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OK, so:

In each suit there are number cards 2-10, and face cards Page, Knight, Queen, King (some decks use different names for these face cards) - plus the Ace. The number cards tell the story, and the face cards (except the Ace) correspond to roles or characters in those stories. Ace cards are boring.

The suit of Swords tells the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, specifically her betrayal and murder of him.

The suit of Cups tells the story of Eros and Psyche.

The suit of Wands tells the story of Jason, the Argonauts, and the Quest for the Golden Fleece.

The suit of Pentacles tells the story of Daedelaus.

Each number card represents approximately the same step in the story, i.e., 2s are always beginnings and 10s are always endings/culminations. With this knowledge (as long as you nail down more specifically the "meaning" of each card number) you could fake your way through a reading with any deck pretty well - sometimes I have to rely on this and other supplementary knowledge when reading with a deck I am not familiar with.

Other supplementary knowledge, easy example - each suit also corresponds to an element and a gender, and as a result each suit carries those general connotations (which you can kind of see reflected in their corresponding myths):

Swords: Air - intellect, cunning, the mind; analysis, emotional detachment - Male

Cups: Water - emotion, intuition, love, psychic or unseen forces, relationships - Female

Wands: Fire - quick to action, passion, conflict, battle, victory, challenges - Male

Pentacles: Earth - fertility, wealth, wine, material riches, also growth, wisdom - Female

And MORE fun trivia, because each suit corresponds to an element, you can correlate things like Sun Signs to the suits. Water for instance = Cups = Scorpio, Cancer, Pisces. (I'm not very well read on astrology/sun signs etc though.)