Writing of the firmament

An entirely written language, the writing of the firmament is the common language between the emphemeral divine and the embodied thinkers.
While the thinkers can speak to the gods in thought and prayer in their own language and expect to be heard and understood, the language of the gods is subtle and is often lost in the noise of the phenomenal world. Those who would hear the words of the gods must embark on years of study and practice aimed at honing the ability to hear Their voices. Once the student's discernment is able to hear - or, more accurately, see - the words to the gods, such messages may be found in the most innocuous of places.

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Variants

Anthropologists have documented the myriad ways of hearing the gods different regions have developed, and broad cultural groups are defined by their primary method.

Direct interpretation

In Ewaes and Ewura, the alphabet predominantly uses striations and fault lines in stones, fissures and cracks in bark and wood grain, overlapping roots and branches, and fissures in heated bones. Although most cultures base their alphabet on their god-signs, Ewaes and Ewura use source their alphabets directly from these letters. Each sign functions as a letter and a collection of meanings. Groups of letters can be read either as a word (uncommon), or as a matrix of meanings that reinforce each other.
The Ophinéan sacred alphabet is based on sacred constellations, and inkanya patterns are a form of sortition practiced by scattering small objects onto a board or cloth and searching for predetermined constellations. Casting sets are traditionally made of nuts, shells and stones, but contemporary casting sets might include nails, washers, and buttons as the caster determines a need. The constellation and the objects that form it are read together to divine a message.
In Aeho'ai, a similar sortition technique is used whereby small figures carved from stones or shells are cast inside a bowl made of skyturtle shell, and the grouping and relationships between the figures is used to divine messages. Unlike Ophonéan inkanya, there is no dictionary of patterns, but the figures are based on characters from mythology, with each figure having multiple layers of symbolism.

Open mind

Qevruni scholars read messages from the gods by dripping liquid metals into water. The metal and the shape it takes suggest a form or concept, and the sequence of the metal drops creates a story or message which the scholar interprets via an 'open mind' discipline which allows the gods to speak directly to them via the metal. Large volumes of sacred stories have been published using this technique and the Qevruni alphabet, based on the shapes made by droplets said to be created from Qevrun's blood, is used worldwide.
Iasteronan oracles use entheogens to create a similar 'open mind' state, and interpret the shapes described by flight patterns and the movements of sacred animals, and the entrails and blood patterns created by animal sacrifice.
Xohuran mystics use smoke from sacred herbs and incense to create shapes in the air, which they then read. The complex pictograms of Uazatcoli are based on the shapes seen in the smoke.