Historically, divination magic has been one of the most shrouded in superstition of any form of magic, as its results are often hard to see or open to interpretation. For much of history, diviners have been viewed with superstition, or the entire school itself has been believed to be a sham due to the number of charlatans who claim to wield it.
It is a testament to Augusta’s precision, skill, and communication that, in the time of the archmages, divination came to be known as one of the most reliable forms of magic. Augusta did less than many of the other archmages to pioneer new techniques in her school, but she was a genius at discriminating between fact and fiction when it came to the divination practices of the past. Some say she went too far in declaring real techniques fake or unreliable (particularly her belief in the impossibility of prophecy), but none doubt that the techniques Augusta identified as effective.
Sensing Magic
The fundamental concept behind divination magic is that all things in the world are interconnected. In order to sense things occurring far away, one needs only compile sufficient information from what one can observe. In this sense, no magical power needs to be used in order to divine, and a sufficiently attuned individual can infer far-off events from the clouds or the waves. However, the perception of a single mortal is limited, and the magic comes in with the production of tools to parse more complex information than the mind can comprehend.
Crystal balls, scrying mirrors, animal bones, reflecting pools, and many other tools can be imbued with precise magical energy and exposed to the signs to produce complex and precise windows into other parts of the world.
Signs are everywhere, but particularly treasured sources of information by diviners include: The waves in the ocean, the patterns of light reflected between the sun, the stars, the world, and its twin moons, earthquakes, clouds, and the wind.
Many ancient methods of divination also made use of fire, though Augusta derided this as superstition; there actually is truth to be learned from flame. Fire is the void given life, and thus all fire is connected. A fickle sort of creature that will often attempt to deceive overly credulous diviners, someone skilled and knowledgeable about its desires and workings can wring all manner of information from the flame.
Spell Examples
- Scry
- Far sight
- Mage eye
- Mage ear
- Warning (notifies the caster when a specific far-off event occurs)
Prophecy
According to Augusta, perfect prediction of the future is impossible. Proponents of prophetic powers don’t always disagree, but maintain that just like far-off events can be observed through collecting the signs, a shadow of the future can be constructed and observed as well. The methods of prophecy are functionally very similar to sensing magic, but the art is far more complex, and there is less certainty over whether any particular method actually works. Some say that Augusta entrusted the secrets of true prophecy only to her most devoted followers, and kept it from the public eye for fear of untold catastrophes that public knowledge of it might cause.
Many successful prophets have been recorded throughout the world’s history, potentially including many among the ancient Aulva, according to some scholars of their writings. Of course, doubt can be cast on whether their true predictions were the product of chance or deception.
Augusta’s claim that prophecy is impossible could be considered somewhat sacrilegious, as Veriglas orthodoxy has The Gods granting visions of the future particularly to Veriglas Pontiffs beginning with Thulia Aestrom. When asked about this contradiction, Augusta would only reply cryptically that the workings of the gods were beyond the realm of magical science.