The die whirred about, basked in red light from beneath it, levitating several inches above the pedestal, rolling initiative checks for the Gods. Neville saw it pause, for a split second, at natural 20, before it rolled a 3, 2, 2, 1, 5, and a 3. While he felt sorry for whatever was rolled such abysmal stats, he was also enthralled by the beauty of it.
"Starin' at the ol' d20, are ye?" said a decrepit old man, with grey hair, turkey neck with considerably thick stubble, and a gratuitous and thick Welsh accent. This, more than the sudden interruption, was what brought Neville back to reality.
"It's very interesting, Professor…" Neville replied. The old man's face was vaguely familiar. He was almost pretty sure that he had seen it in the great hall before.
"Ratsby, m'boy, bin teachin' Cleromancy fer almos' sixty years now. Not exactly a popular subject, eh boyo?" Neville felt that, it almost seemed like, the man was quite happy just to be talking to someone.
"Cleromancy? What's that all about?" Neville asked.
"Is the magic o' dice, boyo! Sure, Trelawney or Firenze, they mighta taught'n you a thing or two about usin' 'em ter read the future, but that's not the half o' what they cen do! Usin' a proper set o' dice, from d4 all the way op to d30, ye cin, ifen you know the rules, successfully do things ye would never ha' been able to do. If yer lucky enough, or yer willin' ter cheat a bit, you can get by with just about anythin'," The old man answered recitedly. Neville had a feeling that he had just heard the Third Year Introduction to Cleromancy speech.
"So what you are saying, is that I can roll magical dice to determine whether an action will be successful? Like, instead of actually practicing for a test, I could simply roll-" Neville left the sentence hanging.
"Weel, that depends on the nature of the test, ye know. Ifen it's yer OWL, ye'd probably have to roll (5d100/2)-1 [For the innocent among us, the insanely warped and horrible RPG known as "FATAL" used that hideous roll for damn near everything, including rolling for race, class, every single stat, attribute, and skill randomly, critical strikes/failures, sexual deviance (a sliding scale, of course), and up to and including anal circumference. But I digress.]. But ifen you wanted to just pass your end o' month exam, A good d20+your skill in that class should be right. And you cannot just roll anything you want. No, there are rules. And this ain't monopoly; the rules are comp-li-cated. Usin' the wrong roll can have horrible side effects. But even more importantly, ye gots to know yer attributes. And I don't mean self-esteem or good self-image, I mean as in 'Potions skill +6', I mean as in 'DEX 16+2'."
Neville decided a change of subject might be in order. "So, what's this dice then?"
"Ye mean die, dice is the plural, boyo. But, that dice is a one of a kind artifact with many a long histrey of greed an' avarice. It all started sometime in the dark ages, when the stupid Romans finally let us have a bit o' Britain ter ourselves, ye know? But then the Angles an' the Saxons came by. But anyway, in this period, in the early days o' the Byzantin' empire, a mage named Gygaxias o' Oukememnos was famous across the world a' the time for inventin' cleromancy.
So one day he decides that cleromancy was fun, but too much work what with havin' to spend years fillin' ou' character sheets and figurin' out the proper way to roll a Swordsmanship check without blowin' yerself up, or worse. He decides that he would make the perfect die, a d20 with the stat-sheet o' the user magically known to the semi-sentient die, and every roll in the world reduced to simply tossin' this particular d20.
Of course, he died before it could ever been done. So around the year 930 AD or so, an Anglo-Saxon Sorceror with the name of 'Greowulf' finally makes it, boyo. Cast from the finest green diamond, inscribed with enchanted runes that morphed into whatever sort o' numbers the user was used ter seein, and all of Gygaxias's hopes and dreams rolled intuit. This die was soon copied by many a wizard, seein' as they knew how it was done. Thus ended the 'First edition' of Cleromancy. Through the Middle Ages, this simple and effective style was used. After the Black Death, a revised system was invented by a man name o' John Chaucer. You may ha' heard o' his muggle brother Geoffrey. The 'Advanced Edition' was the golden age o' cleromancy, boyo. So much ha' been lost, never ter be refound. He reintroduced the ancient system o' the dice set, but also applied Greowulf's principles to them. This created the most powerful an' efficient system ever seen in History.
But then, tragedy. The freedom o' the Medieval period ended when the Renaissance came about, and the art o' cleromancy was hit particularly hard. The magical governments were separated from the Muggle's around this time, ye know. There was only war during them days. The ol' rulebooks were burned as 'dark arts', never ter be read again!"
"So where does this die come from?" Neville asked, but Professor Rastby was far away.
"Oh, what's that, boyo? This d20? This one was one o' the few that survived the purge, you know. The good dice, that being. First Edition. It's very powerful, you know—I never use it, except to kaakpfftsh!" Ratsby hit the ground.
Neville felt his wrists. He couldn't feel a pulse. He would call for help, of course, but the d20 was very alluring. It called to him, after a manner. He removed it from the pedestal, and it felt powerful. It was warm and cool, solid and liquid, transparent yet opaque. Time literally stopped, as rolling is a free action. The die needed no table to roll on, but it spun about in midair.
Neville made eye contact, if there could be such a thing, with the d20. He said, barely audible, "resurrection check." The dice stopped momentarily, as if it was a computer receiving a complex instruction, and then continued spinning. After a second, it jarred to a sudden stop, levitating a foot from Neville's chest. The number 20 was glowing, an unambiguous method of determining the outcome of a roll in midair.
Of course, a nat20, even when the target was almost one-hundred-and-twenty-seven years old and smoke seven cigars a day would bring him back to life as good as new. In fact, Professor Rastby hopped to his feet, and said "I say, boyo! My lungs feel the best they have since the sixties! I think I'll go hit the village for the night," and walked off, humming an old tune.
Neville swallowed.
[AN: PARTY TIME!] First off, Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling, who in turn is the property of a team of sixty-nine bored undergrads at Purdue. Everything in this story belongs to her, except for Professor Ratsby, the d20 of doom, and everything else connected to Cleromancy.
On to the good stuff, yes, 'Cleromancy' really is the word for 'dice diviniation'. This story DOES take place in the same altverse as 'Blood Sport', my other work right now. Also, if this wasn't funny to you, then you need to play more tabletop games. I didn't explain most of the jokes, except for FATAL. Seriously, that is the single most monumental Cthulhoid abomination ever created by mankind, READ IT. Or, for the faint of heart, the equally NSFW review of it. This story is a Threeshot, by the wee.