GearAscendancy.com

Tag: Divination

  • Wild 404 of The Anarchists Almanac

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: The first of these books were created by accident. In a vast, steam-powered scriptorium in one of Saṃsāra’s capital cities, a magical printing press suffered a catastrophic failure. Its conduit, designed to channel pure knowledge from a master text onto thousands of blank pages, fractured. The subsequent wild magic surge didn’t destroy the machine;…

  • Wild 131 of The Flaw Finders Loupe

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: In a world where magic is defined by the perfection of its conduit, Wild Magic is seen as a catastrophic failure. But one eccentric gemcutter, a man named Kaelen who lived in a dusty workshop in one of Saṃsāra’s sprawling megacities, saw it differently. He believed that the flaws in a crystal were not…

  • Vodou 802 of the Gedes Garden Trowel

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: In the early centuries after the first souls began arriving on Saṃsāra, a small community of people from a place called Haiti materialized on a temperate, jungle-fringed island in the southern archipelago. They brought with them a deep connection to the spirits they served, the Lwa, and a reverence for their ancestors. One of…

  • Turkish Djinn Binder 444 of the Gaoler

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore In the old quarters of the city-state of Konstantiniyye, there stands the Yedikule Zindan, the Seven Towers Dungeon. It was a prison built to hold not just men, but also unruly spirits, meddlesome djinn, and creatures bound by powerful magic. The first warden, a man known only as agha Yakup, knew that iron bars…

  • Turkish Kismet 777 of the Fortunate Hand

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore In the back-alley dice games and high-stakes card parlors of the port city of Izmira, fortunes are won and lost on the whims of fate. It was in one such smoke-filled room that a down-on-his-luck sailor named Yusuf was about to lose his ship in a final game of chance. With nothing left, he…

  • Turkish Tesbih 369 of the Tinker

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore In the grand metropolis of Al-Makina, a city renowned for its clockwork towers and steam-powered industry, there lived a master artisan named Usta Osman. He was a man of two worlds: his hands understood the precise language of gears and springs, but his heart understood the old folk magic. He believed that every complex…

  • Turkish Muska 581 of the Skinner

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore In the rolling hills and steppe lands of the Anatol Protectorate, the people’s wealth is measured in their flocks. They are master shepherds and leatherworkers, and their lives are deeply intertwined with the animals they tend. Long ago, a furrier named Ismail was so skilled that his work was sought by sultans and merchants…

  • Tupilak 437 of the Silent Watcher

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore In the northern tundras of Saṃsāra, the Yuit peoples live a life in harmony with the harsh, windswept landscape. To survive, their hunters and scouts must be ever-vigilant, masters of observation and stealth. Long ago, their shamans learned to carve small figures from the bones of caribou and the ivory of walrus, imbuing them…

  • Tupilak 717 of Knucklebones of Whispering Spirit

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: The first Tunguska shamans on Saṃsāra learned quickly that the world was thick with spirits. While some bound powerful, angry spirits into constructs of vengeance, others pursued a quieter path. They discovered that lesser, more curious spirits—the spirits of flowing water, of the north wind, of clever foxes—could be coaxed into small, inanimate objects.…

  • Tunguska 620 of the Weaver of Whispers

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: When avatars from the Tunguska traditions found themselves not in the great wild taiga but in the sprawling, bureaucratic cities of Saṃsāra, they had to adapt their magic to survive. They discovered that the spirits were not just in the trees and the rivers, but that a faint, lesser spirit—an echo of intent and…

  • Tunguska 411 of the Whisper Bark Axe

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: When the first souls found themselves in the vast, ancient forests of Saṃsāra, they quickly learned that the trees were more than just wood. Each possessed a spirit, and the forest itself had a great, slumbering consciousness. The traditions of Tunguska shamanism, which focused on communicating with natural forces, proved essential for survival. These…

  • Tunguska 1908 of the Echo Drinkers Lens

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: When the first souls of the Nenets tradition arrived on Saṃsāra, they found themselves in a world teeming with spirits far different from their own. They discovered that violent actions and powerful emotions did not simply fade; they left a stain, a spiritual residue on the physical world. While a powerful shaman could enter…

  • Tribal 73 of the Ancestral Echo

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: When the first scattered communities of souls manifested upon the world of Saṃsāra, they found themselves untethered from their histories, their gods, and their ancestors. In an effort to forge a connection to what they had lost and to understand the profoundly magical nature of their new home, many turned to the familiar traditions…

  • Traditional 2876 of the Nazar Fishers Reed

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Tier 1 • Common rarity • Slot: Two‑hand Tool (counts as one worn item when slung across the back) • Cost: 12 Silver, or 6 Nickel and 6 Silver • Weight: 2 lb • Length: 7 ft DescriptionA supple river‑reed rod harvested from the oases of the Karakum analogue. Its joints are wrapped in indigo goat‑gut thread; between each wrap a blue‑glass evil‑eye bead sits in amber resin, their concentric rings…

  • Time 770 of the Spectacles of the Patient Muse

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore In the sun-drenched city of Cyrillia, famed for its Grand Academy of the Arts, it is understood that true mastery requires not just talent, but time. The academy’s patrons, wealthy merchants who value beauty as much as gold, commissioned the city’s Guild of Arcane Artificers to create a tool for their aspiring students. They…

