Oracle (aw-ruh-kl)

While anyone of faith can enter the clergy and become a priest, and a select few can call upon the power of their deity, a select group finds themselves the beneficiary of divine power and foresight. Known as an Oracle, these conduits of divinity are often shunned by their peers for aberrant behavior despite the gift of prophecy.

Requirements

No one can definitively say what causes an Oracle to develop or receive their powers, but many who have it wish they could give it away and many who want it would do anything to get it.

Appointment

Oracles often lead normal lives until their first vision, which can occur any time between adolescence and old age, with the cause or onset being as varied as the many deities or powers that are capable of bestowing the gift.

Duties

Receiving prophecy, visions, or auguries.

Responsibilities

While the Oracle is not necessarily charged with understanding or transcribing their vision, many do so in an attempt to understand them.

Benefits

Many Oracles are revered by various faiths as agents of divinity and receive the benefits associated, such as lavish quarters, food, and garb. Others are met with fear and suspicion, and shunned by society.

Grounds for Removal/Dismissal

Just as no one knows how an Oracle is awarded the gift, no one knows how it is taken away. It can be part of a ritual, or the Oracle can simply wake up one day to find it gone.

Cultural Significance

In the Magocracy of Ezir, Oracles are burned at the stake when discovered. Conversely, the Kingdom of Nuaira treats Oracles with near reverence, elevating them to the status typically reserved for saints and divine messengers.

Fortune Teller by Albert Anker (1831-1910

 The northern counties of the Kingdom of Falcrest treat Oracles with suspicion and distrust, leading many of them to live on the outskirts of towns, as hermits, or as itinerant travelers. Some have made a name for themselves as fortune tellers, plying their gift of foresight with showmanship to eke out a living as part of a traveling circus.

Type

Religious, Special

Alternative Naming

Soothsayer
Prognosticator
Fortune Teller
Seer

Source of Authority

Divine Gift
Curse

Length of Term

Undetermined