The commonest tropes in depictions of medieval times--the times that so much of D&D is meant to emulate--are in the roles played by people in society. There is so often a King or Queen, a Lord or Lady, a Duke or a Duchess, to lead. Thanks to the fantastical additions to the game which are meant to represent Tolkien's fantasy world from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, one of the most common roles we think of is the wizard. There are knights and peasants, a court jester, perhaps, and likely a mystic of some sort. It's this mystic role that I want to address here: how to create mystic characters and create mystic experiences for your players.
One thing to address from the start: we need to determine what way you want to portray mysticism. For story reasons or personal preference, you may need or want to portray a mystic character as trustworthy or not, as legitimate or not, and as reasonable or not. Knowing your intentions before you start can allow you to make the best choices for your situation.
And a last note before getting into it: I am myself something of a diviner. I have read tarot cards for over 1 decade, sometimes professionally, but mostly for free because I do think it can help people. I study other witchcrafts, and while I'm not going to go into the full extent of it, I think most anyone would consider me pretty well in the mystic camp. I'm going to draw on that experience in creating this guide in ways that I hope are both respectful to mystics and creative departures from what we have in this world.
The best way to add a mystic NPC to your campaign is to give them a dramatic entrance. A dramatic entrance can be a lot of things, though, so choose the one that suits your situation. You might consider a bold entrance that features the mystic speaking of their abilities in a public way; you could have someone approach a player character and tell them a dramatic tale about how the mystic saw their future perfectly, for example; then again, you may barely address the mystic in description except for some crucial detail that will catch the party's attention--I recommend having the mystic wearing something or doing something that is a direct reference to something the party is seeking, which is a subtler way to have them really respond to the mystic's appearance.
Once the mystic has the players' attention, we need to establish the reality or nonreality of the mystic. If you're showing the mystic to be a con artist, really draw out the discovery--this is the end of this narrative gambit unless you having something else prepared, so make the discovery as prolonged (and thereby more satisfying) as possible. If you are presenting a genuine mystic, it's time to decide whether to demonstrate their power or ask the party to trust them. This again depends on what your intentions are as GM. If you are setting this character up as a powerful questgiver or ally, I recommend demonstrating the power. I'll get to how to do that below. If you're adding the mystic in something of a sandbox-style game, ask them to trust the mystic until they've spent more time with the mystic to earn the payoff. But if you want the mystic to be a part of a larger plot, that plot will dictate the mystic's role.
All of your portrayals of divining skills will depend on two main strategies. For questions of interpreting the present, you will be using your best ability to discern what a potentially meaningful answer might be. For example, if a player character wants insight into why something is happening or who is behind an action, you would have the diviner reply in as specific an answer as you can commit to by answering the question to the best of your ability as a GM. For questions about the past, agree between yourself and the player(s) in question on what the past was, and proceed from there, presenting an honest answer. But for questions about the future, we need a different strategy.
When a player asks your diviner NPC to predict the future, you have options. One route which is available but which I do not recommend is to set a specific situation in the future and then force the game to match that outcome using your tools as a GM. I do not recommend this because it's a colossal form of railroading, and it is sure to cause as much frustration at loss of agency as it is to impress with effect. I recommend going two other routes: either keep your prediction vague enough that you could make it come to pass with minimal railroading, or provide a prediction that is very limited in scope so that it doesn't take much controlling the situation to satisfy the prediction. Examples will clarify these methods. First, consider the vague prediction. A diviner predicts that trouble will reach the player character in the form of money problems. This is pretty broad, and anything from being robbed on the road to getting paid less than expected to being charged a large sum unexpectedly will satisfy it. In fact, I would bet that a naturally progressing story would encounter money troubles without aiming specifically to do so. The other approach may be my favorite: the prediction of limited scope. A diviner predicts that a stranger will give the player character a purple scarf. Whenever the moment is ripe, make a stranger approach the player character and give them a purple scarf. You can extend this for narrative purposes easily: not only do you foretell the purple scarf, but you advise them to trust the person who give it to them. Now we have a character who your characters are naturally inclined to trust, and there are many things we can do with that.
If you haven't already, it's time to choose what the mystic's (claimed) powers will be. Here is a list of methods of divining information with mystical means from our world, plus an expression of that power:
- Dream Analysis - Illustrate dream analysis by having a player describe a dream their character had. As the diviner NPC, explain that the character is struggling with a type of problem which they actually are experiencing. For example, if a player character is battling an evil necromancer, the dream analyst should explain that these dreams are signs of a great battle against death itself. If you can, make up individual signs that make every detail in the dream point to your desired outcome. To extend this, we can have the dream analyst describe some seemingly insignificant detail--"You will find assistance with the palm frond"--which you can later use--make an ally wear a tabard depicting a palm frond.
