I was a handler for last year’s Secret Santicore, and in the spirit of the terror season offered prizes to those whose entries gave me the most joy.

 

After making Santicore’s vast belly shake M. Diaz of Gloomtrain requested that Rose draw him a Lamia, refined and wicked, so here she is in all her plump glory:

 

And because he’s an absolute sweetheart he insisted that he complete an extra request for me in return, so I asked for some predictions you might get from a Soothsayer Sophisticate and holy shit.

 

 

THE MANNER OF DELIVERANCE
d8The Soothsayer Sophisticate...
1Slices a lamb open with a gloved hand and inspects its viscera as they tumble to the floor.
2Examines a flock of birds through an apparatus with many lenses and mirrors.
3Delivers their pronouncement while reading the newspaper. You cannot see their face.
4Inhales a bright red powder from a carved silver box and shrieks their prediction as they whirl around the room, arms outstretched, eyes vacant.
5Screams as their head snaps back and their back arches, then whispers a prophecy.
6Cuts a hole in your palm and peers inside for strange truths.
7Is eating breakfast and describes your future with a spray of crumbs.
8Dies, thrashing and bleeding from the mouth, even as their peals of laughter fill the chamber.

 

 

THE VATIC UTTERANCE ITSELF
d30
1You will perish in your moment of most awful triumph.
2Yellow is the colour of madness, and red is the colour of fear.
3Something ancient and strange from beyond the horizon has learned your name.
4Your enemies will come bearing weapons of bronze.
5Dolls signal calamity, while spiders are harbingers of good fortune.
6You will go to the house without doors.
7Dusk is the most dangerous hour, while midnight is the safest.
8Do not trust men with dogs, women with birds, or children with snakes.
9Never dance in the light of the full moon or sleep under the light of the sun.
10You will one day be trapped between fire and sea.
11Death wears tattered silk.
12Calamity is the child of hesitation and the mother of rectitude.
13Only foul things wear more than one face.
14Great fortune sleeps beneath cloven feet.
15Something has awakened beneath the city. It is hungry and evil and very, very old.
16Never eat the flesh of dogs.
17You have been the victim of a great deception.
18Trust in the keen perspicacity of mothers.
19Goats are bearers of evil.
20Your salvation lies in the hands of a child bearing a spindle.
21Kings and councillors plot your end in hidden chambers.
22Something foul stirs itself in the sea.
23Even as we speak, fools and thieves disturb the old barrows.
24You will acquire the enmity of a herald.
25The Red Eye Star shines brightly and hungrily over your head.
26A wild queen seeks to strike you down, and her children wish to eat you.
27You will reap great profit from a scene of terrible bloodshed.
28The guardian grows feeble, even as the beast gnaws at its chains.
29Soon, a harvest will yield dangerous fruit.
30Run.

 

M. Diaz writes like nobody’s business.