(05-06-2015, 01:00 AM)Dia Wrote: While it's pretty clear that Astrologians are diviners, I'm curious what else their astromancy can do for them. The class description leaves a pretty ambiguous explanation:
"Thus was astromancy born -- a new form of magick which grants its users power over fate. Employing a star globe and divining deck in their miraculous deeds, fortune always smiles upon these masters of arcana."
Their description in its entirety sort of seemed to me as if they could manipulate fate itself. Which, let's be honest, sounds incredibly overpowered. So I'm curious what else you all of the RPC have to say about astromancy itself and its possibilities.
As someone who really doesn't go in for the concept of fate/destiny, but who is really interested and invested in AST, I have a different take on it.
And I know they use the word "fate" in the description, but I'd argue that it's something of a misnomer, because "fate" and "fortune" are not the same thing.
In Medieval astrology, "Fortune" and the heavens were not necessarily indicators of "fate" or "destiny" as such, they merely exerted an influence. So, someone born under Saturn could reasonably be expected (so went the theory) to exhibit saturnine qualities (that is to say melancholy, contemplation, etc.). They would have a natural tendency toward the saturnine. They were not of necessity permanently or exclusively saturnine. Someone born under Saturn could absolutely be jovial, it just wasn't assumed to have the same probability. In the same way, in an opportune time for decision-making under the sign of Jupiter, a ruler could still make a poor, unwise, or ill-advised decision. Jupiter was propitious, but did not preclude bad decision-making.
And that's my take on astrologian right now. They deal less in fate/destiny and more in fortune; said another way, they influence likelihood, probability, chance, possibility. They are not altering a deterministic framework, simply modifying an influential flow, so to speak.
