Pulp Fantasy Divinations

[Whitewings]

As the title says. In the setting I’m currently developing, astrology works. That’s a given. But I’m wondering what other methods might be suitable, remembering that this is a TL3^ setting mostly based on Europe and a bit of Egypt and North Africa.

[johndallman]

There's a good list on pp. 108-109 of GURPS Magic.

[RyanW]

Some classical methods practiced in the past include examining the entrails of animals, the flight of birds or other animal behaviors, the fall of objects (like stones, bones, or dice), markings or drawings done without looking (or while in a trance), or objects (or pages in a book) selected at random.

[whswhs]

According to Unlocked Books, the only form of divination that was not condemned by the Catholic Church was oneiromancy, because scripture provided too many cases of God sending messages to people in dreams. Of course there were people who used the forbidden ones.

[Dalillama]

Sortilege is one of the most common flavors of divination, that being the casting of bones, dice, coins, yarrow stalks, etc. and interpreting their fall.

[The Colonel]

Anything with -mancy on the end was, historically, a form of divination.

The font of dubious knowledge provides the following list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_divination

Originally Posted by whswhs

According to Unlocked Books, the only form of divination that was not condemned by the Catholic Church was oneiromancy, because scripture provided too many cases of God sending messages to people in dreams. Of course there were people who used the forbidden ones.

There was, IIRC, a certain amount of nuance - seeking to tell the future was forbidden: if God wanted you to know what was going to happen He would tell you (and then it's prophecy not divination, despite the Divine aspect), but various methods - including astrology - could be used to tell you about the way things were (recall that astrology was a normal part of medical diagnosis in medieval Europe, and the only place you could get a medical degree was in a church run university). The sortes sanctorum - a form of bibliomancy using the Bible as a divinatory text, was also sometimes used, as was the casting of lots (which had plenty of Biblical precedence) ... but again, these were not meant to predict the future but as ways of determining the divine will when it was not otherwise obvious...

[Whitewings]

Cartomancy can be ruled out, because nobody’s invented playing cards. Similarly, rune casting and related aren’t useful because symbol magic doesn’t exist. Astrology is real, as mentioned above. I’m thinking oneiromantic divination should be effective, but limited to the sacred paths. Though it’s possible to create both mirrors and crystal balls by use of spells, I’m not sure crystal-gazing really fits the feel of the setting. Then again, I’m not sure it doesn’t. Extispicy really rubs me the wrong way, so that one’s out. Actually, I’m thinking about restricting divination (other than astrology) to priestly Paths. Mages use Ritual Magic, priests use Path Magic.

I do like this variant on sortilege I just came up with: throwing an array of stones onto an image of the sun, moon and planets as they were positioned at the time of the diviner’s birth, from a geocentric view. Astronomers work out planetary positions using heliocentric models, then use the geocentric to determine their meanings.

[Phil Masters]

The campaign area and period overlap with the Arabian Nights world, and a technique that shows up there is a variation on Sortilege; casting sand onto a wooden board and interpreting the patterns it makes.

A divination technique that tends to be treated as a separate spell in GURPS, but which certainly seems to have shown up historically, albeit as inherently dubious at best, usually blasphemous and forbidden, was summoning the spirits of the dead and questioning them. Medieval Christianity would tell you that those spirits were demons, and would always lie and deceive. Conversely, albeit a bit later, mages like John Dee honestly believed that they could summon angels and question them; devout Christians might again say that any "angels" who showed up were of the fallen variety. An upcoming GURPS book of mine will address this.

Dee also used a divination mirror - a form of Crystal-Gazing - though I guess that he may have thought he was talking to minor angels through it. The fun thing is, it was actually obsidian, of Aztec origin. (It's in the British Museum.) I can't help thinking that this may have been a tainted source.

[DeadParrot]

The Romans had d20s, so casting several of those might be a thing. Possibly combined with the use of the previously mentioned celestial map. Maybe the map layout is based on the sky positions of the person asking for the divination instead of the diviner. Bonus points if the dice are formed from meteorite iron or stone.

Tarot cards were a middle ages invention so maybe there is some angst in the Divination community over this new unproven method.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by DeadParrot

The Romans had d20s, so casting several of those might be a thing. Possibly combined with the use of the previously mentioned celestial map. Maybe the map layout is based on the sky positions of the person asking for the divination instead of the diviner. Bonus points if the dice are formed from meteorite iron or stone.

Tarot cards were a middle ages invention so maybe there is some angst in the Divination community over this new unproven method.

Divination by Tarot is much more recent, well into the Early Modern.