Chapter 4: Divination

Functional Magic: Part I.

Divination

Most magical functions aim to change state of the world, or to preserve it. Divination, by contrast, seeks to merely observe this state, its past, and hopefully its future. As with all other functional magic, one must start by considering mundane means; for Divination, this is simply the acts of observation, questioning, and investigation.

Excerpt of the Principia Magica

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Good morning everyone! For today's lecture, we'll talk about spiritual divination!

First things first, the main drawbacks of spiritual divination is that it can be a rather... visible form of divination, especially if you're working around those who have the means to see or detect spirits. This means that other types of divination are often better if you need non-intrusive divination, for example in military circumstances, or if you just don't want to bother people.

The second drawback is that, unless you can share your senses with the spirits you work with, you will have to rely completely on the spirit's reports—and if you can share your senses with spirits, it's quite likely that other forms of divination are available to you already. Be sure to know the spirits you're working with! The naughty ones might prank you with half-truths, and the stoic ones might forget to mention details if you don't question them directly about.

However! There's some advantages to spiritual divination that other forms of divination can't compete with... and that's that you're dealing with spirits directly! There's spirits whose wisdom is unmatched, there's spirits with keen intuition on what might happen in the future, there's spirits who know a location better than any mortal... and there's spirits who are the only witnesses of some events.

Mediums are those who specialize in speaking with ghosts, which is a useful thing to do everywhere where that's possible. Most places outside of Hathor have some local spirits who might be able to tell you about recent events, and sometimes even about those in the distant past! And if you have spirit companions, they can usually help you scout nearby locations, just make sure it's safe for them to do so.

Now, as for mundane means of divination, one of the best ways to learn something you don't know, is to ask the right person! I recommend you all make good friends in your years in this academy, as everyone is learning different things. You can then use communication magic to ask them stuff at any time! Like this!

Lilah—Can you please tell asking "Hey Matyas, what's the best divination magic for telling the future?"

A fairy—Ok! He says "Greetings Lilah, apologies but I'm—I call upon thee, flame of the seven, Fireball!—slightly busy right now. There is no form of prophecy without its blah blah blah", do I really need to continue?

Lilah—Oh, he's having fun? Who's their playmate?

Fairy—Oh just some big frosty pigs. They looked tasty!

Lilah—Hey Ember, wanna see if you can show Matyas how it's properly done? I'm sure he'll let you claim some of the frost boars for yourself.

Fire Spirit—Yo, I can turn them to ashes, you say? I'm on it! See you later!

Lecture—Well, this brings us to the combination uses of divination magic. While doing magic at long ranges is very difficult, it is possibly if you combine it with divination magic. It also pairs up rather nicely with communication magic, especially when it comes to spiritual divination, since if you send your spirits talk with someone, they usually can tell you about their surroundings too, since they've been there.

Now well, as you know, prophecy is the form of divination which tries—and often fails—to tell the future. Gloomy people will tell you that the future is too chaotic to predict, but, I like to think that you always have a say in what the future has in store for you! Your assignment for this week is to write an essay on which spirits are best to ask for prophecies about the weather...

Spiritomancy Lecture, Lilah, City of Magic, Lustel, 999

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Claire—Jasmin!! You've gotta help me with this week's assignment, it's on divination!

Jasmin—Shush. I can hear you. Why don't you go check the library?

—The lecturer said you should ask your friends if you don't know, you know?

—What the... well, anyway, I've been thinking of changing courses though, so I'd rather not talk about divination.

—Ehhh?! Why?!

—Keep it down! It's just... you know, it's the eclipse.

—The one for the millennium? I heard there's tons of stuff happening! No, don't tell me... Is the world ending?

—No—probably not—and don't jinx it. But for diviners it might as well.

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—What d'you mean?

—It's like... We know stuff's gonna happen. There's many predictions, some of them rather obvious. Everyone and their mother tries to do something big with all the eclipse mana lying around, you know, the powerful stuff you could only work out in theory before. Every single general will be thinking that's the right time to launch a daring offensive. Every single cult thinks that day is the day for their big ritual.

