“If any man sees eye to eye with our lord Phoebus, ’tis our prophet, lord Teiresias.”

Attributes:

You know you want to believe it. Those who are struck with great difficulties are compensated in ways the rest of us cannot understand. Surely it wouldn’t be fair if some people are just plain blind. Surely those people got some extra freebie points to throw into cool supernatural skills.

Whether or not life is so equitable, some people certainly manage to rise above their handicap, and even surpass their fellow human beings in wisdom and accomplishments. Sometimes, their perspective seems to give them insights into the world that we “lucky” ones could never have conceived.

The Blind Seer is not merely a prognosticator, though her insights often seem to have the quality of prophecy. The inner vision of the Blind Seer might allow her to predict outcomes, but this path makes her much more than a passive viewer of future events. So much of her knowledge of the world comes to her on a subconscious level that her intuition becomes fine-tuned to a supernatural degree.

Symbols: Blindfolds, plucked-out eyes, sunglasses, white canes, braille, pencils in one’s eyes

Masks: Tiresias, Odin, Themis, Cupid, The Graeae, Fortuna

Suspected Avatars in History: When Oedipus plucked out his eyes after learning the truth about his parents, many speculate he was abandoning his path of the True King in favor of the Blind Seer. Tiresias (who consulted with Oedipus just before his blinding) might be the most famous example, though he is more often assumed to have followed the better-known path of the Mystic Hermaphrodite. Whether Saint Lucy plucked out her own eyes or was blinded as part of her martyrdom, she was in an excellent position to follow the path. In modern days, Helen Keller is a likely avatar, managing to one-up her predecessors by adding deafness into the mix.

Taboo: Of course, no one can get far along the path of the path of the Blind Seer with 20/20 vision. At lower levels, the Blind Seer need only be visually impaired in some significant way, such as having only one eye or tunnel vision. A Blind Seer of 90% or higher must never register light. (For those of a neurological bent, “blindsight” is allowable, but the primary visual cortex must be non-functional.) A would-be Blind Seer who might not be ready to commit may simply blindfold himself, but if he gets far down the path, he won’t want to risk having his blindfold slip.

Additionally, a Blind Seer is not an object of pity. He may admit that his blindness prohibits him from driving or reading or such, but he must never attempt to provoke pity or put himself forth as generally helpless.

Finally, the Blind Seer is a speaker of truths. Anyone who spends a lot of time lying or even being generally dishonest risks losing connection to this archetype.

Channels

01-50% So often, our truest insights come from a place within that we don’t consciously understand. So it is with the Blind Seer, who periodically blurts out some truth about another person or item of significance without even realizing what she is saying. Sometimes, this effect occurs spontaneously. Otherwise, she can attempt to force it by rolling her avatar skill. She may only force such a pronouncement once per person or item. This truth will be something of profound significance, such as an insight into a person’s stimuli or obsession, or a hidden purpose of an item.

51-70% Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the Blind Seer is actually blind, thanks to his ability to employ his other senses. Whenever there is anything to see that could conceivably be caught by other senses, the Blind Seer rolls his avatar. If successful, he gets a good idea of what’s going on. If he also rolls under his Notice skill, he can use this ability with an implausible level of accuracy, such as shooting a moving target or running across a busy street (he might still need to make other relevant rolls, such as Shooting, but with no penalties for blindness). He can also use this ability to notice subtle non-visual details, such as recognizing the brand of cigarettes someone smokes by the smell, or tasting a hint of arsenic in a spicy meal.

71-90% The Blind Seer is rarely caught off-guard. She may now use her avatar skill in place of initiative.

91-98% The Blind Seer might not have the usual five senses, but he replaces his sight with magical sense. He can’t see ordinary people, but he can “see” adepts and avatars, as well as the flow of magic when it is in use. He can “see” items of mystical significance, such as a dipsomancer’s cup or a mechanomancer’s creation. The stronger the magic, the clearer the vision: she might see a hazy outline of a 15% avatar, but a godwalker would blaze like the sun.