Divination
From Mizahar Lore
| "Divination is the art of truly seeing reality for what it is. We observe, study, interpret, and understand. Anyone can see. Anyone. But a true seer can understand meaning of what they are seeing. seeing for anyone can see. This is the true nature of Avalis’ gift.." - V’nessi Ulvalin , Mother of all Konti and Leader of Mura |
| Gnosis | |
 We are all linked. | |
| Granted by | Avalis |
|---|---|
| Positive marks | Grants “The Sight” of past, present, and future. |
| Negative marks | None |
| Pos. mark appearance | Stylistic Seer’s Lily |
| Neg. mark appearance | None |
| Mark location | Any Prominent |
| First mark | Birth |
| Champion | V'nessi Ulvalin |
Divination is the Avalis’ given art form of being able to tap into the chavi of individuals or groups and interpret what is written on those chavi accurately and clearly. In higher forms, where there are no written chavi, Divination is the ability to predict what will come to pass and thus get written down on those same chavi in the future. Often confused with fortune telling, Divination is nothing like the skill of reading cards or tea leaves. Divination allows a clear-cut view at what has been, what will be immediately, and what could be in the future based on the potential that is expressed when specific actions are carried out.
Contents |
Why Divination Works
In order to understand Divination, one must understand the Chavena or the Chavic Records. Between the Ukalas, the divine realm of the gods, and the mortal realm where Mizahar resides, there exists a thin radiating corona created by all the life within the Mortal Realm being loosely and lightly tied to the Ukalas. The Chavena is not just a singular entity. It is best described as a complex root system anchoring all life in the mortal realm solidly to the divine realm. The Chavena is vast, made up of individual chavi that bend and twist around one another on their journey to the Ukalas. The chavi are in constant motion - spiraling, drifting, weaving - and are breathtakingly beautiful to behold in the darkness between the mortal world and the divine. Sometimes these individual chavi touch for a brief instant, a lifetime, or for any length of time in between, brushing up against one another, impacting those chavi adjacent, and creating a huge entangled web of thoughts, feelings, and experiences all stored that can be later accessed (via divination and dreams) by those that own the chavi. Because these chavi are in constant motion, these areas of connectedness are constantly changing, creating new realities moment by moment.
Each individual person has a chavi. The chavi, simply put, are the entirety of the experiences of a single living creature collected in a weave of colorful energy that links that same living creature between the mortal realm and the divine realm like an umbilical cord. Chavi house memories, thoughts, fears, expectations, all blended together in a branching strand of energy that looks more like a tangle of beautiful geometric shapes and lights that drifts and undulates like the tentacles of a jellyfish - refracting light and creating an incredible space of beauty. Dreams are fueled by experiences and are often just the beautiful interaction of a person's mind with the delicate upper layers of the Ukalas. Dreams take their substance from the contents of the chavi, with the newest or most dramatic knowledge stored often being the most prominent. Divinists tap into the chavi, and and the more gnosis marks they have the easier it is for them to use their sight.
Scholars have speculated that all knowledge, all truth, and all things that have ever existed in the world are evident (and most likely deeply buried) in the Chavena. It is for this reason that the Chavena is sometimes called the Chavic Records. There are very few gnosis gifts that can access the Chavena. Divination is one of those. Lykata is another, though it deals more with tapping the chavi of people who have handled a common object via that object. Dreamwalking, however, is the only gnosis that can actually manipulate the information on the Chavi. Divination simply reveals what is there already, manipulated or not.
How Divination Works
As a gnosis gift, Divinists borrow their power from Avalis herself. Depending upon the number of marks a Seer has, tapping into the Chavena is as easy as simply concentrating. Unlike Dreamwalkers, Divinists have an uncanny ability to find the chavi they are looking for, especially if the person they are ‘divining’ is present or they have something that belonged to them. Slipping from the material world into the Chavena is easy for someone thus marked. However, like other abilities, when a Divinist is actively concentrating on divining, their physical shells can often be ‘abandoned’ and vulnerable while they are perusing the Chavena and seeking the knowledge they are after.