  • Time 218 of the Pilferers Second Chance

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore In the gas-lit, labyrinthine Undercity of Aethelburg, the Shadow-Finger Guild holds sway. Its members are not brutes, but artists of larceny who value subtlety and success above all else. Decades ago, a disgraced chronomancer, exiled for his experiments in “minor causality violations,” found refuge within the Guild. He paid for his safety not with…

  • Taoist 11 of The Stone Listeners Charm

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: The practitioners of the Taoist 11 tradition believed that the world of Saṃsāra was not merely a platform for life, but a single, immense living entity with its own breath, pulse, and flow of Qi. For these alchemists, spiritual refinement was not achieved by looking inward to the self alone, but by harmonizing the…

  • Shugendo 207 of the Mask of the Listening Heart

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: The yamabushi known as Jin was, in his life before the mountain, a reclusive scholar. His world was one of scrolls and ink, and he understood the hearts of men only through the stories he read, finding their living counterparts to be loud, confusing, and distant. Seeking to quiet the world, he retreated to…

  • Shugendo 811 of the Pool of Nascent Forms

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: The yamabushi ascetic Ine was a midwife in her former life, a woman whose hands had welcomed hundreds of new souls into the world. She was endlessly fascinated by the moment life begins—the invisible spark that animates the growing form within an egg or a womb. When she took to the mountains, her focus…

  • Shamanism 303 of the Web of Life Mask

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore The shamans of the Verdant Coil jungle do not see the forest as a collection of individual plants and animals. They see it as a single, sprawling entity—one spirit with a billion mouths, a million roots, and a single, complex soul. To them, a sick monkey is a symptom of a sick tree, which…

  • Shamanism 119 of the Fault Readers Bindings

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: In the jagged peaks of the Dragon’s Tooth mountains, the shamans of the Gorn-Tribe do not worship gods of the sky. Their spirits are the titans that sleep beneath their feet—the spirits of granite, magma, and the unfathomable pressure of the deep places. They believe the world rests on the back of a slumbering…

  • Shamanism 786 of the Spirit Vat Stirrers

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: Among the nomadic clans of the Painted Deserts, the arts of dyeing and shamanism are not separate paths but are woven together like threads in a tapestry. Clan dyers believe that every plant, mineral, and insect holds a spirit, and that the color they yield is a physical manifestation of that spirit’s voice or…

  • Seiðr 77 of the Gloves of the Woven Road

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Slot: Hands Lore In the great labyrinthine race courses that snake through the floating cities and cavern systems of Saṃsāra, victory is decided by inches and milliseconds. One of the early legendary racers, a woman known only as “The Griffon,” was not just a master pilot but also a practitioner of Seiðr. She believed that…

  • Seiðr 12 of the Horn of Intangible Draughts

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Slot: Held / Belt Lore: Among the early communities of avatars on Saṃsāra, there was a settlement famed for its great mead halls and the wisdom of its seer, a völva named Gudrun. She found that the potent, honey-sweet mead they brewed helped quiet the conscious mind, making it easier for the spirit to travel…

  • Seiðr 88 of the Wither Staff

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Slot: Held / Back Lore When the first souls arrived on the world of Saṃsāra, they found themselves in a land where magic ebbed and flowed like an unpredictable tide. Some communities, finding themselves stranded in regions where the ambient magic was thin and weak, grew desperate. Among them were practitioners of Seiðr, whose divinatory…

  • Satsnakheli 927 of Starry Veil

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: In the misty archipelagoes of Saṃsāra, where magical tides ebb and flow like celestial currents, the Satsnakheli 927 of Starry Veil was first crafted by a khelkheuri named Lela of the Dusk Isles. Lela, an avatar reborn from a Georgian-like world, wove her ancestral knowledge of Satsnakheli into Saṃsāra’s vibrant magical tapestry. Guided by…

  • Qigong 4 of The Lens of Clear Intent

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore In the early days of the great port city of Samudra, the flow of goods and souls from the 73 island nations was a chaotic torrent. The first customs inspectors were overworked and often relied on crude intimidation. Among them was an old avatar named Kai, a quiet man who had been a scroll-keeper…

  • Persian Five of the Asbaran Lens

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore When the first Persian souls arrived on Saṃsāra, they brought with them a deep understanding of cosmic order, asha, and its antithesis, the lie, druj. Among them was a great Magi named Ostanes, who became a counselor to a local Satrap. He taught that every crime, from a simple theft to a murder, was…

  • Persian Three of the Mithraic Seal

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore Among the myriad souls who found themselves on the shores of Saṃsāra were the merchant-priests of a forgotten order dedicated to Mithra, a deity of contracts, oaths, and the rising sun. In their old world, a handshake was an unbreakable bond, and a person’s word was the purest form of currency. They arrived to…

  • Onmyodo 864 of the Harmonising Seal

    —

    by

    Dale
    in

    Lore: During an era when royal edicts often contradicted celestial omens, Archivist-Onmyōji Takahashi Shō-raku carved a stone seal that married court protocol to astral principle. By aligning the five facets of jade with the cycles of yin-yang, he ensured every stamped decree resonated with balanced ki. Rumour claims that documents bearing this mark never incited…