Catcher

The members of Rhina's Pillars huddle over the bowls. Eike Keppelink sits the closest, uncomfortably close, perhaps, but the future-seer does not let it bother her as the bowls hum. It is a very unconventional reading, and the future-seer takes her time. Small ripples spread outwards in the water from an incorporeal disturbance. It is slow, calm. The future-seer leans back and it ripples and ripples. Gentle, entrancing. Bwoom-- the sand explodes upwards. The fire screams brightly into a pillar with just a momentary difference. It burns out in the next. Eike hacks the sand out of her nose. Silence. The future-seer slowly lights her lantern and lets it shine onto the sand bowl, "It seems the future may be a little turbulent." Eike's face is no more than a foot from the bowl. Inside, a crater is imprinted into the sand, the displaced sand scattered across the table.

History

When Rhina's pillars was fully established, Eike, the founder, sought out a future teller to give guidance to the fate of the organization. Founded on the idea of Fate, it was important to her that the organization be prepared for its future. Some have argued that future-telling cannot be performed on an organization. The Pillars have argued that it is still a Fate, a future prediction, something that will happen. It does not matter whether it is truly for the organization. Even if it was the prediction of someone specific and not of the entire organization, it is still the fate of the organization. The interpretation of the sand was straight forward given the organization's founding around the fate and myth of Shtiya the Meteor Catcher. The crater in the bowl perfectly mimicked a meteor crashing into Rhina. At the time, Eike interpreted the catastrophe to be the meteor's return and predicted the existence of another Catcher. While perhaps too literal of an interpretation, the future-seeing clearly predicted a catastrophe. In the centuries passing since Eike lived, the interpretation has loosened to be wary of any catastrophe but the title of the fated stuck. The organization would prepare for the event, prepare The Catcher for the time of catastrophe. And when the time came, the Catcher would be ready to save Rhina just as Shtiya had. The fated path awaits.