IN> Oracle Bones

[William Keith]

On Mar 9, 2008, at 6:03 PM, Asher Densmore-Lynn wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 9:58 AM, William Keith <wjk26 at drexel.edu> wrote:
>
>>  A typical Oracle Bone, answering the question "will [course of 
>> action]
>>  be auspicious?" is statted as follows:
>
>>  This version can be used by pagan Soldiers with an Ethereal 
>> Connection.
>>   It is limited to one use per week and costs 4 Essence to use, but is
>>  generally accurate a bit more than half the time, and is fairly cheap
>>  for a relic.  The "limited CD" feature is new, indicating that the 
>> Song
>>  can only give, at best, qualified yes/no answers: course of action is
>>  very favorable (as the user would view it), somewhat favorable,
>>  neutral, mildly inauspicious, highly inadvisable.
>
> I'm not sure I'm following. It's giving a five-answer range to a
> yes/no question, but it's accurate "a bit more than half the time" --
> steep for four Essence, isn't it? Especially when three Essence is
> probably enough to MAKE a given action auspicious? (Or series of
> actions. Two Essence goes a long way at TN 7.)

Oops, that was a leftover from previous drafts at power 3 and 4.  A 
self-powered Relic/5 is better than 90% accurate.  And it will respond 
to questions about fairly long courses of action, such as "invading 
Russia this winter."  It will also take into account anything in the 
corporeal Symphony, insofar as your GM feels Eth. Symphony can divine 
the future.

> What happens when it doesn't work -- does it give wrong answers, or
> just no answer? Does it still eat the Essence, if so?

Yep.  Song fails, Essence blown, no response.  An inaccurate response 
will only happen on a critical failure/unfavorable Intervention.

> Are there any ways to grant the song a bonus by narrowing the
> complexity of the query -- perhaps by trying to distill it to be
> relevant to a single Word?

Specific Songs that address particular themes in the Symphony can be 
used, such as the previous listings for Songs of Nemesis and 
Nightmares.  An alchemist ethereal with an information-sensitive 
Affinity can make a no-points-needed alchemical version embodying a use 
of its affinity, which will cost no Essence and be one-shot.

One earlier draft I was considering was a bit on the weirder side.  It 
required a bone from a Vessel of a celestial or ethereal with such a 
sensitive Affinity, Attunement, or Resonance.  The process for 
preparing the bone would certainly involve alchemy at a minimum, and 
more likely the Celestial Song of Artifacts.  Alternatively, it could 
be similar to construct creation or, certainly, necromancy.  A user of 
the bone would then be able to access a restricted version of the 
original owner's information-gathering powers.  The enchanter had to 
know what sort of information could be had, and would carve symbols 
relevant to the possible range of queries.

Now that I look at it, I kind of wish I'd worked up that draft instead 
of this one.  :^)

> -- 
> Asher Densmore-Lynn <jesdynf at gmail.com>

William