[StarMann]

So with 4tuna coming out soon I though it was about time I posted the horoscope shenanigans I wrote for Lionel at the start of Meranthe. It goes over making a horoscope and how to use it to tell fluffy fortunes. It's by no means a hard example of the only way to do things, just one interpretation of the stars etc etc.



Unlike other celestialism, Eternian Astrology does not care for the "will" of stars themselves. Instead the importance is leant towards the positions of the stars at certain moments in a person's life, the key one being their birth. There is a slight amount of mathematics involved but can be circumvented with various magics, cosmic magic being the key one there. Practitioners of the faith may end up tending to favour certain signs, likely their own, and use it as a reference for calculating other things in their life. Followers on the faith usually see their own horoscopes as fact, even going so far as to change how they react to situations in order to avoid possibly deviating from it. Deviation from one's horoscope is seen as a bad omen and being abandoned by fate, in these cases the followers try to find a key event that occurred to them recently and weave a new horoscope around that in order to regain the blessing of fate.

Advanced members of the faith notice that the movement of the stars is indeterministic, instead of a regular change in their positions and intensities it deviates year on year. This indicates that there is a force behind their movements, perhaps sentient, perhaps not. The next goal is to achieve communication with this force to transition from attempting to predict the star's movements into knowing their next movements.

The final stage of Astrology is to influence Gala's weaving of the night sky, forcing fate to be what they wish it to be. There are many paths towards this ranging from prayer and offerings to strife and force. It cannot be said which is more effective.


Astrology and reading the fate of others revolves around creating a horoscope for an individual, knowing the positions of the stars at their last important event, and using that alongside the upcoming position of the stars to scry the future of said person.


Requirements to craft a horoscope:

The four angles of the horoscope are as such:

Vanaheim - East, towards sunrise
Joruheim - North, towards Heaven
Alfheim - West, towards dusk
Helheim - South, towards Hel

In the month of their birth, the relevant Zodiac will be whole in the North:

⚶ - Geist - 1st Month
♎︎ - Sae - 2nd Month
♐︎ - Hiero - 3rd Month
♈︎ - Syph - 4th Month
♒︎ - Iberl - 5th Month
♓︎ - Ios - 6th Month
♌︎ - Leo - 7th Month
δ - Twe - 8th Month
π - Yiel - 9th Month
♅ - Uner - 10th Month
☌ - Neoi - 11th Month
☊ - Biblos - 12th Month



Each represents one of the four elements, is either positive or negative and has a Modality of either Cardinal, Fixed or Mutable. Air and Fire are always Positive while Earth and Water are always negative. The polarity represents their position in relation to the heavens, with the positive forces being unbound from the planet.

Modality:

Cardinal - Action, initiative, force, drive - ⚶ - Geist - ♈︎ - Syph - ♌︎ - Leo - ♅ - Uner
Fixed - Willpower, inflexible, unmovable, unchanging - ♎︎ - Sae - ♒︎ - Iberl - δ - Twe - ☌ - Neoi
Mutable - Adaptive, resourceful, flexible - ♐︎ - Hiero - ♓︎ - Ios - π - Yiel - ☊ - Biblos

Every odd month is positive, every even is negative.

Each zodiac belongs to a house with each representing a value.



The zodiac act similar to the face of a clock, with each house having an opposite. The House of Self opposes the House of Change, the House of Wealth opposing the House of Altruism and so forth.

When crafting a person's Horoscope their month of birth will point to their major zodiac, sharing its name. This will be a key identifier to their personality. It's opposite, in the south, will represent a trait that they reject/neglect. The east shows a trait their minorly uphold while the west indicates a trait they subtly deny.

For example:

Someone tells you their month of birth is in Twe.

This tells you: They are someone who often puts others before themselves, they often reject wealth or the act of hoarding, they are minorly drawn towards the mystical and they minorly reject chasing pleasures. The person is attuned to water, either physically, magically or emotionally. They are grounded via water and immutable via their Modality. They resist change, specifically in their beliefs and will likely carry the same convictions throughout their life.

The Horoscope can be narrowed further with additional information:

The Star Native, their inner core, is derived from their main school of magic.
The Temporal Native, their transient state, is derived from their time of birth.
The Surface Native, their outward face, is derived from their place of birth.

The Star native is the most volatile, one that can change over a person's life time. It affects the balance of the four angles.

For example; a primarily Meta Magi would have a lesser feeling of their eastern angle, in the example above the person would not feel much of a strong drag towards the mystical arts.


The Temporal native has four possible configurations:

Sun Rising, Moon Rising - Noon to 6:00PM
Sun Setting, Moon Rising - Midnight to 6:00AM
Sun Rising, Moon Setting - 6:00AM to Noon
Sun Setting, Moon Setting - 6:00PM to Midnight

If the sun is rising, positive traits are amplified, if the moon is rising, negative traits are amplified and vice versa.

The Surface Native has no direct bearing on the Zodiac, instead it infers susceptibility to the star's influence. Those born closer to the equator, or at higher altitudes, will experience the effects of the stars on them.



With all this information you will be able to construct a person's horoscope and from that you can divine their Minor and Major Fates.

(OOC note: a person's minor fate is mere fluff and will act much like a newspaper horoscope. You can simply flip coins to come up with positive or negative outcomes from their generated personality traits e.g. "You will feel more introverted within the coming days allowing you the chance to complete discarded projects". Major fates are what you will use the bless verb on and while you obviously cannot predict the future you can instil them with confidence in the future and give them a noticeable improvement. To generate a Major fate requires sudden intense communion with the stars to quickly analyse their current trajectories and positions, doing so causes you to only be able to see one person's major Fate for a duration of time being unable to draw your attention away from the movements of those stars.

A person's Horoscope will minorly change upon different interactions depending on their current magical abilities but on the whole, once you have someone's horoscope generated, you can just pull it up when you need to for a fluff reading. If someone undergoes an immense moment in their life, it may be pertinent to generate a new horoscope based around that, rather than their initial birth as their fate will now have a new fulcrum to weave around.)