THE DIVINING CICADAS
The Divining Cicadas are the most common of the spell-casting insects, yet their magical techniques have until recently remained opaque and inaccessible to scholars.
In the continent of Axam, especially in the southwest, there is a period of warm and pleasant weather during the third month of autumn, between the first frost and the arrival of the winter proper. This cyclical climate pattern is due to an anticyclonic formation from the Salt Desert of Uxali migrating to the northern continent, as the occasional faint saline odor in the wind will testify. These days have many names throughout the different cultures: “false summer”; “sun’s goodbye”; “the angels’ smile”; “Belphegor’s kiss”; etc.
The hottest day of the False Summer, whichever day it is, becomes “Cicada Day”, upon which all Divining Cicadas emerge from their burrows to mate, lay eggs, and die. They live for only a day and emerge on that day in perfect unison, predicting the exact date that all their ideal conditions for temperature, weather and light are met. If a False Summer is not warm enough for them, the cicadas will skip that year, remaining underground and waiting for the following autumn. A year without cicadas is considered a bad omen.
Cicada Day has many different rituals and traditions connected with it, especially in the countryside. It is considered a time to taste the new wine and to settle accounts with the landlord. It is also a childrens’ holiday- kids run about collecting the eye-shaped exuviae, with a little treat for those who bring home the most of them.
Cicada Day is also the test bench for all soothsayers- determining the exact day upon which it will fall is the great proof of true divining skills. Around this time, Wandering Druids sell their calendars, filled with predictions of droughts and hailstorms, to the farmers. If these calendars have predicted Cicada Day correctly the year before, they will surely sell well again.
The Divining Cicadas use magic to foretell the right time to molt and fly, but until recently, the mechanism for this thaumaturgy has not been understood. The cicada has seven wings, two extending from the front legs and one consisting of a modified portion of the abdomen. Seven is a number closely connected with divination magic: many arcane spells and sacred rituals revolve around this number (like the seven oracles of Ashtarot). Notably, the nymphal form of the cicada has an eye-shaped protuberance, the exuviae- eyes (as with concentric circular patterns in general) are another common focus for divination spells.
Other foretelling animals have ocular traits and seven organs dedicated to their “future perception”: the Seven-Eyed Ibex is emblematic of this phenomenon, but the Seven-Snouted Boar and the Seven-Tailed Dormouse also fit the criteria. All of these are magical animals with anatomical features that involuntarily harness the mana field. For example, the Seven-Eyed Ibex exclusively experiences future probabilities due to the sigilary knotting configurations of their optic nerves; no Ibex, therefore, can experience the present moment under any circumstances.
Scholars have dissected Cicadas for centuries in search of the particular biological feature that enables their clairvoyance, but without success. Recent breakthroughs in the study of spellcasting insects, such as the Necromancer Bees and Evoker Dragonflies, have brought a new perspective to the table: could the Cicadas be a spellcasting species?
The long-standing issue with this theory was that spellcasting would require an incantation, a series of sounds and/or movements, and/or a physical focus to appropriately bend and knot the mana. The convoluted and intricate flights of the female cicadas seemed the obvious candidate: while fluttering from tree to tree in search of mates, the females trace a pattern similar to an arcane sigil. Disappointingly, using the resulting sigils as part of the casting process failed to bring notable results. Similar inquiries were conducted into the shifting hum which the males produce to attract females, but these too were met with dead ends.
It was the great Gwinnifar, a student of the pioneer of entomagical studies, Shinar, who cracked the case. Gwinnifar observed the cicadas during their long underground life as sap-sucking nymphs. Using terrariums and underground periscopes, she observed the behavior of the young insects and found that the spellcasting occurred during that phase of their life cycle.
The eye-shaped protuberance possesses a sort of pseudomusculature that rotates the “eye” in a distinct pattern, similar but not identical to the flight pattern of the adult female.
By rolling her own eyes beneath a blindfold, Gwinnifar was able to succeed in casting a basic divination spell, and proceeded to follow through with this line of inquiry. The closer she mimicked the insect, the more accurate and distant her predictions became. Her efforts culminated in burying herself under an oak tree for a week, drinking a sugary liquid to mimic the tree’s sap.
Through these methods, she deduced that the flight of the female, the song of the male, and the ocular alignments of the nymphal form resulted in the construction of “prophecy loops”: while nymphs, each cicada could sense in the future the moment at which it would perform its flight or its song. The protothaumic component of said action provides a “self-fulfilling beacon” that improves the range and precision of the cicada’s foretelling.
Tragically, one of the most notable of Gwinnifar’s predictions was the death of her first son. Kalkier followed his mother’s steps and became a scholar in entomagical studies, focusing on the study of Necromancer Bees. Agents of the Angelic Unison, hoping to brainwash him to their side, attempted to kidnap him, but the operation backfired.
Kalkier died, and his mother witnessed it in excruciating detail, a month in advance. She did her best to try to reach him before the tragedy, but to no avail- she arrived a few hours after the fact.
Gwinnifar was so stricken with grief that she died of heartbreak a few weeks later. Her other son, Canir, is now petitioning the Arcane Academy of Gremory to give her and her elder son the posthumous title of Great, the highest achievable honor for a wizard. To finance this endeavor, he is selling a collection of all the visions his mother achieved during her experiments, calling this tome “The Cicada Prophecies”. Are these predictions accurate? Only time will tell.
