reason; past experience has made her cautious, slow to trust, someone who observes first.
• Mida: a distant, cold and touchy woman.
• Selçuksassa: a woman who does not hide her sensuality, loves deeply and passionately, and expresses a strong physical desire.
• Tattaret: home-loving, affectionate and self-sacrificing; she gives with good intentions and wants her love, effort and commitment to be reciprocated.
• Gamhat: a cheerful, playful man who loves his freedom, with a childlike, spontaneous energy.
• Aral: loyal, attentive and emotional, a man who values the one he loves, yet sometimes understands the worth of that love only when close to losing it.
• Saah: passionate and flirtatious, a man who struggles to commit and to give up his freedom even when in love.
• Sunit: honest and strong in love, a man who stands behind his partner and his family, devoted to his work, with a self-centred streak.
• Parsadra: touchy, jealous and very emotional; she shows hurt through her behaviour rather than saying it outright.
• Urmiaa: well-meaning and deeply in love, she keeps working for a relationship and finds it hard to leave, caught between love and hope.
• Assyranta: compassionate, self-sacrificing and kind-hearted, a woman who carries the weight of family troubles.

The 34 symbol cards are the largest family: the Anchor, the Fox, the Flowers, the Stars, the Ring, the Mountain, the Sabre, the Letter, the Tree, the Road, the Sun, the Camel, the Heart, the Gardens, the Key, the Book, the Owl, the Grave, the Sailboat, the Nile, the Poppy, the Little Girl, the Mice, the Door, the Castle, the Desert Wind, the Dog, the House, the Cross, the Clouds, the Moon, the Snake, the Broom and the Fish.

Where the Katina groups come from

Katina is a younger and less documented tradition than tarot. The deck takes its name from Katina, the heroine of The Witches of Smyrna, a novel by the Greek writer Mara Meimaridi set in the Izmir of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it is known above all in Turkey and Greece. Its families reflect that world: a household with its elders, its ladies and lords, the sultans and rulers above them, the horses that carry people from place to place, and the ordinary objects of daily life.

Legend has it that the character cards match people in Katina’s story. The lord card Aral is said to be Ali Pasha, the man who truly won Katina’s heart, and Attart takes her name from Attari, the woman who taught Katina to read the cards. Such links are told as part of the deck’s lore, not as history.

The group names themselves, lady, lord, sultan, ruler, spirit, element, are the names Katina readers use to sort the deck. They are a practical map: they tell the reader what kind of presence each card brings into a spread.

How the groups shape a Katina reading

Name the group first. Before recalling a card’s meaning, say what kind of card it is. A lady card brings a person into the reading; a ruler brings a stance; a symbol brings a situation. That one step prevents most confusion.

Read the person cards as types. The lady, lord and sultan cards describe a type of person and that person’s qualities, never a specific, identifiable individual. The position decides whose qualities they are: yours, your partner’s or those of someone around you.

Read the other figures as forces and stances. Valide, the Dervish, the spirits, the elements, the horses and the rulers show something at work in the situation: family authority, wisdom, desire, a cycle, a way of moving forward, a way of handling a storm. They are not read as people.

Notice repeated groups. When several cards of one family appear, that family’s nature leads the reading. Three horses describe a matter in motion; two spirits and an element describe a strong inner current; many symbols describe a busy, concrete situation.

Let the relationship come first. Katina is mostly opened for questions of love and relationships, so the person cards and the symbols around them usually carry the reading. In the Larisa app’s Mirror of the Heart spread, for example, the two hearts, the visible situation and the unspoken word each have a position of their own, which keeps the people and the dynamic between them apart.

No group gives a date or a fixed verdict. A Katina card describes a direction, and its neighbours decide how it turns.

Katina card groups in four sample readings

A person card beside a symbol. Mida next to the Ring in a question about a partner. A distant, cold and touchy woman beside a symbol of commitment: the reading may describe a bond that is real but guarded, or a partner who commits without showing warmth. The position tells you whether Mida is the partner or the person asking.

A spread full of horses. Zara, Munzur and Hesse appear together for a question about moving to another city. Three ways of moving at once: a light new start, a long road, and the heart leading the way. The cards describe a matter in motion and ask which of the three speeds is the right one.

A ruler and a spirit. Tagral beside Selena. The use of power meets something working under the surface. In a work question, this may describe influence exercised quietly, from behind the scenes; the reading asks whose hands the strings are in.

No person card at all. The Road, the Letter and the Key appear in a relationship question, with no lady, lord or sultan. Read the focus as a choice of direction, communication and access to an answer, rather than a description of a person’s character. Ask what needs to be said and which practical choice the question has brought into view.