- Palm Reading - Portray palm reading by having a diviner pore over a character's hand. Start with some statements one might expect: "Your love line is long. Do you have anyone in your life?" or "You have a short life line. You must do dangerous work." are the kind of thing we're striving for. Then, once you've established the moment, have the diviner become puzzled. After a moment, they say something that directly speaks to the character. If you can, name a few specific personality traits of the character: "You are generous but impatient, and you trust too easily."
- Oracle Cards - Play a card reading diviner by instructing the player to draw a small number (three works very nicely) of cards from a real or imaginary deck after they have come up with a question to ask. If you have actual divining cards that you would feel comfortable using, feel free to employ them as a prop; otherwise, even playing cards can help to create the desired effect. Once they have posed their question and drawn cards, proceed to explain the meaning of each card. To do this, take the answer you would like to provide to the character and divide it into three parts. For example, if a character asks how to confront their next challenge (getting a noblewoman's assistance), then the cards might depict the notion of using diplomacy followed by the idea of giving a gift followed by the concept of achieving one's goal (as a way to instruct the party to be diplomatic and give gifts, thereby succeeding).
- Tea Leaf Reading - To emulate tea leaf reading, have the character drink a cup of unstrained tea. The tea can be almost whatever you want; you can use traditional black or green tea leaves if you choose, or select an herbal variant like mint or lavender, or go with a more bitter root tea if you like--I include in my world that diviners like rose hips tea because the remains of the brewed rose fruit take on distinctive shapes that other teas do not include. Having your tea leaf reader explain why they chose their specific tea can really characterize them and make the scene more dynamic. The process here is similar to palm reading: you can say that the tea leaves tell you pretty much any detail you would like, which you can either guarantee as GM or bring about as GM.
- Rune Casting - To show rune casting, have the player character hold and then cast carved stones or bones with ancient runes on them. As GM, you will choose from or combine the methods from oracle cards (giving individual narrative meanings to the each rune cast) and palm/tea leaf reading (assigning an overall collective meaning to all of the runes cast). One of the advantages of the runes is that the runes are meant to be representative of primal truth: the archetypes of humanity, the experiences of life, the material fabric of reality. Therefore, your readings of the runes can range from the narrative or practical (as with oracle cards) to the immensely broad (describing all of nature in one sentence: "All life seeks to live.").
- Bone Reading - When a diviner employs bone reading, they assign someone the task of hunting an animal so that the diviner can assess the prey's bones. To play bone reading, you will be basically using the same methods used above in oracle cards and palm/tea leaf/rune reading, but you will be adding a mini-quest onto it. As GM, have the player go to hunt an animal. You can create choices by presenting different animals during the hunt at the same time; you may make the situation more stressful by preventing the character from successfully killing an animal; you may even throw in a dangerous animal they didn't realize they'd have to fight. You can then play up the grisliness of the process of getting to the bones.
- Electromancy (Lightning Reading) - Probably the most theatrical diviner is the electromancer, who studies the shape, color, and movements of lightning in the sky. Some in-game lore: electromancers claim that the difficulty of getting a reading (which often requires the accurate prediction of lightning strikes) is offset by the colossal accuracy of their results. To portray electromancy, we'll use the rune casting method--a combination of summarizing the overall message and breaking that message into components ("the especially white light tells us that the event is coming soon, and the almost curved shape suggests that things will get gradually more difficult").
- Plumbomancy (Molten Metal Reading) - Plumbomancy is the practice of heating lead to the point of being molten, then dropping just a bit of that lead into cold water. The resulting shape of solid lead reveals answers to the questions posed to it. In the game, dwarves are the originators and more users of plumbomancy, but it is so highly prized among the more mystical dwarves for the complexity of the results, both the shape of the lead and the specificity of responses. Out of game, you can up the ante with any of these methods of divination by predicting something more specific and then allowing a few sessions to pass before making it come to pass. Plumbomancy follows the same method as electromancy. For complex messages that need multiple variables, use the size of lead clusters, the shape, and the color of the lead.
- Roadomancy (Constellation Reading) - Roadomancy is the practice of searching the stars and their relationships to each other for answers. Roadomancy has a special place in my world because I have long portrayed my homebrew setting as having constantly changing star systems. This means that there are infinite variations on the night sky, giving roadomancers a great deal of work and reputation. To act it out, follow the method for electromancy. Again, your preference is on display here: if you want a simpler message, that's what the constellations say as a whole; if you want a few connected messages, you have the positions of stars, the rotation of constellations, and the relative brightness of stars in the sky to use as variable.
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