Augury Magic

Philosophy

Augurs treat the future as a field of pressure rather than a fixed script. Signs gather around likely outcomes. Choices cast shadows ahead of themselves. Strong intentions, great disasters, and tightly converging events can be felt before they arrive. The art lies in reading these pressures without mistaking desire for certainty.

Because augury tempts rulers, generals, merchants, and the frightened, it has a long history of abuse. Some augurs merely advise. Others manipulate decisions by presenting weighted futures as destiny. The school is respected where caution is valued and feared where prophecy becomes an instrument of power.

Example Places of Study

Common Spells

Omen Candle

Purpose/How It Works: Omen Candle reads nearby future pressure through the behavior of a prepared flame, showing steadiness, fracture, danger, or favorable opening.
Notable Exceptions: It gives direction and tone, not detailed explanation. Strong emotional bias from the caster can distort subtle readings.
Example Use: A caravan master checks whether leaving before dusk reduces the chance of ambush.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by a prepared candle, ambient possibility-pressure, and the caster’s concentration.
Casting Methods: Candle lighting, 5 to 10 seconds. Shrine omen rite, 1 to 3 minutes.
Range/Duration: Immediate decision context. Seconds to minutes.

Dice Of Inclination

Purpose/How It Works: Dice of Inclination assigns weight to several short-term choices by reading how probability bends around them.
Notable Exceptions: It works best on clearly defined options. It degrades when the future is too chaotic or all choices are equally poor.
Example Use: Smugglers choose which checkpoint to risk by casting three marked bone dice over a map.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by defined options, marked dice or tokens, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Quick cast with tokens, 5 to 10 seconds. Formal table read, 2 to 5 minutes.
Range/Duration: One set of choices. Instant verdict.

Path Thread

Purpose/How It Works: Path Thread reveals the most favorable immediate route through a dangerous space by showing a brief luminous line where chance least resists.
Notable Exceptions: It shows the best current route, not a permanent truth. Changing enemies or terrain can invalidate it quickly.
Example Use: Scouts cross a trapped ruin by following a thin silver thread only they can see.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by local possibility structure, line-of-march intent, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Forward-cast gesture, 3 to 6 seconds. Survey rite, 1 to 3 minutes.
Range/Duration: Immediate route section. Seconds to minutes.

Battle Weather

Purpose/How It Works: Battle Weather reads morale, terrain, timing, and converging actions to forecast the likely emotional climate of a coming fight.
Notable Exceptions: It predicts momentum better than exact casualties or brilliant improvisation.
Example Use: A captain delays the charge after sensing the next ten minutes will belong to panic, not discipline.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by troop movement, observed signs, and the caster’s focused interpretation.
Casting Methods: Field glance, 10 to 20 seconds. War-map rite, 2 to 5 minutes.
Range/Duration: One battlefield or engagement. Minutes to one hour.

Crow Reckoning

Purpose/How It Works: Crow Reckoning reads scavenger flight, shadow movement, and trace-attraction to identify where death is most likely to gather soon.
Notable Exceptions: It overreads plague zones, battlefields, and carrion-heavy landscapes.
Example Use: Border guards know which mountain pass will see blood before sunset because the crows have already chosen it.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by bird movement, ambient trace pressure, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Open-sky cast, 10 to 20 seconds. Feather-circle rite, 2 to 5 minutes.
Range/Duration: Horizon to local district. Minutes to hours.

Window Of Best Passage

Purpose/How It Works: Window of Best Passage identifies the most favorable time to act within a bounded period, such as an hour, a tide, or a night watch.
Notable Exceptions: It narrows opportunity but does not eliminate all risk. Delays outside the window can worsen outcomes.
Example Use: Burglars wait exactly fourteen more minutes before moving through the manor’s west gallery.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by a defined deadline, clocks or water-measures, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Timing cast, 10 to 20 seconds. Hourglass rite, 1 to 3 minutes.
Range/Duration: One planned action. Produces a timing result.

Mercantile Auspice

Purpose/How It Works: Mercantile Auspice reads likelihoods around trade routes, prices, spoilage, and demand to guide buying and shipping decisions.
Notable Exceptions: It is strongest on short and medium horizons. Political shocks and deliberate magical interference can defeat it.
Example Use: A merchant house buys grain now because the auspice shows three probable port fires within the month.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by ledgers, route records, market signals, and the caster’s concentration.
Casting Methods: Ledger glance, 20 to 40 seconds. Trading table rite, 5 to 15 minutes.
Range/Duration: One market or shipment network. Hours to weeks in scope.

