Improper Prophecies

Mud squelches underfoot, the audible unease of the swamp itself at the direction you have chosen to take. The low, dripping passageway is coming to an end and the wan light of the pale sun is visible. As you step out, parting the sickly-looking hanging plants over the exit, your foot sinks inches into another puddle- but before you can struggle to suck it back out you freeze, eyes locked on the warped mockery of a bird's shape ahead of you…

There are ways, of course, to sample one’s future safely- mediums, seers, psychics and all manner of other arcane matters market themselves just so. Many of these art forms may be choked near to death by the many inaccuracies and charlatans within them, but still one may be given a relative notion of what the future holds at a reasonably small risk to oneself. But for a truly, startlingly accurate glimpse into the future? Why, one must invariably work for such an insight, and pay quite the cost…

The silks and hangings around you seem to swirl; the thick incense-smoke is beginning to choke you. You focus blearily on the squat figure before you, whose toad-like complexion seems to grow greener every minute… the room is spinning, though you can hardly tell… and in that strange whirl of invisible motion you see it like a pinprick that fills your horizon. You struggle to focus on it for a moment, until suddenly you are in it, and you see…

There are the prophets, the real prophets, whose gifts are almost always really curses. There are the interstices between temporal frequencies, those freak occurrences that split the unwary mind in twain but provide insight to those prepared to stare them down. There are the patterns and forms that ripple back through time from future happenings all the time, that with long and maddening research one may grasp the true import of. And there is the counsel of alien beings whose concepts of existence does not include such strange distinctions as ‘now’ and ‘then’, whose weird worldview threatens to unseat one’s very Self from the throne of free agency.

Finally it is in your grasp, and you grip it, shake it and stare at it. The smoke that moves listlessly beneath the glassy surface seems almost to stir- but no forms yet take shape. You curse and swear, and shake the thing again. This time there is no mistaking it- the figure of a man appears in the smoke within. Success! You peer a little closer into the object, finding yourself drawn closer and closer until the smoke-shapes are as reality, and you are but a wisp of yourself…

To toy with causality is no small thing, and the many checks and balances of the multiverse can tend to snap rather brutally back into place when dragged out of kilter. Still though- perhaps this is your last recourse. Perhaps you simply must know what is in store for you. Perhaps the fate of existence itself depends on your preparedness. Or perhaps you really just can’t wait so long.

