The reading of omens in the living world. An augur watches the flight of birds, the behaviour of beasts, the turn of the weather, the way a felled tree comes down, the first thing seen on setting out — and reads in it whether the world is disposed for or against what is about to be done.
Augury is the quickest and cheapest of the divinatory arts, and the least precise. It gives a disposition, not an account: favourable, unfavourable, or so mixed that the augur will not commit. That is enough for the questions it is usually asked — whether to march today, whether to sail, whether the bargain about to be struck is a sound one — and it is why augury is the divination ordinary people actually encounter.
Its limitation is that the augur cannot manufacture a sign. The art reads what the world offers; if nothing offers itself — a dead-still day, an empty sky, a bare stone room — there is nothing to read, and the augur must wait or go outside. Nor does an omen keep: it speaks to the undertaking at hand, now, and says nothing about the same undertaking next month.
- Medium — birds, beasts, weather, and other unbidden signs
- Requires — a sign to present itself; open ground and open sky are the usual need
- Time — minutes, once a sign appears
- Answers — whether an imminent undertaking is favoured
Resolution and the reading of the result are as described in Divination, with the ordinary reading narrowed to the question augury actually asks: a Marginal Success gives the disposition plainly, a Critical Success gives it along with what turns on it, and a Critical Failure gives an augur confidently urging the march that should not be made.