Horoscopes as we know them from the Greco-Roman tradition involve two
elements. 1) You are born under the sign of a planet, once associated with
gods. After the Christianizing of the Roman world, the persistence of
horoscopes can be viewed as the continuing influence of the old gods. We
have those in Cerilia. ;-)
2) The second point is you are good at some things and disadvantaged in
others. So a horoscope should be a net even experience. A person in the
Greco-Roman horoscope will be born with a planet in a certain "house" in the
sky. So I have applied a similar system to Cerilia.

The planet signs (Mercury, Saturn, the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, & Jupiter)
are replaced by the signs of the old Gods. These might be understood as
celestial objects (easy enough for most of the old gods), but all that is
necessary is that they occur in repeating seasons. The repetition need not
be a simple 12 scale, but could be longer, giving you more options for
possible benefits and penalties. These benefits are generally along the
lines of +/-1 save or +/-2 skill bonus.

Most modern horoscopes focus on love, career, and money as their areas of
interest, because that is where modern readers have interests. PC`s can
broaden their horizons.

The horoscope signs are Anduiras, Reynir, Brenna, Basaia, Masela, Vorynn,
and Azrai. Typically I allow players to pick their horoscope, but they
could be generated randomly. Each sign gets one bonus and one penalty. To
avoid min-maxing, the player can pick either the bonus or the penalty, the
other is generated randomly.

1) Money
2) Love
3) Loyalty
4) Travel
5) Family
6) Livelihood
7) Secrets
8) Grief
9) Charm
10) Community

Each bonus and penalty combines the sign of one of the old gods with one of
the situations listed. For Anduiras, a bonus would look like this.
1) Money +2 bonus to a skill check against attempts to deceive you in
money matters. Bonus would apply once during a transaction and could effect
Sense Motive or Appraise checks as appropraite.

A penalty could reverse those numbers (gulibility) or provide a penalty to
Bluff or Bargain checks (honesty).

A PC born under the sign of Vorynn might have a bonus in Travel and a
penalty in Grief. The reason I don`t reproduce a chart is because it would
have 140 cells at minimum (7 signs, 10 catagories, 2 effects (+ or -)). So
I would take Vorynn and ask, where does he intersect with travel - Intuit
Direction, and apply a +2 bonus to Intuit Direction checks while lost.
Vorynn`s penalty in Grief might be a -1 Fortitude save against non-weather,
privation effects; thirst, hunger, lack of sleep

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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