Black and grey tattoo of dice, playing cards and a large number 8 with scrollwork across the upper arm and shoulder.

Dice and playing cards on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows three dice tumbling over a fanned stack of playing cards, including a spade and a club, with a large number 8 and ornate scrollwork across the top. The shading is soft and detailed, with highlights and dark shadows that give the dice and cards a three-dimensional look. The design covers the upper arm and reaches onto the shoulder, and the wearer's face is not visible.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Dice Playing card Spade Club Scrollwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The old king of Virrenmoor kept his luck in a leather cup, and the cup had three dice in it that had never once come up wrong. Every spring he rolled them on the steps of the great hall while the court watched, and every spring the kingdom's granaries filled or emptied according to the throw. The people did not love this, but they did not argue with it either, because the king's eight-pointed crown had been his grandfather's, and nobody in Virrenmoor wanted to be the first to question a crown.

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The year his daughter Ysolde turned sixteen, the king lost the cup to a wandering tinker named Harrow at a card table in the port of Sallam. Harrow had a deck of fifty-two painted cards and a habit of laughing before he won. He fanned the cards across the table like a bird spreading its wings, took the spade of the king's ace in one hand and the club in the other, and said the cup would be returned when the eight had been counted off the sky. Nobody in Sallam knew what that meant, and Harrow was gone before the king could ask.

Ysolde went after him with a pocketful of bread, a horse that did not like her, and the three dice, which she had taken from the empty cup on the way out of the palace. She found Harrow on the eighth day at a crossroads where a stone post was carved with a figure of eight. He was playing patience with the cards against the post. She sat down opposite him and rolled the dice once. They came up three, three, and three, and Harrow stopped laughing for the first time in her hearing.

She did not win the cup that day. She won something smaller, which was the right to ask him why he had wanted the luck of a whole kingdom in his pocket. He shrugged, turned over the last card, and showed her the back of it, which was blank. "There was never anything on it," he said. "The king only ever saw what he expected to see when he rolled." Ysolde carried the blank card home, and the cup stayed empty on the steps for a long time afterwards.