{"id":"shared/trait/merit/oracular-ability","type":"trait","system":"merit","line":"shared","name":"Oracular Ability","sources":[{"source":"V20","page":501,"folio":493},{"source":"BoS","page":73}],"entries":["You can see and interpret signs and omens. You are able to draw advice from these omens, for they provide hints of the future and warnings of the present. When the Storyteller feels that you are in position to see an omen, you will be required to make a {@attribute Perception|V20} + {@ability Awareness|V20} roll, with the difficulty relative to how well the omen is concealed. If successful, you may then roll {@attribute Intelligence|V20} + {@ability Occult|V20} to interpret what you have seen; the difficulty is again relative to the complexity of the omen."],"cost":3,"category":"Supernatural","_qa":{"flags":[],"parser":"headed_entries","confidence":0.9,"extracted":"2026-10-12","job":"v20-core-merits"},"variants":[{"sources":[{"source":"BoS","page":73}],"entries":["Everything, to you, has a richer significance than it might otherwise appear. The flight of birds, the fall of cards, the patterns of sand after a wave, a spatter of sacrificial blood… in your eyes, they’re all clues to the Universal Mystery. You’re good at deciphering such clues, and so while many enigmas remain unanswered, you often spot insights that other people – even mages – fail to see.","In game terms, you can make a Perception + Awareness roll (difficulty 7) whenever the Storyteller feels you’re in a position to perceive a hidden message in apparently random phenomena. If you do spot what appears to be a message, you can make a second roll of Perception + Esoterica (or Occult, whichever is higher) to see if you can interpret the message you think you see. The diffi­ culty of this interpretation roll depends on how random the phenomena is; a deck of cards, for instance, is less random (difficulty 6 or 7) than a scatter of crow feathers (difficulty 8 or 9), and so is better suited for divination purposes. This doesn’t mean you can’t read that scatter of feathers, only that doing so is more challenging than interpreting a deck of cards!","A successful interpretation roll wins a vague yet potentially valuable answer from the Storyteller – couched, of course, in symbolic metaphors and wide-open meanings. (Storytellers, see","The Deeper Level in Mage 20, pp. 363-366, and Prophecy and Hindsight in How Do You DO That?, pp. 55-56, for","guidance.) Such answers are not at all reliable, naturally, but they stand a decent chance of being accurate enough to help you read patterns in apparently random chance."],"note":"text differs from V20 (55%)"}],"_links":{"self":"/api/v1/records/shared/trait/merit/oracular-ability","html":"/records/shared/trait/merit/oracular-ability","parent":null,"children":"/api/v1/records/shared/trait/merit/oracular-ability/children","sources":[{"abbr":"V20","page":501,"folio":501,"title":"Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition"},{"abbr":"BoS","page":73,"folio":73,"title":"The Book of Secrets"}]},"_db":{"title":"Oracular Ability","props":[["Cost","3 pts"],["Type","Supernatural"]],"parent_id":null,"level":3,"category":"Supernatural","summary":"You can see and interpret signs and omens. You are able to draw advice from these omens, for they provide hints of the future and warnings of the present. When the Storyteller feels that you are in position to see an","tags":[],"children":[]}}