Death Hour

Purpose/How It Works: Death Hour estimates when an already-doomed person, siege, sickness, or animal is most likely to cross its fatal threshold.
Notable Exceptions: It is best on futures already weighted toward death. Timely intervention can still change the outcome.
Example Use: Healers triage a plague ward by identifying who will die before dawn without immediate treatment.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by medical or situational evidence, strong converging pressure, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Touch diagnosis, 10 to 20 seconds. Bedside rite, 2 to 5 minutes.
Range/Duration: One subject or crisis. One forecast.

Dream Of Branches

Purpose/How It Works: Dream of Branches places the caster into a guided sleep where several strong future branches are dramatized symbolically rather than literally.
Notable Exceptions: Symbolism is subjective and can mislead untrained dream-readers. Repeated use breeds obsession.
Example Use: A regent sleeps in the omen chamber before deciding whether to marry for alliance or march for war.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by sleep, prepared incense, symbolic anchors, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Self-sleep rite, 10 to 20 minutes. Temple-guided vigil, 30 to 90 minutes.
Range/Duration: Self. One sleep cycle or induced trance.

Ruin Sign

Purpose/How It Works: Ruin Sign searches for converging indicators of structural, political, or personal collapse and marks the most unstable point in the chain.
Notable Exceptions: It sees imminent weak points better than slow decline hidden over years.
Example Use: An inspector identifies which support in a bridge will fail first during flood season.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by visible stress, records of prior strain, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Site read, 10 to 20 seconds. Surveyor’s rite, 3 to 8 minutes.
Range/Duration: One structure, institution, or plan. Brief read.

Red Thread Of Betrayal

Purpose/How It Works: Red Thread of Betrayal marks the most likely point in a group where loyalty will break under current pressures.
Notable Exceptions: It identifies strain, not moral truth. People can resist the branch the spell sees.
Example Use: A spymaster learns that the cousin, not the captain, is the first likely defector.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by social observation, names, and the caster’s concentrated interpretive work.
Casting Methods: Group-read cast, 20 to 40 seconds. Circle chart rite, 5 to 15 minutes.
Range/Duration: One group or conspiracy map. Hours.

Borrowed Tomorrow

Purpose/How It Works: Borrowed Tomorrow grants the caster a brief anticipatory flash a heartbeat before an immediate danger fully manifests.
Notable Exceptions: It is exhausting and unreliable over long periods. Repeated use causes migraines, hesitations, and timing drift.
Example Use: A duelist sees the stab a fraction early and twists aside just enough to live.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by the caster’s own reserves, sharpened attention, and high temporal stress.
Casting Methods: Reflex cast, near-instant. Prepared stance, 3 to 6 seconds.
Range/Duration: Self. Seconds to minutes of heightened danger sense.

Fortune Theft

Purpose/How It Works: Fortune Theft steals favorable weighting from one nearby outcome and redirects it toward the caster or a chosen ally.
Notable Exceptions: The stolen luck is never clean. Someone else usually inherits the worsened branch. Many cultures consider this spell predatory even when legal.
Example Use: A gambler ensures her die lands well by nudging failure into the hand beside her.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by concentrated intent, symbolic exchange tokens, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Quick theft cast, 2 to 4 seconds. Marked-chance rite, 1 to 3 minutes.
Range/Duration: Immediate local context. One event to a short sequence.

Doom Weight

Purpose/How It Works: Doom Weight presses a target toward the worst already-plausible branch available to them by making hesitation and error more likely.
Notable Exceptions: It cannot invent catastrophe without an opening. Strong discipline, wards, and counter-augury reduce its hold.
Example Use: A rebel augur makes the tyrant’s executioner pick the wrong stair during the palace fire.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by a target’s existing instability, dark omens, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Gaze-and-curse cast, 5 to 10 seconds. Effigy rite, 2 to 5 minutes.
Range/Duration: Sight or linked target. Minutes to days depending on complexity.

Prophet S Veil

Purpose/How It Works: Prophet’s Veil shields an augur from the social and psychological aftereffects of strong prophecy by muffling the compulsion to treat one vision as certainty.
Notable Exceptions: It softens prophetic fixation; it does not protect against all obsessive interpretation.
Example Use: Court augurs wear the veil before reading famine signs so they do not become unusable with dread.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by cloth, calming symbols, and low steady caster output.
Casting Methods: Self-veiling cast, 10 to 20 seconds. Wardrobe rite, 1 to 3 minutes.
Range/Duration: Self or touched augur. Hours.

