Free ‘divine gallery’ art sample – OldWorldGods

(3) HIEROMANCY

“Who are these coming to the sacrifice?”

No doubt some are wondering what could exceed the cosmic power of the previous entry, astromancy? Or the elemental power of the preceding methods of divination or schools of magic?

And yes – astromancy might top the scale for sheer raw power, even absurdly so, but it lacks the conceptual force that underlies hieromancy, which is that divination or magic COSTS. When it comes to either, there is no such thing as a free lunch – particularly when it comes to breaking the normal rules of reality as they do. No snatching the secrets from the stars just by looking at them as in astrology – that’s just cheating or cutting corners.

There’s a price to be paid, in full – and very often in blood. And we all have to make sacrifices. The world is indeed a vampire, at least when it comes to divination or magic.

That can be the case even combined with other methods of divination or schools of magic. For example, one can still channel or harness power from some cosmic, elemental or other source but it needs a hieromantic payment or sacrifice, as a trigger or ignition point, as a focus or means, or as a key to unlock it.

This concept that divination or magic requires some payment or sacrifice has a logic and therefore potency to it, to avoid being reality-breaking or story-breaking if magic is too easy. For example, it is striking just how low magic The Lord of the Rings is compared to the high magic of your average Dungeons and Dragons setting. If The Lord of the Rings was a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, it could be over in a few turns by casting some sort of divination spell on the ring and magically teleporting to Mount Doom.

Strictly speaking, hieromancy is divination by sacred or holy means or objects (from the Greek root hiero- for sacred or holy), although typically that is by sacrifice. I mean, have you read all the sacrifices at the Temple prescribed by the Bible in Leviticus and those books? The place sounds like an abattoir.

The archetypal hieromancy is divination by entrails from animal sacrifices, or as it was known from Latin, haruspicy (performed by a haruspex). One might say that hieromancy is like hydromancy, except that it involves scrying blood and guts rather than water. The liver was of particular interest – hence hepatoscopy or hepatomancy.

Of course, when the chips were down, the ultimate form of hieromancy was anthropomancy – or divination from human sacrifice, again particularly by entrails of the dead or dying sacrificial victims. Perhaps it worked best if you ate the liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti? I’d also like to imagine that when Aztec priests dressed up and danced around in the flayed skin of their sacrificial victims, that anything they said would be taken as oracular utterances.

As a method of divination, it doesn’t seem particularly instructive, other than telling that whatever was sacrificed is dead.

As a school or even more so system of magic, it has a conceptual force to it. Much like the rest of life, you get what you pay for – by exchange, payment, or sacrifice. That would also extend to contracts or Faustian pacts with divine or infernal powers.

Perhaps the archetypal hieromantic magic is the trope of blood magic (which I suppose technically might be haematomancy or hemotomancy).

“Spilling of blood is a potent force in the working of magic. It may be a token sacrifice, but it may also be the loss of life that fuels the spell. Expect mages who practice blood magic to be portrayed as evil, or at least charcoal grey, with possible exceptions made for druid like nature cults that may be considered amoral…Some blood may be indicated to be more powerful than others. Common types are human blood, monster blood, the blood of royalty, the blood of a special line, the blood of an innocent, a child’s blood, the caster’s own blood, or virgin’s blood. Sometimes only a single person’s blood has power, and any other blood is powerless. Sometimes it also makes a difference whether the blood being used was offered willingly or taken unwillingly”.

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER – although ironically the gods and similar beings usually get their magic for free as part of their being or nature)