Elanthian Divination: Sylvans

Elanthian Divination: Sylvans is an Official GemStone IV Document, and it is protected from editing.

Sylvans

Graceful and earthy, the sylvans are in tune with the natural world that they live in and move through. Many of the secrets that encircle them are kept close to their hearths, and thus it has been difficult to find any one person that would be willing to document a specific style or method by which the sylvans divine.

Through massive amounts of rumor and speculation, two distinct forms of divination have surfaced enough times that they are worthy of mention.

Water Scrying

Whether it be basins purposefully filled with water or pools crafted of rain water, sylvans have the ability to gaze deeply into the depths of the still waters and find visions of life. Some have reported that the experience is akin to stepping through a window into another time and watching that time play out. Oftimes, the person who gazes into the waters hears, smells, and sees exactly what is happening in the other time, while in the eyes of all around them, the person seems motionless and trapped in a trance.

Communion with Nature

Finding an isolated place, and often seeking the aid of a friend to act as a guardian, a sylvan will turn to nature to divine the future. This particular method is done by finding a place removed from others and preferably in a glade that has various forms of plant life. Trees at the edges, a brook somewhere near at hand, flowers, vines, bushes, and grasses are the many things that are looked for in a place to commune. Once this is found, the sylvan will kneel within the glade and focus on a single, comfortable object. This can be anything from a pebble found the previous day, to a feather that has fallen in their path, or even a favored item.

Without any type of preamble, the sylvan will implore the item to speak what it knows. Sometimes nothing will happen for a very long time, other times an answer can be found almost instantaneously by the actions of the item.

While some witnesses dismiss this form of divination as a mere trick of wind on a feather, others have witnessed larger items, like rocks or heavy vases; move about with a will of their own. The communing sylvan is typically vague on the exact method of the communication that passes between the item and the seeker; however, all have mentioned that they simply “knew” what was being said.