The magic of precious stones, and the worth you put in them.

Nickname: Crystal-gazers.

You believe in love and loss.

Everyone knows that jewels are valuable, but you are one of the rare few who really knows why. They’re valuable because of the sacrifices we make for them. Because of the love, and the effort, and the loss they require.

You recognize and honor that sacrifice. The gold and jewels you carry are memory in mineral form. They wouldn’t mean anything if you paid for them with mere money. You bought them with your effort, your pain and your love. You crave even deeper sacrifices for your love of all that glitters.

Charges: Daktulithomancy doesn’t use a standard structure. Instead, each Daktulithomancer has a number of precious stones, and can use each once per day. The charges don’t store up day by day.

Precious Stones: Not just any jewel can be used for daktulithomancy. To qualify for use, a stone must be valuable on the open market (worth at least $500), and must hold special significance to you. Precious metals, loose stones or set jewels work equally well. You must acquire the precious stones at a real cost to you, and it must be an important memory. Each precious stone must have its own unique, emotionally significant story. If two stories are similar, only the first stone used carries any magic.

If you lose a stone, you can’t use a replacement stone with a similar story. You’d probably need to recover it.

Examples: You could use the stone from your engagement ring. If you braved terrible danger for the money to buy a diamond, that would work, too. So would a gemstone you bought in an exotic and difficult-to-reach place, or a platinum coin you stole from a museum display, or a ruby you won in a poker game betting against your soul, or a bracelet you lost and had to recover.

Taboo: The Daktulithomancy taboo is more like an awkward side effect. Every time you use a precious stone, you’re overcome with a profound sense of optimism, acceptance and beauty. For ten minutes per stone used, you’ll love and trust everyone as your closest friends. In this state, you’ll believe anything you’re told. As long as you don’t fail a Stress check, you’ll feel safe and happy, even when you have very good reason to be cautious.

Symbolic Tension: Precious stones carry tremendous monetary worth and emotional significance, but they’re really just shiny rocks.

Random Magic: Beauty and value.

Starting Charges: You begin play with two precious stones. One is probably the stone with which you discovered Daktulithomancy. Decide on the story and origin of each stone.

Blast: Yes, daktulithomancy has a blast, and it’s both effective and easy to use. It requires crushing one of your precious stones, though, and furthermore it leaves you as happy and trusting as any daktulithomancy blast, so you’d better be sure you’re sure when you use it.

Formulas

I Will Always Remember You
1 stone
This is the Daktulithomancy significant blast. Crush the precious stone in your hand – even if it’s a diamond, it will crumble into worthless fine ash. The victim’s bones are crushed at the same time. This does damage equal to the result of the skill roll.

Casting the Stone
1 stone
A simple divination: you can find out how much a person values something, some principle or someone. Set out a table divided into two sections: “gold” or “lead.” Then close your eyes, think of the person and what they might value, and throw the stone. The more the person values it, the further into the “gold” section your stone will land. Otherwise, the more they revile it, the further it’ll land into “lead.”.

The Ritual of Eyes
2 stones
Place a stone over each eye, and lie on your back for an hour. Each eye takes on the color and luster of the stone placed on it. You get a +30% bonus to any appearance-related skill. If you don’t have one, you get the Soul skill “Enchanting Eyes” at 30%. Lasts until you sleep.

Personal Genie
3 stones
Only usable on a subject on the day you meet them. You must show the subject the three precious stones, and explain to the subject that the stones will grant them three wishes. If the subject doesn’t make all three wishes aloud in your presence, the magic is wasted. Personal Genie won’t quite make the wishes come true, but it gives a good boost: the subject can flip-flop the next roll made when striving to fulfill each of the three wishes, whenever that happens. (If they were able to flip-flop anyway, the effect is wasted.)

Corners Game
4 stones
Place a precious stone at each corner of a windowless rectangular room. Until a stone is moved, or you leave the room, anyone in the room attempting to hurt or discomfort another human being must first make a Rank 7 Isolation Stress check. The stones glow brightly while the formula is functioning.

Drops of Honey
5 stones
Show someone five precious stones. The subject will obsessively seek to own one of the stones, as if affected by the “Create Desire” skill. Lasts a week.

Path of Stars
6 stones
Arrange six precious stones in a hexagon, stand in the middle, and name a place that’s more comforting and pleasant than where you are. You’ll be transported there instantly, but your six stones get left behind.

Seven Sisters
7 stones
Hand six precious stones to six other people (no more, no less) to hold in their hands, and hold one yourself. Everyone holding a stone will be aware of the health and mood of everyone else holding a stone, no matter the range. Furthermore, anyone holding a stone can heal anyone else holding a stone by transferring wounds, diseases, poisons and injuries onto themselves. Lasts until someone lets go of a stone.

Pawns
8 stones
Place eight precious stones on the ground. They will sprout into eight seemingly human soldiers under your command.All eight soldiers obey your commands loyally and intelligently until the next dawn. Any soldiers still alive will change back into precious stones when the sun rises.

The soldiers are unarmed but dressed in dashing antiquated soldier uniforms. Each has a Body and Speed equal to your Daktulithomancy skill roll, as well as the skills Struggle, General Athletics, Distracting Physique, Dodge and Initiative. They have Mind and Soul 30, and the skills Etiquette and Charm at 30. They are not true humans, though, and have no Obsessions or Passions.

Kether
9 stones
Work nine precious stones into a crown. For the two hours, anyone who wears the crown visibly will have a tremendous aura of command. Anything the wearer orders will seem incredibly important to those nearby, and failing to do as commanded causes a Rank 8 Isolation check.

Notes
Kind of a weird charge structure. Stones are about as hard to get as significant charges, and each new stone opens up a new formula. Daktulithomancers start out fairly weak, about to use only two or three fairly weak formulas. Most of the formulas leave the adept vulnerable to theft, especially in their post-magic state of vulnerable trust. Also, the mood of this school is less gritty and more sentimental than most, kind of on the border of the Occult Underground and the occult mainstream. This leaves the adept incredibly vulnerable to a sucker-punch from the hungry cynical masses of the Occult Underground. Daktulithomancers will often rely on assistance from less spacy friends.

I made a long list of possible schools a while ago by going through lists of standard divination, and also lists of phobias. I’ve been looking for ways to procrastinate, because I’m in the middle of moving right now. Writing new schools for adepts is, of course, the perfect escape, which is why I’ve had this big glut lately.