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ORACLES

ARCANOI

An Oracle  can learn the following Arcanoi at initiate and common level.

FATALISM        ARGOS       USURY      

Any other Arcanoi an Oracle  learns is common level only.

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Nothing escapes Fate. The dead know this better than the living. Everything in the Underworld has a destiny, a reason for its continued existence after death or destruction, though it’s not always obvious. Every wraith has some vague awareness of Fate. Many never see beyond the occasional premonition or intuitive leap, but those who seek a deeper understanding of chance and destiny find themselves drawn to Fatalism, the Arcanos of tracing and tangling the threads of Fate’s tapestry. Stygian wisdom holds that Oracles don’t choose Fate; rather, Fate chooses its Oracles. Fatalism is a subtle Arcanos with few outward manifestations, one which often begins as a spontaneous manifestation rather than a deliberate attempt to learn Fate’s secrets. Some of history’s strongest Oracles had no interest in becoming Fate’s tools before their first experiences with its power. Each Oracle has a unique relationship with Fatalism and the forces it channels. Some insights come with crystal clarity and mathematical precision, but most skitter hazily out of reach, lurking at the edge of the Oracle’s mind. Outside the most cut-and-dried situations, Fate’s complexity makes simple answers difficult at best, a complication which lends Oracles an oft-warranted reputation for vagueness and evasion. Prophecy has never been an exact science.

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Guildmarks

Each Oracle bears raised scars or tattoo-like patterns representing his preferred form of divination. These markings move of their own accord, though attempts to interpret the changes rarely bring any usable insight. Many Guildwraiths
choose the gaudiest possible attire and go about with their eyes hidden, though only the eldest remember this fashion’s origins as an expression of solidarity with their ancient partners in the Harbingers’ Guild. Many Oracles rely on a particular technique, tool, or meditation to focus their arts. Tarot cards, tea leaves, tongue-in-cheek relic Ouija boards, the entrails of rare plasmics: Nothing is too outré for the dedicated seer. This practice is as common outside the Oracles’ Guild as it is within.

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The Guild

If any group can challenge the Artificers for the title of eldest Guild, it’s the Oracles’ Guild. Since the Underworld’s earliest nights, wraiths who share Fate’s mark have sought out others of their own kind to share knowledge and burdens they couldn’t begin to explain to outsiders. With this common experience, Circles naturally collaborated to interpret their members’ visions — and, at times, to act upon them. The Oracles’ greatest internal dispute has always been whether they should observe passively, share their knowledge with outsiders, or act aggressively as Fate’s agents. Over the millennia, opinion’s pendulum has swung through the full arc many times, giving the Guild a mixed reputation as aloof and inscrutable meddlers. Oracle activity reached its most recent nadir during the War of the Guilds. Strict neutrality preserved the Oracles’ wealth. Afterward, the Guild gradually reopened its temples and dispatched highly paid aides to select Stygian nobles. The Oracles restricted themselves to advisory roles, though, until Charon sought counsel from Grand High Oracle Serena. Furious upon hearing the first portion of his fate, he exiled her from the Isle of Sorrows before she could convey the remainder of her prophecy. This disgrace impelled younger Oracles to throw in with the Artificers’ coup. Elder Guildwraiths held their tongues despite knowing the price to come — and, when the Legions responded with sword and barrow-flame, offered themselves as sacrifice. The resulting power vacuum allowed the coup’s supporters to claim many leadership positions, reinvigorating the guild. Today’s Oracles’ Guild is a visible and proactive force in Underworld affairs. Glimpses of the future impel many wraiths to intercede where they otherwise would have stood idly by. The guild offers a network that often succeeds where a lone Oracle’s efforts would fail. Only in the most conservative Necropoli are the Oracles still a quasi-mystical Fate cult that maintains the full hoary rituals and trappings of its forebears.

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Factions

The ancient argument over interpreting and using Fate’s gifts (or curses) still shapes the modern Oracles. The Hands (as in “of Fate”) are the guild’s modern faces, wraiths driven to solve the problems that Fatalism shows them. They’d be dangerous if they could agree on priorities and methods. Almost as numerous are the Gamblers, genteel adventurers for whom Fatalism is a way to beat the odds, whether in poker or parkour. Born of Victorian occult practices and reinvigorated with New Age mysticism, the Clairvoyants are hedonists whose panoply of practices leaves them on the Guild’s fringe — but does make for good recruiting. Tradition-minded Oracles are on the decline, due in part to differences in technique that still hamper cooperation. Delphics fixate on ritual, from meditative trances to the finest sartorial subtleties. While they’re the acknowledged masters of Fatalism, few wraiths have the patience for their painstaking exactitude. The grim-faced Augurs rely on sacrifice to fuel their divinations, which tints their visions towards Oblivion and leaves them on the Legions’ target list. The Pantheonic Temple centers its activity on the eponymous structure, once the Oracles’ heart but now largely seen as a dusty library and museum. Selena, still the guild’s titular head, leads the Temple in elaborate divinations, while a dwindling circle of archivists gamely catalogues the reports and visions which trickle in from Oracles across the Underworld.
For much of the guild, the Temple is relevant only as their link to the Lady of Fate and, through her, the mechanisms of empire.

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