Apocalypse World - What is Augury?!

[Yora]

After my fifth or so read through Apocalypse World, I think I am finally understading how this game works.

But what in the apocalyptic world is Augury?! I get that the psychic maelstrom is kept very vague, but its application in Opening Your Brain and the Brainer class is straightforward enough. But Augury is a list of terms that are never mentioned anywhere else and have no context to go with them. What could they possibly be?

Since the playbooks are a free download, I am copying the relevant paragraph here:


When you are able to use something for augury, roll+weird. On a
hit, you can choose 1:
• Reach through the world’s psychic maelstrom to something or
someone connected to it.
• Isolate and protect a person or thing from the world’s psychic
maelstrom.
• Isolate and contain a fragment of the world’s psychic maelstrom
itself.
• Insert information into the world’s psychic maelstrom.
• Open a window into the world’s psychic maelstrom.

By default, the effect will last only as long as you maintain it, will
reach only shallowly into the world’s psychic maelstrom as it is local
to you, and will bleed instability. On a 10+, choose 2; on a 7–9,
choose 1:
• It’ll persist (for a while) without your actively maintaining it.
• It reaches deep into the world’s psychic maelstrom.
• It reaches broadly throughout the world’s psychic maelstrom.
• It’s stable and contained, no bleeding.

On a miss, whatever bad happens, your antenna takes the brunt of it.

The only context we have is that this action can be performed by an Angel who is close to a person near death or dead, by a Hocus using his followers when they are well fed and taken care of, or by a Sawyhead in his workshop.
I am kind of of the impression that the writer has absolutely no clue what this one actually does either. Whatever effects are listed are only evocative sounding gibberish that GMs can use as inspiration to effectively create their own custom move from scratch.

Or does anyone have any further insight into what this movie is actually meant to do?

[Blymurkla]

Augury is a bit vague, I grant you, but I feel it's less vague than the catch-all 'open your brain' which is basically what you do when you've run out of other options. Augury is also one of the coolest moves out there and the playbooks that can access it, all of them among my favourites, are made even better by it.

There's a little more context in the rulebook:


This move is big exuberant fun, and a fantastic opportunity for you to barf forth apocalyptica. It may call for you to make snap decisions about the workings of the world’s psychic maelstrom. Do.

Example:
Bran’s trying to help Marie with her Birdie problem. He brings her into his workspace, helps her into this weird isolation chamber he’s recently added, and powers it up. He hits the roll with a 9. He chooses to isolate and protect her from the world’s psychic maelstrom.

»Barf forth apocalyptica« is Baker's way of saying »do something really weird«. That's broad, but that's the way the move is supposed to be.

That said, some of the guidelines are pretty clear-cut, at least to me.

Reach through the world’s psychic maelstrom to something or someone connected to it. can be used for telepathy-like communications, perhaps to inform another PC of something.

Isolate and protect a person or thing from the world’s psychic maelstrom. might be used, obviously, to protect someone. If the Child Thing is in play, perhaps this use of Augury can help fend of the wolfs of the maelstrom? Another variant came from my last session: My Maestro 'D shagged a ghost of some sort, which left a mark ... I've considered asking the Hocus to use her family for Augury to try and fix it for me next session (though I don't want her drinking coffee at my diner again, so I might ask the Savyhead instead (though he doesn't have augury)).

I've used Insert information into the world’s psychic maelstrom to attempt to affect what other PCs gain from opening their brain or other weird moves. That was a few years ago, I played a Savyhead, bloody awesome, who had built an electronic augury-antenna in an old subway-car. I don't remember exactly, perhaps I inserted the truth about who blew up the last renaming fan keeping the subway station habitable.

[Yora]

I am currently working on preparations for a fantasy campaign that is using the Fallen Empires playbooks. How magic works in that setting was actually directly inspired by the psychic maelstrom when I had first read apocalypse world.

The most common uses of magic are telepathy and divination. Basically the Brainer/Mesmerast moves and Open Your Brain to the Maelstrom/Grasp Outward.
The maelstrom is the combined, undifferentiated consciousness of all spirits. So my interpretation of Opening Your Brain is that the characters "search their feelings" and actively tap their minds into it. This lets them learn things that are known to spirits, but on a failed roll allows some spirits to hear some of their own memories as well. I am thinking about making it something you can't just do at the drop of a hat, but rather requiring some time for meditation and staring into a fire or the waters of a pond. The rules are silent about such things, and I don't think it really impacts its usefulness.

Augury could cover a range of different more complex rituals.

"Isolate and contain a fragment of the maelstrom" could be the summoning of a spirit that you can then talk to. Getting it to help you then takes additional moves as usual.

"Isolate or protect a person" could mean breaking a simple curse or ongoing power of a Brainer or other classes.

"Insert information" could be really fun. Tell the spirits something that someone had kept hidden from them and sit back and wait how they will react to the deception being exposed.

"Reach through the maelstrom" probably make most sense as sending telepathic messages or visions to specific targets. Though that kind of feels to convenient and straightforward to me.

Really no clue what "opening a window" could mean.

"Reaching deep" could mean that you don't just reach the regular forest and field spirits but the ancient primordial gods of mountains and great rivers. "Reaching broadly" would just generally mean covering a much wider geographic area, giving you access to spirits of far away places instead of just the surrounding environment.

For "bleeding", I like the idea that the use of the augury can be sensed by spirits and magic users from some distance away and for several weeks. They will know what you did.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

To me, opening a window means possibly creating a rift for the maelstrom to leak into the rest of reality, or maybe creating an opening that lets all passersby easily peer into the maelstrom.

The ambiguity creates direction but also leaves the door open for your group to build the setting. It's not Vincent Baker's world, it's the world of your group. Ask questions, build on answers. Honestly, it makes the most sense if you start playing, get messy, and make mistakes to learn from. You might not know what something means, but maybe one of your players has a perfect idea.

[1of3]

Augury is technically prophecy by watching birds. So...