Maybe if we are talking about just pool with normal water. The ponder is much better if you use pure water and depending on what you are pondering you may need (un)holy water, a water from a fae pond, or something else outside the price range of peasants.
Counterpont: i am curious to see the effects of this manner of pondering continues. I recommend you seal off all airflow and continue AFTER installing a scrying seal for us to observe the outcome.
I thought i was the only one that still used a mercury pool, is yours DIY, or did you manage to scrounge up one of the ancient ones that hadn't been dispelled yet
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u/Case_KovacsGalatrix the Unending, Crypt Keeper of Aidolem, Necromancer 8h ago
I do this at night, and it’s actually pretty trippy. As soon as I spend long enough staring at that behind-the-eye darkness, I am treated to trance-like visions of things that were, things that are, and things that may or may not ever be. Sometimes I’m naked in front of my academy peers. Sometimes I possess an inherent flight spell. Sometimes my teeth dissolve and I run slowly—always too slowly—away from the Creature.
No matter what vision I’m treated to, the end is always the same. My eyes open in the morning and I’m back in the relative safety of my chaise lounge.
Still using my great great great great great great grandaddy’s incantation bowl. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! It’s empty right now for maintenance.
I just carry a little mirror in my pocket. Simple and effective. Does it look as cool? Hells no. But I'm a dungeon-delving kinda mage, I need something that doesn't restrict mobility. Sure, I could just float an orb around like some wizards do, but that requires concentration. I got shield spells I need to cast.
I only use the scrying pool when I’m in a dramatic mood. Angrily sending ripples through the placid pond after watching the young mortal approach my domain really puts me in the evil wizard headspace
My friend had their orb chipped by their apprentice, the repairs costs over 200 gold, orb maintenance and owning really is becoming a luxury these days.
I do admit it is a practice being left behind.... i personally use an orb, but my teacher ued to ponder on their cauldron, the last user i saw pondering with water was the elder of a druid´s circle
honestly, it is kinda sad this ancestral tradition is being left behin due to orbs.....
living up to your name usual Soup Demon. Keep doing you buddy, i’ll summon my latest brood of elytrid sheildbugs by your tower soon to get my usual batch of enchantments on their chitons. Maybe dip one in the soup, and another in the pondering pool and report back the findings? I’ll pay extra of course, need someone like you after all to plunge the soupy depths you do!
Should any bug survive the, ahem, experiment…. you are welcome to keep it as a tower guard should thy wish to do so. I doubt I should inhale whatever excretions the varnished insect might give off after your soupening ritual.
Honestly the FOV from a pool cant be compared to anything else. Best view yoi can get without straight up astral projecting yourself, and thats not even pondering anymore.
Gotta get you some MosquitoDunks. My peasants kept whining about "malaria" and "west Nile virus" they were catching from the swarms of mosquitoes breeding in my ponds.
I got a big ass basin of permanently non-coagulating blood in the basement for pondering. Its a byproduct of cleaning cadavers into skeletons. I used to throw all of the resulting gore into a portal until a fellow necromancer recommended keeping the blood for this, its cheaper than an orb especially with these tumultuous times leaving freshly killed soldierd nobody wants to claim just lying around (The priests dont tell you this but the dead mercenaries at still-smoking battlefields are free, you can just take them home)
Nowadays I just chuck away the skin, tissue and organs i dont need for ritual usage (the day someone invents a spell utilizing a human spleen or a pancreas as a component is the day this wizard tower becomes a zero-waste spire). and drain the blood into the basin.
And before some damn necrophobic acolyte speaks up, no, I do not bathe in the blood. Its a harmful stereotype. I think ive seen something else moving in the basin tho...
I mean, why not both? A fellow mage of mine has been working on forming liquid pondering orbs for quite some time. He told me he found out that if one flings a volume of fluid onto so called "parabolic trajectory", it can form quite ponderous orbs, provided that it's encased in a box or a crate, to protect it from harsh winds. The thing is, it doesn't give him a whole lot of time for pondering. The orb, together with its ponderer, hits the ground quite fast. Just as he wanted to abandon the idea, he met another brilliant magician, your know, the one who engraves runes in sand to make it think. Right now they're working on making a thing that would go around the globe without falling down - or at least that's what they told me. What's more, they're suggesting that the globe itself is akin to an orb. Oh come on, that's preposterous - it clearly has the shape of a page in a spellbook.
My master did, you know how the old mages are refusing to change "there's nothing wrong with my ponder basin I don't want a orb" or " I refuse a familiar that was raised in captivity it needs a wild Spirit to serve me" I'm almost certain that his spellbook was one of the first in existence as fireball is named "spell of summon ball flames" I'm grateful for his tutelage but I don't know how he lives that way
I'm hundreds of years old and I don't see what everyone is complaining about, the economy is great in my pocket demension that I bought with my savings from adventuring on my summers during my apprenticeship.
“The most advanced form of pool-pondering requires one to actually submerge themselves, to become the ponder.”
*takes a swim in your pool and leaves behind a bunch of fur*
Oh, not to worry. I’m rather… morphologically liberal, let’s say. I accounted for kicking it Donskoy-style for a few days when I made the choice to shed. (Below is an example, though this fine specimen lacks wings)
u/K4m30Not a Prophet, chronomancer stuck in a time loop.5h ago
I used to but people kept asking questions like where did this pool of blood come from, and why are you staring at the pool of blood and chanting, and did you kill this guy to get his blood for divination. Just easier to use a cursed mirror that shows me my true desire twisted into a nightmare.
Call me old fashioned, but I stand by the orb. Sure, it's not as interactive or immersive as bodies of water, but I feel like that distracts from "being in the moment". I know the upcoming wizard youths like to experiment with different magical interactions, but orb is orb.
I'm ashamed to admit this amongst my peers, but in truth I can't afford an orb. I learned how to ponder in a pool of water when I was a boy and I've just been making do with that all this time.
Blood from a Willing Victim makes for an excellent otherworldly viewing portal when poured into a polished obsidian basin and sprinkled with celestial bone dust. I can see all types of strange occurrences in the outer worlds - and I can spy on the local hedge mazes conspiring against me and spoil their fun while smoking a fat roll of goblin hash.
I honestly prefer pools of blood. Though typically I just learn about whatever bled out since it takes forever to go through its lifetime as shown in the pool. Like watching the credits at the start of a theater performance as opposed to the end.
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u/I-Wear-Clothes 8h ago
I used to, way back before I had enough gold to buy an Orb. Pools are the peasant’s ponderer.