Lesson 1: Tasseomancy

[Apharius Redrush]

Sweeping into the small, round classroom, Professor Apharius saw a smaller group of students than she had anticipated sitting in (and getting comfortable in) the squashy, subdued orange beanbag chairs. Not allowing her psychic ability to let her see what was causing some of the students on her roster to be late, she hoped they were on their way.

"Greetings to you, fledglings!!!! I am Professor Apharius Redrush, and I would prefer if you called me by my first name, with the proper title, of course," she explained in a slightly awed tone in her soft British accent.

Though she disliked using it, she quickly floated over to the chalkboard and enchanted the chalk to write out the word "Tasseography".

"Our first topic of interest of divining the future is Tasseomancy. Who here can tell me what this is?" She looked around slowly, sending out positive energy to the nervous first-years.

After a few moments, a shaking hand went up from a dark-skinned Hufflepuff girl.

"I-It's the art of reading tea leaves, Professor," she muttered in a small voice. "Correct, 10 points to Hufflepuff. Now while we will be using plain white cups, there are 3 other more common types of cups that are used for this type of 'fortune telling'. Does anyone know what they are?"

This time, a Ravenclaw boy raised his hand. "Zodiac cups?" he replied in an unsure tone. Professor Apharius nodded at him, granting 10 House points to Ravenclaw. At that, the chalk wrote his answer on the board.

"Any others?"[/color] When nobody raised their hands, she turned back to the chalkboard and the next two types were written below the first:

Zodiac
Playing Card
Symbol

"I would like you to open your Guide to Tasseomancy and write a brief description of each type," she instructed the small group.

There was a rustling of parchment and the scratching of quills as the students wrote down their notes from their textbooks.

"When you have completed your task, you are free to leave. Next time we will actually try our hands at divining the future from the tea leaves!!!!" Professor Apharius then sat herself down at the small tea table at the front of the class and poured herself a small cup from the tall pot that seemed to be steaming from it's spout, though there was no hint of a flame heating it up, while she waited for the room to empty.

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For the first part of the lessons, the points will be based on length of post and behavior of the student. The activities will be based on RP ONLY, so make sure your posts are a decent length!!!!

For this first lesson, use the following sites for information:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasseography
healing.about.com/od/tealeafreading/ht/readtealeaves.htm
tarotcanada.tripod.com/TeaLeaves.html

If you find any other sites for the interpretations, be they for this or any other topic we will study this term, feel free to share them with the rest of the class and myself!!!!

[Eirwyn Lyla Hall]

Eirwyn was a little confused. What did the cups you used have to do with anything? It's not like they interfered with the reading, did they?

She shrugged. Oh well. Sometimes psychics were a little weird, in her opinion, but it was that mystery that had attracted her to the class. But to be honest, she'd thought they would spend all the classes staring at crystal balls and choking on incense and potpourri.

So sue her for absorbing the pop culture version of psychics.

Eirwyn obediently opened her textbook from the back to scan the index. She'd know what she was looking for when she found it, she guessed.

Oh! "Cups, type of." That looks like it! Eirwyn flipped quickly to page 23 and scanned the page. Here it is.

She wrote in her elaborate, ornate cursive:

Zodiac cups are printed with planetary symbols and constellations; they are used to combine astrology with the art of tasseomancy.
Playing card cups are printed with an entire deck of cards (fifty-two, sometimes with Jokers), and they combine cartomancy (card-reading) with tasseomancy.
Symbol cups are printed with common symbols seen in tasseography; they generally have anywhere between twelve and fifty different pictures.

That seems about right, she thought.

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Good job on the RP, Eirwyn.
You get 7.6/10 RP points for this part of the lesson. Might I suggest you expand on it just a little bit for next time please?

[Dastan Cross]

Dastan got lost before coming to class. He'd never admit it, but it was true. The Divination classroom was in some random part of the castle and the stairways had sent him all over the place. Quite frankly, it pissed him off. And he wasn't about to ask one of those stupid pictures for directions either.

Finally, a wave of strong-smelling incense had washed over him and Dastan knew he was close. He followed the smell until he found a ladder. A ladder that he had passed at least thirteen times in the past twenty minutes. Cursing the stupid staircases, Dastan climbed the ladder and stepped into...

A childishly colored, overly-incensed smoke-filled attic. ORANGE beanbag chairs? Oh, god, he wanted to be sick. He should have known when he signed up that this class was going to be ridiculous.

Even the professor looked like a scamming Psychic that you'd see on muggle television or in the streets of Alamut, trying to beg for money in exchange for reading your palms.

Taking an uncomfortable seat in one of the beanbags, Dastan tried his best not to nod off as the professor gave an introduction to the class, then gave them an assignment.

Dastan didn't even bother opening one of the books.

"Zodiac Cups", he wrote , "are cups...with stars and constellations on them. Hence the whole 'zodaic' bit."

What was this madness? Ugh. Whatever. Next, "Playing Card Cups," he wrote, "have cards printed on them. Why else would they be called playing card cups?"

Finally, he got to the last one. "Symbol cups have symbols on them."

Finished and feeling like he had wasted his time, Dastan scribbled his name and House at the top of the parchment he had written his answers on and gave them to the professor.

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You do not need to give me your parchment; it is yours to keep for later use.

((OOC:Also, I do not have any incense in my classroom, for future reference.))

I shall give you 7.8/10 for RP points. I hope you will do better in the future (bleak as it is if you continue to be this way).