Aruspicy

[Xarls Taunzund]

Does anyone know of any rules for using aruspicy? If not, any ideas? I was thinking along the lines of alternate class features for cleric or diviner. Or possibly a feat tree for the above.

If you're wondering, aruspicy is divination using entrails.

[Leonis472]

Check out the augury spell, and replace the focus component entry "a set of marked sticks or bones worth at least 25gp" with "entrails of a fresh kill." I believe rules for aruspicy is already covered by similar divination practices, powered by spells such as this one.

For instance, if a spell tells you to roll a set of marked sticks while casting the spell, the spell and the sticks work together to produce a prediction. If a character just rolls those sticks anytime he wants, he wouldn't get the same result, because there is no spell to power his attempt.

If you're trying to make it so any type of divination can work or has a chance of working any time you like, that's different than what I've pointed out. You could still use augury as a base for whatever you're deciding, though. As an example, you could put the base chance for meaningful result at 50%, plus an additional 1% per rank in a skill, such as Knowledge (Divination) or (Arcana). There are more powerful divination spells out there, and emulating augury might be just the first way one learns to divine.

[Evil Lincoln]

There is a tribe of Trolls in Kaer Maga that practices this form of divination on their own entrails. I believe the pathfinder books refer to the process as extispicy.

Interestingly, the historical use of aruspicy probably had more to do with diseases in the digestive tracks of cattle, and the grave consequences of that occurrence for a strictly nomadic, herding people. Not unlike how a Rabbi inspects the lungs of a cow before declaring it kosher — there's an underlying medical principle, couched in mystical terms.

Clerics of Erastil, stone giants, and other nomadic herdsmen might be most likely to practice this form of divination. I would treat it exactly as an augury spell, only with different material components (the animal to be slaughtered).

That's actually a big of a bonus... I can think of times where I have played a cleric who needed an augury very badly, but could not afford the material components.