Imperial Diviner

“The future exists as a seething quagmire of possibilities and allegories of things yet to be, and its dark and shadowed reflections, echoing backwards through time can be glimpsed in the turbulent and nightmarish realm of the Warp by those with the courage and ability to do so. For some psykers whose powers tend towards the arts of the diviner, the prediction of the future can too readily become an obsession and a dangerous one. The Warp is a fickle and perilous thing, and for each fragment of truth that can be glimpsed there, there are a thousand falsehoods and lies, shades of possibility and futures made and unmade with each passing second."
–The Reflections of Inquisitor Katuwe Orne, Cantos Ocularis I{XVI}
Imperial Diviners are Sanctioned Psykers who have focused
their powers and abilities on the hazardous and fickle art of
prophecy and prediction. This is a dangerous path, fraught
not only with the difficulties and inaccuracies of foretelling
itself, but also holds great risks to the sanity and soul of the
Psyker involved. The rewards however can be great, and for
many radical Inquisitors, the chance to detect and purge the
guilty before they have the chance to commit their atrocities
is more than worth the risk.
The prediction of the future, or to be more accurate the
foreshadowing of things that may yet come to pass as might
be imagined is a thing of great an interest to many within the
Inquisition, just as it is to the Chaos Cult, witch, or indeed
any other member of the Imperium’s great and powerful who
lend credence to the diviner’s abilities. Such prognostications
are never fully reliable however, and for many who distrust
such arts, particularly those in the Puritan factions of the
Holy Ordos, one might as well listen to the lies that pour
direct from a Daemon’s mouth as trust a diviner’s visions.
Many of those who have gazed long into the Warp for
answers and omens have been changed profoundly and come
to know things that no mortal mind should for sanity’s sake.
Some break and flee in terror from their visions, or succumb
to madness, while others endure but come to view their gifts
as an agonizing curse, and yet one they can neither resist
nor escape. A few, despite the assurance of their Imperial
sanctioning come to embrace what the Warp shows them,
and in doing so may damn their very souls.
Of all the radical Calixian Conclave factions, the little understood and
highly secretive sect known as the Ocularians are singularly
obsessed with foretelling and the casting and fulfilment of
Prophecies, and many of Imperial Diviners found within the
Inquisition’s ranks in the sector count among their number.
However, other factions, notably the Xanthites and certain
fringe followers of the Isstvanian doctrine, are also known to
employ diviners of their own.
== The Arts of Divination ==
The following contains a brief sampling of the various arts and ritual practices that the diviner’s craft can be channeled and
the future revealed, as defined by the Chamber Prognosticate of the Scholastia Psykana Calixis.
• Ætheromancy: By the direct sensory experience of the Warp. Rated as one of the most effective and most dangerous means of divination known. Proscribed outside of the ranks of the chosen of the Astropathica and the Navis Nobilite.
• Antinopamancy: By the use of the entrails of the living. Condemned as heretical under high Imperial law. Repeated persecution is untaken against recidivist practices in the Malfian sub-sector.
• Arithmomancy: By the use of ritual data-cogitation or interpretative numeric analogues. Practiced by certain sects of the Cult Mechanicus, most notably the Paracellsan Order.
• Astragalomancy: By the use of dice. Particularly prevalent among those of void born ancestry or society. Indigenous local tradition strongly held on Fenksworld.
• Caponomancy: By the smoke of the pyre. In particular the religious traditions of Maccabeus Quintus holds great sacred worth in the interpretation of pyre smoke, both of the honored dead and of purifying heretics for different purposes.
• Lithomancy: By the use of psychoreactive or aetherically attuned materials. Toleration varies often by material used. The stones of Sleef and fragments of Eldar Wraithbone are considered the most potent objects associated with this craft in the Calixis Sector.
• Oniromancy: By the interpretation of dreams. The dread world of Dusk is famed for the prophetic powers of its fickle and dangerous darkling kin.
• Onomatomancy: By the use of ‘true names.’ Long forbidden by Inquisitorial authority for its links with malefic sorcery and the command of daemons.
• Sciomancy: By the configuration of shadows. Banned and suppressed within the Calixis sector by the edict of the Tyrantine Cabal.
• Spatalamancy: By the use of skin and bones. Common on numerous feral worlds (such as by the Deathsingers of Iocanthos) and in the underhives of more populous worlds such as Scintilla [Ref: Nagomancy: the binding of warp entities and the “souls of the dead” into talismans and fetishes of skin and bone by this practice is considered Malleus Malfecta.].
• Theomancy: By the hand of the divine, such as through the interpretation of the sacred texts of the Ministorum or the use of the relics of the saints. The most widely respected and accepted (and complex) form of divination sanctioned by the Imperium---the reading of the Emperor’s Tarot falls into this category.
== Becoming a Imperial Diviner ==
Becoming an Imperial Diviner simply requires a conscious
choice on the part of a character with a suitable divinatory
power to hone their psychic perceptions and open their minds
more fully to the Empyrean seas beyond. This of course can
prove dangerous. When this career choice is first taken, the
character must take a Difficult (–10) Psyniscience Test to
represent the meditative and revelatory processes involved. If
this is failed they suffer 2d5 Insanity points. (They may then
enter this career option regardless of the result of this roll).
Required Career: Imperial Psyker
Alternate Rank: Rank 5 Scholar Materium or higher (3,000
XP), and you must also have the Personal Augury Power.
New Equipment: Divination Foci
The diviner’s arts are strange and esoteric, even in comparison
with many other psychic disciplines, a factor not aided by the
tendency of the Psyker’s mind to filter the Warp’s revelations
through convoluted dreamlike visions, allegory, symbolic
representation and subconscious imagery. As a result frequent
misinterpretation and obscurity are continued risks even for the
most potent Psykers. In order to counteract this and attempt
to reach a clarity of vision, since ancient times diviners have
used special foci to try and give form and constancy to their
divinations. In the Imperium the most widespread of these is
the Emperor’s Tarot, a sacred deck of symbolic pictographic
cards with labyrinthine levels of meaning believed by some
not only to be blessed but indeed to reveal the God-Emperor’s
own mind to his chosen people. Aside from the Tarot, there
are many other regional and traditional methods, from the
carved human knuckle bones favored on Iocanthos by the
Death Singers, to the interpretations of vapor patterns of
secret coolant mixes boiling away in frozen zero gravity
favored by many void mystics on the great Chartist vessels.
Whatever their shape a divination foci takes, it can be
placed into one of two types, a lesser one which may be hand
crafted by the diviner themselves and imbued with resonance
or even sold commercially by certain dealers in the esoteric,
and those of greater provenance and history, sacred items
made either from arcane materials such as the psychoactive
Wraithbone of the Eldar or Fra’al night shards, saint’s relics
or the tools of diviners of legend.
When any divination psychic power is used by the psyker
using the special focus (this requires at least a single full
action), a bonus is given to Invocation and Perception-based
Tests made to interpret the results. For a lesser divination focus,
this bonus is +10; for a greater one, the bonus is +20.
Lesser Divination Foci: Cost 200, Rare
Greater Divination Foci: Cost 1000+, Very Rare