Talk:Divination (sage study)

Maxwell (talk) Just had a new player join. He rolled a paladin and chose divination as his study, so I wrote up some abilities. What do you think of these?

I was unable to figure out how to make speak with dead esque ability without just mimicking the spell. I often have trouble figuring out how to design supernatural aspects of sage abilities without stepping on the toes of existing spells. But I think I managed with "scrying."

Amateur

• Choose Prognostication: allows insight in choosing the best divination method.
• Ritual Slaughter: the practice of correctly slaughtering creatures for sacrifice and divination.
• Palm Reading: supposedly a fortune-telling technique, but actually reveals the characteristics and personality of the subject, within a limited scope.
  [Originally I thought palm reading should predict the future of the person having their palm read. But I prefer the idea of it being the palm reader who gets the real benefit: accurately intuiting some characteristics of the person whose palm is being read. If the palm reader, on the basis of the real information they gleaned from the reading, offered any advice or prognostication, the content of same would seem eminently reasonable to the subject -- thus giving palmistry's status among the people as a method of "telling the future."
  Concrete information gained by the palm reader might include ascertaining the stats of a given person (roll d5-3 for each ability stat, add to their real values, and return that as what the palmist perceives); or, more interesting, filtering possible hirelings/allies for desired characteristics (a la your posts a long time ago about measuring the qualities of a ship captain). Not sure what else, yet. Ideas?]

Authority

• Haruspicy: by reading the entrails of a creature sacrificed by ritual slaughter, the character can ascertain whether a given act will be to the doer's benefit or detriment.
• Worthy Petitioner: increases, by 5%, the chance of receiving answers from the spells augury and divination.
• Scrying: attune oneself with a person, place, or object in order to view it from afar.
  [This is intended as an alternative to spells such as scrying water and clairvoyance, with the benefit of unlimited (once daily?) use outside the magic system, but the strong limitations that the attunement must be done beforehand and attunement can only be had one item at time.]

• Cleromancy: divine the shape of future events, by scattering objects and interpreting their patterns. Methods include geomancy, casting of lots, and the Book of Changes (I Ching).
  [Geomancy seems sufficiently distinct from bone throwing in occultism to be included, but we could always reduce it down to just the latter two methods.]

Expert

• Counsel with Angel: enables the character to speak directly with supernatural beings of the upper planes of existence.
  [When I saw it on your Faith page I thought it would fit right in!]
• Vision: after enduring an extended period of asceticism (which might include shunning clothes, food, drink, and other comforts), the character will be blessed with a fantastic dream imparting rare knowledge. In some cases, the character will feel compelled to act on this knowledge by embarking on a "vision quest."

Sage

• Revelation: the character's deity imparts theological insight of unquestionable correctness, leading the character to be heralded as a prophet of his religion.

Tao alexis (talk) There is some danger with this having too many characteristics with another sage study, Occultism, since that study already has "make a reading" as part of it's construction. Therefore, suggestions above like scrying, I-ching, palm reading and haruspicy more properly belong with the collection of things like astrology, bone throwing, numerology, tarot and tea leaf reading. As such, divination either needs a serious rethink or a re-naming. Following up the problem with etymology, the concept of divination as a foreseeing the future begins in the 13-14th century, whereas the original meaning of the Latin divinare was to be "inspired by a god," from the root divinus, "of a god" "pertaining to the nature of a god."

The difference between "Portent" and "Divination" as spells is that the former detects the future, while the latter has the future told to the cleric BY his or her god, directly (not through intermediary objects). How that works as a full study, I'm not yet sure, but it surely isn't just another form of occultism. "Vision" and "Revelation" seem proper; but I'd rather not repeat the Angel ability; perhaps something else done with or by an angel? "Invoke Angel"? In any case, sorry if this makes a hash of your game, but you and I are not seeing the meaning of this word the same way.