Tanishite Divination
Maybe you want to know what the harvest will be like this year. Perhaps you're worried about your friend on their long-distance trip. Or maybe you're curious about what action you should take and need some advice. If you live in the Eni Belul region, chances are you'll see a soothsayer about these problems.
The Soothsayers
Soothsayers are found throughout the desert and as far south as northern Hosquerre. Some theorize that exposure to Ishud Trees, breathing their pollen or drinking seedpod tea, is required to activate the ability, explaining why they don't appear elsewhere. These theories blasphemous, of course. The ability to glimpse the future, communicate with the dead, and understand divine omens is a gift granted by the gods to select individuals, hence the local name for those with the gift: God-Chosen. God-Chosen people have greater or lesser strength with the gift. Some have such a slight gift that they may go their whole lives without realizing they are anything other than lucky or intuitive. The strongest start having unprompted visions at a young age. No matter what degree of gift they have, all God-Chosen people react strong to tea made from Ishud pods. Soothsayers are almost entirely women, although in truth, men are equally likely to be gifted. The cultural expectation that women's minds are weaker and more open to suggestion and malleability by the gods leads to the assumption that divination is a womanly art. Thus, only girls are ever tested for the gift and men with a weak grasp of it are rarely detected. Occasionally, a man with a strong enough gift discovers his talents on his own without training. He often becomes a local celebrity working at the village shrine, and can be assured a position of honour at the greatest temples if he wishes. In Kalitria, girls with the gift were traditionally trained by older God-Chosen people in an apprenticeship system. A similar system was historically used in Tanish, until the establishment of The Sun Maidens in 235. Now, girls across Tanish-controlled territory are systematically tested for the gift and taken to Zedda to be inducted in the order. God-Chosen people are exceptionally rare. In the entire kingdom, there are only a couple hundred women with the gift. God-Chosen people who actively make use of their gift are called soothsayers.Ishud Seedpods
The importance of seedpods from Ishud Trees cannot be understated. Both the seeds and the outer pod have strong gift-enhancing properties. Tea made from their pods is a popular drink and has no affect on people who are not chosen. It is used to identify God-Chosen girls. Drinking the tea provides a more concentrated exposure and the effects are stronger. A God-Chosen person who drinks it will immediately be beset by visions of the future. These visions take over a person's regular eyesight and they cannot take in stimuli from the real world while experiencing them. Visions are often painful, and leave lingering headaches after they pass. Small children have stronger reactions to the tea than adults. Ishud pods are also turned into incense. Breathing it in is a safer, more controlled way to enhance a God-Chosen's power. It clarifies the mind, makes visions more detailed, and helps them make connections in the omens. The incense perpetually burns in temples and throughout the complex of the Sun Maidens. Many girls are raised and trained with it at all times, until they grow dependant on it and find it very difficult to use their powers unassisted.Methods of Divination
A God-Chosen person has several methods of divination at their disposal, used for different types of seeing. Most God-Chosen excel at some over others. They can be roughly broken into passive visions and active seeking.Visions
All God-Chosen experience visions when they drink Ishud tea, but some experience them at other times as well. Visions take the form of flashes of scenes of things yet to come. They are usually a fast-paced series of still images with no audio other than the rush of blood in their ears. Some God-Chosen people are highly susceptible to them, and are at a risk of being knocked off their feet by a sudden vision of what they will eat for dinner that night. There is no way to know what the subject of the vision will be, so they are often not very helpful. God-Chosen people can try to control and influence their visions through meditation. Sitting in meditation, breathing in Ishud incense, and focusing the mind on a certain person or place can induce a more directed vision.Casting Lots
Casting lots is the most popular of the active seeking divination types. It is done by casting a handful of lots, or small items, across the ground and interpreting hints about the future based on how they land. The lots take the form of small clay tablets hand-crafted by the soothsayer. Often, the soothsayer mixes a drop of her own blood in the clay as she works them. This, and hand-making them, is to build a stronger connection between soothsayer and lots. They will more readily and clearly fall into interpretable patterns with a stronger connection. In a pinch, a soothsayer may use a friend's lots, but the results are never as good. A brand new set is also trickier to work with, and it can take several months for a set to be "worn in". Before being thrown, each lot must be mentally assigned to an aspect of what the soothsayer is trying to learn about (hence, each tablet has a unique carving so that they can be differentiated once cast). The handful of lots might be assigned to various players in a situation, possible choices, locations, motivations, or thoughts. Once thrown, the soothsayer analyzes their positions, proximity to each other, rotation, etc. to determine what the future holds. The lots must be cast from the soothsayer's hand in order for their positioning to have any meaning. This is one of the easier methods of divining, but also one of the vaguest. It is often used to help make decisions, clarify a situation, or get advice, rather than a proper glimpse of the future.Fire Gazing
In this method, a soothsayer lights a fire and then studies the shapes of the flames. The shapes in the flames, direction of smoke, difficulty in lighting, intensity of heat, and colour of the fire can all be indications of what is to come.Entrail Examination
After an animal is sacrificed to a certain god, a soothsayer is called upon to inspect the organs, especially the lungs, to determine the god's will. This will determine if the god is satisfied with the offering, what next steps the people should take next, and any warnings the god wishes to send to them.Dreams
Dreams are similar to visions in that they cannot be controlled and involve seeing visions in your mind, but are combined with the interpretation skills of the active forms to determine what message they contain. The future as seen in dreams is never a clear mental image as in visions. Dreams show the God-Chosen symbols, metaphors, and allusions to the future. This can often be much more detailed than simply seeing visual flashes of the future, but it takes significantly more skill to properly interpret them. Though there are common themes, dreams are also very individual. The same event could be dreamed of by multiple God-Chosen, and each has an entirely unique dream.Contact with the Beyond
The most revered form of divination, and an ability central to being chosen as the Oracle. Though dreams usually take the form of metaphors and symbolic narratives, occasionally a powerful enough God-Chosen will be visited by the spirit of a deceased person in their dreams. The spirit can speak direct messages to the person, and an exceptionally talented person is able to take enough control of the dream to speak back and converse as if they were two mortals in the real world. In order to return in a dream, a person needs a strong memorial in the living world. Revered people are mummified upon death to venerate their images. The stronger a person's existence in collective memory, the more clearly and readily they can return. This ability is very rare, even among God-Chosen. The Oracle's position rests upon mastering it. There is some speculation about how many Oracles have truly been able to contact the dead and how many faked it, but openly speaking of it would be treason.
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