Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
With these lines a quest was born unlike any known before or since.
Developing a prophecy or using divination to assist in the story telling of your campaign can be as simple as two lines or as complex as you want it to be. Of course you’ll need an overarching quest to tie everything to, the prophecy simply provides motivation or guidance to your players. The prophecy can be a detailed guide to the adventure or a mysterious code that provides occasional direction.
This week at Dungeon’s Master we’ve been discussing aid from divine and otherworldly sources in detail. Ameron started the discussion off with Divinations – Is Some Magic Just Too Powerful for PCs and then continued with a piece on Divine Intervention. The discussion was continued by Callin and his post at Big Ball of No Fun – How to Handle Divinations. In other words there has been no shortage or articles about divination in the 4e blog community this week. I would also encourage people to read Prophecy Points as a Reward for Roleplaying from The Big Red Box Blog.
I felt it was only appropriate that we cap the week off with an article not about reacting to the use of divinations in game by players, but to the active use of divination and prophecy by the DM as a storytelling tool.