Time is irreverent in the Chavena. Divinists normally do not take long - a few breaths - to seek what they are looking for. Their troubles begin with the ability to interpret what they find. Those that look towards the past find it easy to read what has happened because such possibilities are already solidified on the chavi. Those that seek immediate present find that reading the chavi while actions are occurring and the chavi are growing quite a bit harder. Those seeking to anticipate the future (at level 3) often find that they must hone their skills and learn from experience how to interpret what they consider ‘potential possibilities’ or pathways the chavi will take as it expands. Anticipation of the future is the hardest level of all for a divinist to master. Avalis’ champion has no trouble mastering the past, present and future. She finds her most difficult issues in deciding how to act on the knowledge she does have. It can be incredibly distracting to see all possibilities and all actions and know what sort of action will lead to what sort of ramification. Champions of Avalis do not always last long periods of time. They fall victim to the extreme stress of simply knowing and often age prematurely or lose mental capacity swiftly enough that insanity can result. Avalis generally removes these marks and ‘defrocks’ her champions before they reach this stage. Her current champion is the longest running fourth-marked Konti since the Valterrian.
Unlike Dreamwalkers, Divinists do not need a key or something that has been owned by the person they are trying to divine. They find chavi fairly easily with one notable drawback. Divination works only on the living. A Divinist cannot scan the chavi of a dead person because they have a problem finding it. Consequently, Divinists cannot, for example, when someone dead will be born again if they can passed on to the spirit world.
Whom Does Avalis Favor?
While any race can bear a mark from Avalis, by and large the most common people that carry these gnosis marks are Konti. Konti are Avalis’ children, and as such are born with a gift that is as individual as the Konti is itself. This ‘gift’ should not be confused with Divination and Avalis’ gnosis, however. They are two separate things completely. While Konti are often proficient at handling Divination, they can be prone to the same dangers of sight as any other race.
Perhaps the second most common race to bear Avalis' marks is Humans of any subrace. In every culture of humanity there have always been seers. These seers are also found in Mixed Races as well. These seers are often overshadowed by their Konti counterparts, but their gifts are just as powerful. A few Akontak have them due in part to their high levels of Konti blood no doubt. And quite a few Charoda have been known to bear Avalis' marks as well. Oddly enough, some of the more passive Myrian females have also been known to bear Avalis' marks. These special Myrians become assistants and attendants to the Oracle Szarri. Rarely, a singular Dhani will be born in any given generation with a gnosis mark from Avalis. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the race, these gentle introspects do not often survive long in their natural environments. If they escape their culture, however, they have been known in the past to thrive.
Avalis does not differentiate between evil and good. For this reason, her marks may appear at birth on any number of races and any number of alignments. Due to the nature of Divination, there are no negative marks possible. This simply is a power that is either turned on or isn’t. Chavi cannot be erased or isolated thus negative marks have no place in Avalis’ gnosis, for all they would do would be to block the bearers access to the Chavena through Divination. Such a task is carried out simply by not bearing a gnosis mark at all.
Due to Avalis’ relationship with Laviku, occasionally there are sea creatures both exotic and known that are found to have Avalis’ mark. Most of these creatures are either Laviku’s Alvinas or fragment monsters left from the time of the Valterrian (or their offspring).
The Dangers of Sight
Having sight is not an easy thing. Often the Seers look involuntarily whether they were curious or not. Sight can demand this as though it were a living thing all its own. This can be distracting and dangerous to Divinists who often have no choice when their sight chooses to show them something. When this happens in combat or during other inopportune times, it can be deadly. In addition, without learning the finesse of control and filtering, Seers can get overwhelmed by images. Knowing how to control this inflow when their gifts are being hyperactive often tends to make Divinists stronger. Once they lose this control, mental illness and even physical illness can easily manifest. Avalis is not a popular goddess among the denizens of the Ukalas. Sometimes her gifted are targeted for their abilities to ferret out secrets, especially by Akajia’s chosen and marked.
