Rodyana Golodyik

Rodyana Golodyik is a fortune-teller living in the city of Wrzyj. Until recently, she was an unknown thought of by the few people aware of her as a harmless eccentric, due to her habit of accosting people in public seemingly at random and insisting on telling their fortunes. Upon effecting her divination and telling the results, she would rush off, never demanding any payment for her services. More often than not, the fortunes she told involved some horrible fate for her "client".

As her local fame rose, people began seeking Golodyik out, not generally because they really believed in her abilities of divination but because they found her mannerisms and her odd intensity amusing. She was invited to parties, where she entertained the guests with her dire pronouncements, and became so much in demand that her schedule began to fill weeks in advance. By now, Golodyik is a coveted cynosure for the festivities of the rich, and the best parties are incomplete without her set up in a booth or at a table somewhere, predicting that various guests will die violent deaths. Not all her prognostications are that gloomy, of course; such premonitions of doom do still predominate, but, as before, she does sometimes give happier fortunes, of success and prosperity and love. And sometimes her fortunes are more esoteric; one of her most memorable moments occurred at a party in Młarecz, when she declared very solemnly to a young banker named Szilogen Korodya, "You will live a boring, boring life." In any case, despite being invited to "perform" at opulent parties, Golodyik still doesn't ask for money, and hasn't noticeably changed anything about her methods. If she is aware that people aren't taking her fortunes seriously, she doesn't seem much bothered by it.

There are those, however, who think there may be something there worthy of serious investigation. While certainly her predictions don't always come true, they do seem to come true somewhat more often than pure chance would seem to account for. This has led some people to suspect that, while not completely accurate, her fortune-telling does have something to it. There is some question, however, whether she is simply foreseeing the fates she pronounces, or whether her pronouncements actually work to bring about the events she foretells. If the latter possibility is the case, then the eager members of high society who laugh at her fortunes at parties may be unwittingly working their own destructions. Some have proposed an alternate explanation for Golodyik's unusual accuracy—that some third party may be actively working to fulfill her prophecies. There is no end to speculation as to the identity and motives of this alleged third party, but few of the speculators agree.

Another factor that might lend credence to the idea that Golodyik may possess some sort of poorly developed but genuine divinatory skill relates to her means of supporting herself. Since she doesn't accept any payment for her soothsaying, many people wonder how it is she manages to afford food and shelter—though many others simply never consider the matter. As it happens, Golodyik supports herself by finding coins and other valuables in the street, selling any goods not readily spendable to pawnbrokers and traders. But, again, Golodyik seems to find more valuables in the streets than she ought to be able to, so some people suppose that the same powers that make her predictions come true also either guide her to know where to look or actually arrange for valuables to appear or to be dropped in her path.

Golodyik's fortune-telling techniques are somewhat unorthodox, and don't seem to follow any widely known rubric—although since her rise to prominence there are those who have tried to imitate it. She carries a set of nine wooden blocks, decorated with strange designs on each side, and rolls them around and arranges them in various patterns before making her pronouncements about the future. The marks on the blocks do not seem to correspond to any familiar symbols, though some linguist have noted a slight resemblance to some characters of the Eshilan language, and a few people have suggested, based on this slight evidence, that perhaps her methods owe something to sigil magic. Rumors have spread of the Black Circle's looking into Golodyik's methods, but this remains unconfirmed, and not very probable.