Scrying

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Revision as of 15:18, 16 June 2017

Scrying (aka "praxis metaskopia") is the method used to divine a being's location in the world, whether it is an NPC or another incarnos.

1. You need `stare' at an object to focus your scrying. Common objects include crystal spheres, mirrors and flames. You can easily purchase a sphere from Luc's, or find them littered near Discordia. Certain objects in the environment (such as bodies of water, phaethons, and flaming objects) can also be used to scry if they meet the requirements.

Tala's Note
You can also use a gold coin to scry. Just drop one gold, stare at it, voila.

1. After you have focused your attention, you need concentration to fall into a trance. The higher your skill, the better your ability to enter very deep trances.
2. Once you have fallen into a trance, you need imagination to `imagine' the being you are trying to scry.

• You start off either almost falling into a trance or falling into a light trance.
• You will then feel yourself sinking deeper into a light trance.
• You will then feel yourself sinking into a medium trance.
• At this point, scrying works most of the time.
• Beware that you may slip out of your trance if you are not practiced (in what? Not sure.) enough.
• IMPORTANT NOTE: if enough people scry quickly, without attaining deeper trances and allowing their spirit to be drained by the process, the central pool of energy that powers scrying can be depleted. If this happens, no one will be able to enter scrying trances until the pool recovers.

• Scrying coordinates: Whether or not coordinates are provided upon scrying depends on various factors, but especially orienteering skill and how much of the area being scried you have explored. Some areas seem more or less amenable to orienteering (e.g., the River Tethys appears to be especially difficult) and may require varying levels of orienteering and/or exploration in order for the scrier to receive accurate coordinates.
• Nicknames: Nicknaming an item or NPC allows one to use it as a target for scrying. This allows for items and non-unique NPCs to be targeted for scrying purposes if you have made the effort to nickname them. Additionally, certain items in the environment can be nicknamed, such as doors and wandering objects (maiden camp, rajan windship, et. al) and then scried. This is confirmed to work for bond scrying, praxis metaskopia, and seer (though in seer's case only for living things, not objects) and may work for other forms of scrying (haruspices - please edit this information if you are able to confirm).
• Generic descriptors: Bond scrying can be used with generic item descriptors (e.g., "sword" or "longsword" for Heavensfire) for known artifacts, nicknamed items, and kept items. Additionally, this is amenable to using numbers to differentiate between different items of the same class (sword 2, sword 3, sword 4, ...).

TODO:

• Document how different objects affect scrying.
• Document how trance level (light, moderate, deep, etc.) affects scrying.
• Document what determines distance and/or accuracy of the scry.

Insomniac's Note
As a Sparrow bonded Coven I've eventually gotten to scry with coordinates. It took 3 specs in Orienteering 
(Roughly around 130 orienteering) to get general coordinates. Around 150 I got more accurate. Granted Sparrow
bonds are easy at raising the Divination skill and get a few bonus points into it. Although with less orienteering
a seer seemed to be more accurate.

Text of the Scrying Book

   The techniques of seeing at a distance rely on the abstraction of
one's sight through a focus which holds one's attention in a particular
fashion while distorting vision in a way that facilitates the superment
of perceptual limitations.  Experience has shown the best results to be
obtained using a perfect sphere of clear, polished beryl, or failing that,
quartz crystal, but techniques of gazing into water, fire, and mirrors
also work adequately, and may be far more readily available in adverse
circumstances.
   Having selected the physical focus for your scrying, simply stare at
it intently.  Do this for a sufficient time, and you will feel yourself
beginning to slip into a trance.  Do not be alarmed; this is harmless.  A
significant element of skill and judgment on the scryer's part now comes
into play: the trance should not be allowed to grow too deep, or one may
momentarily lose consciousness, requiring one to begin the entire process
again, but proceeding to the next step while in too shallow a trance both
reduces the likelihood of success and has other, longer-term consequences,
which will be discussed later.
   The next and final step, then, to be taken when the scryer judges the
trance deep enough, is to mentally visualize the subject of inquiry.  The
success or failure of the working will be immediately apparent, with the
former resulting in a momentary vision of the subject and its surroundings,
along with the ending of the trance, and the latter simply terminating the
trance.
   This is the fundamental technique of scrying, then; would that it were
so simple a matter that its practitioners need only be concerned with the
effectiveness of their technique.  Alas, there are broader considerations
at work, and I must raise a vital cautionary note.  In my researches into
these techniques, I have investigated many accounts and spoken with many
venerable diviners, and the consensus is clear: scrying has become quite
perceptibly more difficult with the passage of years.
   In explaining this, I concur with those scholars of the arcane who have
concluded that the blame for this phenomenon lies with those scryers who,
ignorantly or irresponsibly, make use of shallow trances.  As you will
perceive, there is a certain flow of spiritual energy that occurs in the
course of scrying, and completing a course of scrying while the trance
remains shallow breaks this flow before it has truly matured.  To the
evidence, this seemingly innocuous practice in fact does some small injury
to the very forces that empower scrying -- a tiny effect from any particular
iteration, but accumulating over time into a terrible toll.
   It is, therefore, imperative that scryers prolong their trances and
allow them to mature, and that this necessity be communicated to those who
know it not.  Otherwise, it is all too easy to envision a day when even the
keenest mind cannot scry at all, and this invaluable art becomes lost to the
ages.