Divination by the entrails of a beast killed for the purpose. The haruspex opens the carcass, examines the liver above all — its lobes, its colour, its marks — and reads there the condition of whatever the sacrifice was made on behalf of.
Of all the divinatory arts this one reads conditions rather than events: not what will happen, but what is wrong. Is the sickness in this house natural? Is the herd sound? Is the field blighted? Is this man poisoned, and by what? Is there something on this place that should not be here? Where scrying shows and cartomancy tells a story, haruspicy diagnoses, and it is the readiest art for hidden corruption of any kind.
Its cost is what limits it. A beast must be killed, freshly and for this purpose; the reading is worthless on an animal that died of something, or that was killed an hour ago and left. The larger and healthier the sacrifice the better the reading, which makes haruspicy an expensive habit and a serious undertaking — few people slaughter a sound ewe on a whim.
- Medium — the entrails, chiefly the liver, of a freshly killed animal
- Requires — a healthy beast, killed for the reading and opened at once
- Time — the killing, and a half-hour over the carcass
- Answers — the condition of a person, animal, place, or holding: sickness, poisoning, blight, corruption, and their sources
Resolution and the reading of the result are as described in Divination. A sickly or ill-chosen beast is a penalty the gamemaster sets; a Critical Failure produces a clean liver over a poisoned household, or a foul one over a house with nothing wrong with it at all.