Free wisdom card readings - for characters and all!

[zeeth_kyrah]

Greetings! I recently had an inspiration for something I could do to contribute to a few DW friends, and tonight got a push from a couple of my spirit guides saying "Do it!"

I'm offering free wisdom card readings from the Hero's Deck, a collection of 36 cards in 3 groups. It's essentially a summary of archetypal Hero's Journey fragments, including Heroic Aspects, Heroic Gifts, and Heroic Challenges. The twist on this reading is, I'm offering these readings particularly for peoples' characters, whether from stories and poems, games, or whatever venue. I'll be answering in character as a traveling bard and sage, Jewel the Water-Singer. Feel free to get creative, write intro text or descriptions of actions, or simply ask questions of the diviner. Jewel will answer as many as four questions for you, though your character might want to offer a gift for more than two.

(If you want a reading for yourself, go ahead and ask, I'll answer this one in character anyway.)

Since anyone can ask, character or not, the usual local-world warnings apply. (Federal law says this is for entertainment purposes only, I'm not a licensed anything, and so on.) The readings will be open from the time of posting until Tuesday, October 2nd, Eastern (New York City) time zone to give those with little warning a chance to drop by.

And with that, the local marketplace now has a busker with a small folding seat and a small pop-up table, where sits a woman dressed in red-striped pantaloons and a player's (actor's) fancy green velvet blouse with pale undershirt. She has a mouth organ (harmonica) and a small thumb piano with her as well, and alternates playing tunes and singing snippets of folk song, and giving readings to her audience. On the table is a blue silk bag upon which sits the box holding a deck of cards. Next to the bag is a large quartz point with unusual clarity and a hint of rainbow in its facets. This person would not seem too out of place in a Spanish or French Renaissance marketplace, though she looks somewhat Iranian or Lakota. (Perhaps she is of mixed ancestry?)

The bard calls out, "Come one, come all for the wonders of heroic wisdom! Let the ancestors witness, for life is the play and we are the players! Who will partake of these insights? Let Jewel the Water-Singer tell you mysteries from the further realms! Ask once, ask several times! Gifts for the sage are also quite welcome!"

Comments

[alexseanchai]

A small pale—woman? it's hard to tell—wanders through the marketplace. They're wearing dark blue jeans and black sandals, a blue Sailor Moon T-shirt and a copper-and-malachite pendant; their strawberry blonde hair is tied back in a low ponytail, though some strands have escaped the deep green ribbon, and copper-wrapped lapis stones hang from their ears.

They spot the rainbowy reflection of the quartz point first, then hear the bard's call. Tentatively, they approach her.

"Hi," they say when she turns to look. "Do you—can you help me figure out a dream I keep having?"

Perhaps the bard has second sight enough to see, echoing this stranger, a Greek woman of the same age, barefoot and garbed in a linen peplos dyed a deep green and pinned with copper brooches, with ribbon the same green binding up her dark hair.



[Thanks for this—that's actually more characterization I've gotten written down on this story since I thought of it in January! I think what I'm hoping for from Jewel's cards is some story direction. I have the premise clear, I just don't know what to do with it! And the character hasn't got as far as asking the actual question, to be clear, it just feels more in-character to wait for Jewel's answer, or something?]

[acelightning]

An older woman makes her way towards the busking seeress. The woman is thouroughly Caucasian in appearance, of average height, a bit on the plump side, and is walking with the assistance of a purple metal cane. She is dressed entirely in purple; her hair is mid-back-length, and matches her clothing. She wears a necklace with a pentagram pendant, which has an unusual purple gemstone (not an amethyst) in its center.

"That's a beautiful piece of quartz you have there," she remarks, "and I'm enjoying your music. But my recent life events have left me with many puzzles, and I'd appreciate some extra information to help me solve them, if you please!"

[siliconshaman]

A young-ish woman, somewhere in her mid-thirties, wearing a Britannic Navel uniform, with the propeller and oak-leaves of the Fleet Air Arm service and captains bars on her sleeves stops by the table for a moment.

The large fluffy black cat at her ankle nudges her leg, causing her to look down.

"Should I, Incus?"

The cat sits down to wash himself for moment, before looking up at his human and saying "W'y not? You 'ot a 'etter idea?""

The captain nods, and sits down.
"I... don't normally believe in this stuff. I hope that's not a problem. but.. well, stuff's happened, and I'd like to see a glimmer of a star to steer by.. um.. if you get my meaning?"

[mama_kestrel]

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch a glimpse of a small, slight woman with hip-length sunset-red hair in a faded green linen dress coming toward you, but when you turn that way you see an auburn haired middle-aged matron in blue slacks and a green shirt, a good six inches taller than the one you thought you saw. The only thing that is identical are the eyes, an arresting shade of summer-leaf green. She smiles faintly, nodding in acknowledgment that you've seen both what she was and what she now is. Either way, it doesn't take long to see that this woman is a presence and a power, however little show of it she makes.

"Milady Bard, I have dreamed often and vividly, and if your cards might give another viewpoint I'd be grateful. It is of butterflies I have dreamed, massed on plants where they are not normally seen, appearing in such numbers that it's difficult to see what kind of trees they're fluttering around. They're very small, no bigger than the first joint of my thumb, but other than that I cannot get a good look at them, for that the group I am with hurries me along, insisting that they cannot go on without me. But I don't know where they, or I, are going, or even if it's all to the same place, or why - only that every time we move on, another cloud of the butterflies appears and settles on any surface they can find, fluttering and fluttering."