Dikesha- real thing, or utter crap?

[nothri]

Pretty much what the title says- I want to know if the Dikesha from Har'Akir are a real, live deal, or just some weird numerological-esque concept the Kargat pulled out of their ass. Was there anything like sacred dice used to forecast the future in Ancient Egypt, or will I be unable to draw inspiration from their real world equivalent?

[LadySoth]

I've heard of dice being found in Ancient Egyptian tombs uncovered, however I don't know if historians think these were used for fortune telling, or more primarily for games. If I remember correctly dice are thought to probably have originated in Egypt or India, and some God cults of the Roman Empire used pictorial dice for fortune telling, with figures that might have been influenced by Egyptian pictograph writing.

Even if the dice were used mostly for games in Ancient Egypt, its a good bet they were sometimes used for fortune-telling as well. Many divining objects (like Tarot cards and dice) from the Middle Ages were concurrently used in game playing and fortune telling. Its logical that the same thing held true in Ancient times as well.

[LadySoth]

Actual Egyptian Dice from the Louvre:



More Louvre historical dice, "20 sided" the guy who posted said they were Egyptian, but they look more like Viking runes to me:

http://collateraldamage.files.wordpress ... n_copy.jpg


And cool modern anachronism with Egyptian theme image:



Hope this helps.

[Goose Bone]

Hi,
I'm a DM and I prepare to my (and my players) first scenario in Ravenloft universe... I do not have many RL books, nor the money to bought them (anyway it's almost impossible to get them in Poland :/ ) - and theres no ebook or any other materials in the web about what I want to know. And what I want to know?
- How dikesha dices looks like? I found a few pics in web, but they not show all the sides of the dices, so I cannot made them for my own (why not, If I cannot bought them;) )...
- And how they works? How should I use it? I heard that using of them was described in the Forbidden Lore book, bot it's impossible to found it in web and I's impossible for m to bought it:(
How tarokka cards works? I found fanmade tarokka deck in a web, but still dont know how to use it :/
If anybody will be so kind to help me, I will be really gratefull:)

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Welcome, Skavenloft!

Sadly, Forbidden Lore has been out of print for almost twenty years, so your only hope of finding it is ebay or something similar. Unfortunately, we can't reproduce the full contents here, but I went ahead and added as much detail as I thought we could get away with to Mistipedia, our Ravenloft wiki. Hopefully it points you enough in the right direction that you can wing the rest.

Here are the relevant pages:
http://fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Dikesha_Dice
http://fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Cat ... eck_(Item)

Good luck, and let us know if you have any more questions...

[Goose Bone]

Thank you very much, tat was very helpful:)
But I feel a bit dumb now, because almost everything I need was simply on the wiki

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Thank you very much, tat was very helpful:)
But I feel a bit dumb now, because almost everything I need was simply on the wiki

Don't feel dumb! It wasn't on the wiki until last night! I was going to post it here, but I figured if I was going to type it all up, I might as well do it on the wiki where other people might find it in the future. So by asking the question, you not only got the answer, but helped future fans with the same question.

[Goose Bone]

Wow, I didn't know... This wiki is amazing useful by the way... With a little help of Ravenloft Catalogue theres almos nothing that cannot be find