Also, another important danger is becoming lost in the Chavena. It is often so fascinating to a Divinist when they are lost in the Chavena reading the chavi that they have a hard time coming back to the real world and thus back to their forms. They must take time to both enter the Chavena (at mark 1 and 2) and exit it. It isn’t until higher levels that their ease into the Chavena becomes an almost full time tie with this fringe realm.
The Seer’s Lily Mark
Most Konti are either born with Avalis’ mark or Rak'keli’s mark. When the Konti in question are born on Mura, the odds are incredibly likely that the Konti will be actual seers bound to the Goddess of Sight. Avalis' gnosis mark always comes in the form of a stylized lily that appears more like a tattoo than an actually intricate mark. These marks tend to shimmer and have a truly beautiful appearance. As a person receives more marks from Avalis and is thus more closely bound to her, these singular blooms branch off into more lilies until the max of four is gained. Currently only one Konti alive has four lilies in her Avalis mark and she currently leads the Konti on Mura. These marks can be of any color, though they tend to be luminous, and can be found anywhere on the body.
Mark Progression
| Marked [Cursed] - 1 Gnosis Mark | |
| Marked followers of Avalis bear the first bloom of the Seer’s Lily and can delve into the Chavena at will seeking individual chavi and reading the past. Their sight at this level is rough. It can be unpredictable and hit-or-miss, but if they can indeed find the chavi they are looking for and read of its past, they have no problems coming up with answers to questions that might be presented to them. At this level, individuals cannot read the present or the future. There is also very little danger of mental illness or the seers becoming lost in the Chavena. | |
| Favored [Despised] - 2 Gnosis Marks | |
| Favored Divinists can also see the present as it unfolds on individual chavi. They must do so on an case-by-case bases, so if they are seeking answers to how (for example) a battle will play out, they cannot read the battle itself (for it has no chavi) but they can study the chavi of the people involved in the battle and predict present unfolding outcomes as the situation plays out. At this level reading the past is clear-cut and concise. Divinists are almost never wrong in their interpretation of events laid out on chavi, though most need to remember the events are recorded from the individual’s perspective and are not always the whole truth. Multiple chavi should be divined in order to get a clear cut accurate picture of the truth. Movement into and out of the Chavena becomes easier, though risk of losing oneself within the chavi is far greater. | |
| Priest/Priestess [Adversary] - 3 Gnosis Marks | |
| Priestesses and Priests of Avalis become her true minions at this triple mark. Not only can they clearly and accurately read the past (and not just on an individual bases but via multiple people at the same time), they can read the present in a clear concise manner. They can also, at this stage, begin reading the future and predicting the twists and turns that indivudal chavi will make based on actions taken. This is called ‘reading the potential’ and is incredibly important for true Konti advisors and other faithful followers. At this stage, Avalis’ followers have started being almost full time plugged into the Chavena, so much so that the people who know them cannot tell when they are divining or not since their eyes no longer lose focus or assume that ‘no one home’ look that a great many Mark 1 and Mark 2 seers display. The danger of a Priest or Priestess getting lost in the Chavena is considerably lower now since that priest or priestess is always somewhat within this realm mentally. | |
| Champion [Nemesis] - 4 Gnosis Marks | |
| Champions see the past, present, and future clearly. They are not often wrong. Some reports even indicate they can divine the chavi of the Gods and Goddesses themselves. This, however, is unsubstantiated since scholars are still in heavy debate whether those that dwell on the Ukalas even have Chavi. There has only been two champions of Avalis since the Valterrian. The second one, V'nessi Ulvalin , is still alive and well on Konti Isle in Mura. | |
Mark acquisition threads
| First mark | ||
 | The Circle Is Going To Come Around | First mark acquisition for Trista. |
| Second mark |
| Third mark |
| Fourth mark |
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Out of character note: Starting players who are Konti do not need permission to start off with a single gnosis mark by Avalis. However, they still need to post in the Help Desk in order to get a Storyteller’s Secret thread and have their mark official. Permission will always be granted however, in the case of Konti. |