You're Not the Boss of Me, Fate!

Question: How would you suggest a Scion of the Orisha who does not want to invest in Mystery or Prophecy (and has no one in his group who wants to) proceed in regards to his PSP boons?

A Scion of the Orisha who wants nothing to do with divination is embarking on a difficult road. Because the idea of discovering and working toward one's destiny is so deeply and fundamentally important to the religion that supports the Orisha, to the point that the gods themselves practice it as much as the mortals below, a Scion who eschews the idea is setting himself up for a lot of confusion, difficulty and adversity. The Orisha and their worshipers believe that someone who fails to achieve their destiny has lived a failed and wasted life and will fall prey to (and cause for others) many misfortunes, and they're likely to be somewhat aghast at a Scion who refuses to participate. Just as a Scion of the Tuatha who won't take on any geasa would look irresponsible to them, or a Scion of the Aztlanti who refuses to participate in blood sacrifice would look like a deadbeat to his pantheon, so the Orisha probably won't know quite what to do with a kid who isn't doing what they perceive as his job.

However, that doesn't mean anything that doesn't involve divination can't be a valid character type, or that you can't do very neat things with Ori despite not being big into chicken bones and palm nuts. I would think this issue comes up a lot more for Scions of the Orisha who know them in their New World incarnations; while ceremonies strongly associated with Mystery and the gods do exist in vodun and Santeria and the like, the urgent need to perform a divination for everything, all the time isn't as strong as it is at home in Africa, and Scions from across the big water may be from different religious milieus despite still being under of the overall Orisha umbrella. Also, sometimes there are just Scions who don't wanna do what their parents do. That's traditional for this game, after all.

So, anyway. The concept of Ori and figuring out what it is and what to do about it is best expressed in Scion by the Prophecy and Mystery purviews. That makes a lot of sense and gives us a nice clear framework for stuff to happen around the concept of sacred destiny, but it does make life more challenging for Scions who don't have those purviews (or easy access to others who have them). At low Legend levels, the easiest thing to do is probably what everyone who isn't Orisha usually does when they need to talk to an oracle: go find one. Seek out the local wise woman, witch doctor, oracular mouthpiece or servant of the gods, and use your Ori boons on them (and remember, they don't have to be Yoruba or perform divinations the Yoruba way as long as they get you the info you need). You won't be able to do it as often as if you had a mobile oracle with you, but you can still make it something you do before embarking on important missions or making life-changing decisions. You could also try to get a non-Scion oracle to travel with you, at least sometimes; the simplest way to pull that off is just to take a Guide or Follower Birthright that can perform divinations for you, but if you want to save those points, you could also try to just convince oracles you run into to accompany you (or kidnap them, but they're probably less inclined to cooperate that way). Once you've reached Legend 7, of course, you'll be able to use Babalawo/Iyalawo to just designate people as temporary diviners, making it unnecessary to seek out professional ones unless you need a truly epic feat that those with the temporary powers can't manage for you.

If, on the other hand, you happen to be a Scion of the Orisha who just doesn't want to ever bother with divinations and doesn't plan on using those boons at all, you do have a thornier path to travel. Just like a Yazata Scion who is a pathological liar or a Bogovi Scion who doesn't want to be saddled with additional Virtues, you're choosing to go against the traditional powers, dictates and values of your pantheon, and that's naturally going to mean that some doors are closed to you. The divination boons will probably be mostly useless to you, and there's not much that you can really do about that. But the good news is that only three out of ten Ori boons require divination, and they're not all clustered at any one level, meaning that you'll still have the tasty bonuses of Akunlegba to keep you warm at Hero and Akunleyan, Iwa Pele and Olori Rere to prevent your Demigod career from being all about bothering prophets for information. You'll still have to buy those divination-based boons, of course, but you're trying to become well-versed in the powers and beliefs of your native pantheon, after all, and it's not up to you what they consider most religiously important. You can absolutely decide you're not interested in their bullshit and not participate, but it stands to reason that you're not going to get access to all the powers that bullshit brings if you do.

Honestly, I think nonconformist Orisha Scions have it easier than those of some of the other pantheons; at least they do get other powers, and they probably only have to worry about Eshu (who is notoriously easy to offend when he feels he isn't getting enough divination sacrifices) going batshit on them for neglecting their duties. Compared to the poor Aztlanti Scion who won't perform blood sacrifice and has an entirely useless purview and a whole pantheon ready to kick his ass over it or the Yazata Scion who loses his whole PSP and becomes Enemy One to his parent when he starts lying about something as innocent as whether or not his friend looks fat in those jeans, the Orisha Scion who doesn't feel like divination is doing pretty well.

As always, the pantheon determines what their powers, Virtues and outlook on the universe are, but Scions are new creatures who can choose to align themselves with or reject those values as they see fit. Fighting against the current is always harder than swimming with it, but that doesn't mean you can't do it.