Other Sources of Prophecy

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I want a prophecy in my campaign, but I feel like the Vistani are not the right fit. Maybe they are too cliched, or just that I'm thinking that the elaborate poetry I'm working up is not their style. Anyone got some alternate sources of prophecy?

[tomokaicho]

There is the oracle in Kislova.

[The Lesser Evil]

The person that Tomokaicho is referring to is Sagesse, a character that appears in Baroness of Blood. It's unclear if she would retain her power in the Demiplane of Dread, as the majority of that book actually takes place on the Prime Material Plane.

What about astrologists, such as the Omen Watchers of Sidnar or the Celestines of netbook fame? One might interpret them as simply interpreting events from an external source (the heavenly bodies, presumably under influence of the Dark Powers), perhaps they could get around the "no mortal magic" ban?

Another potential source is religion. The Book of Stone is a collection of Lawgiver related prophecies. In the Ezrite faith, there are any of the Books of Ezra as well as the potential 5th sect. Any of the heresies in Richemulot from Gaz III could be a source of prophecy. Bailey Lacrese has made some prophecies related to the Mordentish's conflict with the Darkonian Sect, and Bastion Teodorus Raines of course has all of his apocalyptic stuff. Finally, Danzing's Icon of Ezra is a potential source of prophecy, though the only known prophetic one is in the hands of the darklord of Borca.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

The prophet NPC class (Raveloft DMG page 187) is an established alternative to the Vistani.

I just had an idea for a wolfwere prophet. He receives strange visions of the future, then uses them as inspiration for poetry and songs. So far, he is known to have written a couple of ballads about great battles before they happened, and he has just penned something more dire. Some have tried to reach him for comment on the matter, but his would-be interviewers tend to disappear.

An interesting complication could be a prophet who has to go through some sort of ordeal to see something major. Say, for example, that an individual can consult the dead for cryptic verses about the past and present. When he wants to predict the future, however, he has to undergo a near death experience. His first major prophecy came about after a nearly fatal accident, and now he needs to be convinced to recreate the incident to gain more information on the coming troubles. Later, when reached for a third clarification, he is found dead, having accidentally killed himself trying to see the future. Without him, how do the heroes proceed? If they cast speak with dead, what happens?

If we had a hint about the nature of the prophecy, we might be able to tailor suggestions, but I would hate to ruin plans for surprise.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

If we had a hint about the nature of the prophecy, we might be able to tailor suggestions, but I would hate to ruin plans for surprise.

It's basically a list of all the people the PC's need to collect for their cause. I know I said elaborate poetry before, like perhaps a verse for each person, but after mulling around the idea of an astrological prophecy, I also like the idea of a simple zodiac, where there's a constellation whose name refers to one of the potential recruits. So you get archtypical names, like the "The Warrior Maid," or "The Blacksmith." My daughter's PC is a Sun Elf from Faerun, and she arrives in Ravenloft on an airship, so I'm thinking she'll be referred to in the prophecy as "The Avariel" i.e. a winged elf. She's not an actual avariel with genuine wings on her back, but she's an elf who flies, so that's the kind of circumlocution i'm going for at this point. Whether or not there's a full verse about each of them, I'm really ambivalent about that.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

I suppose that the real question with an astrological prophecy is how it is presented. If you were running a campaign around Hogwarts, the obvious answer would be to bring in some centaurs, but I can't find a reference to centaurs in Ravenloft beyond the Shadow Rift and a Markovian monstrosity in Nova Vaasa.

If you still want to add in some poetry, you could have the prophecy be contained in a book of constellations, with a set of them marked in the table of contents and a short verse scrawled into the margin hinting at the purpose for which those constellations were singled out.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Okay, I've been mulling these ideas over, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to use multiple sources, but I know what I'm going to use first. The campaign starts with a PC getting sucked into Shadowborn Manor aboard an airship. The power source for the airship is a mysterious lotus flower that has an elemental spirit in it that animates the airship. The previous owners of the airship couldn't get the lotus to work for them, and they sought out various authorities on elemental magic to learn how and why it was constructed.

Now here we get to a little bit of retcon and apologetics. You see, in the original "Bane of the Shadowborn" module in 2E, there was and earth weird in the basement of Shadowborn Manor. It was basically a long evil elemental dirt-tentacle that came out of a pool of dirt and killed people. Yeah, a little lame, but a decent challenge for mid-level adventurers. Well, in 3.5E, earth weirds are now super-powerful elemental seers, neutral prophetic prognosticators who can cast powerful divination spells at will, AND with the spellcasting abilities of TWO 18th level spellcasters, arcane and divine. Way too much for mid-level adventurers, and a decent challenge for an epic party if played right.

Purist that I am, I wanted to reconcile these two. First, it occurred to me that RL drives lots of elemental creatures insane, which might partially explain why it was basically acting like a guard dog. Second, all weirds have the option at any time to go home to their elemental plane forever through the portal in their pool. This one would not have been able to do that due to the rules of the demiplane, until the Grand Conjunction rolled around.

SO...that earth weird was summoned by Ebonbane so he could ask about the elemental keys, as elemental magic was used to imprison him. He got in a few questions before it went mad, and he kept it around as a guard dog. During the Grand Conjunction, it escaped back to the elemental plane of earth, where it eventually recovered of the madness (mostly). After recovering, it was one of the authorities on elemental magic that the owners of the airship sought out to understand the lotus, and they wrote down their interview with the creature as it gazed into the future and saw that the lotus and the ship were destined for the demiplane that had tortured it long ago. The book where they wrote this down is on the ship with the PC, and due to the weird's unstable nature and nonlinear sense of time, it actually addresses her in the future, as she's reading the transcript.

Of its prophecy, part of it will be meandering descriptions of the people they have to collect:
"Avariel flies on borrowed wings, the Puppeteer must cut the strings, the Archivist in time was lost, the Vampire Brood must count the cost..."

And I have one part that's more like a traditional riddle:
"For those who sail the open skies
Salvation in the gutter lies
Seek them sorrowing round the grave
The last to fight, the first you save"

That's all I have for now, thoughts are welcome!

[Nathan of the FoS]

I had a LOT of notes on Hazlani astronomy at one point, if you're interested in that as a supplementary option.

[DustBunny]

The campaign starts with a PC getting sucked into Shadowborn Manor aboard an airship. The power source for the airship is a mysterious lotus flower that has an elemental spirit in it that animates the airship.

Hmmm - A space air ship powered by protoculture elemental energy drawn from the flower of life a magic flower? You haven't been watching the Robotech animae series have you?

Just as long as the airship doesn't turn into a giant mecha as well.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I had a LOT of notes on Hazlani astronomy at one point, if you're interested in that as a supplementary option.

Of course! I loved your Hazlani work. You should really write it up for one of the netbooks.

You haven't been watching the Robotech animae series have you?

Not since I was eleven, but I plead guilty to being influence by another pop culture fandom. We'll see if anyone figures it out.