And in the meantime, everyone who knows something's going to happen in the eclipse is making plans. Everyone. You know what happens when people make plans?

—What happens?

—They screw with prophecies, that's what happens! And that's without taking into account the stuff that no one's expecting!

—Like the world ending?

—No—probably not—and stop jinxing it! But you know, last time, Pandemos, the city? Poof—gone! Some are betting another city goes—a few are even saying Pandemos comes back! I don't know. Hell, maybe the skies change color. So, you see, it's easy to make predictions about the eclipse, yes? 

—Uhu.

—You know what's hard?

—Hmmm, making predictions about what happens after?

—Exactly! The eclipse is killing all prophecies, no one's got any clue of what the world looks like a month after the eclipse. But also, it's also hard to get useful prophecies about the eclipse itself. Who cares if an evil necromancer conquers all of Irninaregion south of Ninme valley, the only region currently connecting it to the rest of the world if Ninmeregion with the highest surplus production of food, many countries rely on its continued exports...—I will not finish that thought.

—Oh, I see.

—Plus, next year's project will be to make a prediction about the eclipse and they're going to fail us all to make us see our limitations.

—How do you—right. Prophecy. What'll you do then?

—Honestly? Maybe try my hands at construction? We're gonna need that to rebuild after whatever happens in the eclipse.

—But what if in the eclipse suddenly a lot of houses and buildings come out of the ground?

—Don't jinx—no actually that'd be pretty nice...

A conversation between Claire and Jasmin, City of Magic, Lustel, 999

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The System of Ilargi

When one thinks of divination, one thinks of prophecy. However, it is hard to confirm which is the greatest prophecy, since it either no longer tells us interesting information, or it remains unconfirmed. The next thing one thinks of is of scrying, which is perhaps one of the most useful functions of divination, and has been recreated in most arcane traditions in some form or another.

However, the divination magic of the greatest scale has to be, without contest, the System of Ilargi. It is unclear who was responsible for the spell, or in fact, some even argue that the System might not even be a spell, and be more akin to a spirit, or a god. It has, however, defined the continent of Ilargi for at least the last two millennia. Its users are able to see illusions they call "System Boxes", and hear illusions called "System Notifications", through which they are able to see their "status" and acquire "skills" as they progress within the system by "leveling up".

The skills that can be acquired through the System can be broadly categorized into "System Skills" unique to the system, and "General Skills", which can be learnt independently of the System. For example, acquiring the Fireball skill will let the user know exactly which hand movements to do, and which incantations to say, in order to cast the Fireball spell like any non-System mage would—some say the System stole this magic from other arcane traditions.

General Skills alone makes the System of Ilargi the greatest functional training magic, but, what makes it the greatest divination magic are the System Skills—the spells that no other arcane tradition has been able to replicate. These include access to the "status screen", the appraisal and identify skills, and the minimap, for example. The System grants its users with easy access to information which would otherwise be very difficult to obtain—and appraisers of all skill levels from Ilargi are in high demand across the world. For example, the status screens have accurate diagnoses of each user's health condition, which makes it easier for citizens to know what healthcare they need.

The main limitations of the System are geographic. Outside of Ilargi, people do not gain access to the System, though users of the System can still access it if they travel around the world. The information known to the System is also greatly diminished outside of Ilargi, though it has continued to steadily expand over the decades. And, over the centuries, many have learnt the ways to circumvent the System, to hide information, or disseminate misinformation to its users—such as Ilargi's own Guilds.

What does this mean for diviners? The System takes some of our jobs. Appraisal is firmly in the hands of Ilargian appraisers, though a recent breakthrough has found a way to access System Skills without being a user of the System—either way, most appraisers will be using the System one way or another. However, there are disciplines which are easier to master outside of the System than within it; scrying for instance. And there's the fields that the System has left mostly to us—prophecy. The only thing it tries to predict is the weather!

School essay, Jasmin, City of Magic, Lustel, 997

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