Tower & Tome37 notes on omens, star signs, tea leaves and prophecy, written for wizarding-school roleplay. Each one has a teaching tip for professors.
Search, filter and quiz these notesA herb that centaurs burn, together with sage, to help them read the stars.
Teaching tip: Link it to star-reading. Burn some in a scene and ask students what their characters see in the smoke.
Also on: Herbology
Diviners call the gift of seeing the future the Inner Eye. It is said that books can only take you so far without it.
Teaching tip: Ask each student whether their character believes they have the gift. Belief, doubt and showing off all make good roleplay.
Reading a person's character and future from the lines on their hand.
“May I see your wand hand?”
Teaching tip: Pair students to read each other's palms in character. The reader must describe the line first, then say what it means.
Finding meaning in dreams. Students keep a dream diary and look for patterns.
Teaching tip: Set a dream diary as homework. Next lesson, a partner interprets one dream, and the dreamer decides whether it fits.
Telling fortunes with a deck of cards, laid out in a pattern called a spread.
Teaching tip: Let a student lay three cards for past, present and future. The class suggests meanings before the reader chooses one.
Gazing into a reflecting surface to see visions. The crystal ball is the best known tool, but not the only one.
Teaching tip: Dim the classroom and have students describe only shapes and colours for the first minute. Meanings come afterwards.
Reading signs in flames, smoke and ash. The old name for it is pyromancy.
Teaching tip: Describe a fire in the classroom grate and let each student say what they see in it. Compare how different the answers are.
Reading the future from the flight and calls of birds. The old name for it is ornithomancy.
Teaching tip: Take the class outside and have them record birds for five minutes. Then they argue over what, if anything, it meant.
A birth chart maps where the Sun, Moon and planets were at the moment you were born.
Teaching tip: Have each student work out their character's star sign from the birthday, then say one way the description fits and one way it does not.
In astrology, each planet stands for a part of life.
Teaching tip: Give each student a planet and have them invent a prediction in its style. The class guesses which planet they had.
Also on: Astronomy
Two different ways of looking ahead. Divination reads signs and visions, and Arithmancy works with numbers.
Teaching tip: Stage a friendly debate between a diviner and an arithmancer. Each side must name one strength of the other.
Most predictions are worded loosely, so that almost any outcome can be made to fit.
Teaching tip: Read out a vague prediction and ask how many students think it is about them. It shows why vague predictions seem to come true.
Diviners disagree about whether a foreseen future is fixed, or only a warning of what might happen.
Teaching tip: Give the class a prediction and split them: one half tries to avoid it, the other to bring it about. See which is easier.
When your character makes a prediction, keep it open, so other players can choose whether and how it comes true.
Teaching tip: Praise predictions that leave room for other players. A prediction that orders someone's character about is poor roleplay.
Also on: RP Tips
Tea-leaf readers learn a list of shapes and what each is said to mean.
Teaching tip: Hand each student a made-up cup with two shapes in it. They must combine both meanings into one fortune.
Divination students need a teacup, a crystal ball, a dream diary and a set of star charts.
Teaching tip: Begin with a kit check, and let a student who forgot their cup borrow one. It starts a conversation before the lesson does.
Every star sign has a ruling planet. Traditional and modern astrology agree on nine signs and differ on three.
“Old charts stop at Saturn. New ones go all the way out to Pluto.”
Teaching tip: Ask why the old system has only seven rulers. Students should work out that nobody could see Uranus, Neptune or Pluto without a telescope. Then ask whether Pluto should still count, now that astronomers call it a dwarf planet.
Also on: Astronomy
The first sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 21 March to 19 April.
Teaching tip: Ask students born under a fire sign to say whether the bold description fits them. Then ask the class what that tells us about how reliable star signs are.
Also on: Astronomy
The second sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 20 April to 20 May.
Teaching tip: Have students find Aldebaran on a star chart, then compare the astronomy fact with the astrology meaning. Which one can be checked?
Also on: Astronomy
The third sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 21 May to 20 June.
Teaching tip: Pair students up as twins. Each describes the other's character in three words, then they swap. It is a quick lesson in how general descriptions fit almost anyone.
Also on: Astronomy
The fourth sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 21 June to 22 July.
Teaching tip: Cancer is hard to see. Ask why a faint constellation still became a famous sign, and what that says about where the zodiac came from.
Also on: Astronomy
The fifth sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 23 July to 22 August.
Teaching tip: Regulus means little king. Ask students which characters they know with sky names, and whether the name suits them.
Also on: Astronomy
The sixth sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 23 August to 22 September.
Teaching tip: Teach the star-hop: follow the curve of the Big Dipper's handle to Arcturus, then on to Spica. Students say it aloud as they trace it.
Also on: Astronomy
The seventh sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 23 September to 22 October.
Teaching tip: Libra is the only sign that is an object, not a creature. Ask students what they would weigh on the scales to decide something fairly.
Also on: Astronomy
The eighth sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 23 October to 21 November.
Teaching tip: Antares means rival of Mars, because both look red. Have students explain how to tell a red star from the red planet.
Also on: Astronomy
The ninth sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 22 November to 21 December.
Teaching tip: The archer is drawn as a centaur. Link it to the centaurs of the forest, who read the stars in their own way.
Also on: Astronomy
The tenth sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 22 December to 19 January.
Teaching tip: Ask students to draw a sea-goat from the description alone, then compare drawings. It shows how star pictures come from imagination.
Also on: Astronomy
The eleventh sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 20 January to 18 February.
Teaching tip: Students often think Aquarius is a water sign because of its name. Use it as a memory check on the four elements.
Also on: Astronomy
The twelfth and last sign of the zodiac, for birthdays from about 19 February to 20 March.
Teaching tip: Pisces closes the circle. Have students recite all twelve signs in order, then say which sign comes after it.
Also on: Astronomy
Astrology sorts the twelve signs into four elements, three signs each.
“Fire acts, earth builds, air thinks, water feels.”
Teaching tip: Sort the class into four corners by element. Each group lists what its three signs are said to share, then the class votes on whether it rings true.
Also on: Astronomy
An omen is a sign believed to hint at what is coming.
Teaching tip: Ask students to sort a list of sky events into 'has an ordinary cause' and 'people read it as a sign'. Some will land in both.
The art of seeing the future. An elective that starts in third year.
Teaching tip: Agree up front whether predictions in your RP are real or only believed. It keeps one student's vision from steering everyone else's character.
Drink the tea, swirl the dregs, turn the cup over, then read the shapes left behind.
Teaching tip: Practice observe-then-interpret: students describe the shapes in the cup first, then match them to meanings. No guessing allowed until the description is written.
A huge ghostly black dog said to be an omen of death.
Teaching tip: Ask how a sensible student reacts to a scary shape in a cup: panic, or check for an ordinary explanation first.
Looking into a crystal orb to see visions. Most students just see fog.
Teaching tip: Let students describe fog as a scene: they report only what they see, and the professor decides whether it means anything.
Centaurs read the movements of stars and planets over many years.
Teaching tip: Contrast big-picture reading (long patterns) with small personal fortunes. Ask which one a careful scholar would trust more.
A Seer has the true gift of sight. Real prophecies are rare.
Teaching tip: Ask what makes a prophecy different from a good guess. Then discuss who should be allowed to hear one.