Astrology

The celestial bodies which occupy the skies above Magnamund have long been known to affect the lives of its inhabitants. Mastery of this Discipline enables a New Order Grand Master to predict and shape the future by studying the relative positions of the Sun, the Moon, and the myriad planets and stars. The number and accuracy of these predictions increase as a New Order Grand Master advances in rank.

Improved Grand Master Discipline

• Kai Grand Master Superiors (6 disciplines) who possess this Discipline are skilled in the use of all mechanical devices designed to measure and/or observe the cosmology of Magnamund. Such devices include sextants, astrolabes, and orreries.
• Kai Grand Sentinels (7 disciplines) who possess this Discipline are able to detect psychic residues left on an object by its owner. The more valuable the object is to its owner, the stronger will be the lingering psychic attachment. The majority of everyday or shared objects do not retain such residues.
• Kai Grand Defenders (8 disciplines) who possess this Discipline are skilled in the use of all common astrological devices used to predict future events. Such devices include cards, dice, and crystal spheres.
• Sun Knights (10 disciplines) who have this Discipline are skilled in the art of chiromancy, the ability to tell fortunes from the skin creases and patterns found on the palms of hands.
• Sun Thanes (12 disciplines) who possess this Discipline are expert in the art of hypnotism. By the use of a hypnotic stare, they are able to cause susceptible creatures (up to three individuals at any one time) willingly to carry out their orders. The number of creatures so affected—and the duration of the effect—increases steadily as a Sun Thane advances in Kai rank.
• Sun Princes (15 disciplines) who possess this Discipline can cause the flare or occultation of stars to subtly influence the destiny of Magnamund. Starlight can be filtered, focused or occluded to augment certain conditions and states of those who are in the vicinity of the Sun Prince, or the Sun Prince himself. A Sun Prince can focus or eclipse the light of each of the following stars one time per adventure, except for the fear bonus of Burashos:
  • Sun or Moon: as champions of Light, Sun Princes can concentrate faint echoes of the Gods' benevolent powers upon Magnamund through flares of their associated stars (Kai's during the day and Ishir's during the night). If they can reach them (e.g not in underground fights), their respective light is the bane of the servants of Darkness (Darkspawn, Drakkarim, Undead, Vampires, Demons, Agarashi, necromancers) and will cause them to lose 1 CS and 2 EP cumulatively per round when facing a Sun Prince in combat. Champions of Darkness like Demonlords, Darklords, evil Shianti or Children of Agarash suffer a penalty of 2 CS for the duration of a fight.
  • Burashos, Star of Courage: Sun Princes can gain a bonus to resist the effects of fear. They can also drain courage from their enemies in combat: in the first round of a combat, if an odd number is picked, enemies are unable to inflict damage due to loss of nerve, Mindless creatures (undead, constructs) and champions of Darkness, who are protected by the Lords and stars of Evil, are immune to this effect.
  • Kaeymos, Star of Fate: Sun Princes can pick an extra number from the Random Number Table when making a test outside a fight, and then the Sun Prince can decide which one to accept.

Usage

Astrology is one of the weakest disciplines available. While it does provide some advance information about future challenges, this information generally does not provide an advantage when the challenge is actually encountered. It is generally better to take disciplines such as Grand Weaponmastery or Assimilance that directly help you with the challenge. At Sun Thane level, Astrology finally starts doing something useful, but even then its effect can be duplicated by Kai-alchemy's Mind Charm.

It is not until Sun Prince level than Astrology actually becomes an effective choice. Grand Master can become a Sun Prince during the events of The Dusk of Eternal Night, and Astrology can be effective in this book, although it is tempered by the limit of one use per star per book.

• The power of the Sun or Moon can be used to weaken several difficult fights in this book, particularly as Grand Master fights several enemies who are considered to be Champions of Darkness, who have high Combat Skills.
• Burashos can mitigate some Endurance and Combat Skill losses, although the Combat Skill loss is only for the rest of the adventure, and can be avoided. Burashos' fear effect can be useful, albeit with only 50% probability.
• Kaemyos' effect can be extremely powerful, but since Grand Master is a Sun Prince (and therefore possesses many other upgraded skills in addition to Astrology), there will be very few debilitating rolls or rolls of death to reroll.