2d6	For the Truest Prophecies you must seek out…
11	The dread Herrongeist, a six-legged monster of a bird who dwells in the darkest swamp with one foot in the present and another in the future. The only thing the Herrongeist enjoys more than providing prophecy is the taste of fresh eyes from an intelligent skull. Approach with caution.
12	Sweet old Mother Marrana, who is cursed by apparitions of the future dead who beg their fates be averted.
13	The great Library of Geft, in which all the histories of all men may eventually be found written. To find one set of records may take a lifetime’s searching.
14	The Blacksphere, an orb of captured nebula-gas. The malign intelligence within will answer any question with a smoke-vision, but attempts to trap the asker’s mind inside…
15	The Chimera-on-the-Fence, a composite creature of split loyalties to Law and Chaos. Her maelstrom of a mind sees all things at once, a madness with occasional spurts of prescient lucidity.
16	Lady Geraldina of House Matherrin, the young would-be-heiress whose various social slipups have forced her parents to exile her to the attic, where she has grown terribly bored and fond of embroidering her relatives death-scenes as morbid tapestries.
21	The forest-dwelling Skank of the Greater Ridge, a madman and prophet who blurts facts only true in parallel worlds. Prophecy is a process of deduction with the Skank.
22	The mummified head of Simon the Wretch, an immortal who was captured by a cruel sheikh and tortured for years. His mind went so far in fleeing the horrors of the present that it reached the future, where it now dispassionately relays information back to the present.
23	The Sinking Window, a glass pane in the tallest room of a long dead sorcerer’s tower which can be focussed like a lens through history.
24	The Black Deck, a set of common looking oracle cards with a history of accuracy. They were last seen heading to an inquisitor’s hearth, though rumour has it they didn’t make it to the flames.
25	Mistress Lucille, a patient and saintly woman whose dedication and focus one day paid off. She requires absolute concentration and a good deal of time to make a true prophecy, and has been known to fudge details if she gets bored.
26	The Madwoman of Marrendale, who reads the future in the webs and legs of her pet spiders.
31	The Guild of Weavers, where all who spin the yarn of fate meet. The Guild can be petitioned for a sneak peek at the future, but the paperwork they require is mountainous.
32	Funnyman Dannel Casserin, a bard-comedian from the courts whose jokes are noted for their increasingly portentous nature. Anything he says that gets a laugh will very quickly come to pass.
33	Templeton-Jones Eleven, a living fragment of the Cosmic Engine of Daldria. T-J11 doesn’t properly prophesise, but rather generates probability. He’s very good at it, too, but intensely melancholic down to being the last part of a machine that could have answered The Question.
34	Armoria, a warrior-princess of the Icy Wastes whose people would revolt if they knew she whispered with the Fractal Angels in her sleep. The Angels’ knowledge has saved them many times from war and famine, but their full motivation is not yet known.
35	Old Ned, a horse who can communicate with hoof-clops and is owned by a farmer who still hasn’t noticed the desperate chained intellect in those deep, mysterious horsy eyes.
36	The Tappletura-Bush, a plant whose powerful hallucinogenic berries grant brief omniscience for 1d3 hours. Focusing too long on any one thing has the risk of teleporting you into the scene.
41	Trickmaw, a grey parrot with an excellent memory. Used to be owned by a powerful psychic who talked to herself incessantly.
42	The Fractal Angels, weird creatures who can only be contained in our reality for moments at a time. Communication must be made in such a way as to be comprehensible to a being from the 6th or 7th dimension, but if you can manage it they will tell you anything. Talking to them has been known to drive people insane.
43	The Fissure under the Sun, a great crack beneath an old temple. The fumes from the ground are said to allow one to remember in both directions for 1d6 hours. It can be very unsettling, and makes normal conversation difficult for the duration.
44	Samaul the Weary, a man so old he has seen this universe end once already and lived through most of this second iteration again. He claims it usually diverges at some point, but until then his memories of how it played out the first time are pretty accurate. Does tend to exaggerate.
45	Cristan Crossing, a remote crossroads where travellers meet their future selves of misty nights.
46	Ash the Dawdler, notorious opium-fiend of the shanty town. He isn’t credited as genuine by many who know him, but there are many regulars in the taverns and alleys who’ve been left pale and shaken by his words.
51	Ewwyrd the Distraction, a minor god from a distant sphere. He will happily jaunt backwards and forwards through time- but only to gleefully deliver bad news.
52	A Manual of Motions, a tome by the late and lunatic astrologer Stefen Dower. The Manual has instructions for scrying with total accuracy using the motions of the moon and stars. Only one copy remains, locked securely in the Church of Our Lady in the Moon.
53	Dalia Moongazer, a dreamy young girl who can see the future in the moon’s reflection on water. She will be really, really upset if asked to look at anything violent, sexual, or otherwise inappropriate.
54	Frank Downing, a charlatan who makes only makes one true prediction every year.
55	Ser Michael Morestone, senior lecturer in the Tower Libray. Morestone’s life’s work is a mathematical formula which can answer any question. He’s currently depressed and despondent because he used it to discover he’ll never make tenure.
56	The Eyes of Gammorh, perfect marble spheres which must be planted in one’s eyesockets. Once used to stare unflinchingly into the future they blink and are gone.
61	Urbania’s Compass, which points in the direction one must travel in. While following the compass through a crowded place the fragments of conversation overheard will constitute an unexpectedly straightforward prophecy. Overuse will invoke the displeasure of the patron goddess of metropolises.
62	The Blind Tutor, who cannot see anything in the past, present or future, but can talk someone through the process of seeing it themselves- it will take 1d3 weeks to attempt a prophecy.
63	The Witching Pool of Warrenwren, a muddy puddle in the centre of an abandoned but strangely preserved village. When stirred clockwise its reflection shows the future, and counter-clockwise will reveal the past. If the surface is disturbed too much, of course, the bloated corpses at its bottom will animate and seek to add you to their number…
64	The Ravensingers of Weald, a coven of witches whose most powerful magic is an ongoing song that a listener can get lost in, experiencing visions of the future as part of the ebb and flow of the music. At any given time three Ravensingers must be singing their song, and the coven takes this duty in shifts. Should the song end their very direst prediction will come to pass...
65	Farly the Tumultuous, who stared into the unformed Chaos beneath the world and saw in it the shape of all things to come. That image is burned in his brain, impossibly and irreversibly, and Farly may be compelled to draw a portion of it as a crude prophecy.
66	The Heavens, a set of grand halls where the record keepers of Law abide. By finding their personal record-keeper and their extra-temporal records, one may glimpse their actions and experiences still to come.

Prophecies in-game

It isn't easy giving a glimpse of the future in an RPG. In works of fiction and the preconceived structure of a computer game flashes forward are much easier to manage- prophecies in a collaborative story are naturally harder to pull off. I like playable prophecies- scenes that are set ahead of your current narrative position, but that the players can get involved with and have some agency in. They are, admittedly, a total pain to plan and pull off. Your player might know she attacks with her silvered +1 longsword in three months time, only to have the longsword stolen in the next session. Causality is a cruel mistress like that.
You can get around it by having all components featured in the prophecy as prerequisites for it to come to pass, or by only showing things in the prophecy that players will not be involved in. Show them the king being crowned- hell, show them their characters arriving in a new place- but don't show them anything specific that their double-dratted and thrice-damned free will might mess around with.
Prophecies are great until they're 100% railroad.