Scarabomancy

Ohe! Let it be known among the wise that the ancient and most perfect art of Scarabomancy has been rediscovered and that lectures in such will commence in Tumissa on 12 Fesru, at the gong of Awakening in Azure at the Temple of Ksarul .

Herein I shall outline for the curious what this art entails, for in this decadent age few, even among the wisest of the wise the adherents of the Doomed Prince, have even heard of this most marvellous method of divination and interpretation of the knots of Skeins of Destiny.

First you need a scarab beetle, obviously. This attractive little beetle is most sacred to Ksarul, master of the most mighty beetles that roll the planets and moons through the sky, and himself manifest in the great fireproof beast that moves the sun itself. Each scarab is, in a minute and most infinitesimal way, an aspect of Ksarul himself and thus can impart wisdom from beyond this most mundane of planes.

Second you will need chalk and a bit of flat floor, and on it you shall inscribe the Ten-Fold Circle of Fate and the Fifty-Five glyphs of the Tongue of the Scarab (copies available from myself after the lecture, price 50 kaitars and worth every qirgal). The very best method is to permanently incise the Circle on the floor of a dedicated Shrine of the Scarab, but as the Provost of the Fabric of the Sacred Space has no spare rooms at the moment, I will instruct students in the use of Mriddu’s chalk.

Thirdly, you will need pen, ink and paper, and fourthly, the most important ingredient, dung. Most dung will do, chlen is ideal, but hma and hmelu do just as well. Do not be tempted to use human dung! It is easily available (all too easily given the woeful culinary standards of the Tumissan temple refectory) but the stench is awful, the consistency poor and it will make your scarab ill, if he can be persuaded to approach the stuff at all.

The procedure is as follows.

Ask the questioner (or yourself (but not out loud or people will think you mad (which I am not))), to state their request of the Mightiest and Wisest of Gods in no more than thirteen words and two symbols of punctuation. Write this question, in any language, scarab beetles are perfectly multilingual like their master, on a piece of paper two choptse wide by one hoi long and roll it into as tight a cylinder as you can.

Take a lump of dung, ten mlo will do nicely, but a weak or small beetle might only be able to cope with seven or eight, and roll it into a ball. Insert the question into the ball of dung and place it on the Glyph of Questioning in the very centre of the circle.

Take a Darsha leaf, and roll it round a mlo of Aira grass, a mlo of Chumaz, three mlo of Hnequ weed and a pinch (and believe me, only a pinch) of dried Urugal root. Set fire to the roll of herbs and inhale the smoke in Loruni fashion. When the room has stopped spinning, get your scarab and blow upon it the smoke. When the scarab has stopped waving its legs in the air and coughing place it on the circle at the Glyph of Wisdom (that’s the big square one).

Observe closely the path it takes to the question using the left eye, and then observe closely the path by which it rolls the ball of dung out of the circle using the right eye. Do not use both eyes at once! If this process takes more than two kiren you have probably used too much Aira grass. If you lose consciousness before the end of the process I suggest you use fresher Chumaz, and if you find yourself distracted by the green translucent Vringalu singing Pijenan drinking songs you have used too much Urugal root and should seek professional demonological help immediately.

By analysing the path of the sacred scarab it is possible, with practice, to determine with amazing accuracy the course of the questioners skein of destiny with respect to his question. So if you are asked ‘Ohe, shall I wed the handsome mat weaver or the ugly slave merchant?’ and the scarab crosses the Glyph of the Impaled Ahoggya, the Glyph of the Left-Centre Eye of the Zrne and then abandons its ball of dung on the Glyph of the Missing Finger and bites the questioner, the answer is of course neither you silly person, you are going on a long sea voyage in the course of which you will inevitably drown.

The many relations of Glyphs to knots of fate are detailed in the scroll ‘Key to the Skein of the Scarab, or Silly Answers to Stupid Questions’ by the mighty seer Arkha’anu the five-legged, who himself was a scarab, so he should know. Copies of this are being produced in the scriptorium of the Plume of White clan for those students willing to take ship on this barge of most excellent wisdom to its ultimate destination, the Sea of Fate itself.

Oh, yes, the last stage of the process is wash your hands.

Rusala Yi’isia hiNashomai, Friend of the Scarab, Twitcher of the Refulgent Blue Curtain and Kusijaktodali of the Temple of Azure Ambivalence, Teacher of Scarabomancy

All hail Ksarul!

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Using the Skill

The skill requires 3pt per level. It has specialisations of Interrogatory and Predicitve.

Using Scarabomancy is a task involving several skills. Firstly one must draw the circle, which takes about two hours; as noted above, serious practitioners set up a permanent circle in a special room set aside for the purpose.

To set up the circle the user must roll against Scarabomancy skill + Int, any Drawing skill and Ritual Magic. Take the success number of the Scarabomancy roll x 2, and the other skills x1, plus 1 per 10Kt worth of silver-flecked chalk used. If the Scarabomancer intends to make a permanent circle, he must draw a circle and have it excised by an expert mason (roll vs Mason skill and add success number again), jewellers may then add silver inlay (roll against Silversmith skill).

Any total of 0 or below indicates that the circle is not going to work at all. +5 - +10 gives +1 to any Scarabomancy roll, +10 - +15, gives +2 and 16 or above gives +3.

Using Scarabomancy takes another hour or so. First the user makes an Intoxicants roll at +2 to cope with the drugs. Serious failure at this stage can render the scarabomancer unconscious and unable to continue, minor failures extend the preparation time by anywhere up to three hours. The GM makes a secret roll against the skill itself, which indicates how accurate the prediction is, or how inaccurate it may be. The user will not be aware of any failure, but may eventually realise that their prediction has not come true or has led him/her into serious trouble.

In Interrogatory mode the user asks his question, which may pertain to anything. The answer is unfortunately likely to be pretty cryptic, a combination of anywhere from four to twenty glyphs of highly obscure meaning. The Predictive mode is used to find lucky days and unlucky days on which to perform certain acts or start certain projects. The better the roll the more precise the details and the greater the benefit if followed.

The only known practitioner is Rusala Yi’isia hiNashomai herself, and she is currently only teaching members of the Temples of Ksarul and Gruganu. Having had very few takers and a flat refusal by the Master of Acolytes to put her barmy discipline on the curriculum and herself on the payroll she might be persuaded to teach others for a suitable fee.

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