Not every message arrives in words. Some come as signs.
- A crow circling widdershins.
- A mirror that cracks without reason.
- A cold wind blowing from the east when the sky is clear.
In the occult, both in fiction and in real-world traditions, signs are how the unseen speaks. They’re not always obvious. They’re not always dramatic. But they always mean something.
Witches know this. Warlocks, too. They don’t just read books. They read the world. The patterns in the bark, the way the candle flickers, the strange arrangement of bones at the edge of a clearing. The world is a living grimoire, and every sign is a page waiting to be read.
I’ve always loved using signs in my games. They’re more than just flavor, they’re agency. A clue, a key, a message scratched into the world itself. Sometimes it’s overt: a vision, an augury, a rune glowing faintly on a stone altar. But more often, it’s subtle. A dream that changes after entering a cursed forest. A candle that won’t stay lit inside a ruined chapel. A tarot deck that keeps drawing The Tower, no matter how many times it’s shuffled.
The best signs don’t give answers. They ask questions. They don’t tell the players what to do, they ask if they’re paying attention.
And if you want to turn up the pressure, signs can act like story clocks. Foreshadowing. Countdown markers. A narrative fuse quietly burning in the background.
The third raven means the pact is broken.
The red comet marks the return of something old.
And when the stars are right… well, you know how that one goes.
From a DM’s point of view, signs are one of my favorite storytelling tools. They create atmosphere. They build tension. They reward curiosity. And they make the world feel alive, alive and watching.
From a player’s point of view, they’re invitations. To dig deeper. To question everything. To realize that maybe the dungeon isn’t the real threat, it’s what’s waking up beneath it.
So the next time something strange happens in your game, an unexplained sound, an uncanny shadow, a symbol that appears where it shouldn’t, don’t explain it right away. Let it linger. Let it breathe. Let it be a sign.
And watch what your players do with it.
Because half the fun of prophecy is wondering if it’s true.
The other half? Watching your players spin themselves in circles trying to figure it out.
Questions
When. Contemplative. Character.
Related to signs above, when should a Character be contemplative? Obviously, when trying to figure out whatever mystery I have thrown at them, and not in the middle of combat. Their thought process can e a great role-playing device.
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