Hazard Bell

Purpose/How It Works: Hazard Bell attunes a bell, chime, or vibration marker to ring when a predicted class of danger approaches its most likely arrival window.
Notable Exceptions: It works on broad categories such as fire, raid, collapse, or betrayal, not on unlimited unknowns.
Example Use: A warehouse district sleeps under augured bells keyed to probable arson nights.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by a defined risk pattern, a resonant bell, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Bell-keying cast, 20 to 40 seconds. Watchtower rite, 5 to 15 minutes.
Range/Duration: One building or district sector. Hours to weeks.

Star Ledger

Purpose/How It Works: Star Ledger maps long-cycle celestial omens against civic, dynastic, or climatic patterns to forecast broad coming pressures.
Notable Exceptions: It is excellent for season and year scale tendencies, poor for daily details. False star tables ruin it completely.
Example Use: A kingdom begins floodworks two years early because the ledger shows converging river signs.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by accurate astronomical records, old ledgers, and prolonged interpretive labor.
Casting Methods: Observatory read, 10 to 30 minutes. Full annual reckoning, several hours.
Range/Duration: Realm or regional scale. Months to years in scope.

Choice Scar

Purpose/How It Works: Choice Scar marks a person who has recently taken a world-shaping decision so that future auguries can track the pressure trails now radiating from them.
Notable Exceptions: It is ethically dubious and illegal in many courts because it makes private consequence easier to monitor.
Example Use: A rival prophet marks the new queen after coronation to follow every future fracture born from her first decree.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by proximity to a major decision, symbolic marking, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Touch mark, 5 to 10 seconds. Hidden sigil rite, 1 to 3 minutes.
Range/Duration: One marked subject. Days to months.

Detect Magic

Purpose/How It Works: Detect Magic reads active magical pressure, residue, and structural distortion in the surrounding area.
Notable Exceptions: It reveals presence and rough character better than exact school or intent unless the caster is highly trained.
Example Use: An investigator immediately knows the lock has been opened by spell rather than key.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by local magical pressure, attentive focus, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Sensing cast, 3 to 6 seconds. Lens or pendulum focus, 10 to 20 seconds.
Range/Duration: Immediate surroundings to room scale. Seconds to minutes.

Locate Object

Purpose/How It Works: Locate Object follows the strongest probability trail toward a known thing by name, pattern, or intimate familiarity.
Notable Exceptions: Wards, false copies, and overloaded markets can blur the signal badly.
Example Use: A court mage tracks the stolen signet through three alleys of contraband stalls.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by known target-pattern, directionality, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Named search cast, 10 to 20 seconds. Compass or token rite, 1 to 3 minutes.
Range/Duration: Local to district depending on the item and wards. Minutes to one search.

Locate Creature

Purpose/How It Works: Locate Creature searches possibility-space for the most probable path to a known living target.
Notable Exceptions: Strong concealment, false trails, and targets crossing warded thresholds can break the line.
Example Use: A ranger-augur finds the missing child before the snow closes over the tracks.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by known target-pattern, directionality, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Name-and-focus cast, 10 to 20 seconds. Hair, blood, or icon rite, 2 to 5 minutes.
Range/Duration: Local to regional depending on link quality. Minutes to one search.

Clairvoyance

Purpose/How It Works: Clairvoyance opens a remote sensory window onto a chosen place the caster knows well enough to frame.
Notable Exceptions: It is vulnerable to warded privacy, illusion interference, and poor destination detail.
Example Use: A siege council watches the enemy’s west tower without sending a scout.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by destination familiarity, an anchored point of observation, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Remote eye cast, 20 to 40 seconds. Mirror-bowl rite, 2 to 5 minutes.
Range/Duration: Known remote site. Seconds to minutes.

Scrying

Purpose/How It Works: Scrying searches out a person, place, or thing and holds a live viewing path on it even as it moves.
Notable Exceptions: Good wards, false doubles, and active countermagic can distort the image or send back dangerous reflections.
Example Use: An archmage tracks the rebel captain’s march from a basin of still silvered water.
Typical Cost/Power Source: Usually fed by strong symbolic links, remote focus media, and the caster’s reserves.
Casting Methods: Basin or mirror scrying, 2 to 5 minutes. Great observatory rite, 10 to 30 minutes.
Range/Duration: Local to continental depending on link quality. Minutes to hours.