(Monday) History in Your Game (Divinations)

[alsih2o]

Whether you are a nomadic, neolithic unter or a modern silk-suited stock trader knowing the future seems like the ultimate advantage.

D+D clerics have multiple divinations with mechanics worked out for you but the field is ripe with possibilities for flavor when using these spells. Also consider many of these as methods that NPC priests and seers may favor. Removing the known game mechanic opens up all kinds of possibilities for messing with your players heads.

A PC may be the bravest or the strongest but many an NPC ruler may require outside proof of their abilities or loyalty as divined by his/her personal method or practicioner. Great curveball for players.

Disclaimer- Many of these pages touch on forms of religion that are outside the mainstream. I am not endorsing, recommending or suggesting the use of these religions. Remember, some folks here share these beliefs. So let us discuss with them with an eye towards game use and try to leave our current, real world situation out of it.

A good sized list of possible ways to read the future- http://www.angelfire.com/folk/gnit/reading/eng/predi.txt

A similar list, with some differences- http://www.arcane-archive.org/occul...-methods-than-you-probably-want-to-know-1.php

A really in-depth look at Phrenology, the study of skull features (bumps on the head). Remember, a quick blow to the head can change your future! http://pages.britishlibrary.net/phrenology/

The hand also has a special place in reading the future and divining the qualities of people- http://www.indotalisman.com/handsymb.html

Extispicy, cause you don't really know someone till you have squeezed their entrails- http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/e/extispicy_or_extispicium.html
---- And a special breed just for human entrails, Anthropomancy- http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/anthropomancy.html and even more, with some classic tales thrown in- http://www.acadine.org/index.php/Anthropomancy

Pyromancy, seeing the right course in flames. Everything from a candles flicker to burning oxen for insight- http://www.occultopedia.com/p/pyromancy.htm
-----and more- http://www.angelfire.com/on/wicca/Fire.html

Tarot, a SCA page on period appropriate card reading(cool pics at the bottom)- http://www.lelandra.com/comptarot/tarotsca.htm

Austromancy, the wind and cloud shapes can tell you what is up- http://www.occultopedia.com/a/austromancy.htm

Belomancy, tossing arrows to see the future. Desperately needs to be written up as an item. This page also contains lots of other short descriptions of -mancies- http://www.paralumun.com/belomancy.htm

Catoptromancy- mirrors, amgic and otherwise- http://www.djmcadam.com/mirrors.htm
----And instructions on how to make a scrying mirror for your game- http://astralthyme.com/scryingmirror.html

Hydromancy, from splashes to ripples, water can tell you what is up- http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/h/hydromancy.html

I see...I see you having fun...and gaming well with others...!!!!

 

[Turanil]

Disclaimer- Many of these pages touch on forms of religion that are outside the mainstream. I am not endorsing, recommending or suggesting the use of these religions. Remember, some folks here share these beliefs. So let us discuss with them with an eye towards game use and try to leave our current, real world situation out of it.

How well said this part!

Personally, I do prefer the mirror stuff for divination. I think it looks more magic and mystery in a medieval fantasy game. For primitive people / barbarian tribes, I would use Pyromancy, but the fire isn't a normal one, but has green flames that take shape of faces or what not, etc. something clearly supernatural.

 

[Piratecat]

This is one of the most useful Monday updates you've done. I LOVE having folks do divination by reading entrails and the like. It's a fun way for DMs who are made nervous by traditional spells to add some flavor.

Thanks, Clay!

 

[fusangite]

It's important to note that catoptromancers were not necessarily just diviners. John Dee, one of the most prominent catoptromancers in history, theorized in his Propaedeumata Aphoristica (available in libraries with facing English translation) that crystals could be used to refract the celestial rays that were influencing the material world. He argued that astrology was a predictive science because if one could anticipate where heavenly bodies would be, one could anticipate what influence they would exert. The problem was the forces that could refract, block or reflect celestial rays once they passed into the sublunar sphere. In the Propaedeumata, his first book, Dee enumerates all the possible super- and sublunar influences that could complicate celestial influences.

Because optical catoptromancy turned out to be so darned complicated, Dee turned to the kind he is more famous for: scrying for angels. However, such scrying was also problematic. Unlike the case with demons, it is unethical and probably impossible to compel angels to reveal certain things or indeed to communicate with you at all. Therefore he had to pray a lot to make them show up. Then there is the question of who is going to be able to use a seeing stone. While Dee's stone was of excellent pedigree (he believed it came from Mexico and may have believed it was somehow associated with the Mexica god Smoking Mirror), the excellence of the stone still didn't qualify him to see through it. Qualified scryers were hard to find and Dee appears to have fired at least two for incompetence. In early Protestant England, young children were especially favoured because their burden of sin was much less. Although this didn't work out for Dee -- he ended up, instead, working with the professional scryer Edward Kelley until Kelley abandoned him to accept a better job with the Holy Roman Emperor (but not before convincing Dee that the angels wanted him to let Kelley sleep with his wife).

I wrote an essay about Dee's scrying and would be happy to e-mail along much more detailed information on his scientific theory of optical divination and/or his angel conversations or post it here if there is interest.

 

[alsih2o]

I wrote an essay about Dee's scrying and would be happy to e-mail along much more detailed information on his scientific theory of optical divination and/or his angel conversations or post it here if there is interest.

There IS interest.

 

[Turanil]

It's important to note that catoptromancers were not necessarily just diviners.

What? "catoptromancers"? I guess this is a typo and what you really wanted to say was caltropsmancers, those who divine with the use of caltrops?

 

[Gez]

Catoptromancy is mirror-divination. Catoptical stuff being related to mirrors, and -mancy meaning divination. (As in necromancy, divination through the dead. Kinda not the typical zombie-raising definition.)

See also catadioptres.

 

[MonsterMash]

What about Gastromancy?
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/g/gastromancy.html

 

[Gez]

Felinomancy. One may predict weather by looking at the way his pet cats behave. If the cat is brushing its ears with its front paws, it'll rain tomorrow.

 

[fusangite]

Catoptromancy is mirror-divination. Catoptical stuff being related to mirrors, and -mancy meaning divination.

Actually, there's some debate over whether catoptromancy is a larger category that includes all forms in which light is reflected or refracter through objects or whether it just covers reflective surfaces.]

As per Clay's request, I'm attaching my essay on John Dee in MSWord format. It's a university course essay so it's not that reader-friendly. My advice: skip the historiographic section and go directly to the point where I start talking about Propaedeumata.